Street Fighter V - out now, or at least parts of it are
Street Fighter V – a young man’s game?

A reader is frustrated to find his skills at video games are declining with age, but learns to accept his K/D ratio will never be the same again.

As I near my 35th birthday I am starting to feel the years creeping up on me, and this is no more evident than my failing reflexes and reaction times. Gone are the days of jumping online and being an automatic first or second spot on most online shooters. And even my love of football is starting to turn on me, with FIFA becoming more difficult with each and every passing year.

This has been something that has and is taking me some time to come to terms with. No-one wants to admit they’re getting old, but this has been the biggest indicator to me, where once I would think nothing of jumping on the new Call Of Duty or Battlefield, and wiping the floor with the opposition. But with the advent of Advanced Warfare and Infinity Warfare I found myself grumbling about the speed of the game and enemies coming from too many directions. Even Halo has become too fast for me to make any kind of impression on the competition.

But I feel the hardest impact has easily been FIFA, Street Fighter, and Tekken. Three games that require lightening reflexes and plenty of forward thinking that I seem incapable of now. Like an ageing footballer refusing to admit he is now past his prime, I continue to hammer my head against the wall in the vain hope that it is scripting or lag that is causing this, and not the inevitable slowing of my body.

People may think I am over-reacting with being just about 35, but this is a serious decline that I have noticed over the last three to four years and is only getting steadily worse. It has taken me this long to finally admit it is just me and no external factors due to my diminishing skill. This is also not coming from someone who had a bit of skill at these games. I was 29th in the world at Tekken Tag Tournament and previously in the top 100 players in Pro Evolution Soccer.

I have also always been the best player I know at FIFA (By some margin and had a healthy online record) and I was quite capable with Street Fighter IV. Now however, my once stellar win/losses on FIFA are getting nearer to a ratio of 1:1. I am terrible at Street Fighter V (still haven’t won a game in 10 attempts), can barely play Tekken 7, and online shooters are becoming pointless. I have tried to play the recent Call Of Duty, my kill/death ratio on Modern Warfare 3 was 2.14, I was finishing games on negative 10+ kills!

This may seem the like the whining of a gamer complaining about the young whippersnappers now in the game, but it is more to do with acceptance that I am not the young man I used to be. And that it is damn time that I stop blaming anything and everything and accept that I am now a mediocre gamer. And to this end I find myself more and more attracted to single-player games, as at least with these I can pretend I am still decent… (except The Witcher 3 that I now have to play on easy!).

By reader Raoul Duke

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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