I’m usually late to things. Not just physically late, although I am always chronically 5 minutes behind schedule at any given time. And no, moving my clocks early won’t work because I KNOW that I set it earlier, because I can do math and calculate the real time quite easily. It’s a gift.
No, I mean I am usually late when it comes to other things, like music, TV and video games. I didn’t start liking Radiohead until 2005. I didn’t watch Mad Men and Breaking Bad until a few months ago. And as for games…well, my first time playing Halo was in 2007. I didn’t play Gears of War until over a year after Gears of War 2 had been released. Same with Mass Effect. Some of this is easily explained: I didn’t have a 360 until then, so of course I wasn’t going to play those games. Now that I have a gaming PC, I am about to play Counterstrike for the first time. I will give you a moment to recover after that bombshell.
But what about the other games I let fall by the wayside, like Metal Gear Solid or Ico and Shadow of the Colossus? Why did these seminal games escape my grasp? No real reason, other than that I was likely busy playing something else, but even coming to the games well after the initial hype had subsided, I still found most of them to be terrific games. I’m just now getting through all the Metal Gear Solid games and even some Jak and Sly Cooper games I missed out on. I don’t mind being behind the times every now and then, but what about you? Are there games you “discovered” years later? Why did you miss out on them in the first place? Let’s hear it!
Oh definitely. Especially in the cases where console games come to PC way later, like L.A. Noire. I was way behind on that one (still never finished it) and I wish so hard they’d bring Red Dead but they say they won’t :(. Also, the Fallout series. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s first Fallout game was the 3rd one. I’ve tried to play 1 and 2 but they are just too dated for me to really enjoy.
I mostly miss out on new games if no one I know is trying them and recommending them to me. Unless it’s a Valve game, it takes a lot for me to get excited enough to pre-order or go day 1 on it.
I missed out on earlier Final Fantasy’s. I really don’t see why 7 is so beloved, it really hasn’t held up well in my eyes. 9 on the other hand is great. I’m enjoying it a lot. Don’t worry resident FF fans (Anthony in particular), I’ll get around to 6 soon enough!
As for PC games, I was late to the party with the Total War series. Now I can’t stop playing Medieval 2.
My newcomer status in League of Legends hasn’t done me any favours. That game can be so fucking hard if I’m matched against a decent player, my skill levels feels so far behind sometimes and I’ve been playing quite a bit of it.
Just started to watch Game of Thrones. Also I didn’t get a high speed internet acess untill 2008 before then I had dial up. Since then I have been a on and off gold member of xbox live and actually started to play some games on my laptop multiplayer wise so that means I am usally a rank 1 while everyone else is a level 50 allready that sucks. I didn’t get a flat screen tv until 2009, first time I played Gears of War two on it I swore that i would never use a regualr tv for gaming ever.