Fond Farewells

As I was walking to the local convenience store this morning it struck me that this weekend will be my last official weekend of gaming on my old PS3. After this weekend I’ll be heading to South Africa for a short holiday before coming back to Japan and the weekend that I get back will be when the PS4 releases here in the land of the rising sun.

Of course this doesn’t mean I’ll stop using it altogether but most of my time will be spent gaming on the PS4 if I know myself at all. Heck, I’ll be surprised if I even get around to finishing off any of my PS3 backlog after I start using my PS4.

It’s very much the end of an era in terms of my gaming life. I spent a long time gaming on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 with countless hours spent being killed in Halo 3 along with my band of fellow South African gamers.

I think that this was the generation that finally dragged me into the online sphere of gaming and despite the legions of trolls and whiny, foul-mouthed youngsters I had the time of my life meeting fellow gamers who would become good friends in real life.

I was also fortunate enough to finally get a chance to try my hand at games journalism and start writing for both print and the web. If anything it helped me realize that those people who dedicate their lives to writing about games have a deep passion for this hobby of ours and they’re under far more pressure than we’d imagine.

The fact that I’d have such nostalgia for a mere piece of hardware is testament to how many wonderful gaming experiences I’ve had using it. The thrilling highs and brutal lows of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted & The Last of Us the sheer adolescent thrill of taking the fight to the bad guys as the Caped Crusader in Rocksteady’s Batman franchise.

Not to mention the wonderful indie games that have started becoming part of the Sony stable of games. This has probably been one of the main reasons I’ve always enjoyed Sony’s offerings. They seem willing to embrace new and innovative ideas in terms of what games they publish. It doesn’t always work but when it does we’re given some wonderful and amazing titles such as Ico and Shadow of the Colossus that managed to make even jaded gamers shed a little tear.

Now that being a gamer is something that has become less of a stigma it’s interesting to look back 7 years and see how I myself have matured and changed in terms of what games I enjoy and what sort of experiences I look for when purchasing new releases.

What I do know is that I’m excited for a new generation of games to come out and for a whole new generation of gamers to discover the joy and wonder that gaming holds.