I’ve been forcing myself to finish some video games recently. I guess everyone has those games that they got excited about and went out and queued and bought and read the manual on the bus and got home and then played it for like 90 hours straight until every single little thing that it was possible to do in the game was done and then you sit back and smile and go ‘that was hands-down the best 90 hours of my entire life‘ but there are also…others. These are the games that I waited in anticipation for and really really loved playing but through some distraction or another eventually fell by the wayside, freeing up valuable hours for more loitering, capers, tomfoolery and cereal.
I had a look through my game collection and found an alarming amount of these and decided to do something about it. So in the past few weeks I’ve finally finished L.A Noire, Tomb Raider, Skyrim, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse and Puzzle Agent (1 & 2) – and it was definitely a good call. I was at endgame for all of these (or at most a few hours from it) and within minutes of loading each of my save files I couldn’t believe I had put the game down in the first place. I think once ‘the end’ seems near I just panic because I don’t want the game to end, and I know future-me will relish in rediscovering it so I give myself some kind of meta-time-future-gift by convincing myself I have other things to do and consequently leaving the game for anything from a few weeks to years and years.
I’ve now finished all those games and they were ace. L.A Noire was beautifully concluded, Tomb Raider showed she could totally raid tombs, the Puzzle Agent series was a lovely human simple delight, Sam & Max was everything I wanted it to be and more, and finally I actually experienced the main quest on Skyrim (having put about 200 hours into it solely doing side quests and exploring). I feel bloody great.
I don’t really know why I’m writing this, but I just found it really interesting that every time I tried to pick them back up over the past year something in my head said ‘Nah that game wasn’t all that – you don’t wanna play that right now, you’ll finish it one day’ and it took me physically MAKING myself play them to unlock that little part of my brain that adored them. Real weird. Everyone get those games by the way (you probably already have them).
With those off my plate it has freed me up to play Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag on Laurie’s PS4 and it’s amazing. I love it. However that could partially be me just getting excited about next-gen. Are we still calling it next-gen? Is it now current-gen? Please advise.
After that Laurie has bought me Red Dead Redemption and is insisting I play it start to finish as soon as possible. I’m fucking excited because it’s one of those games that just passed me by despite somehow ALL MY FRIENDS playing it and talking about it constantly for like two years. I want to be ready. Might have to finish Bioshock Infinite or XCOM: Enemy Unknown before I allow myself to become further involved in yet another (probably) astounding game.
Wow that was all a bit specific and serious. I feel like I need to do something to offset it.
THE FANTABULOUS TALE OF GREGORY FUCK-PIPE
Gregory Fuck-Pipe was on his way home from the shops where he had been buying meat and KEVLAR. ‘What a lovely day!’ crumped Gregory, shitting himself once again. It was at that very moment Gregory ran into Flint Steel, the renegade vigilante. ‘Flint! Over here!’ excrumped Gregory, waving enthusiastically at Flint. But Flint paid him no mind. ‘Flint! Hey! FLINT! FLINT STEEL! FLINT! HEY!‘ Gregory crumptinued, to no avail. Flint just didn’t seem to notice. In fact…Flint didn’t seem to notice anything at all. Flint seemed almost shimmery, as if he was fading. Everything was fading. The canvas of Gregory Fuck-Pipe’s world melted away, drifting into deluge as he came to the stark realisation that there was no Flint. There never had been. Little did Gregory Fuck-Pipe know that he went through this every day. Flint was just a construct created in his own head, a catalytic cipher that Gregory Fuck-Pipe used to cope with the loss of his most treasured possession – his fuck-pipe. And mortgage.
Crumping isn’t even a thing.
Sleep well.
Big love xx