Rediscovering games

Anybody had this experience?

I had a yen to play Deus Ex: Human Revolution the other day, so I re-downloaded it through steam and plowed about 3 hours into it. I got hooked. It’s all I’ve done for the past few days (aside from work and friends) and I’m enjoying it more than I did at release.

I never beat it the first time through (I tend not to beat games these days), but this time I’m playing better and having more fun than I did before. I started using the environment to distract guards (throwing boxes, shooting the floor to attract them), and suddenly I feel in control of most interactions. You dance to MY tune, dammit! I’m also able to improvise, now that I’ve spent many more hours getting familiar with the game, and some of the chains of takedowns I’ve gotten have been freakin’ badASS.

I’m able to fully devote myself to the game (probably 14 hours in the last 3 days), which helps in appreciating it, but I’m also just better at it. I’m also enjoying the story more. Had any games like this?

Some of my all time favorite games were ones I just couldn’t get into when they came out, but a few months or even years later would try them again out of boredom and just become completely enthralled by them. It’s an awesome experience, and probably part of why I buy so many games even if I’m not super into them at the time.

I don’t know if this qualifies as rediscovery, but so far for every Bethesda open world game I have played, Skyrim and the two Fallouts, I have taken a six month break in the middle. I just can’t plow through any of them, they’re just too huge and I risk burnout if I try. So I set them aside, knowing I’ll come back to them, but waiting until I feel the spark again.

More recently I am finding that due to their extreme sales, I am buying games on Steam that I don’t actually get around to playing for months. Not really rediscovery either I suppose but a lot of times the intention to play a game is separated from actually playing it by quite a bit of time.

Fallout 3. I kept comparing it to the older games and thinking how it was just Oblivion (which I wasn’t a huge fan of) with guns and could not get into it.

Over a year later, while recovering from heart surgery and having lots of time on my hands, I picked up the Xbox 360 version of the game and was hooked for a couple of weeks. Still had issues with it but overall it was very enjoyable and a much better game than Oblivion.

I do this all the time. I’ll get a game and either go “meh” and put it down, or love it and play it to burn out. I’ll not touch it for 6mo or a yr or more, and then get right back into it.

A big thing that often brings me back is a new mod for a game. Third Age mod brought me back to TW:ME2, Power&Glory mod back to GTR2, etc. Sometimes I’ve even had to rebuy a game to play a new mod I want (when I’d somehow lost my original install)

This happened to me with System Shock. When I first got it, my existing computer couldn’t really run it worth a damn. I played it for a little bit but ended up getting frustrated and gave it up. Several months later after I had upgraded my computer, I noticed a copy of System Shock in the store, except that was an enhanced CD-ROM version! I didn’t pick it up right away, but it did serve as a reminder that I should probably go back and try the game again. So I reinstalled it on my new rig and sure enough, it played much more smoothly - I loved it! Needless to say, I hoofed it back to the store as quickly as I could and snatched up that one lone CD-ROM copy of System Shock sitting on the store shelf. It’s still my favorite game of all time.

I too only recently finished Deus Ex: HR.

I’ve taken to waiting several months after a big game is released to finally sit down and play it. I think the hype machine tends to make playing games day one into some kind of chore where you have to keep up with everyone else playing it in order to talk about it on forums like this one. And then you get mired in the inevitable backlash and disappointment threads. Once all of that dies down, it’s easy just to sit back and enjoy the game for what it is.

Of course multiplayer games are a different story.

I do the exact same thing, but then I always want to start with a new character, which I then end up abandoning again in a vicious cycle of lame behavior.