Am I a bird? Am I a plane? No, I seem to be a super-boomer...but seriously and all joking aside: This is a subject that really concerns me and maybe some of you feel the same way. I notice that I'm getting older, and I don't mean the glasses I now need or the recurring back pain every three days...
New games, whose predecessors I celebrated just a few years ago, are released, and I just don't feel the hype anymore, while my boys go completely bonkers. Genres and franchises that I really loved for a long time and that have literally been with me for half my life now barely appeal to me. The new Pokémon Game? I'll have to google the name first...
More and more often I come home after a long day at work and can't even motivate myself to boot up the computer. I'd rather relax a bit, eat something nice and watch someone else rather than play a game myself. Real boomer shit, isn't it?
Those of you who have read my other columns know that I really love what I write about and that it is important to me. Gaming has become a part of my life. It's no longer a hobby, like football or tennis, with 2 fixed training sessions scheduled per week. No, when the computer boots up, I can switch off and immerse myself in the worlds I love and admire. As you can read right now, I have even turned part of my passion into work – if you can even call it that.
I compete with people all over the world, train my psychomotorics and my brain at League of Legends and made many friends over the years, while learning a lot about gamers from all over the world.
New Game Releases? Yaaayyy...
Splitgate announced an extension of their beta due to over 10 million downloads and combines two games I've really loved. I'm almost 28 now, so you can imagine that Halo is a big part of my shooter personality. Portal? Guys... I already played it before the second part even came out. And yet... Splitgate doesn't appeal to me... I haven't even watched any streams.
And the latest Pokémon Game? That basically triggered this sensory crisis. In the meantime, I've also googled it. It's called Pokémon Legends: Arceus. It looks a bit like Zelda: Breath of the Wild and is an open-world Pokémon adventure game. As a trainer, you will be able to roam an open world and encounter all kinds of Pokémon and herds in their natural habitats. The fights look cool and more interactive, and you feel much more, much closer to this parallel universe. Or rather, you should... Because I don't feel anything at all. By the way, my first Pokémon was the Blue Edition.
Will the time come when I give up on gaming?
THAT's exactly what I've always dreamed of, isn't it? To become a Pokémon trainer like Ash and travel the world with your own Pokémon and have adventures and become the very best. But that dream belongs to young, twelve-year-old me, it seems.... and that's kind of weird. I'm actually so aware of my passion and also of the fact that I just don't get that feeling anymore, yet, at the same time, I can't do anything about it... Other things simply have higher priority. As I get older, I notice how I approach games more and more analytically in order to "play through them efficiently" and not lose too much time - which is somehow becoming more and more limited. Less and less often, I can just enjoy the simple things and mechanics in games and let the game be just that - a game.
On the one hand, I love gaming. On the other hand, I sometimes have the feeling that I HAVE to hold on to this love. And the result is that I play games just to have played them. Almost like an item on the to-do list that I want to have ticked off.
On that note. Here's some footage of the new Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Tell me what you think of it and also what you think about what I just told you. Is it time? Have I become a boomer? Is it even bad to become a boomer, or to be one already?
Discover the Hisui region in Pokemon Legends: Arceus!pic.twitter.com/Xqsni0xnzb
— Pokemon Legends Arceus (@LegendsArceusNS) August 18, 2021
Will the time come when I give up on gaming?
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