It’s almost 30 years now since I made my gaming debut and it feels completely bizarre to even think about. Where did all the time go anyway? It has been many hours in front of the TV and computer and it has been a wonderful journey so far. From childhood’s first stumbling steps in Crash Bandicoot to furiously pounding buttons in intense online matches against people from all over the world. A lot has happened since then and with hindsight I wouldn’t want any of it undone. Time you like to waste is not wasted time, I think.
The Last of Us (PS3/PS4)
In addition to the 5-6 times I played through the campaign itself, the Factions multiplayer mode has taken up an incredible amount of my time. I’m almost exclusively a single player so it takes something extra to hook me and Factions was just right for me. In addition to winning matches as a team in the three modes that are Supply Raid, Interrogation and survivors, in each match you need to complete challenges and make sure to collect enough materials and supplies. If you don’t succeed, your people will suffer and if things go really badly, everyone in your camp will die and then it’s over. Just starting over and that’s something that gives Factions a little extra nerve and that’s probably why I love it as much as I do. It’s also difficult, it takes time to get really good at this and I was beaten so incredibly much at the beginning so it was downright ridiculous. I didn’t collect much supplies at all, I didn’t pass the challenges, and my poor inhabitants probably died wondering if I really was the right man to provide for them all. Shame on the one who gives in, I drove for a while every free moment and in the end my people not only survived, they even thrived.
FIFA (Multiple)
It is not possible to single out a specific game in EA’s classic football game, this simply sums up all my years with FIFA and they are now very many. Children have had time to be born, grow up and graduate since I kicked my first toes on the virtual soccer field. We have to go all the way back to FIFA 99 on Playstation to find my first contact with the series and since then I have played the vast majority of releases with a few exceptions. We really talk for thousands of hours here, both the playing career situation for myself as well as all the countless fights against my brother on the couch over the years. It’s hard to get tired of for some reason, at the same time, there are few games that I’ve had such an outburst at and vowed never to play again like I did when it comes to FIFA. But when the anger subsided, I’ve returned again and again and again, just as pissed off. After all, the alternatives are not as many as the football lover I am at heart and reason.
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NHL (Multiple)
The same goes for NHL as with FIFA, it’s over 20 years of playing from the start for myself with NHL 94 back then in those fateful matches against my dad. As with FIFA, this is a game I really lose myself in if I don’t look up. Especially since Be A Pro was introduced with NHL 09 and I finally got to live out my lost dreams of being drafted in the first round and playing hockey in the world’s best league with a very full bank account as a bonus. Just like with FIFA, the NHL is most fun on the sofa playing against each other, every time a new game is released me and my brother meet and create a team full of monsters for players where no one in the backup set is shorter than two meters and no one weighs under 110 kilos . Then these mutants get to unleash on each other, the tackles that are dished out a normal player wouldn’t have survived. It will be fantastically brutal but incredibly fun matches and it is a tradition we will continue with, without a doubt. Another thing I’ve always appreciated about NHL is the music, it’s mostly been focused on pop punk, punk rock and metal. In a time when streaming didn’t exist, it was often through NHL that I discovered many of the bands I still listen to today, such as Sugarcult, Anti-Flag, Billy Talent to name just a few. It even happened that I started up NHL just to lie down and listen to the music, only there must have been a good many hours I could guess.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
The year was 2008 and I had just traded in my Playstation 2 with accessories for a brand new Xbox 360 at Gamestop in a very favorable deal. One of the very first games I bought for the console was the very first Modern Warfare, which in my opinion is still the very best in the entire franchise. In addition to a nice campaign, it was also my first contact with online gambling and, as they say, I haven’t looked back since. In the beginning, just like in factions, I got beaten copious amounts of time, but it was great fun, and unemployed and relatively recently graduated student that I was, I stayed up all night playing. More than anything, I played Free for all and chatted with people from all over the globe, it really was a whole new world that opened up to me there and then. There are many things I still remember very strongly to this day, the first kill streak, the very first victory or why not when a Frenchman named Jaques got the entire starting field to sing Under Pressure with him, I sang the first part of course. Another fun memory is from the Peace & Love festival when, after an unknown number of beers, we decided to go to everyone’s house and play Team Deathmatch instead of partying on at the campsite. In the state we were in, of course we thought we were playing great until one dude turned on his mic and briefly but seriously uttered the words “you guys are shit” and then left the game. He was definitely not wrong, we were shit. I have no idea how many hours it ended up being today, but somewhere between 500-1000 doesn’t feel unreasonable at all. Either way, those are hours I’m very glad I spent with Infinty Ward’s masterpiece.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
Few worlds are as easy to get lost in as Rockstar’s epic western. This is exactly how an open world should be done, there is so much to see and do that it sometimes becomes overwhelming. Even today, almost five years after the release, people seem to discover new things and it’s absolutely fantastic. It took me at least 120 hours to complete the campaign, which of course could have been done in at least half the time, but then I would have missed a lot. Even after the campaign ended, many hours were spent just driving around on my trusty pole Jesus of Dase II, fishing, hunting and hoping to finally catch a glimpse of some UFO. Anything can happen in Red Dead Redemption and that’s largely what keeps me coming back time after time.
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Fable 2 (Xbox 360)
My big advantage with Fable was probably that I threw myself into it completely unaware of everything Peter Molyneux promised the game would contain but then didn’t really do at all. That probably made it such an enjoyable experience for me that I’ve returned to many times since. I must have done it at least 10 times by now, turning over every little rock and exploring every little nook and cranny of Albion. Add to that the fact that I’ve also contracted endless venereal diseases of all kinds and am the father of at least 50% of all children born during my playthroughs. In Albion, it is not Santa who is the father of all the children, but the unscrupulous district swindler Little Sparrow. I’ve played as evil through and through, I’ve played so pacifist that a Buddhist monk probably couldn’t have done better, and I’ve been both evil and good in the same journey, depending on what benefited me most at the time. I’ve done everything and then some and I really long to go back, so it’s perhaps not so strange that I have so much hope for the Fable to come.
