... THANK YOU STEAM!

For most of last year games were no longer exciting me like they once did and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why?

Were they no longer the life long hobby that they once were? No. I still listened to podcasts, still hit up my daily gaming sites for news and reviews still read my gaming mags and they still had that same allure they always had for me.

So WTF was going on? Why did the actual act of playing a game not feel the same as it once did?

I got my answer when I played Skyrim on PC/STEAM.

See up until I played the newest Elder Scrolls game on STEAM I had jumped on the bandwagon of being an Achievement Whore/Trophy Slut/ etc. I would play games like Halo 3 or Uncharted 2 like normal except I found myself always checking the achievement list rather than just playing. Example: lets say there's a certain part in Alan Wake where there's a certain achievement you can only get in this section of the game. If I didn't get that achievement I would then proceed to get myself killed, reload the game and try to get it again. I was literally waiting to hear that famous 360 'pop' or PS3 'chime' before I would continue playing said game. And it was ruining my gaming experience without me even knowing it.

So how did playing Skyrim on PC help? Simple, when you unlock a Steam achievement you hear nothing indicating anything happened out of the ordinary and the achievement pop up is about the size of a postage stamp and is down in the lower right hand side of the screen. I had played almost 60 hrs (of my so 124 hrs) of Skyrim without even noticing the lack of 'reward' that I was getting on Xbox360 and PS3. No pop, no chime, no endlessly reloading Skyrim to help feed my need for Trophies...no nothing. And you know what? I was having a ball playing the game. Gaming had finally returned to the place in my heart where it once was before I became an Achievement Whore. And I couldn't be happier!

Yes I still look at the achievements and trophies I've unlocked but I no longer read any of the descriptions of any of the locked ones cause I no longer care nor do I feel the need to chase them.

Thank you STEAM!