Author: Nathan Doverspike
As I search for the right words, the best way to say what’s on my mind, one phrase keeps coming to mind: everything happens for a reason. While cliché and overused, it rings true for me, and I hope you as well. Friends come and go, jobs are earned and lost, and money is always finite. But that phrase, everything happens for a reason, is helping me cope with being afraid of change.
Change always seems to happen when it is the most inconvenient in life. Whether it is a new job, moving to a new town, starting a family, making new friends, change always likes to butt in and threaten the comfort of routine you’ve seemed to surround yourself with. It is comfortable to stay at the same job, comfortable to live at the same place for a long time, and comfortable to be content with the same friends and not branch out to find potentially new and exciting guys and gals. Change is scary, and that’s totally ok.
Just like real life, change in your favorite game can be scary too. Some games, like Mass Effect 2, do a phenomenal job of implementing necessary changes to an already fantastic series. With characters like Mordin, Grunt, Zaeed, and Legion they took an already great cast from the first game and really ramp it up. Unique loyalty missions, the ability to scan planets for resources instead of landing on each one (personally I liked that but it took way too much time), the occasional button prompt for either a “good” or “bad” reaction during dialogue, and the best ending mission for a video game I have ever experienced, it serves as a prime example for change resulting in positive outcome.
That isn’t to say that change always results in something turning out better than before. Resident Evil 6 is one of my least favorite video games. EVER. I truly despise that game. It changed so many things that made Resident Evil 4 unique, like well-developed characters, decent voice action throughout, a fantastic story, beautiful environments, satisfying weapons, pretty much everything was streamlined and watered down. Resident Evil 6 was way more action than 4 (like literally all action), and I believe it suffered from a story standpoint. Resident Evil 6 didn’t just give players three separate campaigns, it game players three excruciatingly poor campaigns with bad boss designs and some abysmal weapons. Don’t forget that the U.I. was disgustingly ugly and the inventory management sucked too. Last thing, the ending boss of the Leon campaign made me rage quit that nonsense, and I never went back. In other words, change isn’t ALWAYS good.
The best way to deal with change in any situation is to keep an open mind and remain positive. Even though Resident Evil 6 was damn near a disaster of a video game, that didn’t damper my excitement for a return to roots entry in Resident Evil 7 (see my review here). Even unfortunate and upsetting events can lead to positive situations later in life. The result won’t be immediate, but a positive attitude can turn a turd of a game like Duke Nukem Forever into something less awful (I think). It’s normal to be afraid of change; just remember that everything happens for a reason.
Golden Age Gamers 