A Continued disillusionment with games...

I was really, really excited about Batman: Arkham City. I loved the Arkham Asylum game and used to consider it not only the best Batman game of all time but possibly the best super hero game too.

Since having my soul destroyed by playing Duke Nukem Forever, I've found it increasingly difficult to garner any enthusiasm for games. Admittedly part of this might be that I just don't have the personal time required to get into games in the way that I used to - spending 36 hours over a weekend, surviving on crisps, chocolate bars, pop and beer is not an option now I have a wife, and a family - yet I do long for days like that again, there's something magical about getting completely absorbed in a game so that your eyes are bleeding, your brain is melting and you feel like you are really, really there...

The things I liked about Batman was the polished feel of the game, the creativity you could express in defeating the enemies - there was always so many ways you could choose to tackle a situation. I liked the huge cast of super villains, the dark setting of Arkham Asylum and the wierd dream sequences...

I suppose part of me would love to get into Arkham City, but maybe part of me wants to hate it because I know I won't have the time to invest to get the most out of it.





Another game I was really excited about - and might have even pre-ordered was Gears of War 3. Gears of War 1 & 2 were really my introduction to the XBOX 360, and my introduction to the concept of 'cover shooters' I loved the stories, the settings, the combat - although it took me a while to get my head around 'how to succeed' I still think Gears is a hard game, at least on above normal difficulty setting.

Yet here we are, it's on the shelf and I don't bother picking it up - why? Because I won't get time to play it, it'll just mean more and more frustration as I want to put more hours into it which I simply don't have. I'll probably pick it up used around christmas time and hop I can snatch a few hours here and there... Instead I'm putting all my gaming time into S-ranking Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, sad porbably but I can't motivate myself into playing anything else - apart from a bit of Rome: Total War when the mood takes me...

Sometimes I envy the guys over at the video games tv channel afterall - I have to divide my time work / jobs at home / Open University / Family / Wife / Kids / Games. A huge portion of that time - 8 hours a day is dedicated to work! If I could incorporate some games playing into that time, it would be easier to fit everything in - but it's hard to get paid to play games. Not many jobs pay you to effectively have fun.

I suppose the unfortunate reality is that sometimes you probably have to play games you don't want to play and you then have to spend time writing script about games you didn't like - that sound remotely positive, because otherwise the publishers won't send you more games and the games are your content. That could be soul destroying at times too.

I mean if there was a programme based on my gaming habits over the last month it would be pretty damn boring - just me carrying on about Left 4 Dead 2 and not much else... No - in some respects I think Gaming is a nice thing to keep as a hobby, it's just a pity I can't spend more time on it.

The Migration of a Video Games Blog - getting my gaming back.

First of all, why start this blog? Particularly as I've been writing a video games blgo on GiantBomb for what seems like an eternity? Well to lay it straight, on GiantBomb, soooooooo many times I make a blog post - puclish it to the forum - and get lots of folks whining about how it's more than two paragraphs and they can't be bothered to read it. So - I will write my thoughts on a topic here, then summarize on my GiantBomb Blog

That should keep the fickled 'GiantBomb Users' happy and allow me to ramble on in my usual way without people getting irrate at me.

Lately I've been complaining of losing my love of gaming a little. I've had a bit of a break from the hobby, been trying other things. I have discovered Lego Design by Me and constructed several large virtual Lego sets, one of which I even ordered and built... I'm writing about that experience on me Lego Design by Me Blog I've been getting more into the Star Wars Roleplaying Board a bit more and had some great fun doing collaborative writing.

There's always been something missing though. I like a game, I've always liked a game since I was six.

Sometimes it's surprising where you can find your enjoyment, but I had the most fun in recent memory gaming on Friday night. Wife had gone to bed tired, I cracked open a couple of beers and had a dig through my collection for something 'nostalgic' to play.

After some deliberation I blew the dust off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and threw it in the drive. I didn't really feel like a long game, so I decided to play a bit of scavenge. Scavenge is a versus mode whereby the two teams take it in turns to collect gas cans as the survivors - while the other team tries to stop them as the infected.

It's a manic game mode, but the game is so slick, despite being a bit long in the tooth it really embarresses Duke Nukem Forever, I think it embarresses many games for the sheer fun factor. I 100% had 100% of gaming joy back and genuinely could've stayed up all night if not for the fact that my wife would stop speaking to me.

On Saturday night I had another crack at Expert Realism, and got in a great team. We got through most of Dark Carnival, but I was running out of time. It was great fun again, but more time consuming, we had three restarts in the tunnel of love after each time the last man getting incapped at the point where you switch the roller coaster off.

It got me thinking anyway - why do we all plug away trying to buy the latest game and play it? Some of us don't I suppose, but part of being ' a gamer ' is about being up to date with current games and the direction the platform and technology is moving. You can watch 'The Blurb' on a Saturday night, Challenge TV if you like, a short programme made be Ginx, a Uk gaming based tv channel (To my friends at Ginx - I'm still with you in spirit, even if my participation is down at the moment - maybe this explains why?) but that only leaves you with the desire to 'try' more games? Buy the latest games?

It struck me, playing Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer, that in some respects games are a bit like armchair sports. Most of us though, are essentially changing sport every six months or less! If you decided to play sports like people play games, you'd never really get anywhere with anything, 3 months you're playing football like a nutter, then rugby, six months later La Cross, then Tennis, Badminton, Squash, Cricket...

You'd get very good at playing general sports in general but you'd be a master of none - although very fit!

We don't do this as gamers though? Is it because Video Games don't have the depth? Is it because they are seen as a hobby which should involve constantly changing games?

As something of a psychological experiment I'm going to test this out. At the moment I expect to get around 3 gaming sessions per week in. I will always dedicate one of these sessions to Left 4 Dead versus Multiplayer. And report back on the experience. Friday night I think will be the night, and come what may - I will play Left 4 Dead 2 versus Multiplayer in some form or other EVERY Friday night, as if it was my regular chosen 'sport'. I used to Tae Kwon Do, even have a website about Taekwondo tul and I went once a week at least for years. I won't get fit playing Left 4 Dead 2, but will I be content to treat it like the regular sport and dedicate Friday nights session to it?

Time will tell, progress and thoughts will be posted here.