I've had a slowly dawning realization over the past couple of years. With age comes the atrophy of my video gaming skills. Currently I find myself sitting at thirty years of age, and I am now certain that my peak came long ago and I will never be near that level again.

The game that has beaten me over the head and worn me down into accepting this truth is League of Legends. Like a professional athlete that has lost a step, my focus and technical ability are on the downslope. It's a trend I don't see stopping. Real life obligations and pursuits prevent me from practicing like I did when I was a young dumb college student (I am now an old dumb college student, thanks in part to being a young dumb college student). While I maintain a respectable Gold rating, and have as recently as a year ago been in promos for platinum, I can not even imagine ever having the drive or the ability to make a push into platinum and towards diamond.

As I come to accept this, I am finding myself waxing nostalgic for my glory days when I was a fearsome competitor, when I was ruthless and bloodthirsty and headstrong and had the skill to back it up. I find myself recalling my most memorable moments, my greatest triumphs and my most bitter defeats.

There are only two games in my life that I can say without a trace of doubt that I was very, very good at. Well three really, if you're not going to lump Myth:TFL and Myth 2 together. Halo 2 was the other one.

My most memorable moment came in Halo 2 (and god I wish there were saved films back then because I had some doozies). This moment was not the single most skilled moment I ever had, but it was memorable thanks to my opposition.

The game was team deathmatch, the map was Midship. I found myself up near the sword spawn, but with shotgun in hand. 2 opposing players had come up the ramp in front of me and were closing down on me. So I charged. I used some subtle strafing to evade a good bit of their incoming fire and they did the sensible thing, they each strafed towards opposite sides of me. In a blur, I whirled to my left and plasma grenade stuck the leaping opponent on that side, and swung back to my right and at what must have been absolute maximum range 1 shotted his compatriot with the shotgun. It happened fast, but as the plasma grenade was getting ready to detonate, I could hear him screaming into his mic:

NO FUCKING WA*BOOM*

Glorious. And completely memorable thanks to whoever that was expressing his outrage and disbelief.

My most bitter defeat was probably the totality of my Myth career. I started playing Myth when I was just 13 years old, and by the time I was 14 I was already a well established player. It seems silly in retrospect, but at 14 years old Myth tournaments seemed like a really big deal.

Over the course of I would estimate a years time, I managed to finish 2nd place in the Myth:TFL Best of Myth Tournament (a smaller 1 on 1 affair, but with some notable competition, I lost 3-2 in the finals to My Modem Is on Fire, for any vets who remember those people).

In Myth 2, the biggest tournament close to the games launch was Trial by Combat. I managed to finish as a first alternate for the finals (7th place), barely missing the top 6 and entry to the final round.

I then proceeded to just barely miss the final round of the 7 phoenix rising (Bungie sponsored) tournament. I finished 2nd out of 6 in my semifinal bracket, just behind eventual tournament winner Voodoo. Only the winners of each of the 6 brackets moved to the finals.

My next chance was the Shogun tournament. A less prestigious affair but still containing some big name players, I managed to make the finals at last, but fell woefully short finishing 4th out of 6.

My Myth career was winding down at this point and I had one last shot at tournament glory, to atone for being so close so many times. In the Fields of Carnage tournament, I again made it to the final round, and once again fell short, this time finishing 3rd out of 6. Going into the final game, I still had a chance to take the win, but couldn't pull it out.

That was one of the last games of Myth I ever played.

It's hard to understand I'm sure, but for a 14/15 year old kid, these failures felt devastating. It felt like I'd blown game 7 of the world series, or been routed in the super bowl. Those losses stuck with me for a long time.

I was also a total asshole at that time in my life, like so many other young teenagers, so if anyone remembers me (How many former Mythers are even on here?) I apologize if I was ever a dick to you or anyone you know.

So, in conclusion... Are there any other "aging" (I hate to use the term at 30, but in competitive video game years that is ancient) Bungie gamers who also look back fondly towards their youth? Are there any others who recall devastating defeats that left bitter tastes in their mouths? Any particularly thrilling victories that sent your adrenaline surging?

It's not aging that is necessarily the problem, it's the whole "being an adult" thing that gets in the way.

I would say for most of us (not all, or course) our golden gaming days revolved around whatever we had available to us in High School and College, when we didn't have families and other obligations like work and bills blah blah blah.

The caliber of people you play'd with then vs who you can play with now has changed quite a bit too.

I had a lot of friends I gamed with in Halo 2-3 that I don't game with now. Different games just revolved around different crowds I suppose.

I think what makes me sad about getting older, as it relates to gaming is not necessarily my skills getting soft, but that I'll never be able to be immersed and involved in a game like I did in my late teens.

The countless hours spent dicking around in Perfect Dark, and the original Smash Bros and Halo 2- I'll NEVER be able to capture that again.

That's not to say I won't enjoy or love games, just that I quite literally do NOT have the free time and resources to make gaming my central pastime. So for me, that's why it's become incredibly important to have a regular group and time to game with.

Now, it's not so important to be "good" as it is just to play and have fun, period.

You make me wonder if I have a split personality that posts on DBO under a different user name.

I too, am of the prestigious age of 30. I too, grew up with Myth:TFL and to a greater extent Myth:SB as my gaming career highlight. My clan (which I shall call all gaming groups from here to eternity) only ever did okay. We entered a few, held our ground against the first or second team, and eventually fell without notice.

What makes it the height of my gaming career was FFA, particularly KotH, CTF, and to a lesser extent LmotH. If the map was Proving Grounds, I couldn't be stopped, averaging 2 armies wiped per game. One of my best matches was finishing a KotH FFA game with the equivalent of 3.5 armies destroyed, and there were only 5 other armies. At my height, I made it to top 100 in KotH, and I did it playing 4-6 person FFA games, not that pansy 1v1 shit that players used to get to the top :)

I had a knack for predicting where players would go, what they would do. I could scout an area, see a single unit, and know what all was there and what they were likely to do. I could watch team percentages drop and know exactly what they had lost. I could goad and lure almost anyone to precisely where I wanted them. I wish mics were standard back then so I could hear them realize what was about to happen to them. I can't do any of that any more.

In the last few years I got into DOTA2 with my house mates. I used to play DOTA in College, back when it was a WC3 add on. With DOTA 2, even though I had a "team", it was obvious that I was not as sharp or as trained as my Myth days. I couldn't predict players so easily, I couldn't out maneuver them. Perhaps this is an advancement average player skill level over the years. No one (at least I hadn't) played a game like Myth before, it was new ground to master. Now popular games are more or less modifications of existing games and ideas. There are a lot more gamers, who have spent a lot more time, and they done it on games that are rather similar to the current stock.

I lost 3-2 in the finals to My Modem Is on Fire, for any vets who remember those people).

Yep, I know that name :)

In Myth 2, the biggest tournament close to the games launch was Trial by Combat. I managed to finish as a first alternate for the finals (7th place), barely missing the top 6 and entry to the final round.

I finished 2nd out of 6 in my semifinal bracket, just behind eventual tournament winner Voodoo.

I remember VooDoo as well, but it wasn't spelled that way? If I recall that was back when symbols were allowed in names, so many didn't stick to the strict 26 character alphabet.

So, in conclusion... Are there any other "aging" (I hate to use the term at 30, but in competitive video game years that is ancient) Bungie gamers who also look back fondly towards their youth? Are there any others who recall devastating defeats that left bitter tastes in their mouths? Any particularly thrilling victories that sent your adrenaline surging?

I'm aging, I'm not as good, but I also think that my "skills" don't translate so well to the games I play today. I'm not an aggressive player, which served me well in Myth FFA, but not so much in Halo. I pull in a positive KD spread in Destiny, but I end with 10-15 kills. The 10 kills without dying in Iron Banner was a pain for me to get :)

I don't think I had many devastating defeats, probably because I was never that good, such that a lose was a blow to my hopes and dreams. But Myth certainly provided some of the best wins of my gaming career. I should see if I have any of those old films still, and if I own software or a machine that will even play them...

Oh to find another game like Myth, instead of the FPS, RPG, and RTS games that I like to play today. Of course, I don't think I'd want to know that I'm no longer good at Myth :)

I got an honorable mention in the star wars collectible card game tournament at age 17. Then I professionally tested games until 22. But, honestly, at 35 I feel like i'm still one of the best guys out there on a daily basis. I don't have the time to commit to join a professional team or anything, but when I put on my tryface, I still, to use the modern parlance, pwn the n00bs.

Your glory days aren't behind you, good sir. Not by a long shot. You're just playing with a different purpose these days.

I was 30 when Marathon came out, so do the math. I've never been competitive in multiplayer. I did manage to beat my buddy Prof Ozy a few times in Myth TFL, but he's just a few years younger than me. (I recently beat him in a one-on-one match on Hang 'em High, so maybe I've gotten better or he's gotten worse--that certainly didn't happen back in the day.)

I sometimes brag that I was competitive in Halo 2 for about a week. Really, though, if you play 4,000 games you're bound to accidentally own now and then. One match in particular was on Midship. The rest of my team quit so you might say I had a target-rich environment. I knew where all the sticky grenades were and kept myself stocked, and then used them very effectively. It helped that the other team kept bunching up on the ramps. This was back when everyone used their mics. In the lobby afterwards I heard the words that had never been spoken and would never be spoken again, "Damn, Kermit! You got mad skillz!"

So, in conclusion... Are there any other "aging" (I hate to use the term at 30, but in competitive video game years that is ancient) Bungie gamers who also look back fondly towards their youth?

I turn 30 this year. Right now I'm only looking back to learn where not to go moving ahead. The fact that I am completely outclassed nowadays when it comes to something like speedrunning is not necessarily a bad thing. I just discovered that overall, it's just not that rewarding of an activity at a high level. You DO have to put in crazy amounts of time, when man, there's so much better stuff to do with your time that you'll thank yourself for doing when you are 90, or else will flash before your eyes before you die at 35.

(With MCC and Halo 5 especially), I see SO MANY people thinking about the past and wanting to move backwards instead of moving forward and embracing change and the new experiences it brings. The worst thing is to live wishing for the past instead of being excited about the present and the future. The day I'd rather be in yesterday instead of tomorrow or today is the day my life would essentially be over.

I had some fun times, but those are behind and not coming back. Instead, different and better ones lie ahead.

TBH, the only games I've ever been really good at have been driving simulators (Forza at the moment, Gran Turismo years ago), and I feel like I'm better at those now than when I was younger.

Olly olly oxen free.