When I was young I couldn't remember a time when I didn't play a game through to completion. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood were sitting around the SNES playing Lion King with my Dad and younger brother trying to beat that damn stampede level, or giggling watching my mom stumble (albeit with grace) through a Super Mario Bros level. Remember please at the time of this writing I am 25, so this was early 90s and I was a youngin'.
As I got older I would go on to beat the snot out of any game that came my way, just so I could. From Final Fantasy VII to Mass Effect, shit even Glover (yup) completion was a compulsion. Even games I hated I would play through only because, why not?.
Then I grew up. Now that is not said in a mean or condescending way...I'll never grow up at heart, like Peter Pan in "Hook" (buried somewhere deep down there). I mean I literally got older. I got a job that takes up serious amounts of my time, a girlfriend who sucks what little else is left over from work (love you babe) and a plethora of friends whose company I can't get enough of. Video games became less of a daily activity to a thing I had to jones for and get my fix whenever I could. As a result, most games I don't finish, simply because I run out of time before the next big game I want to play shows up.
Seriously folks, if I had a line graph going here you'd see the line go from black to serious red over the last two years. If you don't count episodic content like The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us, I believe I completely finished a total of three games in 2014
For those of you wondering: Shovel Knight, Child of Light, and Gone Home.
Isn't that sad as fuck? How did I go from the guy who beat Mass Effect well over 10 times to the guy who struggles to find an hour to play Dragon Age Inquisition? Video games used to be the most important thing in my life, how did it come to this??
As sad as that is, it allowed me to learn a thing or two. I've learned to enjoy the time I do have with a game and appreciate some of Finer details about a game. No longer am I trying to barrel through everything in one sitting. Now every hour I milk out of my day to play allows me to see how good or bad a games truly is (ok I beat Gone Home in one sitting, but you have to). I realized I kept coming back to different games for different reasons, like the art in Child of Light or how easy it was to jump into the Binding of Isaac Rebirth.
So while my time with video games has plummeted to a whole new low, my love and admiration has sky-rocketed. I've never seen video games as being as much of an escape from real life as they are now. They are MY time. Which is probably why I've almost completely disregarded most multiplayer games (I'd like the pieces of my broken heart back Destiny).
I'm curious to know if any one else has experienced this, has a whole different approach to game time management, or if you think I'm a complete dumbass for letting life get in the way. But the bottom line is: video games have never made me happier.
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