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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18098 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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This is the first time it's occurred to me that I might want to enjoy shooters while I can. Never really been my thing but the thought of not being able to do it is kinda sad.

You can definitely still play shooters or most other reaction-based games when you get older, you just shouldn't be doing PVP or extremely hard difficulties if you want to have a good time.

Honestly even PVP can be done. Frankly, a lot of people online are bad (or were when I used to play). If you practice, you can probably be good enough to not be at the bottom of the pile even at 70. But you're not going to be top tier, it's true.

Another possible angle here is that there are shooters which are pretty slow paced, like Holdfast. It equalizes reaction time a lot when you can only fire one round every 30 seconds. Granted that's an outlier in how slow it is, but the point is that different shooters can have very different levels of twitch reflexes needed.

You're right. I'm used to PVP shooters using lobby balancing like TF2. In the days of ubiquitous skill-based matchmaking the penalty for being bad is far lower. A septuagenarian won't make it very high on the ranks, but most games can provide a steady stream of drunks, stoners, and Gamer Girls for them to feel good enough to keep playing.

If you're a young (gamer) guy, I strongly endorse getting good at shooters at least once. I was the kind of nerd looking down on it until I got really into one (BFBC2) due to friends, and it really is very different, intense and fun. It really gets your adrenaline up. I still have a lot memories burned into my mind.

I'm so old that I played Counterstrike in its beta release days, and man were those good times.

Yeah, it was a different world playing against your friends on the LAN. I don't play modern shooters, but I do miss that.

I second this so, so much. Nothing better than a nice big LAN party with a good FPS for all night mayhem!

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