The Brett Favre Of Gaming

Age is a fickle master. It takes things from you before you are ready to relinquish them and leaves you with problems to fill the void. Looks fade and wrinkles appear. Memory blurs and confusion solidifies. Speed and athleticism give way to aches and pains.

All in all, life progresses and leaves us more feeble with each passing year. I often mull over the words of Bob Seger’s Like A Rock in my head: “Twenty years, now where’d they go? Twenty years. I don’t know. I sit and I wonder sometimes where they’ve gone.”

Twenty years back, when I was in my early teen years, I was a video game monster. I was unstoppable. Enemy locations were laser-burned into my memory. My lightning fast reflexes left no level boss a snowball’s chance. I was a titan of video gaming talent, a juggernaut of hand eye coordination. My thumbs moved so fast that accurate measurement proved impossible. I was a Jedi when there was a controller in my hand.

Somewhere along the way, I lost a step. Several steps.

Now I actually become frightened by some video games. A dark room in BioShock raises my heart rate higher than it’s been for a week (which just so happens to be the last time I played BioShock). I find myself running and hiding behind anything I can find in Modern Warfare 2 and hoping no enemies are adventurous explorers who might find me cowering behind the burnt out car before I gather my courage. I’ve even tried repeatedly to go to the ground and crawl beneath one in my panic like a fish bouncing of the glass wall of its tank, thinking each following attempt may prove successful.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I used to enjoy a fast paced game, wrought with challenging enemies attacking me from all sides. I relished the challenge of staying alive in the middle of a melee like a 16-bit Bruce Lee. No level was too intense.

My taste in video games these days calls for a pace I have more control over. I still enjoy killing multiple enemies, but I don’t mind having a little computer based handicap on my side. I don’t see myself attempting anything beyond the beginner stage anytime soon. Games like Splinter Cell: Conviction are along my line. I can hide in the shadows and wait out my enemy. It’s more like fishing. I wait for the action to come to me and should I feel like I’m not ready, I just remain hanging invisibly from the rafters until I am.

I can actually picture myself being a real life Sam Fisher. I would allow the poor sap on outer perimeter security detail to make several rounds past the crate I’m hiding behind just to make sure nothing about his path or accomplices changed before making my move. I could even see myself dozing off for a minute or two with my back leaning against the wall of a darkened parking garage. I would need to develop the skills of a three-toed sloth to keep my grip on the water pipe I was dangling from while catching a few z’s.

But I’ve learned to welcome this slower pace. I see it now as a sort of video game retirement status. Sure, my kids are starting to be able to kick my butt on Smash Brothers and leave me in the dust on New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but there are still plenty of games like Zelda or Professor Layton on the DS. I consider myself to be living in the retirement gaming community, taking in some shuffleboard.

Who am I kidding? I need to get off my ass, stop playing Hexic, do some thumb stretches and become determined to pass the winter stealth special mission on MW2. Look out youth of America. This old man’s coming out of retirement.