Gaming Like Its 2015

This past Saturday, I ran some errands with my wife, part of our typical weekend adulting. The unrelenting heat made everything uncomfortable and once we returned home, my wife went to take a nap. I found myself tired, but I was in one of those moods where nothing sounded good. I had too many choices of movies and television shows to watch, and way too many video games. So, I bounced around watching a few minutes of this or that, while mostly browsing on my phone.

I hate it when this happens, because the next thing I know is three hours, and I’ve basically done nothing but look at the same ten websites. I realized I was wasting my day away, so I turned my phone off and put it in a drawer, where it remained until Sunday evening.

Forced to make a mindful choice on what I wanted to do, I took a few minutes to consider what sounded like fun. Did I want to work out? No, it’s too hot. Did I want to study for my class? Not really. Did I want to watch something? No, and the list goes on. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to play a video game, but something I hadn’t played in a long time, and something that wouldn’t require cut scenes or any real investment. You know, the way video games used to be?

As I scrolled through my owned games on Xbox, I saw Rocket League. A game I haven’t played in several years, so I downloaded it.

When Rocket League first came out, the rave reviews led me to purchase a copy on Xbox. Then on PlayStation, then on Switch. The pickup and play aspect worked for me, and I found myself really enjoying the strategy and chaos that ensued on the soccer field.

If you’ve never heard of it, Rocket League is a free-to-play game (it wasn’t always free) that is basically a three-on-three game of soccer, but with rocket powered cars. It sounds ridiculous, but the gameplay is so solid that even playing this game ten years later feels good. I found myself having a lot of fun playing as my old DLC Batmobile from Batman vs. Superman and the DeLorean from Back to the Future. I also own the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, but I was never able to connect my various accounts on PlayStation and Xbox correctly to the required Epic account, and so I think that car is stuck on my PlayStation.

I have a lot of great memories of playing Rocket League, and it’s hard to believe it’s been ten years. I’m happy to see the servers are still healthy, and the game lives on, even if It’s lacking some of the fun modes they used to have like hockey and basketball.

Another game I ran across in my library was Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. With the recent announcement that Call of Duty was jumping forward in time once more, I was curious to see how the game held up in 2025. It’s always scary booting up an old Call of Duty because the neglected servers are usually full of hackers and madness, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a game quickly that wasn’t full of idiots. I played through three great games of team deathmatch, and I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. I was never a big fan of futuristic Call of Duty, but the exoskeleton worked well and there were some great maps in this game.

Continuing my quest to find more fun, old pick up and play games, I installed Overwatch. Another game that I once poured hours into but haven’t booted up in years. Similar to Rocket League, this was once a game you paid for that converted to a free-to-play model. I wasn’t sure what to expect after so many years away, but my experience was similar to the previous two games. I was able to get into a game quickly, the gameplay was tight and solid, I didn’t see any shenanigans going on, and well… I had a lot of fun.

As Sunday evening rolled around, I felt a desire to play some Splatoon 3, another great pick up and play game, that I haven’t played in a few months. Sadly, a couple of weeks ago, my cat broke my TV, and it yanked on my Switch dock. I believe it may have broken one of my joycons when everything crashed down, so I wasn’t able to push in my thumbstick and activate my special. I tried to swap out joycons, but I had issues with the other and being that my weekend was coming to a close, I decided I just didn’t want to fool around with that right then. So, I did something I rarely do, and I reached for my phone to find something to play before bed.

After some quick looking, I decided to try out Fallout Shelter, another old game that I once loved. I really only needed something to kill twenty minutes or so, and the game did the trick. It looked better than I remembered and played pretty well, but one difference from when I first played it, there are huge pushes for microtransactions and eventually that wore me out. Still, I had fun while I took a little trip down memory lane.

I’m not sure what really led me to play these games, but they all came out about the same time (Splatoon 3 did not, but Splatoon did). I didn’t plan on playing games that were released so closely, but somehow it worked out that way.

• Rocket League was released in 2015.
• Call of Duty Advanced Warfare in 2014.
• Overwatch in 2016.
• Splatoon in 2015.
• Fallout Shelter in 2015.

It’s been about ten years since these games graced my consoles, and it’s interesting that nostalgia did play a part in my enjoyment. When I think back to the Xbox One and PS4, I honestly don’t have the fondest memories. Sure, there were a few great games, but I felt that in comparison to the Xbox 360 era, it was definitely a step backwards. But time has been kind to the games I played this weekend (with exception to Fallout Shelter) and it was nice to be able to easily re-visit them. I doubt I’ll invest a ton of time in them going forward, but they are all still installed (with exception to Fallout Shelter) and I plan on spending a bit more time with them this week.