I don’t want to sound like an old man, but I will anyway. I really miss the old days of gaming. I’m not saying they haven’t gotten better, but I am saying there are games that become popular that shouldn’t, games that don’t that should, and games that could’ve been so much more if society hadn’t changed the way it has. Sure, there were shitty games back then. Hell, AVGN alone proved that.

Lately, though, I feel like everything I touch turns to shit. I feel like there’s absolutely no reason to pre-order something because if I want it, surely it’s going to be garbage. You think maybe I’m being hard on myself? Well, here’s a small list of games I’d been anticipating over the past few years…

– Alpha Protocol
– Catherine
– Chantelise
– Chaos Wars
– Duke Nukem Forever
– Final Fantasy 13
– Growlanser – Heritage of War
– Naughty Bear
– Record of Agarest War
– Valkyrie Profile 2

…just to name a few. Now sure, there were other games I anticipated like L.A. Noire, Dragonquest 9, and a number of others, but for the most part, I feel like if it’s something I’m genuinely interested in, it will be a major disappointment. I feel like I shouldn’t WANT to like something, because then it will be crap. Which brings me to my quandary: Deus Ex 3.

“I wear my sunglasses at night.”

Will it be good? Will it be shit? I don’t know. Everything I’ve heard and seen, whether it’s in-game footage, developers’ diaries, or people who are reporting on their experience with the game has been positive. But they could be wrong. It sounds paranoid, but let’s consider the facts. Square-Enix, a company I simply don’t know what to think of anymore, has paired up with Eidos, the once Tomb Raider then all over the place now kinda sorta alright company, to make Deus Ex 3, a game that seems to have little to no involvement from Ion Storm or the original team in general.

But does it NEED them? Well, it’s hard to say. Would Duke Nukem Forever have been a better game if it was released 5 years ago? 10? Again, very hard to call. And while I realize we’re dealing with “the little Duke that couldn’t” vs. “oh God please not another Invisible War,” they have two things in common: uncertainty coupled with doubt and my interest.

The reason I’m so aggravated is it never used to be like this. Actually, it used to be easy. As I described in a recent podcast, if the box art was impressive, I was interested. There were certain games, like The Legend of Kage or the original Mega Man, that had relatively uninteresting artwork and couldn’t potentially failed as a result. Meanwhile, you’d get a game that had semi-interesting artwork and, well, it could still be a steaming pile, but at least they drew you in with something shiny.

Really, it’s a gamble regardless of how you look at it, but I guess it was easier in the NES days because for the most part, as kids, we just didn’t give a shit. Unless the game was horrendous, we would still play it one way or the other. Cheap? “Challenging.” Ridiculously obscure puzzles? “You gotta know somebody who’s already beaten it.” No passwords or save function? “Normal.”

Remembering that we were coming off the Atari generation that was simply trying to emulate arcade titles as much as possible, we were starting to have actual console experiences and had no real frame of reference. As the consoles got better and shinier, boasting X amount of bits and all these ridiculous things they obviously couldn’t really do, the games also started to become self-aware.

Think about it like this. A few years back I was playing Fallout 3 and forgot to save for about an hour or so while wandering the wastelands. Then I got attacked by a deathclaw. I was PISSED. I started ranting about things like “WHY COULDN’T THE GAME HAVE JUST SAVED FOR ME EVERY SO OFTEN??!” Then I realized three things. One, I wouldn’t have wanted it to because I often like to go back and correct mistakes.

“Chrono Trigger doesn’t have an auto-save feature? Fuck that shit!”

Two, why the hell was I complaining about something my dumb ass, especially growing up with RPGs that you often COULDN’T SAVE for several hours at a time, should have known better on. And three…it actually had auto-saved a number of times, so as soon as I realized that, I was really only taken back about 10 or so minutes of game time anyway.

It’s not casual and yet it is. The developers, understanding this is an RPG and not an arcade game, implemented constant, regular auto-saving. Think about how many times you’ve gotten frustrated while playing Mass Effect on insanity mode because you couldn’t get past that “one part” and you wished it auto-saved more often or you had full control over the save file. Now think about Contra.

The checkpoint is the start of the stage. Can’t do it in three lives? TRY AGAIN, PUSSY. And yet, we continued to play. But now I’ve grown either more disillusioned and critical of games, deluded that ye olde games knew it best and always will, or convinced that I just simply cannot select a good game anymore. It’s especially disheartening because I WANT to be excited, hyped, and pumped up for titles like this, but I don’t because if it fails, I’ll be that much more pissed off.

Every. Fucking. Day.

To a degree, I’m actually glad my 360 situation is still fucked. I can catch up on some classics, set reminders for myself for games that actually matter, and dismiss titles that didn’t do well. It’s a nice place to be, really, but it also leaves me yearning more and more for the good old days, which of course leaves me wide open for retro titles…so I never win anyway.