trivard676
Hey guys! It’s that time of the year again! Another year has gone by and time sure does seem to fly, doesn’t it? Especially at the end of the year where you sit back and take stock of all of your Achievements (or Trophies, or Steam Badges). But the beginning of the new year isn’t just a time of reflection – it’s a time to look forward, too. January brings so much potential, and not just the go to the gym, lose weight, quit smoking type thing that litters most New Year’s Resolutions. Nope – get out your controllers, polish up your keyboards and adjust the DPI on your gaming mouse, it’s time to make some gaming resolutions you can stick to for the new year.
1. Tackle that crippling backlog
I published an article back in 2012 about some game-themed resolutions, and one of the things on the list included taking care of the games collecting dust on your shelf. Little did I know what kind of horrors Steam and Playstation Plus would do to that backlog. It’s gotten to the point where I almost feel guilty every time I add another to the pile. Hands up if this has happened to you: you get about halfway through a game when suddenly a new one finally releases, or a new Steam Sale ravages your wallet, or Playstation Plus (or whatever the Xbox equivalent is) chimes in with its own set of freebies or huge discounts. It is the very definition of a first-world problem, isn’t it?
It’s time to sort through the clutter and clear the shelf. Time to not feel guilty about all the games we said we’d play, but never got around to.
2. Listen to some awesome game soundtracks
Music can really shape our lives. Whether it’s lifting us up from a bit of a downer kind of day, helping us relax, getting us going in the morning or prepping for a workout, nothing quite hits the spot like some good tunes. Video game soundtracks have come a long way from the 16-bit tunes of our childhood and if you haven’t had a chance to give them a listen, 2014 is the year to do so.
Whether it’s from The Last of Us, Journey, Mass Effect, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, take the time to give them a whirl this year. You won’t regret it. Even if you’ve heard all of the official stuff and are looking for something a little different, there are a number of sites that host fan-made content that to be honest, can take good song and turn it into something great.
3. Make some friends
Sometimes the world can be a pretty lonely place. Ask anyone who’s ever been single at any point in their lives. The gaming world can be pretty lonely too – but finding friends in a digital world can be pretty daunting. Particularly for women…or men…or…anyone, really. After all, look at what the media has portrayed us all as for so long: snarly, foamy-mouthed monsters with little to no social skills.
Well, we can be.
But that shouldn’t dissuade you – there’s always a few diamonds in the rough. Sure, there’s a lot of garbage-type people to get through, but playing a good, solid game online with a bunch of people you’ve come to know as friends is a pretty rewarding experience. I recently played Donkey Kong Country 2 with a childhood friend through an emulator over the computer with Skype. Even though we were both admittedly terrible (I blame the lag), it was still an amazingly fun time with very little alcohol involved!
Plus, for all the creeps out there, there’s always the block/mute/gethisfuckerawayfromme button on your console of choice.
4. Change your perspective
This one is a tough one. How many of you believe that survival horror would be better if it returned to the tank-like controls, static camera angles and puzzles upon puzzles?
This discredits any advancement that the genre has made in the last 15 years. It’s extremely frustrating to think that survival horror has essentially died in some people’s eyes and we’re all just sitting around waiting for its decaying corpse to suddenly reanimate and give us some good games again. The original Resident Evils and Silent Hills were great for more than just a 15-year old gameplay mechanic. They had good stories, good (for the time) graphics, and the fact that it was something we had never seen before helped things considerably.
Look at games like The Last of Us, Outlast, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (and The Dark Descent), Among the Sleep, dozens – no – hundreds more. They don’t follow that style, but they’re still amazing games. It takes more than a camera angle and a few puzzles to make a game scary and atmospheric. If Resident Evil 6 were released today with those kind of controls and that kind of camera angle and puzzles, we’d still think it was terrible. Granted, there are some pretty awesome retro-style games in the works that look to use tank-like controls, puzzles and static camera angles and they look pretty promising, but for more than just those reasons.
It’s like the Final Fantasy 7 effect. For many people, Final Fantasy 7 was their first foray into RPGs, so in their eyes, it will forever be the best, much like Resident Evil 2 is for many survival horror fans. But that doesn’t mean that the series can’t ever get better than that.
5. Do more
Last year was a pretty big year for me. That unfortunately left me with very little time for things I like to do. I might be able to attribute this to that horrible backlog monster, but there’s probably more to it than that. I’m sure I’m not the only person that this happens to. Our lives change constantly – we take on new responsibilities – we might make new friends, get new jobs, move to new places and sometimes sacrifices have to be made.
When I did get the time to game, I found myself doing other things – not gaming. I’d sit in front of the computer screen and just veg out on Facebook or Twitter, or the worst offender of all, the sink hole that is YouTube. I wasn’t doing anything, I was just sitting and letting the content come to me. I wasn’t exploring new worlds, I wasn’t inspired to put pen to paper, (or e-ink to screen?) and create, I wasn’t taking pictures, I was just zoning out and letting my brain turn to mush. Nothing is worse than hours wasted looking at internet sludge.
Get out there and do more this year, whatever it is. Play those games, share those stories! Make friends and comment on stories, theorize about your favourite games and create beautiful fan-art! Whatever you do, make 2014 the best it can be!
See you next year!
