It’s 2024, which means your parents will make jokes about writing an earlier date on their checks. Or “cheques” if you lost a war in 1776. As per tradition, people are giving their New Year’s resolutions. We can ignore the ones that don’t matter, like “get healthier” or “stop dating married people” and focus on the ones that do matter, like “I should spend more time 𒐪with video games.” Because what is your health or your emotional stability without a third-rate first-person shooter inspired by Bioshock and Fallout? Nothing, really. Family can c💙hange. Games are forever.
Much li🥃ke my colleague Tessa Kaur, I want to finish more games this year. It’s annoying to have so many great games that go unfinished, whether because they’re too long, too complicated, or Nintendo pretended to throw a tennis ball and I ran after it like the stupid simp I am. Really, you could shake keys in front of my face and just say it’s a new game from a popular IP and there wou✅ld be at least five minutes in which I’d be totally comfortable. “See? It’s Final Fantasy keys!” “Oh! Is there a place where I can spend way too much money to get this thing I’ll hide in shame?”
Finishing games is something I want to get better at. If I’ve put 30 hours into a role-playing ꦆgame, I sho꧅uld be able to put in 10 hours more to see the conclusion of a development team’s extremely hard work. But to do that successfully, I have to actually give those games some goddamn time at the very beginning before I give up on them. If I’m going to enjoy great games this year, I have to be willing to sit through the boring parts to get to the excitement. I need to eat my vegetables.
Tutorials are only second to system updates in my readiness to give up before I even start. And, to be clear, it has nothing to do with the tutorials themselves. Video games have evolved, and most games are g🐠reat in their introductory sections. Do some of these introductory sections last for literal hours while you feel trapped in a hallway of pain reading an endless scroll of text about what Pok&eacut🌸e;mon are? Yes. But at least the majority are getting better and some - like Tears of the Kingdom - still give you a sense of fun and power while easing you into a fantasy world grad-level engineering program.
I want to emphasize that this is my problem. Complicated games - hell, even simple games - require some time to learn. Literally doing anything within the human experience takes time to learn🌜. And when there isn’t a tutorial, I’m just as frustrated when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve created a lose-lose scenario for both myself and the developer. I want to play a complete, immersive experience that I instantly understand and appreciate. They want to create a complete, immersive experience that isn’t really possible if the player is unwilling to learn which button makes you jump.
But when I’ve got so little time to dedicate it makes starting games hard. Even games like Street Fighter 6 take a few minutes to get you going into the meat of the main mode. You can skip the tutorial cutscenes if you want, but that also takes time. Everything takes time. When I sit down to start a game, I rarely have the time or the energy to really le🅘arn what I’m doing so I can actually enjoy the experience I’ve paid human money to have. I want a quick hit 𝓀or a fun chapter or anything other than having an instructor make me low punch six times before I can move on. It’s an unrealistic expectation that prevents me from fully enjoying old games and cracking into new ones.
These tutorials are almost all absolutely necessary. Tutorials are how people learn. And, honestly, it’s how I should learn. Rather than rage skipping through openings and rage quitting when I can’t do anything, I need to have a little patience this year.💜 I need to let myself be at peace with not knowing every button combination off the top of my head. I need to allow myself to open a guide or a YouTube video when I’m not getting good. It may not be my fault if I’m not enjoying a game or if I feel like the controls are confusing. It is my fault if I give up because I’m not even willing to learn.
Anyway, Happy New Year!
