My biggest regret is not mining bitcoin back in 2009.
I was so close to!
I tried it but the software and support was just too messy at the time so I gave up and
went back to folding for cancer instead.
But my second biggest regret is never having a Nintendo 64.
You see, most of my cousins had one.
Whilst I was playing Spyro and Quake 2, they’d come around each year with their consoles
and would split-screen Goldeneye.
They’d karate chop my ass into oblivion, round after round.
I never got the chance to learn the game myself.
Not until recently, when I got it working with an emulator.
But I just couldn’t get into them!
The games meant nothing to me.
Zelda’s controls are horrible.
Mariocart’s levels suck compared with Crash Team Racing’s.
Goldeneye runs at 20 FPS.
I lack the nostalgia and familiarity that is needed to appreciate these things now.
To me, they’re just obsolete titles that have since been bested.
Now before you Nintendo fanboys blindly downvote me to oblivion, just stop and listen to what
I’m trying to say here.
I don’t think those Nintendo games are bad.
Well, they are now.
But they’re no WORSE than similar games from the Playstation 1 era, of which I still
love to this day.
But I swear that if you chuck either console at a millennial gamer it won’t be long before
they say how much it sucks and returns to playing Gears of War 4 or whatever.
Because they’re right.
Games these days are more wholesome, polished and developed.
‘Like this comment if you were born in the 2000’s!!!’.
‘Am I the only one who remembers the Playstation 3?!’ and ‘I prefer older games…
like Halo 4.’
Do these comments make you feel angry?
Don’t worry- I feel it too.
You’re superior to those types of people.
You were born in the 90’s!
The youth of today?
They didn’t know how good things used to be back when a Playstation doubled up as a
very affordable DVD player or when Half Life was actually a series that Valve cared about
 But don’t get too snug- for I’m even better
than YOU lot because I was born in the 80’s and witnessed the birth of the Playstation!
Even if at first I thought it was a toy train.
And I hate all Halo games because I was promised it on PC first.
And there are probably people who are EVEN BETTER and OLDER THAN ME!
But not many.
Most are probably dead by now.
Getting older is scary.
A lot of it doesn’t bother me.
I’m okay that the legal drinking age date of birth is creeping towards the year 2000.
I can accept that the person who serves me in McDonalds looks more like a child every
year.
I can probably even accept ‘twerk’ making it to the dictionary!
But there are some things that I find it increasingly difficult to have an open mind about.
Perhaps most annoyingly for me, gaming is one of them.
I think my backlog of games is testament to how much I struggle to keep up with things.
5 years in gaming is an eternity.
When I try to keep up with new series and advancements today I really feel like an old
man, asking myself ‘what was wrong with the old ones?’.
You can probably see this from my nostalgic gaming series!
Most are at least 10 years old… if not approaching 20!
Problem is, as a Youtuber you have to be on the cutting edge.
You have to be down there with the kids, keeping up with the latest fads and fashions and acting
as if you care!
If not, then you run the risk of alienating your audience as you reminisce fondly about
your heyday.
Which actually pretty nicely describes this channel already.
From Going Low in CS:GO to me telling you guys why Deus Ex is the best series ever,
it’s not the games that I’m trying to sell to you but rather my nostalgic memories
about them.
A futile quest indeed.
Don’t get me started about nostalgia.
I really believe the power of association conditions you into all kinds of behaviours
and indeed shapes who you are!
But for this video I want to try and keep it to gaming.
I can be objective.
I can look at Playstation 1 games and understand that they’re nowhere near as good as today’s
titles are.
But I’d still rather play through a Playstation 1 game again.
They’re familiar and friendly.
I feel that I know them better than I’ll ever understand a modern title!
I think it’s the same way as how demo levels always have a special place in our hearts,
even long after we acquire the full game.
And why, even if a game gets a technically superior sequel, people are disappointed,
expecting for it to somehow compare with the older one which to them is like an old friend,
teeming with memories from a simpler time in their lives.
Me revisiting Mankind Divided over and over again wasn’t just me being stubborn.
I was desperately trying to reconnect with the modern world, to create a new memory that
I knew I should have liked in the first place.
And yes, I succeeded.
But man…
what effort and commitment it took to do so.
I didn’t used to have to try!
I voluntarily harassed every NPC in Morrowind to see their reactions.
I invaded France so many times in Medieval Total War for the hell of it.
And I lost hundreds of hours against bots in Unreal Tournament and Battlefield just
because I enjoyed it and that was reason enough.
And it’s not as though I can’t recreate these feelings with modern-day Red Orchestra
or Witcher 3 titles.
It’s just that it requires more effort and patience before I get there.
But enough about me.
What about YOUR nostalgic memories?
Surely you must have games and series you have an irrational burning passion for.
I’m sure that you’ve tried sharing it with friends or family, only for its appeal
to seem totally lost on them.
Welcome to the bitter sweet curse of nostalgia.
You can feel it.
You can momentarily relive it through thought and music.
But you’re very much alone in feeling it.
And as the years go by, you become increasingly so as those from the same generation disperse
and you have fewer and fewer friends who can reminisce about similar experiences.
There’s a strong link between association and nostalgia, and as such I think repetition
is the key to generating it.
I think it’s the reason the levels of Dark Souls become so meaningful to me, since I
typically have to play through them all so many times.
Speedrunning a level completely transforms how I see it from then on.
As a Youtuber I’ve discovered that it’s not the music choice, but rather the repetition
that matters most.
It’s why I like the theme tunes of TV series I like, even when the song is rubbish.
We all know THAT PERSON on facebook who’s forever linking us to songs.
The music never means anything to me, but the fact they sent it to me means a lot.
As though they’re trying to reach out and share some sort of nostalgia to me.
Completely futile, yes.
But still a nice gesture and one that I appreciate more with every year 
Nostalgia is such an integral and meaningful part of our lives, yet it is misunderstood
and mysterious.
I’ve tried so many times to describe it in the past yet always fail to capture its
true importance to me.
But even if I can’t fully comprehend it, I accept the impact it has and want to embrace
it.
I urge you to keep an open mind.
Don’t just think that it’s all been downhill since your childhood.
Perhaps it has been for you but the world continues to advance.
Please, don’t lose faith in the games industry.
It isn’t just dumbing down and giving up.
Try to boot up new games without comparing them to older ones.
And perhaps just as importantly, replay them like you used to!
I’ve got into the bad habit of playing games to beat them and have, in the process, lost
what I enjoyed so much about them in the first place.
Maybe one day I’ll learn to love Goldeneye.
It will be a different kind of nostalgia, borne from a new and modern perspective, very
different from that of my cousins.
But perhaps it won’t matter.
Maybe it’ll still be enough for my cousins and I to be able to reminisce about the old
days together, for the first time ever.