As a suburban father/husband, I just don’t have nearly the time to invest in playing video games as I want. Between soul-crushing white collar employment (in itself a decade-long pursuit and monumental achievement), maintaining a house from dilapidation, keeping my daughter alive, and writing books that no one will ever read, setting aside some time to do questing can feel like a chore.
But this temporal deficit has also forced me to appreciate minutiae–things I would have normally overlooked. Ironically, now that I have less overall time, I spend more game time staring at things unrelated to quest objectives. Someone took the time to program these oddities, and sometimes amusing occurrences manifest which will soon be lost to time. They both merit sharing, to honor their effort and to capture the moments.
Part of the satisfaction of questing is the feeling of accomplishment upon the task’s conclusion. This is why I lost interest in Destiny. You want me to do the same handful of quests repeatedly at gradually increasing levels of difficulty? No thanks. That’s no longer even a chore, it’s Sisyphus’ eternal punishment.
Perhaps it’s because so much of my life is objective-driven that when a game offers me the chance to deviate from objectives, I inevitably find myself lazily drifting through the virtual environment, basking in the awe that these beautifully-constructed worlds offer. Recently, this is Fallout 4.
I think it’s time to boot up good ol’ Oblivion again.
–Simon