You know that feeling you get at Xmas with all the food...

I see all the sweets, and chocolates, and nuts, and weird cheese football things...and I just can't eat anything as theres too much there.

Thats me at the moment with games. In my 20+ years gaming I cant remember this many titles coming out that interest me in such a short period of time.

Here's what I've bought recently and my progress:

Deus Ex - I heard theres a boss battle at some point? Not got that far yet.
FIFA 12 - 2 games against the AI
Crysis - Got to the bit with the frozen boat
Rage - Played the first mission, looks very nice
Forza 4 - Installed and had a quick race - I even bought two, yes two wireless wii type wheels for this as its so much fun with them
Batman - Did the first bit with Two-Face and Catwoman.
Battlefield 3 - Two games of conquest

Now obviously, the easy answer is not to buy all these games in one go and stagger them, but everyone knows the best bit about gaming is buying a new game. The noise the seal sticker makes, the smugness you get from telling the Game monkey that you don't do strategy guides, that feeling of excitement when you get a message that an update is available.

Thankfully I've got a week off shortly, so its going to be a blitz on Batman, followed by some BF3. Then some Skyrim and bit of CoD.

(ps. the only reason I've blown that much money on games is I got a refund on a really awful Android tablet)

I ate an entire Easter egg yesterday and then felt miserable afterwards.

It's not like that for me at the moment. I've churned through MW3 all weekend for the review but know I can sit back and enjoy the rest of it for the next year now. I'm looking forward to Skyrim and want to get back into hoovering up the multiplayer achievements on Driver but other than that, I'm not that excited for anything else.

I'm sure Batman is great, but I never completed the first one so more of the same simply leaves me not really all that arsed.

Vaguely related but I had an idea for a bet with my missus that I could/couldn't go the whole of the first half of 2012 without playing games. Not just not buying 'em, not playing 'em. At all. For 6 months.

Normally it'd be a fairly safe bet to take but the first half of 2011 had some stunning games come out, and I'd have to find something else to fill my (meagre) spare time with. Mostly drawing or bumping up my portfolio a bit (I used to be able to draw alright, my skills are hopeless now though).

If I win, I get bragging rights for the rest of the year and would probably go on a mad Mr Creosote style gaming bender for the remainder of the year, and potentially might have more in my portfolio than just the stuff I did when I was a spoddy student.

If I lose, I'll never hear the last of it and I send the missus and her mum on a spa weekend.

Would you take it? Would you be insane enough to give up gaming for 6 whole months? (I did it for a month a while back and it was like giving up smoking! No, in fact it was WORSE)

Giving up gaming is, unfortunately, all to easy for me. Barely get the chance to play anything these days, work and study just suck up all my time.

Quite pleased that I managed to finish a few games during the summer though - played and completed Uncharted 2, COD:BLOPS and The Saboteur. Hopefully come Christmas, I'll get some proper gaming time in again.

Definitely know where Furbs is coming from though, girlfriend and my sister been asking what to get me for Christmas and I've a list of games as long as my arm that I'd like. In the back of my mind there's a little voice telling me I'll never play through half of them though :)

If I dared ask for games for christmas from any of my family, I'd probably be bought socks, slippers or old-man cardigans.

I think they're trying to tell me something.

If you went cold turkey for 6 months I reckon you'd never return.

I probably would, for GTA V.

Possibly for SSX.

But I would return, I'm pretty sure of it. Thing is though the more relevant question is SHOULD I return because gaming really does stop me doing other stuff - and when you've got bugger all spare time to start with, it really does cut in.

If I didn't return though, christ knows how I'd dispose of over 15 years worth of gaming paraphernalia!

I'll have your current gen consoles and games. I need MOAR. Feed the addiction.

:)

I'd have to flog 'em. No way could I not claw something back for the huge outlay. Either that or I'd have to donate 'em to charity (I already do this with games I no longer want and can't trade in. Basically if all GAME will offer is a couple of quid I'd rather some charity had 'em for nothing and flogged 'em for a tenner or so).

This is theoretically if I never came back to gaming, which I can see me being too much of a sad old addict to go through with :)

Choosing not to play games is like choosing a life of celibacy? Why punish yourself?

'If I lose, I'll never hear the last of it and I send the missus and her mum on a spa weekend.'

Do this anyway, and use the time to play more games :D

She usually goes on one, but I look after my daughter so get even LESS time for the gaming :)

Christ, this! Actually, last time I asked for socks, I got bloody tea-towels instead!!

Tea Towels? Oh that's harsh.

Still, it's better than the threatened nose / ear hair trimmer. Again I think they're trying to tell me something. I seek little solace in the fact that Vernon Kay swears by his.

Ha ha, this is exactly what I was going to suggest - except I'd maybe try and wrangle a couple of weeks of sympathy whilst getting a few odd jobs done before 'submitting to the urge' ;)

The best bit for me is ordering something on import. It's a magical feeling somehow.

Second best is getting a game for less than £10.

Third best is the smell of the manual.

I haven't bought a new TV console game since probably 2009? Maybe 2008.

I just go straight for the cheesy footballs.


If I could still play fighting games, sure. If I couldn't play anything at all... I would need to have some decent reward at the end of it. I could do it easily, but I just don't see why you would go out of your way not to do something you want to do.


This is far too regular an occurrence for me to get too excited about these days, they even stopped making it much of a commitment due to the DS/PSP/PS3. The thing that now provides the same level of interest is buying an old game, or importing brand new hardware before it's out here.