Nine Reasons I’ve Fallen Back in Love with Videogaming

The rekindling!

Like many kids, I played videogames and like many adults, I stopped!

My first console was a Super Nintendo and like all self-respecting SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) players I loved Mario, Donkey Kong Jr and Street Fighter. When I grew older, I got my hands on a Playstation 2 so I could play Tomb Raider and I’d also commandeer my dad’s desktop to play his Red Alert war game (I ALWAYS played as the Soviets because of their mighty Tesla coil weapon and cool attack dogs). I used to love peeking inside the gaming magazines in W.H.Smiths so I could try to memorise the cheat codes, and I loved when I managed to convince my parents to buy me a game walkthrough book which meant I could uncover as many hidden bits of gameplay as I could. Nevertheless, despite all that love at some point I just stopped. I don’t remember a trigger, but I think I just started to be of the mind that gaming was for children, and I guess boys.

Roll on about 20 years later and I ended up falling for a guy who has never stopped playing and loving gaming. Now, I must admit I thought him playing videogames would be something that I just looked past or loved him in spite of! But, despite years of societal pressures and ideas surrounding adulthood and productivity, as he played and I looked over his shoulder, I started to get more and more interested and invested in what he was playing! Before I knew it, I was actively enjoying sitting down to watch him play, and dare I say it, backseat gaming! Roll on just 6 months later and I was tentatively asking if I could use his computer to play Jurassic World Evolution. I had the best time building my own dinosaur parks even though I’d have to get him to drive the ranger vehicle because I’d panic and crash into too many things!

We were already in lockdown when I started playing Jurassic World but as the stay-at-home measures continued, I convinced myself that getting my own console, a Nintendo Switch, would be a good investment! …and it was, because two years later, I’m still playing and my childhood love has well and truly been rekindled. Most recently I kidnapped my partners PS4 to play Horizon Zero Dawn and this time he watched me play. Oh, how the tables have turned!

Basically, I’ve fallen back in love with videogames because…

…of the epic storylines

Videogame story content has evolved (from what I remember) into something truly epic. When playing games like Assassins Creed Odyssey, The Witcher 3 – Wild Hunt and Outer Worlds my in-game decisions had a direct impact on how the game would play out and ultimately end (like in those choose your own adventure books). I’d find myself on YouTube looking up alternate endings to see what could have happened if I’d have made different choices. This means that there can be secret outcomes and endings if you know how to play and manipulate the game just right. Dialogue options can also be so intricate that you genuinely feel like you’re developing your character. Maybe it’s just the kind of person I am, but I genuinely feel a bit guilty if I make a ‘bad’ decision or dialogue choice…probably because more often than not I’ve turned my character into an extension of myself! All of this, plus the ‘open world’ style of exploration you’re now able to enjoy and you feel like you’re fully immersed in a whole new world.

…they’re fun!

I mean if you read the above paragraph and didn’t once feel a tiny tickle of ‘that sounds fun’ then honestly, there’s no hope for you! But seriously, playing videogames is just at the very core of it, fun. That sense of exploration and excitement at unlocking a new area or skill or piece of the story is addictive. Just like when you’re reading a book and you’re desperate to turn the page to see what’s around the next corner. But often that excitement of consuming a book is seen as adult and appropriate but consuming a videogame is seen as almost the opposite of that. I’ve certainly been guilty of feeling like I need to always be productive with my time and I definitely grew up consuming the media narrative of videogames = lazy. True enough too much gaming can be detrimental, but we can say that about too much of a lot of things. I think as adults we don’t always feel like we have permission to just play, but why can’t we just have fun for the sake of having fun sometimes.

…they’ve unlocked a new type of humour!

In line with them just being fun I’ve also expanded my sense of humour and joke repertoire! Each videogame brings with it a whole new range of nerdy in-jokes that never fail to bring me joy. Coming out with little quips about side quests or about how your medallion is humming will undoubtedly draw a blank from many folks, but managing to coax a knowing laugh from someone that understands always feels like a little win!

…they can relieve stress.

Especially during the early pandemic when I’d spent too long doom scrolling through twitter, I found that taking half an hour to myself to go fishing, collect butterflies or build a new piece of furniture in Animal Crossing New Horizons made me feel a whole lot calmer. Even just turning on my Nintendo Switch and hearing the music was enough to start squashing those anxious feelings. As the pandemic has limped on, I’ve discovered other games like Stardew Valley and Cozy Grove that have started to give me that same feeling of peace too. There’s something enormously stress relieving about carrying out menial and basic activities in a fantasy world where you cannot be attacked or receive bad news!

…they exercise my creativity.

World building and life simulation games like Animal Crossing New Horizons, Stardew Valley and Jurassic World all involve planning out and to some extent decorating your new world. Having control over where to put your museum, where you want to place your T-rex enclosure or where you want to plant your summer veggies is fun, calming and it encourages you to get creative. Of course you don’t have to be creative to play these games, but it does add another layer…and sometimes quite a major layer! In fact, I recently got hold of the Animal Crossing Paradise Planning expansion where the whole premise of the game is to decorate island holiday homes for cute animal villagers. It’s adorable and that kind of creative fun seeps into my real day to day life.

…I’ve learnt stuff!

I feel like I learn something new in every game that I play, but the best two examples I can think of are Assassins Creed Odyssey and Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Assassins Creed Odyssey is, you guessed it, based in Ancient Greece! You play as a mercenary who generally interferes in stuff; solves crimes, commits crimes (mostly by assassinating folk), kills legendary beasts like the Erymanthian boar, fights in battles between the Athenians and the Spartans (on either side), sinks pirate ships…you get the picture! There’s a whole intricate storyline that runs alongside that involves a lot of complex family drama, but that storyline involves real historical figures. Whilst weaving my way through the Peloponnesian war I got to meet Pericles, Herodotus, Aspasia and Hippocrates to name just a few. Most of these names tickled at my memory but I didn’t really know anything about them. Once I started searching out info about these major historical players and learning about some of the events they were involved in I only got more invested in the game. I mean, to actually have a conversation with Socrates (well, not actually of course) is just ace!

Valiant Hearts is a survival puzzle game where you switch between playing a German soldier, a French prisoner of war, an American volunteer, a Belgian nurse and their fearless canine companion who are just trying to make it through the First World War. The story is of course inspired by history, but also real letters recovered from the period. The game was engaging and touching and because it was based on real events I felt genuinely invested and emotional about the character’s fates. Also, because it was all about the First World War I learnt new things with every twist and turn of a level, with every item I logged or every conversation I had. Like Assassins Creed this encouraged me to go online and pick up the books to learn more.

…they train my brain!

I think all games involve an element of puzzle-craft and just figuring things out, but of course there are games made entirely to push your brain to work in different ways, and ultimately solve puzzles. My favourite two so far have been The Last Campfire and Down in Bermuda. In The Last Campfire you play a lost Ember who searches for a way home whilst helping those who are ‘forlorn’ (essentially other ember type characters who seem to have lost their purpose). It’s thoroughly touching, rewarding and challenging guiding Ember through all of the puzzles. In Down in Bermuda you play as an aviator called Milton who has found himself trapped in a time warp filled with puzzles. Like Ember, Milton just wants to find a way home. To help Milton go home you of course have to solve a great number of codes and puzzles and collect orbs and keys as you go. I thought it was an effortlessly cool game that definitely challenged those little grey cells!

…they’ve improved my hand-eye coordination.

When I was trying to figure out whether it was worth buying a console of my own, I played a tiny bit of The Witcher 3 – Wild Hunt on my partner’s Nintendo Switch. I enjoyed it (enough to buy my own) but I was terrible! There were too many buttons that did too many things and I struggled to face the camera in the direction I was going, I kept falling off stuff or running into things. It was a mess! Roll on the first RPG (Role-Playing Game) I bought for myself, Outer Worlds and it was a real learning curve! I struggled for quite a while, with my long-suffering partner pleading for me to face the way I was going or patiently teaching me how to lock on to an enemy, defend myself or be sneaky rather than just going full berserker in every situation. A couple of RPG’s later and I can hold my own. Do I still fall off stuff occasionally? Yes! Do I still get a bit frustrated with the number of buttons and different functionalities? Yes! But, with each game I improve in leaps and bounds.

…they’re something I can enjoy co-operatively.

I’m actually not that into playing games with other folk, but it is of course a big gaming plus for many. There are however a couple of games that I’ve really enjoyed playing with my partner: Overcooked 2 and Unravel 2. In short, in Overcooked, you have to work with your team to prepare, cook and serve the meals that are ordered. Of course, there are usually extra challenges thrown in, like every few seconds the lights go out or you have to jump between two moving trucks to get to different parts of the kitchen or the kitchen is icy, so you slide everywhere. It’s a simple premise, but it’s fun and sometimes frantic figuring things out with the people playing with you. It was actually one of the things in mine and my partners early relationship that made me realise he was a keeper…I thought if we could play something so chaotic and not get annoyed with each other it was a good sign! Since Overcooked, we’ve also played Unravel 2. In Unravel 2 you play a pair of demonic looking creatures made of yarn. They were both lost at sea and disconnected from their owners so decide to attach themselves to one another by a loose thread of yarn. Basically, you have to use that yarn attachment to swing and pull each other through a puzzling world of danger. Figuring things out together is without doubt a cute little bonding experience!

So, there you have it, nine reasons I’ve fallen back in love with videogaming after decades of feeling like they were no longer for me! What’s your experience with games? Have you ever played, have you always played, or did you ‘grow out’ of them? Let me know.