My game case looks like a photo album

Have you ever opened an old photo album and sat and stared at the pictures? Some things you probably remember but then you see a photo of something you don't remember at all; or a photo you forgot even existed. I experienced this the other day, not with a photo album but my game case.

When I buy a game I put the disks in a folder. Four places for a disk on each side of a page. When the case is full it's about 4 inches thick. Currently it's over flowing. I have no more open slots and only disk #1 from Lost Odyssey is in the case. A couple of years ago I never thought I'd be able to fill it. Now I've got to figure something else out. I'm going to have to replace the case soon because the straps on the spine are tearing and one of these days they're going to rip right through. But having all my games in one place is fantastic and it makes things so much easier to haul them around if I go somewhere else to play.

But while dain was fiddling with my and his systems trying to get his dashboard back I opened up my case and decided to organize it a bit. All the games are alphabetically by title (regardless of system) except my latest purchases Lost Odyssey and The Orange Box which were stuffed into the last two slots open. I started at the back and started pulling out the disks and stacking them up so I could place the newest ones into order.

There were a few times when I pulled a game out and thought "hmm, I own this?" or "have I every played this?" or "when did I get this one?" Some of them really surprised me. Some of them brought back a lot of good memories and made me want to put them in again and play them. Some of them seemed like I was seeing them for the first time. And some of them made me feel guilty. Guilty that I've owned it for so long but haven't played it hardly at all.

One of the biggest shocks to me was looking at my Playstation games. I remember when I'd flip through the case and all I could see was Playstation games. Even after I owned a Game Cube and Xbox it always seemed like my eyes went straight to the PS and PS2 games and glossed over all the others. I always thought I'd play Knights of the Old Republic someday (I finally did) or I should give Pikmin another shot(the first couple of tries were terrible, but I love the game now). Instead I'd put in SSX Tricky, Dark Stone, Legend of Dragoon, Bust-A-Move, Dark Cloud, Time Splitters or Xenosaga. Or any number of other games. I've only finished a couple of them because I had so many to choose from that there was always something else to play.

Now when I flip through the case it's the Xbox 360 games that my eyes are drawn to and I tend to gloss over everything else. I had to pull my Game Cube games out of there a year ago. Because those disks are smaller they'd fall out every time I moved the case. Those are now sitting in a Gladware bowl that's the perfect size for them. Those games don't get looked at at all. Their like the photos stored in a shoebox just waiting for you to put them in an album.

Now that I've looked through them and really seen them all I want to play them all. You know, take a couple of days off from work and do nothing but sit in front of the TV and play games. I want to relive those glory days of the older systems and games. I want to experience memories for the first time. I want to laugh and cry and scream at the screen just like you do with old photographs. And like an old photo album my game case is a reflection of who I am as a gamer. From embarrassing baby photos (A Bug's Life) to prom night pictures (Time Splitters). It's my gaming life right before me eyes. If you ever stop by I'll have to pull out my "photo album" and show you. You'll know more about me than you ever wanted to know in the first place. But isn't that what photo albums are for anyway?

A Portal to a migraine

A couple of weeks ago I tried playing Portal by myself and got hopeless stuck in the 4th or 5th area. So I put the game away. It was just one of many games that I found myself currently stuck in. But since my brother dain helped me get unstuck in some of those other games I asked for his help getting unstuck in Portal this weekend. Apparently I didn't know what I was getting into.

We were both over to my parent's house and had a set up where we were both connected to our own TV but sitting side by side. We both put the game in and started a new game. The first couple of areas were easy but then I got to the stuck part. Since dain has been through this area before he helped me out. So we decided to tackle the next area . . . and the next area . . . and the next area. You can see where this is going.

We got hooked on the game. But I wasn't expecting to have to think so hard for some of those levels. I think at one point during the game my brain was screaming to be let out of my skull; it certainly was pounding hard enough. And with that amount of brain overload I tend to find the smallest things hysterically funny. Like the time dain got a chair stuck in a door way. He couldn't move the chair and he couldn't open the door. When I started giggling uncontrollably we knew it was time to stop.

If you have a sense of vertigo this isn't the game for you. I can't tell you how many times during a "floor fall/leap" that I wanted to turn and hurl whatever junk food I had just consumed to fuel my game play over the side of the chair. Who ever thought that falling through the floor would build up enough momentum so that you could actually reach a higher platform has got to be one twisted and demented individual. And if you haven't played the game you're probably thinking there's something wrong with my physic explanation. Trust me there isn't.

I will admit that it took me a while to bend the way my brain thinks in order to solve a problem. That fact that my brother was sitting right next to me and I could watch his attempt on his screen without any anxiety from me helped. In fact I don't think I could play this game any other way. A couple of weeks ago when I got stuck, I went out looking for the guide book so I'd have some help (along with pictures) of what I needed to do. But after playing the game I don't think there's any guide book out there that would have helped explain to me what I needed to do in some of those levels. I told dain that we can't play this game any other way. We either play it together (on separate screens, side by side) or we don't play it at all. I think he was in total agreement.

I can see why this game is so popular . . . and hard. The migraine it gave me while playing was proof enough. And what's with the 5 point achievements? With the amount of work that you have to put into some of them you would think they would be worth more. Yes, I know there's more than one game bundled into The Orange Box and that the developer was restricted to 1,000 points total between the games but throw us a bone here. Not being baked and served as the cake at your own "going away" party should at least be 20 points considering all that you have to do just to survive. But I'm sure there's a lot more game play involved before dain and I get to the end. If we don't die from a migraine or a stroke instead.

Out with the old, in with the new

So I took GRAW back last night and used it as a trade in to get The Orange Box and Eternal Sonata. That $3 really went far don't you think? I'm still going to give Lost Planet and Enchanted Arms another shot but I need to decide before the end of the weekend. Game Stop is having a special that you get an extra $10 trade in credit when you bring in 2 games.

There are a few other games I would like to get but I'm trying to be more selective in order to save money. And the more games I get the less time I have to play them. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense. But think about it. If you had only 10 hours to play games in a week and you owned only 10 games you could very well play each game for an hour every week. You might not get very far in all of them but at least you'd get to play them all. But if you had 10 hours to play each week but you owned 100 games some of those games aren't going to get played very much . . . if at all. And since there are always new games coming out those 10 games become 100 rather quickly. At least in my case.

My opinion - GRAW

Every now and then I'm going to pick a game and give my opinion of it. Why? Because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want. So there.

Any hoo! The game I picked this time is Ton Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter otherwise known as GRAW. This game came out in March of 2006 but I didn't get it until later. When I did get it it was because a bunch of my friends were playing it and they suggested it to me. Without playing a demo I took them up on it. Now I don't think I should have.

I owned it for a long time before I ever put it into my system to play. There were just other games that I was more interested in that more of friends were playing instead. When I did put it in I had a hard time reading and following the instructions in the tutorial level. I couldn't understand what they were asking me to do or where they wanted me to go. And then I got the grenade toss.

That was where I quit. I just couldn't toss the smoke grenade in the right spot in order to run across the open road without dying. No matter how many times I tried I just couldn't do it the way the computer wanted me to and that meant that I couldn't progress in the training. It really frustrated me. I stopped playing. A couple of weeks later I came back to the game and tried again. The second time through the controls were a little easier to understand, but not much. But then I got the grenade part. I had the same problem again.

This time I stopped playing for months. If I was getting frustrated just trying to make it through the training mission what was the actual game play going to be for me? Once GRAW 2 came out I figured I should at least try it one more time. Still the same problem. It wasn't worth it for me any more. But I kept the game.

I always thought I'd come back and play GRAW. I never have. And my experience playing Call of Duty 4 has taught me that there are some games I just won't be very good at. And if that is the case, why play them? I'm still playing Call of Duty 4 because I still have fun with my friends despite how poorly I play. But will I ever go back to playing GRAW? I don't think so.

So I decided to trade it in . . . as soon as I can find the case for it. I don't see the point in keeping a game that I have no desire to play (even if my friends want me to play). I'd rather spend the money on a game that interests me and doesn't frustrate me completely on the training level. Maybe The Orange Box perhaps. Or Eternal Sonata. I already have a hard enough time finding the time to play the games that I have and love that I don't think I'll ever want to put GRAW in and give it another go.

This doesn't mean I think it's a terrible game. It just means that I couldn't get through the training level. I feel stupid for that too, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it any more. If a game doesn't interest me it's going back. And maybe I'll start downloading demos to try them out first. And if you're on my friend's list and have been waiting for me to learn how to play GRAW so we could play together we'll have to find another game to meet in. May I suggest Boogie Bunnies?