Grieving the lost years as a ball and gun gamer

Okay first let me get one thing straight. I would never refer to myself as a straight up ball and gun gamer. In fact I never understood people that would limit themseles to such a limited selection of titles full stop. As a deep apreciator of games surely this wouldnt be something I’d fall victim to…right? My list of games completed goes from the mystery dectective series of Professor Layton to the indie horror of Signalis. Ive played visual novels of the Danganronpa and Steins gate series and completed tough as nails platformer Super meat boy probably ten times over. However, as much as it pains me to admit I went through a dark period of my gaming life where you’d only catch me on a warzone server in search of a victory or a FUT champs weekend in FIFA. But even during those years if youd have told me I was falling deeper and deeper down the rabit hole, there was no way youd catch me admitting it. I was a REAL gamer, so please don’t you dare compare me to those filthy casuals. Now I think to properly understand the issue it’s best we take a trip back down memory lane. So if you’ll therapise with me I hope we can get to the root of this issue.

So to give you some context if you didn’t know, the term ball and gun just refers to someone whos sole genres contain either sports games or shooters. Anything else is of no interest to them. From my early days, Ive always had a deep love for FIFA. As a football fan it was all I had as a child to re-enact classic matches and get the thrill of a matchday at home. Getting FIFA 04 on my parents PC was a core memory. Id spend hours not even really understanding the wider gameplay, I was more than happy just playing kick off with my favourite teams. Shooters on the other hand took me a little longer to get into, I mean I grew up on Nintendo so it wasn’t exactly the best space for the so called ball and gun. I sank many an hour playing goldeneye multiplayer on the N64 with my brother but thats mainly the extent of it. I spent most of my time with the classics such as Mario bros, Mario Kart and of course, copious amounts of Wii sports. Shooters were few and far between and I guess you could say the most football I played at that time was the Level 5 RPG of Inazuma Eleven (A forgotten classic, fight me)

Part 1 - Denial

It was around 2011 when I finally got myself an Xbox 360 alongside Fifa 11 and Halo 3. So yeah, this was where it all started to fall apart for me, I just didnt realise it at the time. I’d spend countless hours playing halo multiplayer with my brother. Capture the flag, slayer, king of the hill, gravity hammers only, low gravity mode, you name it we played it. But it wasnt until I bought my Wi-fi adapter (Yes that was a thing) that my whole world turned upside down. I downloaded a new add-on mode called Fifa Ultimate team. It combined everything I loved about football games with the card collecting that I loved so much in real life. Building my team of legends and playing against people online to test my skills. It was a magical time back when it was just a simple side mode in its rawest form. A time before it was saturated with special cards and sweaty meta tactics. But I wasnt addicted…. was I?

The next few years were a blur as I continue along the path, moving onto Fifa 12 and then 13 and going from Halo 3 to ODST. It wasnt until I exchanged my Xbox for a PS3 in 2013 that I began to see the light again, playing throught the Batman Arkham and Uncharted series, Journey, Portal 2, Catherine and Skyrim. Id found my passion for single player games again and things were looking up, I left the 360 habits behind me and chose the PS4 as my next console of choice. I completed Infamous and plundered many an hour into AC: Black flag. However as I looked for a shiny new game to show off the graphical limits of my new console I picked myself up a copy of Battlefield 4 and I relapsed once again. A copy of Fifa 15 was quick to follow and before I knew it I was back to my old ways. Thats not to say I even noticed what was happening to me, I was having a great time.

Part 2 - Anger

I would say in real life I’m very slow to anger. Few things really get me all rialled up but FIFA is something that brings out of me a type of anger I rarely experience. The thing is they do it in such a way where it feels like I can improve things and achieve victory the next time around. Looking back in hindsight I know now that this isn’t the case. It is merely a clever mechanic deployed in Ultimate team to keep the player in a constant cycle of spending no matter how good their team might get. Go up by two goals and decicions will start to go against you until you miraculously get pegged back and lose to a dramatic late winner. If you win too many games in a row you’ll get matched with a much tougher opponent. If you pack a good player they will perform amazing for a few matches while giving you a fake sense of progression before eventually dropping off, forcing you to upgrade yet again. Its these kinds of thing that appear with far too much regularity to be considered coincidence. However being the naive teenager I was and with newly aquired money, they had me right where they wanted me. I’d spend copious amounts on FIFA points looking to take my team to this illusive level I’d never reach. I packed prime barcelona neymar to no avail. I packed prime icon maldini but my defense was still leaking goals. I had a generational striker in the likes of R9 ronaldo but he was still getting outscored by a random striker from the Chinese super league. Was this a skill issue? Potentially yes, but my hubris would not allow for that. Year after year I’d consecutiviely spend hundreds of pounds for marginal gains. I would spend my weekends raging and punching walls as I desperately scrapped for 8 wins in FUT champs. All in the hope of getting a legendary red card pull. I was caught in a viscious cycle of competiton with my friends and other gamers alike.

FIFA 19 was a peak year for me, I was moving in with my best friend and we would spend many an evening with TV pushed together, grinding out matches trying to improve our teams. On weekends our other friend would come along with his own setup and we would share in the misery of a FUT champs weekend, seeing who would end on the highest amount of victories. I would also get through a solid amount of shooters during this time as well. Playing through such games as Doom, Far Cry 5, Hunt showdown, Titanfall 2, Wolfenstein and even several entries in the Call of Duty series. But one game stuck out more than anything during that time and that game was Apex Legends.

I’d argue the first few seasons of Apex legends were the purest distilation of what a perfect battle royale game should be. The map was varied in both environments and scale. The weapons felt perfect to use, the classes all felt unique and interesting despite not having a single player to flesh out their characters. As a massive titanfall 2 fan I needed no excuse to give it a go but the fact I managed to get both of my friends so hooked on it as well was a testament to its quality. We spent months on end going between matches on FIFA to rounds on Apex with hardly any restbite. We werent the best crew and victories were extremely few and far between but that didnt even matter to us, we were having a great time.

Part 3 - Depression

Then came 2020 and I think you can understand why this is the depression arc. Being trapped inside for weeks at a time was hard for everyone and I think that is why I found myself falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole and into my comfort zone. Multiplayer games were a great way to keep in contact with friends and I think the epitome of that was Call of Duty: Warzone. This game consumed me. There were days when I’d wake up around 11, turn on the Xbox and play through all the way until the early hours of the morning, only stopping to eat and drink. When I said Apex was the near perfect battle royale then maybe that means that warzone WAS perfection. Even to this day I can name the different zones of the verdansk map, they are forever burned into my brain. From the quarry to the prison, the dam to the airport. Name a spot and I’ve landed there at least ten times over. So between this and the countless hours of Fifa 20 you could say I was well and truly in ‘ball and gun’ teritory. It took a very special game in the form of Cyberpunk 2077 on a shiny new Series X to bail me out once again.

Part 4 - Bargaining

Once lockdown was over Warzone came and went. However one thing remained a constant in my life and that was Fifa, more specifically Fifa Ultimate team. It was an addiction I couldnt beat no matter how much I knew it wasnt good for me, no matter how much they recycled content and played the same tricks on us. Both I and many others kept coming back year after year to feed EA our money in exchange for our shiny little virtual cards that were only as permanent as their servers. It felt like a toxic workplace at times, sharing the misery with your coleagues. Saying “oh yeah I could quit, but what else would I do?” as if that justified things. Grinding out objectives like it was hard labour, youd think we were the ones getting paid and not them! It wasnt until last year that I finally felt the momentum shift. I stopped playing from about feburary onwards which was unheard of for me. September rolled around and for the first time in nearly 15 years I wasnt there on launch day with my ultimate edition preloaded up with fifa points in the hopes of packing a rare card. In fact it wasnt until December when I found myself with too much time on my hands that I finally caved and dipped back in once again. I would play frequently but I could tell something was off. The magic was gone, it felt like the wool had been pulled from my eyes once and for all and I could see it for what it was. A greedy corporation milking its playerbase for every penny they had using our nostalgia as a weapon and wrapping it all up in a terrible reproduction of the sport we love. Sure from a distance it looked and played a bit like football but it just felt souless. I stopped playing around March time, deleted it off my console once and for all last week and if I’m honest, I’ve never felt better.

Part 5 - Acceptance

So I’m sure you are wondering what my life looks like now as a reformed ball and gun gamer and I have to say its pretty amazing. Not only have I rekindled my love of single player and indie games but I have also channeled the money that would have gone into those games and used it to start a physical game collection. I’m extremely proud to have an exotic collection of rare and classic GBA and 3DS games as I now move onto the Wii and PS3 era. But its not just collecting games that i have managed to do. Im now finishing games with a lot more consistency, including some absolute juggernaughts such as Witcher 3, The Last of us: Pt2 and Persona 3 Reload. Leaving the past behind has helped me remember what I got into gaming in the first place but thats not to say it isnt still a part of me going forward. Even as I’m sat here finishing this post I’ve got football on in the background, that will always be who I am whether I’m stressing out over playing a game of it or just watching it. Then as far as shooters are concerened the same rings true. Just because I’m not sat playing multiplayer every night doesnt mean I wont play the genre. In fact I just had a great time playing Halo and you can bet I’ll be there playing Gears of war at launch as well.

I think in conclusion what I can say is, although it’s all well and good saying that they were dark times spent playing these games continuously, I dont regret it either. I’ve had such great time spent with friends, made amazing memories of sessions late into the night endlessly trying to one up each other. Its probably even accurate to say my music taste revolved around whatever they could cook up on the EA soundtracks, between I think about 06-17 was a generational run with some genuine all time bangers. It also reminds me of both simpler and more carefree times when I would just unwind and kick back. The repetition almost felt comforting as I knew exactly what I was getting. I think what I’ve learnt is that although people should at least try to broaden their horizons, the term shouldnt be used in a derogatory way either. I think everyone is different and if these games bring you joy or help you get through tough times in your personal life then who am I to dismiss that? Just maybe take it easy on the microtransactions eh.