The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Growing up, I loved playing video games. I was very fortunate to acquire the Colecovision, Gameboy, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and more recently the Gameboy Advance and the Playstation 2. That's a lot of video game playing. There are so many cool systems out to purchase. Right now the Xbox 360 is all the rage, and Sony will be releasing the Playstation 3 soon.

But I don't think I'll be buying another one anytime soon.

You see, the games these days...as brilliant as the graphics are, as super as the sound is and all the attention to detail to the story and characters...they're just so...HARD.

I like to thrown in a cartridge (oops, that's old school. I mean, CD) into my game system and just sit down and play. I don't want to consult a catalogue to figure out how to move and which buttons do what.

A PS2 controller has three different joysticks and 12 buttons (14 with the "select" and "start" buttons). That's a lot of options. Too many, in my opinion. I remember when Street Fighter 2 came out, the idea of having six buttons blew my mind. But now my brain just can't handle it a lot of the time. Whenever a new game is played, I spend half the time staring down at my controller, trying to remember where the X and square button are and what each one does. I go back to the instruction manual to learn my onsceen character can do other things if you press the other buttons at certain times. Then I forget what the first buttons I was pressing do.

The games themselves seem to require hours & hours of dedication to beat them. Even an old school game that's been suped up for today's market, like Gradius V (a sequel to one of my old favourites, Lifeforce), is nearly impossible to master. It's so hard, for every hour of playing time they add an extra continue for you to have any chance of seeing the ending. I've put in at LEAST 12 hours and still haven't finished it. That's just crazy. The levels get harder & harder as you progress, and there's no way you can finish it without having your tiny ship get blown up a few times. I just can't take it. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is another game. I was doing ok, then there's a car race your character has to win and I can't do it. I've attempted dozens and dozens of times, and still can't beat it. It's sitting on my shelf now, collecting dust.

So when I see these new 3D games, I get intimidated. I don't know if I can beat them without devoting 1/2 my life to it. I think it's great that technology allows for all these cool-looking games, but can't they just make them a little easier....for old guys like me?