A bunch of old games from my childhood just got re-released and made backwards compatible on the Xbox One. Among them were classic titles like, “Star Wars: Battlefront,” Star Wars: Battlefront 2,” Star Wars: Republic Commando” and “Destroy All Humans.” My first instinct was to cry bulls***. Sounds like a scam to me. They are just going to sell things I already own back to me?
In reality it isn’t that grim. It’s essentially a convenience fee for not having to hook up my old consoles and remain offline. You can even put in the discs for the original Xbox and avoid paying for it a second time. Besides, this way I can have everything on the same console and access it whenever I want.
Despite the fact that I was angry and felt like I was being resold an old product, I still bought them anyway. I am a slave to my own nostalgic euphoria. “Destroy All Humans,” was special because I had to wait until I was old enough to actually play it. It was one of many games I had to build a case for so my mother would approve.
“Republic Commando” and the “Battlefront” games also bring back fond memories of growing up with my cousins. When I was in middle school, we all pooled together our birthday and Christmas money to buy a used Xbox and a copy of “Republic Commando.” It was a simple time, before co-op games were popular, and we had to hand-off the controller everytime one of us died or failed a mission.
These games bring back an unparalleled level of joy and they make me long for a time when I was excited to play video games. My enthusiasm has significantly dropped since I have gotten older, but I am not totally sure if that is the only reason why. One thing that I notice the more I try to play modern titles is that I couldn’t give a crap about the stories. Games like “Halo” and “Gears of War” that used to give me goosebumps and made me weep, are now underwhelming phoned-in clones of themselves that no one really wants or needs.
“Call of Duty” has pumped out so many deformed iterations of itself its genetic code has become unstable and begun to break down. They had to package one of their more popular titles, “Modern Warfare,” with “Infinite Warfare” before they finally dispensed with the future warfare gimmick and returned to a World War 2 setting with their latest title.
Either I have gotten older, the stories have gotten worse or a combination of the two are making it harder for me to get into new games. Right now, I am content with playing the old games that I know are going to be fun, instead of taking a chance and wasting $60 to $100 on something that is uninspired and stagnant.
Like anything else, I am sure there is a list of quality games out there that have just passed by my radar. In most genres of art, if you can’t find anything good, you probably aren’t looking hard enough. Maybe that’s the case here. It does seem like a problem though, my desire to find something new and inventive has been distracted by a chance to re-buy old games that I know I will enjoy.
