Poll Results - Organizing my games

Here's the poll results for organizing my games:

How should I organize my games?

alphabetical (regardless of system) = 1 vote
alphabetical (by system) = 5 votes
52-card pickup = 0 votes
alphabetical (by genre) = 0 votes

The way I had things organized before I got robbed was alphabetical regardless of system. This had some ups and downs. When looking for a particular game I got easily distracted by other games. If I wanted to play a PS game I might find myself pulling out a PS2 game instead. And there was the whole alphabetical problem. How do you file all those Star Wars games. Since "Star Wars" is usually first they would all go together. But I don't think of Bounty Hunter as "Star Wars Bounty Hunter". Those games were all filed by the game title; I left the Star Wars out of it. And that was the same for the Lord of the Rings games.

Some sequels had alphabetical problems as well. Chrono Cross is a sequel (of sorts) to Chrono Trigger, but alphabetically Chrono Cross would get files first. Of those games that had the sequels close in name to the original (Abe's Exodus vs. Abe's Oddysee another example) I filed those chronologically instead of alphabetically. But that created a problem with Final Fantasy Tactics. It's not a sequel to any Final Fantasy game, and is, in fact, a different type of game entirely. where does that one go? I could have put it after Final Fantasy XII (the last one in number order that I owned) but that didn't seem right to have an original PS game after the newest PS2 games. I could have figured out when that game came out in the series and put it there but I didn't want to bother. So Final Fantasy Tactics was filed first. Of course I do have a couple of games that when I think of the title I think of it differently. Like "The Legend of Alan D'ar" I only think of as "Alan D'ar". Makes it hard to find sometimes.

What I liked about filing alphabetical regardless of system was that all games of the same story could be filed together no matter what console you played them one. That way Serious Sam I and II for the original Xbox could be filed with Serious Sam: The Next Encounter for the PS2. The two Hunter: The Reckoning games for Xbox could be filed with the abysmal one for the PS2. If I was in the mood for a particular game world I could flip to those pages (I keep all my games in a disk binder) and then decide which version I wanted to play.

This time however I'm filing them alphabetical by system. Hopefully this might encourage me to play some of my older games for the Playstation since those games are filed first. Unfortunately I'm still replacing games so my filing system isn't accurate. I leave spaces for some games but forget to for others. I guess I'll wait until I've gotten everything back before I put things in their proper place. But then I have to decide what to do with the duplicates. when I started rebuying games I didn't have a good enough system to keep track of ebay auctions bidding/won/paid for so I ended up with several duplicate games. I'll probably sell them back to Gamestop for credit to buy more but I'm really not going to get much for them. One of them will go to kai to try out (Rainbow Six: Vegas 2) and maybe we can get a match together sometime along with anyone else who wants to play.

I have picked up some new games that I didn't have before but I'll wait to list those once I'm done shopping. And I've started the process of redownloading all my Arcade games to my new hard drive. Unfortunately I've got DRM issues with some of them so I have to change the rights to my new machine. But if there's anything you guys want to play with me just send me a note or an invite. If I've got, I'm game.

What do you play when you're not in the mood?

I had a very strange day yesterday. I wanted to play video games . . . but I wasn't in the mood for anything.

I tried a racing game (Burnout Revenge). Nothing. I tried some arcade games (Pac Man CE, Texas Hold 'Em, Hearts, Catan) but I wasn't really in the mood for any of them. (Although I did finally come in first place in a $4,000 buy in tournament after being short stacked for awhile. I always finish in the money but I've never come in first.)

I got a couple of invites to play Rainbow 6: Vegas and although I wasn't in the mood I thought it wouldn't hurt. Boy was I wrong. I sucked. The other team was creeping up behind me and taping me on the shoulder before blowing my head off. If I thought I was in a good snipping position I'd find a guy right next to me . . . but on the other team. I died. I died again. And then . . . I died some more. Even when I somehow made it to their spawn point I couldn't kill them when they spawned before they'd get a single shot to blow my brains out.

I've had bad days in games before. It's usually been 'cause I wasn't in the mood to play that particular type of game. Or my eyes were just to tired to focus and concentration on the screen. But a whole night were there was nothing I wanted to play?

I even switched systems. I pulled out the PS2 and loaded a few games trying to find what matched my mood. Metal Gear Solid? Nope. Abe's Exoddus? Not tonight. Half-Life? Not quite right. Gradius? No. God of War. Now that one was a little closer to what I had in mind. Unfortunately by then I was too tired and just shut everything down. A game like that deserves my undivided attention and right then that wasn't going to happen.

I flipped channels on the TV for awhile. Read a book for a while as well. But nothing seemed to satisfy the mood I was in. Hopefully this mood will pass cause I can't imagine what I'd do if I didn't want to play video games.