Where Can You Even Start When It Comes To Gaming?
For a lot of us, gaming has been such a big part of our lives for such a long time that just about everything about it seems all too familiar. After all, if you’ve been a part of this community since you were a kid then a lot of things about it are just going to feel like second nature. But what about those who didn’t grow up gaming? What about those who have only just found their way to this amazing hobby? If that’s you, then the whole thing might seem somewhat intimidating, even overwhelming.
After all, it’s not like books and films where things have stayed pretty static for the last century when it comes to how you consume them. Gaming changes all of the time and it’s the kind of thing that can be really difficult to keep up with if you’re not already familiar with the ins and outs of gaming as a medium. However, you shouldn’t let that discourage you from diving into this incredible and valuable medium. With that in mind, here are some things that you can do to get into gaming, even if you have no experience with it at all.
Choose your platform
One of the biggest hurdles for a lot of people when it comes to trying to get into gaming is the fact that there seem to be se many different ways to actually play. After all, if you want to watch a film, you can go see it in theatres or you can watch it at home, that’s it. If you want to read a book, you pick up a book and just read it. However, when it comes to gaming, you’ve got choices between consoles and PCs, home hardware and handhelds, and these days the lines between these different platforms are getting increasingly blurred. For example, the Nintendo Switch has radically changed the way we think about both home and handheld consoles with the way that it seamlessly switches between the two. Not only that but the choice between consoles and PCs can be a lot tougher than it once was. Consoles were once the quick plug in and play option that sacrificed raw power to achieve that. But now, consoles are getting more and more powerful but are starting to suffer from some of the same issues as PCs like long install times and the need for updates. PC gaming can seem like the most intimidating. After all, doing something like building your own gaming rig can be amazing, but it can also be pretty scary. It can be difficult to choose the best monitors, servers, graphics cards, processors, and everything else you need for a gaming PC. Then again, you’ve then got platforms like Steam which allow you to access the biggest possible gaming library right at the touch of a button, something consoles are still trying to catch up to.
Find reviewers you really trust
One of the biggest issues with gaming as a medium is that the industry seems to often be pretty closely connected to the world of journalism and criticism. There are plenty of famous stories of reviewers being fired for giving bad reviews to games that were being advertised on the sites they wrote for. Because of that, you’re going to want to seek out reviewers that you can trust. Luckily, there’s no shortage of games reviewers out there on well-known websites, independent blogs, and even places like Youtube. Just do a little digging and you’ll almost certainly be able to find reviewers whose opinion you respect and who always have something interesting to say. Don’t just stick with the ones who agree with you all of the time either. If someone you respect doesn’t like a game that you love, that doesn’t invalidate your opinion, but it can often give you a whole new perspective on that game that you might never have considered. You might even find that you realize things about it that you never knew before that make you love a particular game even more!
Know the genres you prefer
Gaming is an incredibly diverse medium in terms of different aesthetics and ways to place. Unlike film, which asks basically the same thing of you no matter what, to sit down and pay attention, gaming places a lot of demands on the players. Do you prefer games that challenge your reflexes? What about once that throw complex and thought-provoking puzzles at you? Do you want your games to be combat heavy or based more around exploration? Which matters most to you, story or gameplay? These kinds of questions can guide you to games that, at first glance might not seem right for you, but can be incredibly rewarding experiences. Of course, the only way that you’re going to be able to know which you prefer is to get out there and try different things. Go out on a limb, check out games that you might otherwise ignore!
Don’t be afraid to look backward
If there’s one really big problem with gaming it’s that it has a bad habit of being unable to preserve its history. Because of gaming’s dependence on technology, it’s always moving forward. People feel like they need the newest platforms with the newest games. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to look back. After all, people read old books, listen to old music, and watch old movies all of the time. There are plenty of things you can get out of older games. Thanks to places like Steam or the releases of the SNES and NES Classic consoles, that’s becoming a lot easier, but we still have a way to go to really start effectively preserving the history of the medium. You’d be amazed at how many incredibly games are just getting left behind by gaming’s constant need to push forward.
Never pre-order anything!
Pre-ordering is a huge part of gaming and has been for a long time. However, there really is no need to do it anymore. For one thing, since most games are available online or even as digital downloads, the need to reserve a copy of a game really isn’t there anymore. Not only that but a lot of games simply aren’t finished at launch anymore. Day one patches and updates have become more and more accepted and that’s not necessarily a good thing. The best thing you can do is to wait, check out the reviews of a game to see if there are any serious issues or bugs, then check it out for yourself once you’re sure that it’s something that you know you’re going to enjoy. After all, new games aren’t cheap so why risk getting something you’re going to hate.
All of this might seem like a lot of work for something that’s supposed to be fun. Well, the truth is that if this all seems like a lot of work, it might not be the right hobby for you. If gaming is the kind of thing that you’re going to really get a lot of out of, then you’ll more than likely find that, far from these things feeling like a lot of effort, you’ll find yourself wanting to dive deeper and deeper into the history, minutiae, and culture of gaming as you learn more and more about it. Gaming is one of the most incredible ways to spend your time out there. After all, there’s a reason that it’s the most popular medium in the world. From experiencing amazing art to just finding a way to spend a little bit of your time when you need to unwind and relax, gaming really is the perfect hobby for the modern era.