After a holiday absence, Deranged Gamer is back in action! While taking some time off from writing, one fact has recently become apparent: how scarily easy it is to get wrapped up in day-to-day life without including our favorite hobby.
When I say that, what I mean is that the responsibilities of day-to-day "real world" life can often leave a gamer with very little downtime to enjoy gaming. Personally, I've grown up playing games almost daily, and now that I've graduated from college, I'm working full time, I have a respectable social life and I've got a home to take care of, gaming has often taken a backseat.
Don't get me wrong, having all those parts of my life is a wonderful thing, and I'm by no means unhappy, but I'm used to finishing relatively long games inside of a couple of days. Now, I only play small sections at a time, and I can't keep up with the release schedule for all the high-caliber games that have come out in the past few months, which is to say nothing about affording them in the first place. For example, it took me more than two months to finish Mass Effect 2 (check back soon for a late in the game review on that one).
On that note, when the holiday game season hits, it seems unreasonable to expect gamers to play and fully enjoy all the great titles of the season. Unless gamers are speed-running through them or spending a significant portion of their day playing the games (not easy for all of us), someone's going to miss out, or at least fall behind.
That wouldn't be so bad if not for big name games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3's dependence on multiplayer. With such a laundry list of games to play through, it's hard to fully experience everything in a game without being compelled to just move on to the next one.
Why care about leveling up in Battlefield when you've still got to get through Uncharted 3? Why worry about getting the extras in Arkham City when you haven't gotten around to Skyrim?
This year was absolutely full of amazing games on nearly every platform, so what's a fully-fledged adult gamer to do? It's not easy to hear, but: have patience. Yes, amazing games are out. Write down their names. Relax. You can get them when you've finished the ones you already have, and they'll probably be a bit cheaper by then, too. That sentiment might call up childhood flashbacks of your mother telling you not to eat the new box of cereal before finishing the old one, but guess what? Your mom was right.
You might not get to enjoy the game you've so anxiously awaited right away, but will it really be less enjoyable later? If the answer is yes, you might want to re-evaluate getting that game in the first place. It might not be worth the effort.
When I say that, what I mean is that the responsibilities of day-to-day "real world" life can often leave a gamer with very little downtime to enjoy gaming. Personally, I've grown up playing games almost daily, and now that I've graduated from college, I'm working full time, I have a respectable social life and I've got a home to take care of, gaming has often taken a backseat.
On that note, when the holiday game season hits, it seems unreasonable to expect gamers to play and fully enjoy all the great titles of the season. Unless gamers are speed-running through them or spending a significant portion of their day playing the games (not easy for all of us), someone's going to miss out, or at least fall behind.
That wouldn't be so bad if not for big name games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3's dependence on multiplayer. With such a laundry list of games to play through, it's hard to fully experience everything in a game without being compelled to just move on to the next one.Why care about leveling up in Battlefield when you've still got to get through Uncharted 3? Why worry about getting the extras in Arkham City when you haven't gotten around to Skyrim?
This year was absolutely full of amazing games on nearly every platform, so what's a fully-fledged adult gamer to do? It's not easy to hear, but: have patience. Yes, amazing games are out. Write down their names. Relax. You can get them when you've finished the ones you already have, and they'll probably be a bit cheaper by then, too. That sentiment might call up childhood flashbacks of your mother telling you not to eat the new box of cereal before finishing the old one, but guess what? Your mom was right.
You might not get to enjoy the game you've so anxiously awaited right away, but will it really be less enjoyable later? If the answer is yes, you might want to re-evaluate getting that game in the first place. It might not be worth the effort.
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