The knowable and the unknowable

[Warlock]

At one of the political blogs I read, there was a conversation a week or so about 'knowable' cities versus 'unknowable' cities- the places where you could live for your entire life but- because there's so much going on, and so many people coming and going, never quite feel like you'd really seen and done everything the city had to offer. New York is an unknowable city, as are Chicago and London and LA- big, ritzy places with people coming and going all the time.

Boston, the place I call my hometown (even though I grew up out in the exurbs), is more the former than the latter- I know it's lame, but part of me prefers it that way. I find places like NYC a bit overwhelming.

Maybe it's a consequence of where I am in my life, or maybe it's the increased clip with which we see big-name releases these days; I feel like five or ten years ago, it was possible for someone to keep decent track of most of the major things happening in the gaming world. Maybe you couldn't play every single release, but you could at least keep track of them and know enough to follow the injokes and plots... To this day, I've never played a Resident Evil game, but I do know about Jill, the master of unlocking.

I feel a bit like gaming is becoming an unknowable hobby, at least for me; I can't help but find it a little depressing.

- HC

[Vireo Gilvus]

Gaming became an unknowable hobby for me a long time ago, but I'm fine with that. Yes, I know my personal tastes are out of touch with the general public, but I've made peace with that. I have only bought and played a handful of games released after the year 2000, and I have no interest in modern game injokes and memes, as they leave me cold most of the time. (To this day, I have not heard the song "Still Alive", nor do I really care to.)

In summing up, I'm old, and my tastes in video games are a little too circumscribed and rigid, but there's nothing wrong with that.

[Warlock]

For what it's worth, I'm not sure how funny Still Alive would be out-of-context. That being said, Portal is definitely worth playing if you get the chance; it's only about 3 or 4 hours long, and it's not actually an FPS, even if it looks like one.

I think that may be the last game I picked up on the day of release, actually, and possibly the only one I've bought and then played through in a single sitting.

- HC