I Love A Good Video Game... sigh

I love a good video game.  Or... at least I used to.  I guess I still do, but much like I love to go to art museums, it's just something that I'll love from afar from now on.  It's one of the most bitter irony's of having a job.  You see I used to want to play games all the time but just couldn't afford the new ones.  Now that I can afford them... well I just don't have the time to do so.

In the first half of this year I bought maybe 3 or 4 games and those were through the 'Humble Bundle' program.  If you've never heard of the Humble Bundle, it's a system that bundles up games (mostly from independent studios) and then let's you name your own price.  The majority of the proceeds then go to various charities instead of the game studio.  One bundle I bought included 5 games that cost $79.99 if purchased individually.  I paid $10.  It seems like a great deal, but at the time I still had to worry over the decision for a day or so as I really couldn't afford to spend $10 on any games... no matter how good of a deal it was.

The game that I played the most was Team Fortress 2.  I had purchased this way back in 2007 and in my mind is one of the most fun games on the computer.  It's a first person shooter that lets you select between 9 classes of characters.  But where most games go for hyper realism, TF2 goes for comedy.  The characters are all drawn from a 1950's style and have ridiculous weapons.  The game has survied for this many years by constantly updating it. Over the years they've added new game modes, new weapons and even new purely decorative hats to the game.  Yes... I said hats.  A few years back they made the game free to play, and started letting people buy the extra weapons and hats.  They've made more money since offering the game up for free compared to selling the game for $20.



Obviously my video gaming time went up and down over the years.  If I had to put a date on when my 'modern' computer video gaming began, it was more than likely around 1996 or 1997.  Before that I had played with the Atari 2600 (loved Pitfall), the Commodore 64 (loved M.U.L.E.), the Amiga computer systems (loved so many games on the Amiga!), NES, SNES, and various other consoles.  But in 1996 I was working at Staples as a computer salesman.

I even sported the upgraded 15 inch monitor!

Through the peer pressure of friends who had Windows based computers I bought a Compaq Presario 4712. It had a Pentium 166 processor, 24 Megs of ram, and a whopping 2.5 Gb hard drive.

I bought this mainly to play Wing Commander III and X Wing Vs Tie Fighter, but those were the first in a long series of games played on this system.  The two games I played the most were Half Life and Warcraft/Starcraft.  After several years of upgrading the computer again and again and again, I finally reached the limit of the case.  That's right about the time I started working for a friend that sold custom made computers and I went right along and bought one.  The case was generic so that I could throw different motherboards in it and more or less that comptuer lasts through to this day.  No, I don't have any single part from that original system, but it's been through constant small changes that it's morphed into my current beast.  A video card here, some RAM there... a motherboard and processor here, and a case there.  At no time did I ever toss out every piece and start over clean.

But this isn't about my comptuer journey... it's about my gaming journey.  Back in 1997 I, like most people, bought my games on CDs or even (gasp!) DVDs.  But come 2006 I installed Steam.  Steam is a digital distribution system that lets you buy games online and download them.  The beauty of it is that there are no Discs to scratch or lose.  When I want to re-install a game I simply download it again.  My first purchase on Steam?  The Orange Box which included among other things Half Life 2 Episode One, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

Oh Gordon Freeman... when will you return to us!?

Most games fall into two catergories for me... Single Player and Multi Player.  I look for very different things in single vs multi player games.  Single player games have to have a great story and great story telling elements.  I have to be able to suspend reality while playing it and really fall into it like I would a great television series or motion picture.  The Half Life series certainly lives up to this standard.  I've played every variation of the game (Half Life, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode One, and Half Life Episode Two) several times and am eagerly awaiting either Half Life2 Episode Three or Half Life 3.

But even at their best, a single player games takes up a certain amount of time and no more.  You play through it, you see/hear/experience the entire story, and then you are done.  You can always go back and play it again, but I generally need about a year of not playing a game before I can enjoy it again.  And even then, it's never as good as the first time.

Multiplayer games on the other hand... well they have to be fun.  They have to be ever changing or I'll quickly bore of them.  For the longest time Star Craft and it's expansion 'Brood War' met that.  You could play against up to 7 other people, you could play it online (a big deal back then!), and the expansion came out just as the game was getting stale.  But eventually it got old and I grew bored of it.

Team Fotress 2... now that's a multi player game.  The basic game play remains the same as it was when it came out in 2006, but Valve has constantly been adding to the game.  There have been 386 updates to the game.  Most of these are the common bug fix updates that most games see, but they're constantly adding new 'things'.  Game play modes (Death Match, Capture The Flag, Payload, Payload Race, Swarm, King of the Hill...), Weapons, maps, graphics, and even seasonal events.  Through the weapon combinations the original 9 classes have more or less expanded into dozens of subclasses.

So around the time I finished school and began searching for work I would play TF2 for several hours a week.  It was a great distraction that I could get lost in.  But I still played other games and was constantly on the search for a cheap game to buy up.  Those other games would take up hours on their own each week.

When I started working I was happy that I would no longer need to look for those spectacular deals... although I still do like a good sale.  A week or so after I started working I bought a game as part of the Steam Summer Sale... Sleeping Dogs.  It's a big game in the style of Grand Theft Auto.  I also purchased a couple Humble Bundles (a quick aside, I really have to thank Jennifer for getting me into the Humble Bundle!)one of which included several EA games that I've been wanting.  Most of these are single player games, but there are a few multi player games as well.   All told I probably purchased about 200+ hours worth of game play time.

And how much time have I spent playing these new games?  Well in the 16+ weeks since I started work I'd guess that I've spent about 10 hours playing games on the computer.

10

SO excited for season 4!

That might even be a high estimate.  I've given up a lot of things since I started working.  Most obviously here, I more or less gave up on being Caitlyn.  But I also gave up on a lot of Television... I used to watch three hours of prime time a night every and that's been reduced to Person of Interest, Elementary, Top Gear (British and American), This Old House (and Ask This Old House), and The Walking Dead (which starts it's fourth season tonight!).  All of these shows I watch on my DVR as I work evenings.  Giving up watching shows like NCIS and Blue Bloods sucks, but really I was watching those shows because they were on and it was better than twiddling my thumbs.

But giving up on playing games?  That just sucks.  It's such a normal reaction to waste some time and get involved into some virtual world that it feels odd not to do it.  Even last night, I got an email saying that Assassin's Creed 3 was on sale for $12.  Using my phone I purchased it with the full intent of downloading, installing and playing it later.  But when the hell am I going to have the time to play it?  I may have just as well thrown that $12 away with as much fun as it's going to get me this year.

I guess I can't complain to loudly.  I do have free time, I just prioritize it differently.  On days that I work I still spend a couple hours bouncing around on the internet.  Checking up on some sports (Michigan finally lost a game this year), the news of the day (get it in gear Congress!), and all the TG blogs that I follow.  I'll then head out and watch some Television.... either something I've recorded or some more news.  When I get back from work I watch the evening news, a little late night television (Jimmy Kimmel, Conan, Jay Leno....) then it's off to bed.

I do have a day off each week as well as every other weekend (it equals out to two days a week), but I generally have 'stuff' planned for those days off.  Hanging out with friends or family, working around the house, shopping, paying bills, and other mundane tasks that get pushed off while I'm working.  The weekends currently work one of two ways.  I either head out to a friend's place and spend the weekend with them, or I spend all day Saturday watching college football and then have Sunday as a 'free' day.

Today is one of those 'free' days.  I do have a few things I need to do... I want to use the touch up paint I just bought to fill in a few chips in Fiona, I need to so some shopping for the lunches I take to work, and I want to paint the mailbox stand.  Tonight my ass will be on the couch at 9pm to watch The Walking Dead premier, but that still leaves me a few hours to kill.  So I'll probably load up one of the dozen or so games and play it.

But at that rate I already have enough 'new' games to last me about a year.  And that's assuming that I don't play through all of each game (I'm sure some will end up being busts and I won't ever finish them).

I guess I can't complain.  My life is full and good and putting playing games aside is just part of the ever changing lifestyle I life.  Much like I eventually stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons, practicing my trombone, or taking photographs, I'll set aside playing video games.  Also like those things, I'll never fully stop it... I still watch Anime occasionally, I listen to music, I take snapshots.... I'll still play games.  I just won't do them as often or with the same intensity that I used to.


A few other random thoughts:

This past week I became a sustaining member of my local NPR station.  I've given to public radio before, but it was like $10 here and $20 there.  This time I want to show my support as I listen to Michigan Radio on my way to and from work almost every day.  So instead of a one time gift, I signed up to give them $15 a month.  I even decided to NOT take their gift for this donation (a Bluetooth speaker with their logo on it), as I want my money to go toward programming.

I picked up a couple 'new' songs this past week.  One was from watching Elementary.  In the show the characters had to go to London and while they were showing off the city they played Oasis' "Hello".  The other show I got from the radio, but not a music station.  I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion.  Every week A Prairie Home Companion will have several musical guests, but I really don't like the music interludes nearly as much as I like listening to 'The News from Lake Wobegon', 'Guy Noir, Private Eye', 'The Lives of the Cowboys', and the greetings from members of the audience.   But last week or so they had Pokey LaFarge on and I immediately fell in love with his "Close The Door" song.  Here they are for your own listening pleasure:

My brother's truck is finally fully on the road.  He has one more bit of work to do to the suspension before he can get the professional alignment done, but it's road worthy and safe for now.  Part of getting it on the road included getting it insured.  As I was picking up the tab for the insurance, I evened out my monthly payment by dropping insurance on Lita.  She still sits in the driveway, but really I'm just waiting to hear back from a couple people that are interested in her.  Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll either be selling her to my neighbor's brother's widow's son, or to a junk yard.  I expect to get about $400 for her.  I'll try not to cry when she's gone.

I know it's a small thing helping out my brother.  It cost me under $300 to get his truck road worthy and I was already paying for insurance (and insuring the truck actually costs less than insuring Lita), but I got to see something special and rare yesterday... my brother happy.  At the best of times my brother is a fairly grumpy person and these past few years have not been the best of times for him.  So seeing him genuinely happy easily made this entire endeavor worth while.  I even got a compliment... my Mom noticed how happy my brother was and mentioned it to me.  She even went so far as to say that his happiness was a direct result of my actions and that I did a good thing.  A good thing.... it's such a small thing but hearing someone else say it made me even happier than my brother.