... its folly. I'd like to preface this with a confession I nabbed this off my 1up blog. This was written in March of last year, but contains a story that is frankly shameful, so must be one of the first things I post, lol. Enjoy!  
 
I suddenly realised that lately I haven't had that wonderful genuine tingly excitement of knowing a new game is coming to you in the near future. Because I live in England, Persona 4 isn't being shipped until the thirteenth of March. I've been hearing about how awesome it is and how much fun everyone's been having playing it, and I've been stewing in my Persona 4-less town, narrowing my eyes at America with jealousy.

But I comforted myself by playing (super late, I know) Persona 3: FES, which I enjoyed obsessively. Now I know generally what I'm in for with Persona 4, I feel that swirling in my stomach - that knowledge that (hopefully) by Saturday, though I might have to wait until Monday, Persona 4 will be in my hands.

And I haven't felt that in ages. I didn't get worked up about Mirror's Edge, despite pre-ordering it; because I only did it for the t-shirt, which was a small, but for a man and I had to use my mad sewing skills (go Design and Technology: Textiles class!) to make it me-sized. Dead Space was a present, so I got more of a 'free game' warmth. Fable 2 was more an 'I have nothing to play' shrug.

Perhaps it's tragic to get such a delightful feeling from the mere knowledge of a game that will soon come into your possession. What about abject frustration?

This story is a shameful tale of one of the few times rage has gripped me like a vice. The last time I was desperate to get my hands on a game was Devil May Cry 4. Now, now - I know it isn't the best game to get so worked up about, but I'm somewhat invested in its completely insane story. I was hoping for some explanation into who the heck Nero was (sadly disappointed by the airy-fairy dilly-dallying over his ties to the Sparda heritage).

So I had pre-ordered it and spent a hefty amount to get day of delivery for its release, which cost, like, seven pounds. I travelled back to my house in Bath, where I was studying for my degree at the time, strictly to receive my game, sit down and play it incessantly, as my house was empty of roommates. I travelled for four hours across the country, through London, to get back, only to find my package was nowhere to be found.

The pathetic rage that took hold would have been comical to watch, I'm sure, as I stomped about my empty house, growling and screaming to myself. Why did I make this journey?! Why did Royal Mail betray me?!

I ranted to my parents on the phone, but they couldn't comprehend such an intense reaction to something quite trivial.

I had to wait and see if the postman came. Like a predator hunting prey, I stared out of my window, down the hill, waiting.

But... I was pretty impatient. Where the hell was he?!

I decided to march down to the main post office in the city centre to ask whether they had received a package. Perhaps they couldn't fit an Xbox360 game in the letterbox, though complete delirious nonsense in the real world, a very real concern in my rage warped brain.

So I put on my coat and began to march down the road. I passed a group of students, who looked like they were heading to some kind of house viewing. I don't know what kind of expression I had - probably one of steely determination - but they seemed a little weirded out by me.

I made it halfway down the hill my house was on when I spotted him. At the bottom of the hill - the postman!

I stopped in the middle of the street, turned on my heel, and stomped back up the street, passing those students, who must have thought I was utterly insane.

The postman was slow, so slow. I paced, I watched, and I waited. Slowly, so, so, slowly, he made his way up the street.

Then he was at next doors. Finally! I stared out of the downstairs window, shielded by very thin blinds.

And then he walked past my door.

Outrage!

I was about to march out the front door, and ask the postman if he had my package, when he stopped, turned, and went to my door.

Like a nut-job, I stood by my front door and watched him push my package through the door, holding my hands out for it. It got a little stuck and I carefully pulled it through, so it seemed like it fell, rather than me extracting it from his grasp.

I know - completely insane. But that's what travel and high expectations of your postal service that are consequently destroyed will do to you.

I opened it, admired it, and immediately put it down and took a nap, lying on the sofa with a tennis match quietly playing on the television in my cramped living room.

And what is the moral of this story?

Well, don't trust your postal service over going to your own gaming store and buying it there - far less stressful if you're as impatient as I am. Also, don't turn into a strange, hungering creature when you don't immediately get what you paid for through the mail.

Thankfully, I have never behaved like that before or since - I'm not someone filled with rage. The wrong series of events occurred and created such a monster. Luckily, I tire out easily - as the nap proved.

But I can honestly say in recent times, I have not felt such passion for getting my hands on a game. The time before that would probably be Final Fantasy XII - which I pre-ordered at my Game, valiantly fought against my university commitments, defeated them, and legged it to my Game. Holding that box, poster, tiny taster walkthrough guide and weird rectangle CD with nothing that particularly interested me was a beautiful moment.

I think it is expectation that makes for such a strange desperation. I had been waiting for Final Fantasy XII for years, stalking it, forgetting about it, remembering it again and so on. DMC4 was a similar deal - those early concepts of Dante looking skinny and girly in the snow, then silence, and then Nero popping onto the scene. It creates an obsession with getting your hands on the final product.

Being a Final Fantasy fan (as good and bad as I recognise this to be), means I'm once again caught in this long, obsessive wait. Like FFXII, I find myself stalking it, then being caught up in other things, hearing some new news and rekindling the desire for it to be within my hands. On top of that, I still debate over the value of buying a PS3. Originally, this game was going to be the one that would push me into buying a PS3. MGS4 wasn't quite enough to push me, despite playing MGS-MGS3 (and even some Metal Gear). I wanted to know, but I couldn't reasonably convince myself on spending hundreds of pounds on the console.

So when I heard the news of FFXIII going to 360 as well, I was a little floored. I used to be a stupid console purist - I was Sony all the way years ago, cooing over my PS2 and shunning those strange, big black Xboxes. But when the PS3 came out, I had to draw a line. There's only so much loyalty one can have for a large, faceless corporation. And so I grew up a bit, and bought a 360 (used, £199 20Gb no headset, which I didn't notice for a year because I don't play online).

Anyway. What I'm trying to get at is the gaming obsession (or being a fanboy/fangirl) can make you do unreasonable things. I was all prepared to buy that PS3 when FFXIII came out. It wasn't a happy kind of thing - just a 'I have to do this to get my FFXIII'.

Being a 'purist' is a strange idea. I guess it's a kind of conservatism. You get a console, and you become comfortable playing it, and you begin to think you couldn't possibly play anything else. That's how I used to think. Even when I was going to get DMC4, there was a thought in the back of my head that it wouldn't feel the same playing it with a 360 controller when I'd played the rest of the series with a Playstation controller. But at the end of the day that's swept away when you're in the heat of slashing demons up and making crazy combos to get that bloody AAA rank. You're not thinking about what controller you're holding when you're going through a game, unless it's done really badly. The only time I lamented over the controller was when my index finger had a visible indentation because I'd been holding and pressing the RB so much through my DMC4 marathon. And it remained painful for at least a week afterwards (remember kids, everything in moderation!).

So now I don't really have a problem playing FFXIII on my 360, or that somehow holding a different controller will somehow dilute my experience. It won't. My only concern currently is how the game will perform graphically on each console, because I'm a massive graphics whore. It's not going to make me run out and buy a PS3 if it looks a bit better on it. It's generally been proven that the two consoles don't have a great difference in visual quality; none severe enough to provoke me into turning into a console fangirl and screeching about how this console is clearly better than the other and blah, blah, blah.

To conclude: Why did I write this out? Partly to air those terrible feelings, but mostly because I'm interested as to whether other people have had similar experiences. Not that I believe many people will read this, but whatever.

I've never understood the hostility and flame wars over consoles people have, charging in with their opinion and insisting that everyone must believe said opinion and anyone that doesn't clearly must have something wrong with them. Everyone's entitled to their opinion; not everyone wants to hear it. I don't write because I think someone out there desperately wants to hear my rambling narrative on how terrible Eternal Sonata is. Sometimes, a girl just gotta vent the swirling thoughts in her brain.

Peace out.