Recently I have played a lot of World of Warcraft, raiding on a Resto Shaman, PVPing on a Frost Mage and just simply wasting time on an Arms Warrior. I have managed to sink a lot of time into gearing up, obtaining Thunderfury and attempting to make Sulfuras, but due to personal reasons I have decided it is best for me to simply stop playing.
Due to this decision I have attempted to find new games to play, either on my PC, Xbox, DS or PSP, and ultimately I've not found anything meaty enough to keep me interested in for too long. When deciding what to play I encounter the same problems that either make me stop playing a game, or stop me from starting to play the game.
The first main block that stops me from playing any games is that I have completed it. Back when I used to play games such as Final Fantasy (VII - XII) I could usually find some form of distraction in the late game that would mean i kept playing for months - in some cases years - after completing the main story. These were often self imposed goals, like killing super boss X in order to obtain item Y, or just generally attempting to create a perfect team at max level - despite already being unstoppable. I find that now there generally aren't any challenges like this, and games simply end when the final boss is killed.
When I've tried to play games like Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 I find that the solo player campaign is often too linear; for example getting killed at one checkpoint simply requires you to keep at it and you'll get past it soon enough without any change in approach or sense of accomplishment. This usually makes the campaign so unplayable because it is so repetitive and dull, or it means that after an initial completion you choose to not bother going through it again on harder difficulties as you're going to do exactly the same thing but just die a lot more.
Often with games like Call of Duty and Battlefield the main focus is on the multiplayer, and this can be a thoroughly fun and enjoyable experience, but the main issue with is is that in some matches it feels like all you do is log on to get killed. Most people may say that this is because I'm not good enough and I haven't played the game enough, but this becomes a moot argument if whenever I do attempt to play the multiplayer all I do is die. I would also like to add that I do often rank top of the loser team (which nine times out of ten is the team I'm on), and even when my team wins I tend to leave many lobbies as I simply do not enjoy myself.
Another unfortunate feature I've found is on long games that allow for hundreds of hours play time on a single save, such as Skyrim or Fallout, I hit a point where the game either becomes completely easy or impossibly unplayable. An example is on Skyrim I am around level 40 with full legendary Daedric Armour with perks that make my armour rating around 520-600+ (depending on if I wear a shield or not), and a lot of my level up points have contributed towards improving my health. However, an Elder Dragon, named Dauger or High Level Vampire is capable of killing me in one or two hits with magic and melee attacks, but when I face any other sort of enemy I can kill them with general ease and take barely any damage at all. This sort of lack of consistency makes me feel like the game is unplayable, or that it hinders and limits what I can or can't do in such an open ended game.
I also run into problems when trying to install my older games on my computer, such as Warcraft 3, Battle for Middle Earth and Command & Conquer Generations as despite successfully installing the games and running compatibility mode they refuse to play for one reason or another. Though there may be ways to get them working it seems so disheartening that in order to play games I know I enjoy I have to go through such long winded procedures. I encountered a similar problem when my Playstation 3 died thanks to it's third Yellow Light of Death - and with a £120 fee every time I want to play Final Fantasy VII/VIII/IX it seems logical to simply buy another Playstation or Playstation 2 with a memory card rather than replace my Playstation 3.
I don't know whether these difficulties I face are a sign that I am getting older and grumpier than I think of myself as being, or if perhaps the quality of games is decreasing or adjusting to a newer generation of gamers who need easier and more accessible games to play. Sadly I feel it may be the latter as even World of Warcraft - a game that's been around for seven years - feels much easier and less challenging that it was when I started playing and raiding.
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