HighCastle of Geek

​A blog/journal about my life and the stuff I like. Popular subjects include music, guitars, gear, books, movies, video games, technology, humor.

First World Problems: Unfinished Video Games

This doesn't quite rank up there with food, water, affordable healthcare, anything a respectably productive person would complaint about, etc. I have a bad and quite long lived habit of not finishing video games. This dates back at least to circa 2000, and probably even before then. It became a significant issue when I was stationed in Korea between 1998-2000 and pc games were available at well below the retail cost, and that's all I will say. I had a habit of visiting one of the game "retailers" about once per month and stocking up on several titles. The results was that I had a significant library of games nearly overnight, most of which I never finished (if there was a campaign or progression to the game at least) and some I never even played. Seeing as how cheap they were, and the fact that many of them weren't exactly marquee games with high ratings, it didn't bother me so much. 

Fast forward to my resumption of guitardom, I have even less budgeted time for video games, at least compared to the past. I go through video game phases now, where I will really be into games in general, or I'll have a specific game that I want to play and then I'll be playing more than usual. That being said, I never completely neglect music, so I don't ever have those long gaming sessions I would have in the past. I'll go sometimes months or longer without playing at all, and then I'll have brief periods of regular play. 

I have had a few periods of a massive increase, most notably since 2004 was WOW in 2005. I played WOW essentially every day for a few hours if not more until I hit level 59 a few months later. I then put it down for I think over a year until the next expansion came out. I would repeat this cycle with new expansions, although I have never bought Mists of Pandaria, and won't. Ironically, although I have played WOW probably more than any other game in history (I think my total time played count is up around 25 days or so, yes, that's 25 days as in 24 hour days, as in 600 hours), I never really got into being a guild member and doing raids. 

The aspect of WOW that sucked me in was the enormity and variety of the world, regions, dungeons, cultures, etc. There was always another area of the map or dungeon, etc. that you either hadn't checked out yet, or your character wasn't strong enough to go into that region yet. 

In reality, you don't "finish" WOW so much, but after playing 600 hours or so, I've had my fill. Where I've had the most unfinished games is probalby within the past few years, mainly since I started playing guitar again. If memory serves, I at least have the following games with campaigns or main story lines that haven't been completed:

Red Dead Redemption, Bioshock, Mass Effect 3, Fable II, Assassin's Creed I/II, Crysis II, Sim City 5, Demon's Souls, Deus Ex (recent one), Alan Wake 2, Arkham City. I'm forgetting several I'm sure. You could add several games I've played briefly, mainly in the MMO category (The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2).  I will say that I have finished several games that I had either already owned or otherwise intended to play and never got around to it. This is an example of how long I wait: I didn't play COD4 Modern Warfare and MW2 until 2012/2013, essentially 4+ years after the second one came out. The graphics were definitely dated by that point, but it was nice to pay $10 for games that still stood up (at least in campaign mode for me, I have no interest in multiplayer with the legions of trolls and nerdragers that frequent those games).  I also finally got around to finishing portal 1 and 2 which were brilliant games (especially 2), and Arkham Asylum which was a good game for what it did, although some of the boss fights were extremely frustrating.

Now it's fall 2013 and with the impending release of two new consoles, I'm really at a point that I feel I need to finish at least my console games so I can start the new generation with a clean slate. Some of those games listed are PC games, so I don't prioritize them as highly, although I'd like to finish all these games. I guess it's a good problem to have, my problem is that I don't want to just give up a game that I paid money for. I guess I'm just going to budget some weekend time and finish Red Dead, Assassin's Creed I, and Fable II. Demon's Souls is such an enormous pain in the ass that I'm not sure about that one.