Typically when I play a game I like to explore every nook and cranny, trying to find secrets and glitches and stuff. Lately it just gives me anxiety to start a new game when I know it will be on deck for years. I've been playing through Tomb Raider since 2019 and I'm not finished yet... I think I need to consciously change my play style and expectations, and just barrel through main story lines.
I went over to a younger coworker's apartment last night to play video games, which is a very rare activity for me. Left 4 Dead was a lot of fun a decade ago. He loaded up whatever the latest call of duty zombie horde shooting game is, and it was more stressful than fun. I have an interesting anecdote about stress and Tomb Raider. In 2020 my heart AV nerves all stopped working. My effective heart rate got down to 20-30bpm, and wouldn't increase with demand. A few days before I ended up in the hospital, I tried playing Tomb Raider just to see what would happen. After about 5 minutes my peripheral vision started to black out and I felt like I was having a panic attack!
LA Noire and other games like it (e.g. Red Dead Redemption, Destroy All Humans!) seem to have the opposite problem, where I seem to remember the game being more engaging and challenging (in a fun way) than it is now. I guess that's a result of growing up and getting "smarter".
We haven't even touched on the micro-transactions/pay-to-win stuff...
As for the panic attack- I read an interesting book recently called The Body Keeps the Score. It's about PTSD and how, even today under the DSM V, it and similar conditions aren't getting the attention they deserve. While reading this book, I realized that my "fascination" with Dead By Daylight (similar to Left 4 Dead) might be rooted in adrenaline/stress hormones rather than pleasure hormones. Indeed, I had (have) several "hobbies" that my brain seems to be interested in for the stress they cause (like stock trading, holy fuck). The book poses that my subconscious thirst for stressful activity is actually a coping mechanism that is derived from my dysfunctional attachment style to my parents and my subsequent childhood experiences. In other words, stress and worry are all I've ever known. I'm in therapy and taking an SSRI for this now, and I'm significantly better than I was, mentally.
That also made me notice that, even though I played quite a few single-player games when I was younger, most of my fun with games was on multiplayer/competitive games, it could be a grind to get better but there was a practice and I could feel myself leveling up my skills and playing them better, some up to competitive levels. That's always been more satisfying to me.
Newer high budget single-player games (feels like in the past 10-15 years) also feel much more like an interactive movie than a proper game, I don't want to be clicking to interact with a movie, I like mechanics and figuring out the metagame, I realised that watching something unfold with some interactive action in-between is not really my kind of gaming.
For the last 10 years I've basically stopped playing videogames, my gaming nowadays is mostly getting together with some friends and playing tabletop, it's social, it's fun and you always get to see a different persona of the people you know.
Then adulthood came and I just don't have time to enjoy games. I do watch a ton of TV shows and movies because they're easy to start up, put down, or even watch while doing something else that doesn't require full attention.
I do occasionally do a Let's Play of a game that looks promising, ideally one with little commentary, where the player focuses on the story elements rather than completion (prioritizes talking to characters over a speed run, or 100% quests completed, all collectables collected, etc).
Those are unfortunately hard to find (though I'd highly recommend the Cinematic Playthrough of Last of Us for anyone interested in experiencing the medium at its absolute best).
The nice thing about a Let's Play is that you get the story elements of the game, and can 2X speed through slow dialogue, skip action sequences as soon as they become monotonous, etc. You don't get to explore at your own whim unfortunately, but I've found it a good middle ground for being able to experience (and talk about) excellent games, while investing 10-20% the time actually playing it would take (not to mention it's free). It does tend to be more enjoyable with games that are fairly linear, rather than something like Fallout where there are thousands of ways to explore the game and align your character.
Other than that, I enjoy playing board games with friends.
