Why I'm Not Asking for a New Gaming Console This Christmas | The ...

I like play­ing video games. I really like play­ing video games. While my tele­vi­sion view­ing decreased dra­mat­i­cally upon my entry into col­lege, I spent tons of time in that rec room on the third floor of 1300, play­ing my 3DS dur­ing fresh­man year. While I don’t buy quite as many new games as I did when I was in mid­dle school, I’ve def­i­nitely been more enthu­si­as­tic about the medium since the lat­ter part of high school. Video games: I like them bet­ter than TV!

And so, a new gen­er­a­tion of gam­ing con­soles is descend­ing upon us. The Wii U has already been out for sev­eral months, kind of just… sit­ting there. In Novem­ber, we will see the releases of the Playsta­tion 4 and Xbox One. Who will dom­i­nate this gen­er­a­tion? Will Sony’s pos­i­tive E3 buzz trans­late into colos­sal suc­cess for the PS4? Will Microsoft’s efforts to amend the flaws of the Xbox One bring them to the top? Will Nin­tendo ran­domly announce the Paper Mario MMO, that would unde­ni­ably be the great­est thing ever made? The gam­ing com­mu­nity is dying to find out. Many peo­ple will seek one of these con­soles in the next cou­ple months, and I can say with com­plete con­fi­dence that I am not one of them.

Did I just dis­ap­point you after all of that build-up? I hope not; it was kind of in the title. I am fas­ci­nated by the upcom­ing gen­er­a­tion of con­sole gam­ing, but I’m not ready to jump into it right now. Do I hope to jump in some point in the future? I’d say yes, but for the rea­sons I’m about to lay out to you, I’m going to wait this gen­er­a­tion out a bit.

Hav­ing obtained a PS3 late in the game, there are plenty of games on that sys­tem that this writer has yet to enjoy. While I have made an effort to play the gems on that sys­tem (read: Metal Gear Solid), there are still plenty of acclaimed games on that sys­tem that I have yet to enjoy (read: the games that aren’t Metal Gear Solid).It seems like a waste to move onto a new sys­tem when there is a mas­sive current-gen library yet to be uncov­ered. It would be like leav­ing a great amuse­ment park that you just bought a ticket for because a new one is being built across the street. When the Playsta­tion 4 hits stores, it will have nowhere near as mas­sive a library as the Playsta­tion 3. By the way, do you know what game both the current-gen and next-gen sys­tems are set to play?

still from Metal Gear Solid 5

That’s right. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phan­tom Pain, Hideo Kojima’s final (just kid­ding; he says that about all the games) install­ment in the iconic stealth-action series is com­ing to the PS3, the Xbox 360, the PS4, and the Xbox One. I didn’t watch much of Microsoft’s E3 con­fer­ence this year; as a per­son who plays mostly Japan­ese games, I’ve never been very inter­ested in the most West­ern con­sole devel­oper, but it did fea­ture a pretty sig­nif­i­cant trailer for me. Since play­ing the Metal Gear Solid HD Col­lec­tion for PS3, I’ve been really into this series. And, noth­ing was quite as mouth-watering as the new trailer we saw at E3.

“Look, Snake is get­ting stealthy on a horse! Fancy gun-stealing mechan­ics! Is that kid young Liq­uid? OH MY GOD! OCELOT IS BACK!” These were some of the thoughts that played through my head as I watched the trailer for the new Metal Gear Solid.

Now, per­haps you’re won­der­ing, “but Kevin, the game is com­ing out on current-gen con­soles. Why should you even be wor­ried?” It prob­a­bly comes back to a friend of mine, who showed con­cern over the PS3/Xbox 360 ver­sion of the game. He sug­gested that the current-gen ver­sion would just be a watered-down imi­ta­tion of the PS4/Xbox One incar­na­tion. This sug­ges­tion brought me some con­cern, but I am going to have faith in Metal Gear Solid V for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Kojima is a famously metic­u­lous game designer. Every one of his Metal Gear games has been a mas­ter­piece of finely-tuned game design. If Kojima is over­see­ing the pro­duc­tion of all ver­sions of the game, I think we should have faith in the PS3/Xbox 360 MGS V.

I’ve been talk­ing about the current-gen quite a bit. This is an arti­cle about the next-gen con­soles; per­haps, I should talk about them. So, I’ll talk about the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion of consoles…

I’ve been the per­son most eager to defend Nin­tendo for many years now, but even I can make an excuse for their recent per­for­mance with the Wii U. It seems like they’re try­ing to appeal to hard­core gamers by giv­ing them games they can already play on the PS3 or Xbox 360. Don’t they real­ize that those gamers want the next level of scary, uncanny-valley-level graph­ics? If Nin­tendo really wanted to stand out, they should have made a con­sole on the tech­ni­cal level of the PS4 or Xbox One, or have con­tin­ued their quest for the casual gamer. As of right now, I just see a sys­tem that has man­aged to gen­er­ate lit­tle buzz since its release. Dur­ing the Wii era, when nerds were bash­ing on Nin­tendo left and right, I was will­ing to argue that Nin­tendo had a game plan that made sense, but right now, I have no idea what they are doing.

That being said, there was one game for the Wii U that really excited me: The Leg­end of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, Nintendo’s revi­sion of the ten-year-old Game­cube clas­sic. The Wind Waker inhab­its a very spe­cial seg­ment of my heart. It was my first Zelda game, and it was a jour­ney that pos­sessed me for a mem­o­rable por­tion of my child­hood. An enhanced remake of the epic forced me to take a glance at the Wii U. This was the clas­sic of my child­hood, after all.

The Wii U release has brought a col­lec­tion of glow­ing reviews, which have warmed my heart. Wind Waker was a con­tro­ver­sial game in the series. Fan­boys were dis­ap­pointed that Nin­tendo chose the “kiddy” cel-shading over a more real­is­tic art style. But while the more real­is­tic Twi­light Princess looks dated in the face of more mod­ern hard­ware, the moody car­toon world of Wind Waker proven time­less. That said, the new ver­sion doesn’t seem like so rad­i­cal of a change from the orig­i­nal Game­cube mas­ter­piece that I need to buy the same game a sec­ond time. So, I will just have to wait for another game to drag me into the next gen.

photo cour­tesy yum9me via flickr

I’m writ­ing for the web­site of a university’s Hon­ors Pro­gram. I feel like I’m oblig­ated to write that at some point. Okay, move along.

Have you read my other arti­cles? My ram­bling on about my love for the Nin­tendo 3DS has gone on for so long that me com­ment­ing on my ram­bling is becom­ing a cliche in itself. But, I don’t care. I love play­ing my lit­tle hand­held. I sup­pose I am more of a hand­held gamer these days. I haven’t looked at the PS4 or Xbox One lineup and thought, “I need to get this sys­tem now!” But, I have looked ate the upcom­ing 3DS releases and thought, “I’m really happy to have this sys­tem!” What is my most antic­i­pated game for the remain­der of this year? The game that I just wrote about in my last arti­cle: Poké­mon X and Y. I know that the next stage of pho­to­re­al­is­tic graph­ics appeals to a lot of the “hard­core” crowd, but I’m more excited to see Poké­mon come to life in charm­ing and car­toony, cel-shaded graph­ics. The games that are com­ing out on these new sys­tems just don’t attract in the same way that the new Poké­mon or the new Zelda does.

Also, why get all worked up about sys­tems that are lim­ited to the home when there is a sys­tem I can play in the car? It seems like a rather unusual argu­ment for the supe­ri­or­ity of hand­held gam­ing, but let me explain. When I am at home, yes, there are video games around me, but I feel like there is some­thing more impor­tant I should be doing: home­work, read­ing, writ­ing this arti­cle, etc. Now, when I am in the back seat of mom and dad’s car, there’s lit­tle for me to do other than pulling out the hand­held and play­ing my 3DS. Maybe I’ll read a comic book, but prose in a car gives me a tummy ache! Noth­ing car­ries along a long car trip like a cou­ple chap­ters of Fire Emblem. With all the stress of col­lege going on, I think most of my upcom­ing gam­ing will be hap­pen­ing in the car. Does any­one know how to play a PS4 in the back of my family’s Toyota?

Long story short: I really want to play the new Pokémon.

Source: http://www.honorslounge.com/2013/10/07/why-im-not-asking-for-a-new-gaming-console-this-christmas/
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