It Sucks to Suck - 1-Up.club

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Thursday, August 27

It Sucks to Suck


In the Army, we had a saying. More accurately, we had a lot of sayings, but the one I'm focusing on today is "Embrace the suck."

The phrase goes beyond the typical "tough shit." Instead, it encourages you to not only accept the worst parts of a situation but to dive headlong into it armed with the knowledge that at the end you'll be better at the task thanks to those efforts.

But that doesn't always work.

Case in point for me: First Person Shooters (FPS).

Eff Call of Duty.
I've played video games for years. "Years" because it feels better to type that than "decades." Very few genres have avoided inclusion in my ever-changing gaming library. And, typically, I have been able to display improvement in every one of those genres with enough play.

The only exception being FPSs. This explains my general loathing for the Call of Duty series if you've ever wondered about that.

The thing is, I have really enjoyed some FPS games, namely the Ghost Recon series. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of these games has existed with a dependence on being able to "play it my way."

A favorite: Ghost Recon on XBox
Even at the peak of my gaming abilities, I lacked the necessary eye-thumb coordination to deal with the frenetic style of FPS that has taken over today's games. My skill set is different than that. It's centered on strategic planning and patience.

Today I am beyond my gaming peak and the fast-paced - even many semi-fast-paced - games have become virtually inaccessible to me.

It's not that I can't think fast enough because I can. Just have a conversation with me. Throw me a complicated math problem. Or open yourself in the smallest way to become the butt of a joke.

As a matter of fact, put a real M16, MK-19, 50-cal or M249 into my hands with pop-up targets and watch me perform. That I can do. Which makes my lack of ability to do the same thing in a militaristic video game all the more infuriating.

There's no fun like "Automatic Grenade Launcher Fun"
I need slower-paced options when it comes to games. I don't mean snail-paced espionage games, but at the very least, I need games with regular breaks in the action that the multiplayer aspects of many games simply don't offer. Or, better yet, games in which long-range weapons can reign supreme.

Because I love the idea of FPSs and what they can do. Co-operative campaigns are a blast (and probably extremely frustrating to whoever is playing with me because I'm usually waiting to respawn). The Fallout series works for me because I can slow the game's pace slightly with the V.A.T.S. system. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim works for me because I can utilize a bow to great effect. Borderlands is somehow fantastic to me. I'm assuming it's because I'm not constantly bombarded with wave after wave of enemies requiring precision aiming.

Luckily there are a ton of options for gamers today. But I can't share in the same unbelievable experience that those who play a game like The Last of Us experiences because I spend the majority of the time playing that game frustrated. And it sucks.

Adulthood means that my video game time and finances are limited. I can't afford to spend either of those resources on things that cause me great frustration.

Rather, I have to accept that I can always just watch the story on YouTube and enjoy it that way.

Because, sometimes, embracing the suck doesn't do any good.

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