Atary77

Just to get straight to it, I'm dreaming that I'm working in a factory. For some reason I'm wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans. I don't own a flannel shirt but I do have plenty of jeans. Also I haven't worked a factory job in years and I can't even tell what kind of factory it was. All of a sudden a group of psychopathic hillbillies just start shooting up the place. Two of them were guys and one was a woman and none of them looked attractive at all. They were just on a shooting spree. It was pretty nuts. Out of no where I get shot in the head by the woman.

Now rather than the dream simply ending it gets even weirder. Like I can't see or move but... I can still hear what's going on in the building. Just people screaming and those insane hillbillies laughing maniacally shooting people. It was pretty screwed up. Next thing I know it's some time later and guess what? I'm now a zombie. Still wearing the same clothes but now my skin is a dark blue of some kind. I don't look too bad but I can tell I have some obvious wounds. Rather than your run of the mill dumb cannibalistic zombie I actually seem to be functioning just fine with the exception I can't speak well. As I walk around I see there are other zombies like myself and no one is freaking out or anything. It was like zombies were accepted among society but treated like they were handicapped or something.

Ya know those dreams that feel so vivid and realistic you could swear you can actually feel and touch certain things? Well as I look at my right hand I notice the tip of bone sticking out of my middle finger. As I tried to pull the skin of my finger up I could feel the flesh of my hand moving against bone like a glove. There wasn't any pain just this icky gross feeling of my skin feeling loose against the bones. It felt really weird. Of course it gets even more weird.

At one point my sister decides to take me out to eat. I have no idea why. We go to a small restaurant and the lady working behind the counter looks at me and simply says "Oh you'll want to give him meat." like she wasn't frightened or anything. Probably because there were other people and zombies alike just chilling out. And I figure maybe meat is what zombies are supposed to have? Lady comes back and gives me a Styrofoam container with some breaded chicken nuggets. My only reaction is, "Nuggets!" as I said in a low moaning zombie way. No living flesh or nothing nope! Just nuggets. They looked almost homemade. I assume they tasted good because even as a zombie I was enjoying them.

Then out of nowhere I hear those same hillbilly psychos attacking the restaurant. Rather than run like a lot of people were doing I just thought maybe now that I'm an undead zombie... I could take these fools down! So I walk into the back and notice the hillbillies now looked MUCH different than last time I saw them. They were mutants. What kind of mutants you ask?

The best way I could describe them, they looked like humanoid lion fish. Their skin was this slimy yellow with light blue colored spots. Those big barbs that lion fish have stuck out on the sides of their hands and on their backs. It was pretty damn weird. But zombie me didn't care as I took a swipe at one of them and gave him a deep gash on his back. But the dude showed no sign that it hurt him in the slightest but instead looked at me in a very annoyed way, then proceeded to chuck my zombie hide out of a nearby window. That's pretty much where the dream ends.

I still remember waking up and thinking to myself "What the hell was that? Is there something wrong with me? Not saying you have to but if there's any one out there who knows how to interpret dreams at all, I'm curious of what you think of all this crazy nonsense. It was also brought to my attention that apparently I was wearing the same clothing as a notable zombie from the film Dawn of the Dead which I've never watched once in my life. Pretty freaky coincidence if you ask me.

Any thoughts on this madness?

I just find this whole mess fucking hilarious. Publishers and developers alike need to realise that this whole perpetual connection requirement is absurd and should never be forced onto consumers this way.

When it comes to physical copies of full retail games I can understand perfectly why it's not always feasible to continuously support those games. However I will say there should be more of a precedent for making sure downloadable titles like Mark of the Ninja or Bastion could always be made available.

I would say give it some time and maybe Sony might be on to something with Gikai(sp?) and the way they intend to implement their technology that may allow them to over come the many difficult hurdles that come with emulation or virtual software.

Destructiod, Escapist, and Penny-Arcade

I was born in 1982. I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember being first introduced to the hobby by my dad who let me play the Atari 2600 when I was a toddler. Eventually my folks got my siblings and I a NES which really instilled the love and passion for the hobby. Eventually we got a SNES, later a Genesis, even a Sega CD that we got second hand from a friend I knew. Hell I even asked my parents to buy a Sega Saturn. My only reason being I favored Sega over Nintendo at the time... don't judge me I was young and stupid then. Last thing my parents had gotten for us was a Nintendo 64. Each console brought a lot of joy and great memories that I cherish to this day. Even during the 16-bit era my dad got a home computer and I was then introduced to Wolfenstien 3D which was the first PC game I had ever played.

By time I was 16 I started buying video games and hardware for myself. First console I bought with my own money was a PS1. As years would go buy and my jobs would change video games would eventually become my greatest money sink. If it was a major console I had to have it. Dreamcast, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, DS, PSP, Game Cube, PS2, Xbox, 360, PS3, Wii, and a capable PC if it played games that people were talking about, I felt I had to have it. At the time during all this cash wasn't really an issue. I had no problem still living with my folks, I worked a decent factory job with benefits where I had been fully trained and even trained people myself. Life was good.

However in 2009 things would change drastically. I'll spare you the depressing and boring details but let's just say the job situation changed. Money wasn't as plentiful as it was. I had sold off my NES and SNES collections. The Genesis well... no one wanted it along with the Dreamcast so they went into storage. Sold my Gamecube but kept the games since they could be played on my Wii. Same for my PS2. My original Xbox just eventually died out since the disc drive on it went to hell so I had gotten rid of what games I could. Even sold off my Gameboy collection which was rather small. My GBA and games I still posses as I couldn't part with them as well as my PS1 library of games that I still have. PC games... let's just say one shelf isn't enough to hold all of them.

Things got stable in 2011 when I got a new job. Things were good and I went back to my game buying ways building up a pretty well sized library of 360, Wii, PS3, PSP, and DS games. All while still holding onto my PS1, PS2, GC, and GBA games. However now, as I look at all the stuff I have, coupled with how things are going with the video game industry itself. Things like On Disc DLC, Day one DLC, Draconian DRM, publishers rallying against used games. I look on all this, all the things I have and how little time I have for it all and I wonder... does it really make me happy? Do owning all these games and holding onto them really make my life better? Is it even fulfilling anymore? I thought a good long while about this... and I honestly couldn't give myself a straight answer.

A lot of the games I own I haven't had the time to finish. I bought them well ,cause they had good reveiws. Don't get me wrong I had a lot of fun with some of these games like Silent Hill 3, Red Dead Redemption, Metroid Prime, Crash Bandicoot, Golden Sun, among many others. But I've only finished about less than half of them and maybe revisited a few here and there. Being a man of 31 I'm feeling like I need to focus on things that are more important. I love gaming and I feel I always will especially with all the indie stuff that's come out which is fantastic! But as times become a bit harder and I get older I feel that I have to some changes. Hell if I ever decide to move I don't know how I'd take all this stuff with me and if it doesn't make me happy any more why lug all this stuff around?

With a lot of thought I finally came to the conclusion that I need to cut back on my game spending. I shouldn't buy something just because it gets high praise. I should buy it because I really like it. I don't have to own every console or handheld. Hell since I got a smart phone my DS has only collected dust and I used to play that thing on a daily basis. So I decided that while I can, I'm going to sell off some portions of my gaming collection starting with my PS1 and PS2 games. There's a lot of great memories here but I think going forward it's time to simply let them go. Maybe to someone who can maintain such a large collection or just wants these old games. I'll admit, I'll probably try to hold onto my Wii for as long as I can with as many VC games as I bought for it. And I'll always need a PC so I can pay my bills, get all my news, entertainment, etc. Not to mention a vast Steam library of Triple A and indie titles.

Also I feel maybe it's time I take a month off from gaming. Honestly I feel like I'm playing less for fun and more so just to satisfy whatever OCD fueled needs of unlocking things or keeping up with friends. There are times I feel like I lost my reason to keep playing games. Like I didn't know what was fun about it anymore. However there are some titles I was able to pop in and remind myself why I fell in love with this hobby. Still doesn't change the fact that since I'm not some game critic or writer, I can't hold onto everything. If I ever want things to get better in life, if I ever want to be happier, I've gotta part with some things. Especially since I hope to move someday, somewhere there's more possibility to have a better career. Seriously if you look up the job market stats for Henry or Defiance county Ohio you'll see some pretty sad results. It's where I've lived all my life and it just seems like nothing is getting better around here.

I hope I can make some decent cash on Ebay selling off my old games, and what I can afford to keep I hope I can enjoy for a good long time to come. I hope doing this will mean making my life better. Might even get into better shape which is something I've been struggling with for a long time. I hope that no matter what happens, that I'm making the right choices and that I can find what makes me truly happy. If giving up this large extensive library of games meant having a better life, how can I say no to that?

Part of me just can't help but feel sad that THQ is really gone. Goodbye old friend.

I loved this game and I hope that Dean will be able to continue making great works of art like this one.

Dammit Skylanders now look what you've started!

@DG991: Pretty much my thoughts entirely. EA pretty much strangled the life out of Mass Effect. They only cared about getting the game out by a certain deadline. Anything afterwards they had no problem selling it later as DLC. To those at EA who run the show, GET FUCKED!

@SlashDance said:

I was born the day Super Mario Bros. came out in Japan.

Go ahead and beat that, I dare you !!!

That is pretty boss.