I tend to run hot and cold. I tend to obsessively do something until I cannot longer stand it and then I’m indifferent to it. And I don’t mean this in a mild, healthy way. I mean this in a ‘must force herself to stop and do something, anything else.’

This is what causes me to hop onto World of Warcraft every 3 to 5 months, start a new character, rush them to level 58/62/76 and then just drop them. This is how I read a 1,000+ book in a single sitting. This is why on the new BioWare Social Network, I’m the third most active poster with over 700 posts in 17 days.

My gaming happens in spurts and spikes. I played through Jade Empire and both Knights of the Old Republic in a single sitting. I played through Baldur’s Gate II in three days. It’s frightening how quickly I can transform into a creature whose only thoughts are ‘game, shower, game, sleep, game.’ I’m a consumer in the purest sense of the word; not the robotic, rational decision makers of economics, but a person that gorges themselves on a product.

But it doesn’t last. After hitting level 62 in two weeks, I’m worn to a nub. I could not force myself to log-on. After finishing with Risen, I’ve tried to get into Machinarium. It’s a good game. I want to finish it, take lots of pictures, and tell you all about it. Only every time I start the game, I look at the playful and artistic backgrounds, listen to the great music, and start thinking about the interesting puzzles, and somehow will be incredibly, unaccountably bored.

This might be hard to imagine, but if I try to force myself to play a game after I hit my saturation point, I experience physical discomfort. My insides ache. If I’m excited about a game, I crave it. I will find myself obsessively thinking about it while trying to read, write, work, or study.

You might be saying to yourself, “That sounds unhealthy.”

Yeah, that it is. As mentioned above, it’s not something that applies just to games. I once sat down and watched the first three seasons of Babylon 5 in one sitting (66 hours). I finally crashed, and when I woke up, I had no interest in the rest of the story. Two years later, the DVD collection still sits in the back of my cabinet gathering dust.

I desire stability; I’m not fond of obsession or mental exhaustion. I put limits on my gaming, mostly, and push myself to game more when I don’t want to.



As to what prompted this entry, look at the picture at the top. Dragon Age: Origins. I’m an administrator on the wiki. I’ve been on the forums for five years now. It’s my favorite gaming genre by my favorite company and it looks to be one of the best games this decade.

This is me, hands folded in my lap, saying that I’m not that excited about the game. Lies. To say I’m excited would be an understatement. To say I’m foaming at the mouth might be closer to the truth. A month ago, I learned that the game could last 120 hours and my gut churned so hard, I could have crapped butter.

I’ve worked out for about an hour and thirty minutes each day this week, gotten a full nights rest, and will stock up on raw vegetables and fruits to munch on. Thankfully, my cats will walk in front of the screen if they get hungry.

1 day, 19 hours, and 25 minutes. That’s the time it shows on my last save for Risen, it’s entitled ‘Final Boss Fight.’ During that time, I’ve managed to finish 250 quests, but not 2,000 monsters even though I searched the island up and down looking for more stuff to kill.

There’s no time indicator on my Batman: Arkham Asylum game, but on my final save I’ve gotten all the Riddler statues (240), upgrades (20), character bios (42), and am 78% complete. The game has non-story challenge modes where you try to get X score while beating up thugs or various achievements while sneaking around and picking them off, which I’m not that interested in.

Let’s skip back to Saturday night/Sunday morning. I’m playing Risen and have run all over the island twice making sure I have every teleport stone, have killed all the truly nasty creatures like thunder lizards, scorpions, and ashbeasts. I’ve managed to find the two broken swords of the game and repair them as well as search through every temple and ruin I could find. I have on the super-duper armor with the very awesome weapon and shield combo that only comes at the very end.

I have 124 minor healing potions, 73 healing potions, and 53 major healing potions. I have 10 scrolls of protection, 5 scrolls of ashbeast transformation, 10 scrolls of skeletal guardian summoning, and 10 of berserker strength. I also have the highest strength possible and the highest skill in my weapon possible. However, that’s not hard as my awesome weapon gives me +6 to weapon skill.

I am ready to rock.

I rush to where I know the final boss is waiting for me, and first meet the [spoiler], who I bat aside easily. And then I… fail a quest? A quest that I’m just about to complete? Okay, that sucks. You didn’t tell me there was a time limit to this quest, you douche. I’ve only failed two quests in this game, and both times it’s be because of a hidden time limit.

But whatever, eyes on the prize. It’s about 5:30 am, and the sun is rising behind me. I step pass the Great Gate to the fiery hall of the [spoiler].

And I die.

And I die.

And I die.

Why? Because my health potions, strength, weapon skill, and scrolls are utterly useless. The boss battle is basically a giant jumping puzzle in a tiny room against an opponent that is immune to regular attacks. If the player has the right skills, they could beat [spoiler] at level 1. If the player lacks the skills, they can’t win no matter how much time and energy they’ve poured into making the uber killing machine.

I close the game down in disgust, head to bed, sleep, and try again in the morning. Well-rested, my hand-eye coordination is good enough that I win on the first try after about two minutes.

As victories go, it’s not very satisfying.

Now, Risen is a combat centered RPG. The first Chapter has a large number of side-quests, Chapters 2 and 3 are 90% running around and killing things, while Chapter 4 is centered on dungeon delving and killing things. The combat is real time and you control each swing, step, and block.

Despite this, I found the game interesting enough that I finished it. The combat was frustrating at times, but the exploration and secondary skills (alchemy, smithing, and lock picking) all proved rewarding, and the dungeon delving was better than any other game I’ve played. Each dungeon felt like its own puzzle.

My experience playing Batman: AA was similar. I loved the exploration and searching for secrets. The stealth combat (‘predator mode’) was great fun. What did they do at the end? Trap me in a small room with dozens of opponents. No stealth take downs, no using my explosives, or my upgraded triple batarang.

Again, after dying many times, I gave up and started something else. I don’t feel compelled to beat a game, only to play it, and it’s obvious that I’d reached the end.

I think game developers try too hard to make the boss fight the most memorable part of the game, often by changing the nature of the gameplay, making previous skills and abilities useless, or by making the last battle far more difficult than any other.

One of the better end fights I’ve played this year was the one from Prince of Persia. The battle had you utilizing all the skills you’d learned, and was moderately harder than previous fights, but the boss battle was not the emotional climax. The climax came afterward when the Prince decides that there is something more important than defeating the bad guy.