Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Got Myself a Carrot

Heh.  At the very end of last year, I sat down and went through all of the console video games we have here at home, sorting them into several piles:  Played (Keep), Played (Trade In), Mini-Games or Party Games, Want to Play, No Interest.  I let Hubby know that he needs to go through the Trade In and No Interest piles soon and pull out anything he wants to keep before I take the rest to Game Stop.  The Want to Play pile is fairly substantial.  We have games for several different consoles--Playstation, Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Wii (we have a PS2 and a Wii system, which between them will play all of those games).

Then I went through my Amazon wish list and made a list of the games on there that I really want to actually get and play through (the RPGs), as opposed to the party games and mini-games that I would like to have but am not that serious about.  I then checked my open orders to see what games I have already preordered.  I also pulled out a few of Hubby's PC games that I want to or that he would like me to play and noted the PC games I have played that I would like to play again.

Then, I sat down and made myself a Game Plan.  I listed out all of the games I would like to play and tried to figure out a good order for them.  I did my best to balance out PC games with console games, estimate how long it usually takes me to play a game so I could figure out where to put the preordered games (which I will want to play as soon as they come out in most cases), and find good places to stick in the replays (some of which I might want to do before sequels come out). I wrote the list down on a piece of notebook paper and placed it in the back of my desk calendar for handy reference.

I fully acknowledge that this Game Plan is just a guide that I am sure will be subject to some rearranging.  For one thing, I started it thinking it would be my plan for 2011, but I somehow doubt I am going to make it through even half of these games this year.  For another, a certain Star Wars MMORPG that I will not name here is supposed to go live sometime this year.  Once that does it is going to wreak havoc on my other game playing for sure.  I just didn't expect to be messing with the Game Plan so darn soon.

As you know, I am currently playing Kingdom Hearts II, which is the second game on my list, since I started with the game I was playing at the time I made the list.  The next game on the list is Epic Mickey, which my super awesome sister got me for Christmas.  But.  I don't think I can do it.  For one thing, once I finish KHII, I am going to be a little burnt out on the console gaming, as well as on Disney, for a bit.  For another, my silly self went and treated myself to The Force Unleashed when I was purchasing something entirely unrelated on Amazon but realized I had a little bit of extra expendable cash at the time.  So The Force Unleashed has been sitting on my computer tower for the last week, just patiently radiating awesomeness and calling to me every time I sit down to check my email or write my blog.  As this was a "to buy" game at the time I made my list, it is way way far down there, but I think it is going to be next.  Heck, I even went ahead and installed it this weekend, I couldn't help myself.

I think I am about 2/3 of the way through KHII, maybe a little less, it is really hard to tell.  I did have to finally crack a peek at a few walkthroughs in order to figure out how to beat a required mini-game involving light cycles in the Tron level and then again to beat one of the circle of bad guys that I finally defeated yesterday.  I might have scrolled through the list of worlds just to get an idea of how far I was, and found out that even though there are pretty much no new worlds left, I still have to visit each of them again for another boss fight, and a few of them multiple times still.  Sigh.  Though I will admit the game is starting to get a bit more engaging, at least.  Still, I have been slogging through this game.  Part of it, I will admit, is because I have pretty much given up my evening gaming sessions.  But it wasn't exactly hard.  I suspect other games will make this decision much more challenging to adhere to.  Usually when I am playing a game I tend to get really sucked in, and I want to play it every minute possible, because I can't wait to see what is next.  Even with the first game, which I had played most of already, I was driven to keep going.

But with The Force Unleashed waiting oh so patiently on my desktop, I now have the motivation to plow through this thing.  Maybe that's all I've been needing all along.

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