I had Pokémon Legends: Arceus pre-loaded onto my Nintendo Switch console. I was ready for release day. I'd be able to start playing the latest Pokémon game as soon as I finished work for the day. I played for about forty-five minutes and thought to myself, this is the best Pokemon game I've played in several years. I put my Switch to sleep, and I didn't play it again for 2 weeks.
Was this it? Was I finally too old to enjoy a game designed for young children?
No! It was exhausting to, once again, read posts and articles from grown men decrying PlayStation 2 standard graphics (the disrespect!) and complaints of slow pacing, but that wasn't what put me off playing. I bounced off it because I had other jobs to complete.
Although I had grinded out yet another season pass in Apex Legends, there was another limited-time event reward track to pick from. Destiny 2 is due for expansion once again on Tuesday, meaning a whole host of content (from weapons to activities and full-blown planetary destinations) were due to go into the Destiny Content Vault. There was work to be done.
Life is short. Can I really be laid to rest without first earning the Splicer title? What would my family think of me if I didn't unlock the Octane skin designed for prolific Twitch streamer iiTzTimmy? Thankfully, I don't have to ponder those disappointing realities. With my partner interstate for a few weeks and a clan of obliging teammates, I achieved everything I needed to before the Tangled Shore gets the boot.
Still, playing Apex Legends, Destiny 2, Fortnite, Rogue Company, Rainbow 6: Siege and countless other Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) titles does often feel like a second, third or fourth vocation. Each title has it's own lexicon of externally-meaningless terms, a small clutch of subject matter experts who can direct me to every item I need to find and task I need to complete. They can show me around the corners of the office (or galaxy) that I've never seen before we have to relocate, learn new tasks, and fall into new patterns. There's no application for the hundreds and thousands of hours I've sunk into these games, other than the friends I've made along the way.
Good friends! I may not be able to ride a bike but, because I've played nearly two thousand hours' worth of the video games Destiny and Destiny 2, I have people I can depend on.
That brings me back to Pokémon. I don't think I'll ever fall into a work-like relationship with it because it's not designed that way; and thank God for that! I can put it down for 2 weeks, a month, a few years and all I'll have missed is the opportunity to complain about it earlier.
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