February 1st, 2011
So I have a confession to make: I’m a bad gamer.
For someone who defines himself as a ‘gamer’ this can be a problem. My main issue seems to be the fact that I’m what you might call ‘gun shy.’ I don’t want to spend (now) $60 on a game that I might not enjoy that much. So what do I do? I avoid it. Despite the reviews and recommendations by people that I know and trust, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Perfect Example: I fell in love with Fallout 3 – enough so that I created a D20 Modern campaign based on it and have played it several times over. That being said, Fallout: New Vegas has been out for a few months now and I have yet to purchase it – despite the fact that I’ve had the money several times to buy it.
I operate on what I’ve discovered is Computer Savings Time. I just purchased from Steam a few games that are less than new: Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, Half-Life 2 (which I have already played and beat for the Xbox 360). They are, as I said, less than new but they were cheap and I haven’t played them yet. So far, so good. Mass Effect reminds me a lot of KOTOR – which is expected considering it’s made by the same people. The only complaint I have so far is that the game is entirely too linear. I have been spoiled by MMO’s to be sure, but it doesn’t have the same open feel of KOTOR. I’ve been told that Mass Effect 2 is a little better.
My other recurring obsession is Minecraft. I’ve got it in my head that I want to do some kind of epically large design, but I need to set up a multi-player server. I will likely set it up on my home PC and run it so me and my buddy can work on it together. The unfortunate side effect of my job is that I have a large amount of downtime and I’d like to do something to keep busy – even if it is only virtually productive.