The Gaming Tortoise: Fallout 3, Bully, and more procrastination
By JackiJinx 11 Comments
Gaming Tortoise: n. One who takes a fucking long time to finish a game that came out years ago.
I'm trying to remember a time when I didn't have a backlog of games at my disposal. Maybe when I was ten or so, but even then I'd still have arcade games to fall back on when I didn't quite feel like moving that one step further towards getting the next star in SMRPG, got frustrated trying to get yet another jiggy piece, or maybe just needed a breather between hoing my land and milking my cows. No matter the reason, I somehow got sidetracked into doing something else while the games eagerly awaited my return.
Nothing has changed except my ability to (finally) accept my gaming pace. Unfortunately, with how much I do love games, I have come to accumulate a fairly large collection of games that have either barely or never been touched because of other obligations or guilt at not finishing another game I started months earlier, which leads to even more procrastination.
No. Fucking. More.
Baby, if I went and bought the game, I damn well am going to finish what I started.
Most Recent Finish
My most recent game purchase seems to also be my most recent finish: Fallout 3. Oh yes, I know. I'm such a big person now for accomplishing what others finished many eons ago in the year of 2008 and so forth. I shall forever be praised for being the pioneer of the Capitol Wasteland.
Fuck that. It feels good! This shit is finished!
Well, not quite finished. Part of my gaming coping issues stem from my desire to get all of the achievements in a game (if you saw the hours I pumped into the first Mass Effect, you'd see the issue immediately), or all the collectibles (led me to many hours on Final Fantasy games and Secret of Mana finding the last orbs at the final fortress). While there doesn't seem to be an inherent point to do this other than to say, "Mother fuckers, I have achieved what the world only wishes it had; points!", there are certain games where it just feels wrong to leave at one playthrough and Fallout 3 is certainly one of these games.
Seeing as I played the game as a complete goody goody, sacrificing my strong desire to see what hellish fury may be unleashed by picking one choice and not another, there was no way that I wasn't going to start another game. I spent half of my Sunday killing pretty much all of Vault 101 and running over to Tenpenny Tower as soon as I set that there bomb up. And I stood there, watching the moment where Megaton disappeared into the mushroom of the sky, looking on in an awe that I had been waiting for since I heard about it existing.
I recalled something that my brother brought up when I visited my family the day before:
"The thing about blowing up Megaton, I just did not get it. When you ask Tenpenny about it, he just says it's in the way of the sun or something. There's no reason to blow it up."
I waited around a bit, wandered a little bit more, still looking at the thick dust covering the once lively town. It was then that I decided that I had seen enough for now and needed a break.
Current Progress
I'm not really sure it's the right break, but I'm currently back onto Bully. I find it really hard to believe that I was able to play this game with the controls it has and not remember that the controls were as difficult as they are, but apparently it happens.
I must've bought this game a year and a half ago, leaving me pretty much at the half-way point. Considering how little I'm caring about the story at this point, I will not be going for all of the achievements. It may be painful to look back later on, but it's just not something I'm willing to put myself through. Like hell that I'm going out of my way to collect every last card or rubberband, or doing those mowing the lawn side activities. I hate to break it to Rockstar, but that's not what I consider to be a good use of my time.
I also find it very weird to pause now to complete silence as opposed to when I'd just go to the Pipboy with the radio or whatever environmental sound plays in Fallout. While I'm aware there the pause menu for Fallout also goes to silence, Bully doesn't have an option for this game integration tool. It juts the game out of the element so I can look at objectives, inventory, and most anything else game related, and that's not something I'm happy having now. Still, I shouldn't expect any game to emulate a pause-like menu just for the sake of trying to emulate a fun game. Still still, please avoid breaking the fourth wall.
That is pretty much going to do it for this blog. And because I don't like feeling people left out, here's a video of a tortoise chasing a tomato for those expecting more tortoise in this blog. Enjoy!
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