It’s always with the benefit of hindsight do we truly appreciate our experiences for what they truly were.

Appreciate may be the wrong word in some cases…

As I close the book on my recent “Bonding Experience” with my GoldenEye 64 replay, I take a small breather and moment of reflection before blasting immediately onto my next project. I do think people have a terrible habit of not letting themselves process their experiences with greater intent and more cognizance before just thrusting themselves directly into a new adventure, and I think many run the risk of getting themselves caught on a hedonic treadmill of sorts when they do so, even when what they’re habitually forcing themselves upon has merits of positivity or health involved: too much of anything is never a good thing, and rest and relaxation go a long way in building up better daily rituals in terms of both physical and mental health.

I haven’t forgotten that there is a new James Bond game coming out by the end of May, 007 First Light, which is being developed by the same studio that has knocked it out of the park with the Hitman series, IO Interactive. I have confidence the studio will surprise us, and the prerelease footage has conjured interest within me, though I do feel as if inspite of their good intentions and best efforts, the cruel irony of the unforgiving gaming zeitgeist and delusional perceptions that help to subsist such a reality may end up sabotaging the games reception, as no doubt, the lofty expectations of stepping outside of the shadow of GoldenEye is a massive ask, and you will have a load of Hitman fans with preconceived desires and assumptions about how much of that series DNA will be present as well.

This leads me to believe that the die hard retro fans of Rare’s past will be letdown it doesn’t capture more of an old school shooter vibe, and the Hitman fans will dislike the lack of creativity and humorous variety of ways to go about solving problems. I’m looking forward to being proven wrong though, for if First Light gets the same kind of glow up that Indiana Jones and The Great Circle did, in feeling so authentically replicative of a film experience in its adaptation attempts, everyone may just walk away from this pleased as punch.

The chances of me being there on day one are slim, however, so I will just have to be an innocent bystander, in seeing how all this plays out. It’s not that I’m never there day one, but there are far more incentives in the delay of acquiring a title now a days then jumping in moment one, which is sure I’m something no developer wants to hear, but financial times are tough, and paying full price for a game you aren’t 100% confident about is a big ask, perhaps why so many devs go the remake route these days, as their asking price hypothetically can be less, while offering something gamers know is going to be an excellent bet.

In attempting to re-inject some modernity into my gaming rotation, I booted up Doom: The Dark Ages this day, as we just passed the one year anniversary of its launch, and I’m a huge Doom fan, so it all seemed like a rather reasonable approach for a lowkey celebration. I ended up being astonishingly fucking wrong about this so called reasonable speculation, as time away from The Dark Ages, and the distance from the title, has not done it any favors in the favoritism department, as this game is a lot rougher than I remember it being.

Normally, when I say a game hasn’t aged well, its after a grand amount of time away, something akin to a console generations worth of separation; multiple years worth of space betwixt us, not a measly year in relative measurement. Not sure if the performance issues for the Dark Ages were due to unforseen external circumstances beyond my reckoning (I’m attempting to give the game the benefit of the doubt here), but from loading times, to texture issues, to performance troubles, to basic hiccups in gameplay, my session was off to a bad start, and didn’t get much better in the brief time I attempted to engage with the experience, leaving me kind of disappointed that was going to be my takeaway in revisiting a title that only a year ago, I enjoyed as a “good enough” kind of romp. I do mean that in a respectful manner, but with a realistic fairness imbued within the assessment, as Doom: Eternal was just absolutely gang busters when it came out, and topping that was going to be nigh impossible, and this reality is an obvious one to acknowledge after the fact.

Since I didn’t have the funds to pick up Pokémon Pokopia, I’m still flip-flopping between DK: Bananza and MK World on the Switch 2, which both still have plenty of play left in them to keep me busy, even if I’m not a huge fan of either overall. As both a Pokémon and Animal Crossing fan, Pokopia was a game that was right up my alley, but the money didn’t match the desire, so I must be patient, as I await the day I may finally chill with my Poké pals in peace.

The theme of this post seems to be turning into a mourning of my recently deceased wallet, as I also think about how I missed out on the launch of RE9: Requiem, which is quite the surprise, as I am a huge Resident Evil fan, though I’ve been fairly bad about keeping up with the non-remake titles as of late. Luckily, most RE titles not only have legs, but plenty of sales down the road, as they always seem to do extremely well long term for Capcom, so I look forward to the day when I do finally get to make my return to Raccoon City…even if it is for the nth time.

Old habits die hard….which becomes an infinitely more complicated sentiment when the undead are involved.

-Pashford