Opinion #2
Sometimes you’re just not in the mood to game on
The night before its release, I peeked through a shop window, admiring lots of PS5s in boxes and bursting with excitement knowing that I would have one of my very own on launch day. I was the heart-eyed emoji personified. That stands as a special moment in my life. The light in the middle of darkness.
I managed to beat those pesky scalpers and bots and preorder a brand-new next-gen console and get it at launch. I’ll never forget release day: I was tracking delivery, prepping an outfit of PS merch to wear to greet the delivery guy with my PS5 like it was a wedding day, then later setting it up. My elation at seeing the UI for the first time made me so giddy.
After christening it with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and playing a couple of hours of Sackboy, the honeymoon period seems to be over. I’ve been so stuck in a rut with gaming that I find it hard to find the motivation to play anything. I haven’t been in the mood to play games for months. Nope. No joy. Nothing. It’s just so not like me. Especially, considering how gaming has always been such a euphoric experience for me.
After a period of forced separation from my PS5 over the Christmas holidays, life stuff and moving cities completely draining me, I just find myself sitting in front of the TV like a lifeless sack of goo, resorting to hours of mindless scrolling on the web and whatever’s on Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and Prime.
Finishing a level on the original Crash Bandicoot, having hundreds of missed crates falling on top of Crash or Coco – the more crates you miss, the more it keeps going – is the ultimate metaphor for what life’s been like for me over the past year. It’s been hard to have long gaming sessions as I’m constantly worried about other things in my life.
STREAM QUEEN
My PS5 has been more of a Disney+ machine than anything recently, existing for the sole purpose of making sure I watch every new episode of WandaVision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier the exact day they’re released, without fail. I’ve been spending more time on the Media tab than the Games tab, reaching for the Media Remote rather than the DualSense – the latter is literally collecting dust and cat hair. Yep, this is where I’m at.
Maybe taking a break from playing videogames could be a good thing in the long run. We’re still waiting for games that really show off what PS5 can do. It’ll only be a matter of time until the excitement comes rushing back after an extended break. Something immersive should do the trick, especially with the upcoming releases of titles such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Horizon: Forbidden West – and we’ve just had Returnal; what better than a brand-new IP to sink my teeth into?
There’ll be plenty of space-bound shenanigans, dimension-hopping through levels and facing off against mechanical monsters that’ll help pull me out of the slump and make me fall head over heels in love with gaming again. I can’t express how much I’m craving that magic of getting completely lost in a game again.
The more crates you miss, the more it keeps going.