No I’m not talking about a Backlog. Its well established now that PC games are very cheap, and you can quickly buy more than you’ll ever play in a lifetime.
I’m saying: there are more really good, widely praised, critically acclaimed games than I can play. Here’s two games I have not yet played: Portal 2 and Batman Arkham Asylum. I know, for sure, that I am going to enjoy those games. But I still haven’t had time to play them. And thats without even getting into the books I want to read, TV series and movies my friends recommend, albums I’d like to listen to. There’s a huge mountain of quality entertainment out there.
In the past I could escape this situation by lifting my standards, saying I’ll only consume the stuff that’s of the highest quality or exactly suited to my tastes. But that’s not enough anymore.
I can see Deus Ex, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim approaching. When will I find time to play them?
I’ve been getting back into the PC side of things. Thanks to Steam my backlog is, um, gigantic. Somehow I take great comfort in having more games stockpiled (PC, DS, XBox, even PS2) than I could play in my lifetime if I was unemployed. In fact, it’s a bit of a conundrum, I remain employed even though I can tell secretly a part of me would very much enjoy gaming all day and losing the job!
So, I agree, and also am thankful I never lost my passion for gaming, over the years. It’s always a good time to be a gamer, eh?
Back to thinking about Bioshock 2 (hey, I’m at work, but I can think about it!).
Agreed, this is an awesome time to be a fan of PC games.
Having been a married father of three kids for many years now my free time is limited at best. I was still trying to catch up on awesome stuff I missed the first time around even way before Steam and other digital download services came along and made my backlog ridiculous. Hell, I recently enjoyed playing through several games of Rise of Nations, a decade old game I’d never had the opportunity to play previously. Going back even further I recently fired up a Heroes of Might and Magic III campaign on my PC at work to play during lunchtimes some days. I never made it all the way through the campaign back then, and turn-based games are fantastic when I’m at the office and might need to save and quit on short notice.
At home I’m working through the Steam Sale games little by little, with plenty of retail box games still to play as well. I love that there is something sitting there waiting to be played anytime I get bored or have an hour to kill late at night. Best of all I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it because the vast majority of those games waiting to be played were bought for a song.
I’d still love to win the lottery though and simply have all day to sit around and play games. You know that Tom Chick guy’s life seems pretty sweet… ;-)
Thankfully there are no good new MMOs out to waste my time so I can actually finish some of these games. But if Guild Wars 2 turns out to be as good as it appears, then I will have to miss a ton of great games around that time. Also there is little doubt that Diablo 3 is going to have the same effect probably for many months if not years.
It sure feels like a Golden Age for the PC right now. I totalled up the titles i want between now and Christmas and it was something like $450 worth of games, assuming i pay full price for them. Definitely a happy problem for me to have, as those titles i dont pick up on Day One can be had on a sweet Steam sale later.
Browsing through Gamespot’s PC release feature is even more overwhelming. I’d forgotton Saints Row 3 was coming and I had no idea LA Noire was receiving a PC port (is it??) In addition, there’s AC Revelations, Max Payne 3, Anno 2070, Stronghold 3, Rage, Dead Island, Tropico 4 and a smattering of interesting looking adventure games. I fear I’m going to have to start prioritizing newer games instead of playing Mass Effect 2 for the umpteenth time.
Couldn’t agree more, Tony. It’s even worse if you throw in some console games like Bastion and From Dust along with a crazy long list of great PC games. I’m having a hard time just deciding what to play each night now.
Yes, this helps a lot with time management, but SW:TOR is coming…
Hmm, maybe i’m just getting old, but there hasn’t been that much to get excited about really.
The next Deus Ex is bound to disappoint, the Elder Scrolls series seem to be concentrating on graphics more than making their games feel less like playing a MMO by yourself. BF3 might be neat, but I haven’t really had any inclination to play yet another battlefield game – perhaps that’s my fault, having worked on a gametype can often rob you of the desire to ever play one again. Or it could just be that my tolerance for playing with random douchebags from the internet has gone down.
Bastion has been fun, but I certainly haven’t felt overwhelmed by all the games.
Oh, just to be a bigger curmudgeon, LA Noire is just mediocre. Once the facial animation and full voice thing wears off, the actual mechanics are a bit tedious and almost felt like a throwback to old adventure games were you have to guess what the designer was thinking to proceed correctly.
I’m doing fine. I gave up sports, TV, and DVDs to concentrate on games. Otherwise it’d be too much media consumption.
I love the tradeoff so far. Sports stress me out (it’s odd, don’t ask) and TV pisses me off. It’s nice to take a break from my backlog with a good movie though.
You are indeed old and jaded, sir. Bastion and From Dust alone in a single week??? And if you’re not a console guy, Panzer Corps just a week or two ago? And do you really not have any backlog at all? Hell, I’ve hardly touched the sweet haul I pulled from the Steam sale…
Tim James has the right idea. Media-wise, I watch maybe one movie every couple of weeks with my wife, and I do my netsurfing for news and snarkery, and other than that it’s hacking, hacking, hacking and games, games, games. Who NEEDS time for anything else? Well, every once in a while I take a total pixel break and read a book (thank God I’m a fast reader).
It’s definitely the best possible problem to have – too many great things to do! I very much hope to have that problem for the rest of my born days. If I do, I’ll count myself among the luckiest humans ever to have lived. (Actually, I already do that.)
I’m SOOOOO glad I don’t have a nice PC to game on - between DS, PSP, and 360, not to mention PC classics (read: OLD games), I have way more games than time and I’m not even up to date, I’m still catching up to last year’s releases (and picking up the occasional PS2 game I may have missed).
My PC is an ancient 2.8 GHZ P4 with an AGP Geforce 7800 GS so nothing current will probably run on it! I contemplated getting a whole new system but I figured then I’ll spend all my time catching up with the last couple of years of PC gaming and then there goes the progress I’m slowly making into my console backlog. So glad for multiplatform games (can’t wait for Skyrim and the next Batman).
