Minecraft – the Terraria devs make Mojang look bad... really bad.
Fallout: Tactics – meh, didn't finish.
A.R.E.S. - bad, never finished. I bought it because it looked like Mega Man

Magicka – ehhh I like the concept, I just can't stand the way your wizard controls. Never finished.
AI War: Light of the Spire – haven't gotten around to playing this DLC yet.
Portal 2 – Great for one playthrough.
Deus Ex: HR – solid, but not amazing.
Terraria – played 80+ hours, pretty good.
Natural Selection 2 – hopefully it'll get to a playable state some day.
Super Meat Boy – 'sok, never finished.
Frozen Synapse – I do not like this game.
Dungeons of Dredmor – not bad, but what's the point of this when you can play DCSS for free?
E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy – half-baked, bug-ridden, still kinda fun. Never finished.
The Binding of Isaac – 'sok, beat once. Just play DCSS.
Batman: Arkham Asylum – 'sok, didn't like it enough to want City.
Bastion – Honestly, if it weren't for the brilliant narrator, I wouldn't have even blinked at this.
Skyrim – Awesome, played 60+ hours so far, waiting for mods.
Dota 2 – Best game ever gets an update from the best devs ever. I am so excited for this to go public.
Space Pirates and Zombies – The only thing I grabbed in the winter sales. Decent so far, still playing.

I've been strictly PC for years now.

This list is smaller than last year's, which was in turn smaller than the year before. In hindsight, I can cut this down to ~5 games that are actual keepers. More than half were sub-$10 haphazard purchases. Most I will never touch again, let alone complete those left incomplete. At this point in my life (single mid-20's degree-holder with decent job) it's not even a question of money anymore; it's a question of time.

I've got things I need to do right now: work on my professional license, search for an better job, hone my talents, friends and family to hang out with, girls to date, find a wife and start a family (yes, I'm serious about this). I already don't have enough daylight to get to everything. The time I do spend on games can easily be filled in Dota 2, Stone Soup and Dwarf Fortress, let alone the massive backlog of stuff I never get around to. Why keep accumulating piles of games that I'll never put the effort into?

Hence the idea I've been toying with: what if I quit now? What if I never bought another game? What would I be missing? How about, when I next have some vacation, I give Baldur's Gate or Planescape another go instead of dropping cash on something new. I could burn through dusty SNES cartridges, or maybe I could start caring about SC2. I have, quite literally, a few hundred options here.

Even as I say this, I know I couldn't keep to it 100%. Half-Life 3 will happen I WANT TO BELIEVE. HotS and Diablo 3 look bad IMO but you can bet I'll cave eventually. These are the few exceptions.

It's something I'm considering. I think I'd be better off for it.

eagle

United States693 Posts

January 02 2012 04:14 GMT

u mean epsiode 3 right not half life 3

myopia

United States2928 Posts

January 02 2012 04:42 GMT

On January 02 2012 13:14 eagle wrote:
u mean epsiode 3 right not half life 3

I'm willing to accept anything at this point.

ClysmiC

United States2192 Posts

January 02 2012 07:07 GMT

I spent like 60 bucks on steam in the past few months. The offers are TOO GOOD, but over time they eat up your wallet.

G_G

Canada178 Posts

January 02 2012 08:35 GMT

I got Mass Effects 1 and 2 (10$ together), the GTA package ($12.49 or something for all GTA) and Sequence for $1.24. I've put 20 hours into ME1, 11 into GTA3, and 5 into Sequence. I have to say I feel worse paying almost nothing for games on steam than I did pirating games for free before. Very strange.

Excomm

United States152 Posts

January 02 2012 11:18 GMT

I feel your pain man, I never found a game in 2011 that I was happy with. I did LoL for a solid 3 months (which I would still play if it wasn't for the constant in game harassment and communication issues), went back to diablo 2 for a month during ladder reset, picked up dragon age origins (which I had never played) and liked it for what it was, got Skyrim (loved everything but the combat but it was my first elder scrolls series pickup and I'm currently leveling in SW:TOR (it's playable with friends).

I'm really missing the immersion I used to get from games on the SNES and N64. Maybe it is because games these days take longer to complete, but I feel like older games held my attention much better.

Diablo 3 is my saving grace. I am waiting patiently for the release date and I hope that I will be playing it for a good 3-4 years or longer when all is said and done (it is still fun for me to play D2). The beta looks pretty good for what it is, but will it have the same replay values that I am hoping for (great game mechanics, ambiance and randomness) or will it just feel like an endless grind like every other open ended rpg? I'm also a bit worried about the RMAH because I'm at the point in my life where if I had to spend 40 hours to farm an item or I could just pay 10 bucks for it, then I might as well just pay for it. If great items are available at prices that far undercut the amount of time it takes to farm them, then the game will be ruined for me because all of my items will feel empty. I might just play hardcore to eliminate that temptation.

Anyway; back to the topic, here's to a better 2012 in gaming!

MisterD

Germany1338 Posts

January 02 2012 11:29 GMT

you are just too negative lol ^^ frozen synapse, bastion, magicka, super meat boy are all hilarious and/or amazing games. the amount of funny references you can find in magicka is just .. wow, i mean, right at the start a scrum backlog on the blackboard "this sprint isn't going well"? or "GRAMS WORKSHOP" with the warhammer lying on the anvil infront? come on, that seriously is some funny stuff, alone to find these references that game is worth to be played!

Juding from you liking terraria and skyrim, i assume you play these games in a "start and play until complete without breaks" manner, which works very well because there's always something to do and there is no strictly predefined "breaks" in there. So in case you did that with frozen synapse, bastion or super meat boy, be told: That's obviously not how you should play these games. Most games with many distinct levels obviously annoy you if rather soon if you try to do them from beginning to end without breaks (at least on your first playthrough when not trying to do an amateur speedrun). Maybe try to have those games installed and just play a few levels whenever you feel like it. At least for me, that vastly improves the experience.

myopia

United States2928 Posts

January 02 2012 18:06 GMT

But that's just it - there's nothing particularly wrong with most of the games I bought, they just didn't grab my attention away from other games I already had. I've had them for months and have no idea when I'll get around to them. So, why did I buy them in the first place?

Durak

Canada3684 Posts

January 02 2012 18:42 GMT

Well-written and insightful blog post. Your impressions about the games are fair and, subjectively, accurate. None of those games are brilliant or are going to bring anything significant into your life. That's an important conclusion to make because it leads to the next conclusion: you don't need to buy any more games. You can fill your limited time with other activities and, if you still want to play some computer games, just play the ones you currently enjoy in that smaller time-span.

The games that you currently play (Dota 2, Stone Soup and Dwarf Fortress) are enjoyable because you get a sense of achievement by playing them: they're all challenging and require strategic thinking to do well. Sure, the puzzles in Portal 2 are challenging the first time through but then it loses that and therefore the enjoyment. You can get that from more healthy activities rather than searching for it in "new games." You won't be missing anything by skipping the latest single-player fad game.

P.S. I want to mention that I think games like Bastion are amazing even though I said that they're not brilliant. Even though you only remarked on the narrator, the graphics, design, story, and replayability are all there. The thing is though, those aren't very satisfying for you because that's not what you're looking for: "Re-play a single-player game on a harder difficulty? Why waste the time killing more arbitrary things?"

A lot of those games are actually quite good but it doesn't seem like they're for you at this point in your life.

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