I am going to start a series of blogs pertaining to my annoyances with games and gamers alike. The nature of these posts are going to be extremely controversial in the world of Destructoid. Please take all of the rantasciousness with grain of salt, if you will. JUSTIFIED opinions and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism are appreciated, but "LAWL UR WRONG AND UR A GAY" is not. Thanks.



I'm sure every frequenter of Destructoid has seen a post of some 35 year old guy talking about some game he played for the Genesis. The posts usually start out innocent enough, the said blogger usually saying how he got the game for Christmas of '91 and how excited he was to get [insert unknown retro game here]. That's great and all, but what follows afterward is what pisses me off.

The blogger (I'm not pointing out any names, here) then goes to say how frustrated he was with the game and how the game caused him a great deal of mental stress. The blogger spends the first couple of paragraphs writing about how awful and difficult the game is and that he never wanted to play again. Even after the complaints of said retro title, the blogger says that he continued on and wanted to complete the game. That's fine, It's good that you want to finish what you started.



This is where the pet peeve comes in. The blogger usually says after all of his/her grievances he/she actually loved the title. That's cool, I'm glad the overall experience was good. Oh, by the way, they're also sick of all of these "new-fangled" video games being too easy and that younger gamers are not as well-versed in video game experience because of the lack of difficulty. Wait, what?

I'm extremely sorry I don't want to go to Emuparadise or Osaka, Japan and find the extremely obscure and difficult game you mentioned. I'm also sorry I'm not allowed to go to the "cool kids table" with all of you retro gamers. I never said that I hated retro games at all, but what pisses me off is that my demographic is insulted because I have a personal preference to play more modern games. I'm also sorry I don't want to play a game that makes me want to bash my head into a wall; when a game gets that difficult I think it loses some of it's "fun value".

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I don't care how cool and old-school these games are, I just can't find enjoyment in them. Why do some retro gamers have to have the mindset that newer games cannot deliver as good as an experience as those of the past? Why can't I as a younger gamer still be considered a "hardcore" gamer just because I want to play the games of my generation? In 20 years the Xbox 360 is going to be with the likes of the SNES, and what will I be then? Will I be a hardcore gamer then just because I'm older and played games of my childhood? Or will I just be just another one of those snot-nosed punks who plays on Live?

In my personal opinion, you can garner the same experience from a single-player game on Easy as you can on Normal or a harder difficulty. I am very knowledgeable when it comes to recent video games, but when the option arises, I select "Easy". Is that the definition of a casual gamer, then? Can I have played an obscene amount of games in my time, tell you the release dates of many upcoming titles, and at least have some knowledge about almost every popular game released after 2001 and still be considered a "casual gamer" because I play on easy and only play games of my generation? I want all retro elitists out there to get it in their heads that they're not the only ones who are hardcore gamers, and that perhaps not everyone wants to play retro titles and experience more frustration than fun.

[P.S. Yes, I know, "Also, Retroforce Go! is going to break through your ceiling tiles and rape you." Look, I'm not insulting retro gamers at all. I'm merely stating that retro gamers shouldn't have the "holier than thou" mindset, and that there's such a thing as a "hardcore, non-retro gamer".]