Increasingly over the past couple of years, I have felt my love/desire to play games fall to the wayside. I have been playing Video Games since I was 3 years old. My parents bought me a NES which I had in my bedroom in 1989 and since that point, I have been a constant gamer. I worked for GameStop for the better part of 6 years (hated it by the way), and have owned almost every console released in last 20 years. I have played a large amount of games across these generations and have a lot of fond memories of late night multiplayer sessions, achieving victory in the face of absolute defeat and building relationships that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I love video games and everything that they have brought me over the last 28 years I have been playing them.

Now I am 30 years old (almost 31) with a 1 year old daughter, a wife, a house and a steady job. I don't have the time to play games nearly as often as I used to and the only time I do have to play them is when my wife and child go to bed but at that point, I am so exhausted that I don't have the energy or desire to pick up the controller. I think that last part; "desire", in particular is the main reason. There has not been a game released in the last couple of years that I can recall that I have had the vigor to continue playing non-stop and that bums me out. I recall in my past, certain games that I had almost an unhealthy obsession with, where I would play them for long periods of time, blow off social engagements just to keep playing, think about them at school or at work, constantly be researching tips on how to beat certain areas/bosses or get hidden items, etc.

Now a days, when I do play a game, I play it for an hour or two and then put them down because I am just not invested at all in what I am doing. I have tried multiple titles over the past couple of years and nothing has really drawn me in or stuck with me in a way that the games of my past did. I can't even begin to tell you what the main story beats are of 2 games that I am currently playing (Watch_Dogs 2 and Just Cause 3). The only game that remotely comes close for me in having those feelings of late night sessions and memories is Destiny. That is only because I play it with my friends that I grew up with, so we already have a report built.

I want to keep this part of me alive as it had a large, defining impact on who I am as a person today, but at the same time, this lack of fun that I am having while playing games is alarming to me. I think its a combination of where I am in life right now, where my priorities lie, and the quality of games that are being released but I am longing for that feeling of joy and excitement that I felt in the past when playing games.

I write this not only as an awareness piece to myself but also as a call for help from the community. Have any of you had similar feelings? Was there something that helped you rekindle your love of gaming? Did you just let it go? Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

10. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I have not completed this game, but I can say that for more than half of the games on my list. That being said, I can see the scope and the breath of this game and I am extremely excited to fall back into it and complete Geralts journey. Also, the Bloody Baron quest line is one of my favorite quest lines of the year.

9. Until Dawn

I got introduced to this game by watching Vinny, Alex and Austin’s play through. I only needed to watch the first episode to know that I needed and wanted to play this game. I played with my wife who is not into video games in the slightest and even she was invested in the game and wanted to see what happened next. I don’t like horror, but I found a lot of joy and excitement in this game.

8. Life is Strange

Just like with Until Dawn, I was introduced to this game from the GBEast crew. I haven’t even started playing this game yet but from what I’ve seen from the Beast crew’s play through, I know I will love it and I am excited for another game that I know my wife will enjoy being a part of and helping me make decisions.

7. Rocket League

I probably wouldn’t have played Rocket League had it not been free as part of PlayStation Plus. I am not huge on primarily competitive multiplayer games because I don’t have the time to spend on them to get good but with Rocket League, I felt that the matchmaking and skill level required to have fun and score a couple goals here and there was fairly low and didn’t require a lot of time to get decent enough at to be competitive. It’s an easy game to pick up and play and it’s just plain fun.

6. Kerbal Space Program

I have owned and been messing with Kerbal since its launch back in 2011. I have really enjoyed all the updates and patches that they have done to this game to make it more user friendly and more fully featured. Now with it officially out, I can say that successfully landing a Kerbal on the Mun was one of the most exhilarating gaming experiences of 2015 for me. It made me feel more accomplished than a game has made me feel in a long time because I knew the amount of work and trial and error I put in to achieve this feat. I imagine that this is what NASA scientists must have felt like when they landed on the Moon or Mars albeit to a lesser extent.

5. Forza Motorsport 6

I love racing games. I have been a racing game fan since before I can remember. I have owned and played every entry in the Forza franchise. I was pretty disappointed with Forza 5 but gave it somewhat of a pass as it was the first Forza game on the Xbox One. Now with some time, knowledge and experience behind them, Turn 10 has churned out a great entry in the Forza franchise and the best racing game on this generation of consoles so far. The rain and night effects are great and change the mechanics of the game that make the series feel fresh and revitalized. Brings me back to my PGR4 days, which was one of my favorite racing games of all time.

4. Super Mario Maker

I don’t own a Wii-U. I have never played this game. I will probably buy a Wii-U for this one game. That says it all.

3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

I love the Metal Gear franchise. I have played all 5 of the core Metal Gear Solid games and enjoyed all of them for different reasons. Metal Gear Solid V is a great game that was by far the best playing Metal Gear game and one of the best playing action games in recent memory. While the story was by far the weakest and most disappointing in the MGS series, the gameplay and music alone made this one of my favorite entries in this series.

2. Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is more Fallout and that’s not a bad thing. I loved Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 is more of that which is great. I am disappointed that they couldn’t make the graphics better and that I experienced some pretty crazy frame rate issues and glitches where I couldn’t turn in quests or open doors but I can’t deny the amount of fun I had with this game regardless of these issues. Fallout 4 had one of my favorite quest lines of this year with the robot pirates who washed up on top of a building and were attempting to get to the water only to become stuck on a taller skyscraper 20 feet away. I think this is the last time Bethesda can get away with making a game on this engine and hope that future games from this studio look and run better.

1. Destiny: The Taken King

I have been a fan of Destiny since its launch. I bought all the expansions up to this point and while they weren’t fantastic, I still stuck with the game because I knew what it could be and I had a lot of fun playing it with my friends. Now with The Taken King, I feel that what I knew Destiny could be has come to fruition. Completing the missions and landing that final blow on The Taken King at the end of the raid with my friends was the best gaming moment I had in 2015. The fixed almost all of the issues that plagued the original game in regards and opened up a whole new batch of issues, and since launch, the micro transactions and live events have been poor and put a negative view on the game but I cannot think of a game that I played more and had the highest highs this year than Destiny. I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Hello fellow GiantBombers and anybody else that happens to stumble onto this blog for whatever reason, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Adam and I am a fairly avid gamer and lover of GiantBomb and the community that surrounds it. I have been a member of GiantBomb ever since it's inception and was following the exploits and shenanigans of Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis during their short stent known as the Arrow Pointing Down podcast/blog site and before then I was following them as well as the rest of the GB crew at Gamespot. Needless to say, I have been a fan of their work for quite some time. Now this isn't my first blog on this site but it is the start of my more involved interest and contributions to the GiantBomb name. So this being the first of many blogs, I decided I would make it easy and simply introduce myself (or re-introduce myself as the case may be) to the GiantBomb community in hopes of gaining some constructive criticism and perhaps even building some relationships amongst my fellow bombers. 
 
So where to begin? Well I guess the first thing to do would be to explain a little more about myself and where I've grown up.  As I said before, my name is Adam. I am 24 years old (soon to be 25) and have been born and raised in Colorado, USA. I currently live in Aurora, Colorado and work in Downtown Denver as a Security Officer. I graduated from Colorado State University in the summer of 2009 with my Bachelors in Sociology with an emphasis in Criminal Justice. My dream job is actually a career that doesn't really use my degree in that I want to become a firefighter but I decided that was what I wanted to do during my Senior year of College so I wasn't about to change majors and go through another 3 years of school and pay the school god knows however much more money so I finished with the degree that I had started with. I was originally intending on becoming a member of the Police in some fashion. Whether it be Police, K-9, Swat, FBI, CIA, DIA, Air Marshall, what have you and part of me still wants to do that. I have been applying for the past few years for all the careers listed above and a many more that I am honestly too lazy to list. I have been through the testing process and been placed on the prospective employment list (PEL) multiple times however, I was not chosen for whatever reason. I will continue to pursue all of these career fields until I make it in because it is very important to me to feel good about the work that I do and I've always wanted a career where I could help others.  I have an AMAZING girlfriend named Emily and I am along with being a video game player, an avid snowboarder (going on 4 years now), hockey player (been playing for 18 years), and someone who enjoys just being retarded from time to time (all my life). I am very easy going, light hearted person and definitely don't take myself too seriously unless the situation calls for it. I listen to any kind of music (literally any) from Death Metal to Classical Jazz and everything in between.
 
Being that this is a Video Game website, I should probably talk about that a little bit here. I have been playing games since I was around 3 years old. My first system was a NES back in 1989 and I loved it. As I grew older I started getting into more sophisticated systems and games like the SNES, the Playstation and so on. I have had more systems and owned and played more games than I could possibly remember let alone list. Lets just say, ever since I jumped on my first goomba and shot my first duck, I have been hooked and if things keep going the way they are, it doesn't seem like I show any signs of slowing down in my enthusiasm and love of all things games.  I currently own a Xbox360, PS3, Wii, DS and PC.  I try to play every genre of game that is available or at least try them out. The genres I tend to gravitate to the most and don't ever seem to get tired of are Racing games and FPS games. I'm not big on Sim games like, well...the Sims, or Farmville or anything like that but I'm always willing to give it a try. I don't think that I could ever name my favorite game or even my top 5 or top 10 games because there are so many and they are all fantastic in their own way.
 
This is just the start of my series of blogs and I hope that my fellow members will support me in my ventures as this is something that is honestly quite new to me still and hopefully we can play some games together as well. Until next time. 
 
Cheers, 
Adam      
 
p.s. fell free to follow me at any of these social networks... 
twitter:   http://twitter.com/#!/HolyCrapItsAdam
justin.tv:  http://www.justin.tv/holycrapitsadam 
 
p.p.s. here are my XBL and PSN accounts if anybody want to play some games... 
XBL Gamertag: HolyCrapItsAdam 
PSN: WorstPlayerEvr

Episode 12 features one of the most frustrating mission in the game (at least for me) 
   

  Episode 11 has more Keith David goodness and a very confusing ending...at least until the next episode

Episode 10 features quite possibly the greatest fist pumping moment of the entire game! 
  

Episode 9 deals with hostage rescues and wicked awesome underwater knife kills. 
   

Episode 8 features a very fun but frustrating mission on American soil. Enjoy. 
 
  

Epsiode 7 Of the Frustration Run. The mission is The Hornets Nest. The only real trouble I had with this level was the end sequence where my controller was not recognizing my button presses. Enjoy.