Opinion #2
Experiences surrounding games can make them better or worse
Memories and videogames are often inextricably linked. Games create a moment in time that you can immediately be transported back to whenever you come back and revisit them. Memories and personal experiences attached to a game can either diminish or enhance it for you, but above all, can create a unique experience with it.
It can either be the light in the middle of darkness or a huge black cloud. When you do decide to replay the game or even hear it mentioned again, it triggers a tidal wave of memories. It’s the experience of a game, where you were, what you were wearing, a certain point in your life, personal circumstances, and life moments that can make or break a game for you.
I remember staying up past 3am one Saturday in 2018 trying to finish Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4, a week after the game was released. I remember the exact Primark pyjamas I was wearing – those same pyjamas that accompanied me to America back in Christmas 2015 – and the thick dressing gown I took off while fighting the final boss because I was so hot. I remember playing it again on New Game Plus in preparation for my trip to
New York. I played it the same weekend that I went to the Kinda Funny London meet-up, telling Greg Miller that I was in the middle of my second playthrough and that I’d Platinumed it.
Only a few years on, playing SpiderMan: Miles Morales late last year, swinging around a virtual wintry New York, had me recalling simpler times strolling around a chilly, bustling New York with a Starbucks hot chocolate in hand, before travel restrictions. The game made those memories of that trip flood back, pointing out all the spots I went to and making me wish I was back in NYC in winter. Last year virtual worlds became a window for a lot of us to explore places in ways we couldn’t any more, the nostalgia for the games and our adventures in the real world making them all the more potent. It elevated those games to a special place in my heart.
TAINTED MEMORIES
Which isn’t to mention certain viral plot threads in both Spider-Man and The Last Of Us that hit differently in the current pandemic, giving them new meaning. Revisiting those games in a postpandemic world, you get the feeling life’s been imitating art. Despite Spider-Man being a welcome getaway, there’s the worry that when life knocks you down, the experience of certain games can be diminished, and thinking of them can take you back to those dark periods in your life. Will The Last Of Us Part II be forever inextricable from the current global situation? Despite how good the game is, it could rope many people back (with fantastic physics) to a not-so-great place.
There are many more moments during which games have left a mark on me and made the lowest points feel like less of a blur. But time moves on. In several years’ time, we’ll be looking back at the start of the PS5 era with more games to feel nostalgic over. So, here’s to making fresh memories in a new console generation.
Replaying a game triggers a tidal wave of memories.