• On some subconscious level I need a foil to make me appreciate the good games in my collection (what a load of wank, eh?)
• Human beings love a good disaster.
• Nothing could be that bad, right?
• Yes, it is that bad (in fact, worse) and now the horrible challenge this game throws up needs to be beaten.
• I'm an only child who simply has to have everything, no matter how wack it is.
• I'm possibly lying to myself about just how much of a masochist I truly am.

There are times, usually past midnight, that I'll be playing a game and I'll hit a point where progress is sluggish and/or frustrating. Whether it be a level I can't pass, a shiny orb I can't find or a riff I can't nail, I'll postpone sleep until I conquer the problem. And there's the rub: the more fatigued you are, the more you screw up and the longer you have to stay up. But I guess I'm just too tired (read: stupid) at that point to think clearly enough to realise this, and instead I pigheadedly persist and let the game get the better of me.

The interesting thing (to me, anyway) is the frequent occurrence that nearly always serves as a coda. The next day, I'll come home from work, which has no doubt been hard because I'm not as fresh as I could be. I'll fire up the console, and grip the controller with the same steely resolve that I'd adopted 14 hours earlier as my butt got handed to me. The game has loaded. I grit my teeth. Here we go!

Oh, I've just finished that level on the first attempt. Rather easily, too. Not only that, but I've now got my snack on with this, and I'm eating up the missions at a rapid rate. It's almost as if getting some rest was actually good for me or something...

I can only assume this happens to other people, too?

Been playing a fair bit of Prototype recently, and I guess I've been enjoying it. It didn't suck me in immediately, and it was only during last night's session with it that I really felt invested in the world. In some ways, the graphics and gameplay (and the main character's surname) remind me of Mercenaries 2, only without the explosive sense of fun. On the whole, I'm really warming to this sullen little title.

Of course, there are a few things wrong with Prototype. The lock-on system can often have an infuriatingly different idea of what you're supposed to be aiming at, and sometimes the control you have when sprinting is a bit dodgy. The graphics, as with Mercenaries 2, can look a little rough at times. Don't get me wrong, I understand there's a lot going on in Prototype; the tumultuous sense of chaos in the streets as the game progresses is one of the elements I really like. All I'm saying is that it's not the prettiest game I've slipped into my 360.

All of these niggles don't detract from what I sense is a blossoming appreciation for the game. Much like my time with Bionic Commando, I feel that I'll get to the end of the experience and enjoy it enough that the game's problems won't matter. There is one thing, however, that baffles me.

I really liked Grin's new Bionic Commando game. Apparently the swinging mechanic has split people into two camps, and I fall into the 'this feels easy and great to use' side of things. The scenery could look fantastic at times, causing me to stop zipping about like some amphetamine-fuelled Cyber Tarzan so I could soak it up.

The challenges added a welcome - if sometimes distracting - amount of depth to the action. Meeting certain requirements, like defeating a specific amount of enemies with a particular weapon, usually garners an Achievement and unlocks more challenges to try your detachable hand at. I loves me some Achievements, and the obsessive completionist in me enjoyed unlocking them through these different tasks.

It's not a flawless piece of entertainment, obviously. The game's inhibiting conceit is that some radioactive 80s neon-blue special effect coats the city, limiting the amount of exploration the player can engage in. While poorly explained (by them, not me) and initially frustrating, it doesn't take long to get used to what the game's trying to get you to do. Once you've got your head around the fact that this isn't as open a world as your first leap from a ruined skyscraper would suggest, the whole experience hangs together better.

When (certainly not 'if') you die, the game forgets the collectibles you've picked up before the next checkpoint. Usually you'd expect enemies to respawn upon your demise, but tricky-to-reach bonuses should be a one-time deal. Oh, and those challenges which I said were a nice addition? They're also afflicted by the same post-death amnesia. If you die, you've got to rack up those stats again. I eventually excused this by comparing it to the old school ethos where slipping up meant being thrown back to a checkpoint, sans power-ups, so you could do it all again. Not a perfect gaming experience in this day and age, but at least this game has ties to that era.

As you can see, I was willing to overlook the problems this game had because the overall experience was so great. However, there is one design decision (read: kick in the nuts) that has left the lustre a little lacking. I'd finished the game and thought I'd check out the Level Skip feature that allows you to revisit the environments. After all, there were some collectibles I'd missed and my gaming OCD was making my brain itchy.

Problem is, you can't keep anything you get in this mode; it's merely a way for player to muck around in the levels. Challenges and collectibles have zero worth when playing in this way. The upshot of this is that to get the missing pieces of your collection, you have to play the whole game again. And you have to get everything along the way. Again. Oh, and the game also auto-saves, meaning you cannot return to a previous point to mop up the remainder of the Achievements.

Here's where I'd write some closing paragraph to neatly wrap up this post. Instead, I'm going to make a nice calming cup of tea and hopefully stop grinding my teeth long enough to drink it.

BONUS: Here's a dubstep Bionic Commando remix and, as an extra treat, it uses the old Commodore 64 version as the intro! Wheee.

I've been ill recently, which means I was stuck on the couch moaning like a bitch (only if my girlfriend was within earshot, obviously). I've also just got my 360 back from its second trip to see the doctor. So, what does one do when at home with no new games to play? Crazy idea: how about finishing those games that you played for 10 minutes before the next shiny thing came along to distract you?

I've amassed a fairly (un)healthy amount of game-related stuff in my time. For years I relentlessly bought assorted gaming crap, just to tickle that part of my brain that releases weird chemicals as a reward. Consoles, toys, keychains, cartridges, diskettes, discs, even candy have all been purchased by me in this pursuit. I would come home and pretty much every day there would be a package or two for me to eagerly rip into. Sometimes it was a console, other times a weird japanese gaming mascot that made funny noises. More often than not, though, it would be some Megadrive / Genesis game that I'd bought regardless of entertainment quality.

Sega stuff is great to collect; there are loads of different games and console iterations out there. The carts come in hard plastic cases, as opposed to Nintendo's infamously flimsy cardboard efforts. And as far as getting collectable items goes, some of the Sega stuff ranks as very rare when placed alongside the gaming world at large. There are a few titles that had relatively limited runs and, as a result, their price is pushed up.

In a semi-recent Listen UP podcast, an interesting question was raised: why do you play games? It was a question I was shocked to discover I had never really asked myself, despite proclaiming to be obsessed with the subject matter. Even more shocking was the fact that the question got asked at all, coming as it did from a bunch of drunk guys making (admittedly hilarious) dick jokes.

So why do I play games? My immediate reaction was to assume it was due to some primal and indefinable connection I had made with the medium, some unexplainable facet of my being that I could barely glimpse and certainly not touch. Moments later, after I had realised that this answer was a pompous cop-out bunch of wankery, I thought I’d better take a serious stab at answering this great question in the manner it deserved.

After a cup of tea and a bit more thinking, I had the answer. Why do I play games? It’s simple: rewards.

It sounds so shallow and base, I know. It’s my most beloved pastime distilled into a crass, single-word summary. I can't believe I'd never realised it before. Apparently I’m a performing dog, awkwardly hopping on my back legs, desperate to get some treat from my owner. But it’s the truth, and my reasoning is woven from many different strands – some of them substantial, others a little more slender (read: shallow and base).

The most immediate and obvious reward in any (good) game is receiving more new and interesting stuff to look at and listen to. Also, if it applies, you’ll advance the storyline. Many pieces of music are written based on the idea that you should add, modify or remove an element of the song every 4 or 8 bars, otherwise it can all start to sound monotonous. The same goes for games – give the player the same scenery and enemies for four levels in a row, and that’s going to impact on the enjoyment they get out of the experience.

The next kind of reward comes from the feeling of satisfaction you get from solving problems. Whether it comes from finally figuring out that you need to combine the dill pickle with the frayed twine, or from having just cut a bloody swathe through a few dozen creatures of the night, you're rewarded with feeling like you're a bright wee spark. And who doesn't like feeling smart, eh?

Of course, the most blatant and divisive reward comes in the form of Achievement points (spot the non-PS3 owner). I just can't help myself with those little buggers. Sometimes I can even find my enjoyment of a game being somewhat dampened because I know I'm in a spot where I can get an Achievement, and buggered if I'm going any further before I hear that little noise that alerts me to my awesomeness. My boss thinks I'm an idiot for chasing them like this, swearing that he never actively looks at the Achievement list for any game, just so he won't get into the same situation. Oh, and the fact that he's 14,000 points ahead of me doesn't get under my skin. Honest.

All that said, I don’t think my initial response to the question was entirely off the mark, despite reading like bad teenage poetry. Some corner of the grey blob in my head has made a connection with video games, and the inner workings of a human brain are something I’ll probably never come close to understanding. I mean, I know that synapses and neurons are involved, but man, that’s a mad complex bit of biology. So yes, the knee-jerk reason I play games is that my mind just clicks with them.

But maybe the real question is this: why do I continue to play games? It’s because they keep on giving, and I continue to love what they dish up.

Thinking back further, I'd say the real origin of my love for chip-based fun probably lies not too long before Planet Patrol’s flickery action ensnared me...

My father used to be a computer programmer way back in the days when screens were green and punch cards were processed by a team of trained stegosaurs (citation needed). After school I’d come to his work to kill time until he and my mother, who worked in the same building, had finished for the day. Their building, a bland little university hovel clad in shabby weatherboard, housed some great toys for me to marvel at.

Sometimes I’d be pecking at the keyboard of dad’s computer to make pictures formed from characters (an omen that I’d later go through an ASCII art phase in high school). Other times, I’d just go and stand in the room with all the bigger machines. Here I’d watch giant reels whirling within those austere metallic giants, while the noisy-as-hell air conditioning unit spewed chilly air onto us all.

Amidst all that I have a hazy recollection of my dad showing me a game called Pierre on one of the computers, where the object was to pop balloons. I also remember not being that great at it, and not understanding what its purpose was. Despite not grabbing me as much as Planet Patrol seemed to, this smudge of remembrance still lurks as malformed protozoa wriggling in the soup of my distant memory.

Wait, a dodgy balloon-popping game called Pierre is the genesis of my gaming evolution? I knew starting this blog was a bad idea.

I've been meaning to start a blog for years now, but for various reasons this will be my first blog post. Yes, I mean my first ever. I always figured there was no point to blogging, as I assumed that all I had to say would surely have been said by someone else. But I've recently come to realise that even though that may be true, it's missing the point of the exercise. I like writing, so blogging is no doubt an excellent way to become better at it, regardless of who reads what I've offered up.

I am 32 years old, and I can safely say that the last 25 of those years have seen a large portion of my brain devoted to thinking about video games. Over the years, I’ve amassed an annoyingly large collection of consoles – 9 of these are currently hooked up to my television. I’ve got way too many games, ranging from diskette titles that were cheap as chips to rare cartridges that cost me more than I’ve ever told my girlfriend. So deeply are video games a part of me, I’m pretty sure if you took a hacksaw to one of my bones you’d find fresh pixels where marrow should be.

I even know the game responsible for getting this whole mess started, namely Planet Patrol for the Atari 2600. Okay, so it’s not exactly a title that’s going to elicit nostalgic eye-watering from too many gamers, but back then it captured me in a way I’d never known. The console belonged to my babysitter Adam, who was impressed that I could just pick up the joystick and get the gist of it so quickly. Pac-Man was the only other Atari cartridge he owned and I quickly trounced him at that too, a victory made completely hollow courtesy of hindsight and refined tastes.

I’m sure it was the easiest night of Adam’s babysitting career - I barely moved from that patch of shagpile carpet directly in front of the television. That night I never wanted my parents’ fancy dinner to end. My young eyes had seen the future, and it had a fake wood finish.