2013/01/27

Video Games and Age

I owned nearly every console there has been including exotic ones like the MB Vectrex. I noticed that with age comes an inability to play certain games.

It started with first person shooters. I was trained with the mouse on PC using AWDS keys for movement. Using a controller was very alien to me and since Halo I am not used to it nor very skilled. So I stopped playing shooters. A pitty as there are many good ones including Halo, Gears of War etc.

So it happened that a game was released in 2011 my game industry buddies still talk about today. Rarely does this happen. Usually we go on and talk about the latest shiniest new releases. But this game tends to stick around for many - although some of my friends hate it, can't even understand what the fuzz is about.

Of course I talk about Dark Souls.

A game I would love to play but can't. I tried on my PS3 and failed due to controller incompatibility with my hands and brain. Then I had hope that the PC version helps as it supported mouse and keyboard. No, it doesn't help either.

So there it is - the game I would love to play and experience the fascination my friends have - but I can't as my hands simply don't work with the controllers.

So the question I pull out of this is: are controllers like the XBox 360 one coming of age? Is the future generation which is not trained to D-pad, analog sticks and omg 10 buttons dying? Are we forced to play games with touch even if they don't work with touch? Is history repeating itself and genres are not as popular anymore as before simply because they don't work on new formats? (happened to RTS as they don't work on consoles)