A few months ago, one of my good friends decided to get a PS4. You know how it goes, if your friend gets something, you are getting it too. So, obviously, I was excited. Another friend of mine was advising him to wait for the PS5 to launch so that the price will go down for PS4.
We were considering it, but then again there are so many good games already out for PS4, the chances of there being much of a price drop wasn’t good. Because when a new console drops, new games take some time to hit the market, and your favorites from earlier are remastered for the new console too.
He then went ahead and ordered it. I was at his home, and he was about to leave for his office. We were contemplating him going, so he was 5 minutes late than his usual time, and the PS4 delivery arrived. It was supposed to arrive by evening. Now it was decided that he wasn’t going.
I unboxed the PS4 and kept ahold of the controller while he and his twin sister set up the console. I was so excited because I had never played on a PlayStation before. He had ordered Spiderman with it. So, we kept playing that. I took the first turn, and with childlike glee, all I did was keep Spiderman swinging from buildings and landing on top of citizens. It was fun, and I have a video of this whole shenanigan that proves I am still a 3-year-old when it comes to new things.
He then ordered Mortal Kombat and The Last of Us. He bought a horror game online, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which he couldn’t play alone. The first time he played it was when we were having a sleepover. He, my brother, and his sister were engrossed in it, and I fell asleep. Apparently, they all got too scared and shut the game down. Since then, he has his sister sit with him while playing or me or both of us, whoever is available has to sit with him to play the game.
His birthday arrived, we gifted him Red Dead Redemption 2 and Detroit Become Human. We finished Detroit in a single sitting and boy, was it fun.
All of these things have made me fall in love with gaming. It has opened a whole new world for me. It helps because now I don’t have to research about games I do not know or things I do not understand, like talking about the GI problem in video games or introducing a discussion about games losing their identity or whether Odessey is an Assassin’s Creed game or not. I now get hands-on experience with the games.
This has also led to so many discussions about games and their motives and the process of making them. By education, I am a software engineer, so is my friend. He is one by profession, too, while I am the Editor-in-Chief, and I also get to write about fun stuff sprinkled with the not so fun stuff.
One thing that we discussed was him getting into the nitty-gritty of game development. His office friend tells him to dabble in the field, but what we feel is that when you learn how things work, it takes the magic out of them. He might not be able to enjoy the games as he does now.
I understand because having reviewed books professionally, and having had to focus on grammar and mistakes has taken the fun out of reading for me. Currently, I am not reading. It has been a month already in 2020, and I haven’t read a single book. Working with words does that the fun out of words. So, that can definitely happen with games.
Final Thoughts
After PS4 came into our lives, our discussions have taken a more psychological route. All of us now talk about why does something work and what is the psychology behind it. Why do people connect with something, and what needs do various games target? Whoever thought gaming could bring so much more than just fun, eh?
