The lights are on
Playing video games is fun. And when you are having fun, according to an old adage, time flies. That’s really awesome when you play video games at work, but I also play video games at home. And like every gamer out there knows, playing games on your free time can result in not having a lot of time for other things. Things like spending time with your family. Or eating and sleeping.
When it comes to stealing away the hours, some games are particularly heinous. Playing them doesn’t just result in time flying; it’s more like an X-Files-esque, I-just-woke-up-on-the-side-of-the-road-and-have-no-idea-what-I’ve-been-doing-for-the-past-twelve-hours-God-I-hope-aliens-didn’t-probe-me, loss of time.
As it just so happens, I find myself in the middle of about half a dozen such games, some of which I am literally afraid to turn on. Think I’m exaggerating? Check out the list for yourself:
Fallout 3: I could pretty much end this list right here. I’m a huge fan of Bethesda’s RPGs, and also a fan of post-apocalyptic games. So when Bethesda made a Mad Max-inspired post apocalyptic RPG, I knew I was in trouble. I put off playing it as long as I could, but finally gave in during the holiday break. I’m now 20+ hours into Fallout 3, and only just finished the second mission of the main storyline. Sweating over skill upgrades, exploring random buildings, and stealing whatever I can get my hands on is as time consuming as it is fun. I can’t turn this game on without instantly losing at least three hours of my life. It’s the GOTY edition to boot, which means all of the extra DLC content. I'll be playing this game until the real apocalypse.
LittleBigPlanet: I got a PS3 over the holidays as well, and this game is the reason why. I knew I would love the creativity LBP offers, but I didn’t realize it was the kind of game that sucks away the hours too. I started it over the holiday break, thinking the bright, lighthearted design would offer a nice respite to the depressing wasteland of Fallout 3. It does, but LBP hasn’t gotten me to bed any earlier. I’m about a third of the way through developer levels now, and I shudder to think about all the hours I’ll spend checking out the user-generated levels. But the real danger is the level creator. I’m a sucker for any game that allows me to create my own content, and just fooling around in the tutorials had me on a vampire’s sleeping schedule for about a week or so. I would literally play until dawn, hiss at the sun through my blinds, then sleep until 2:00 in the afternoon. Since we've been back to our regular work schedule I’ve been afraid to start up either of these two games again.
The God of War Collection:I’m way behind on my Sony games, so I picked up this little gem along with LBP. The graphical overhaul looks great, and although I don’t normally like hack and slash action games, I’ve been mightily impressed by the game’s excellent level design and puzzles. I’m only about 5 hours into the first game, and so far I’ve managed to keep play sessions to manageable lengths, but only by reducing my evening routine to that of a prisoner: I have the lights in my living room on timers set to go off at midnight. When they do, I turn the game off at the next save. It’s worked so far, but we’ll see how things go this weekend.
Oblivion:Like I said, I love Bethesda’s RPGs. So much so that I’ve spent countless hours exploring Cyrodiil, and only scratched the surface of the game’s main plot. Most of my time has been spent thieving and boosting my alchemy skill – a giant fantasy adventure awaits me, and I spend my time stealing peoples’ food to make potions! This is also the GOTY edition, which is a great deal, but also a serious time commitment.
Mass Effect:Good lord, I have to stop buying RPGs. I don’t even know how far I am through Mass Effect – all I remember is I’m somewhere in space with a bunch of aliens. I’ve really enjoyed the game, but I have a hard time passing up even the most mundane side missions, which Mass Effect has in spades.
I was playing this one while my brother was living with me, and whenever he came in the room I was always managing my inventory – I don’t think he ever saw any actual gameplay. Thanks to how easy it is to lose track of time while playing this game though, several of these encounters happened in the morning – he was getting ready to go to work, while I was just getting ready to go to bed. I stopped playing this one when I got my job at GI, and have been afraid to return to it. Now that the sequel is just around the bend however, I’ll have to make the time to finish this one off.
Left 4 Dead 2:This is a game I’ve played exclusively with my brother, so the real problem hasn’t been losing track of time while playing it, but finding time to play it in the first place. The one decent play session we’ve had lasted three and a half hours – we only beat one campaign. Hopefully after football season ends we’ll have some more weekend hours to practice for the zombie apocalypse.
The Rest:I picked up a lot of games during the holidays, and still haven’t opened my copies of Killzone 2, Resident Evil 5, and Red Faction: Guerilla. Throw in some other games I’ve yet to start (Assassin’s Creed 2 and Uncharted 2), and some unfinished leftovers (GTAIV and The Orange Box) and I’ll need to get caught in some kind of Groundhog’s Day time loop to finish all of them. Not that having a bunch of awesome video games to play is a bad problem to have...
Feel free to post your top time stealers below, as well as any time management tips you have for keeping your gaming addiction in check. I could use them.
Email the author Jeff Marchiafava, or follow on Google+, Twitter, and Game Informer.
Don't remind me about having a giant load of games to play...I've been stocking up on PS2 RPG's for a while now,.hack,Xenosaga,Eternal Poison,just about every other RPG on the system,along with a good chunk of other types of games and my time with them has been limited as heck,not to mention the games slated to come out in the next couple months,nor my 4 other systems right now full of things to play...
I've gotten to the point where I refuse to play any other game until I beat the one I'm on,though I break that promise way too often...
I feel your pain. Over the past few days I've been playing Assassin's Creed 2 almost nonstop, almost five hours a day. This is especially bad for my actual life as I used to play less than an hour a day of any video game, if at all. None of my friends have seen me in a week; all my time is spent at school, family, or playing Assassin's Creed.
Just wait for all the sweet releases coming out in the next few months, March especially. Your list is about to get a whole lot bigger.
Dude, i totally agree, i cant even look at the cover of some of those games cuz ill be like " eh ill onl play for 30 minutes..." (3 hours later) *** IT!! lol most games are addicting, thats why i like playing games like madden occasionaly where i dont have to worry about exploring or surviving the apocalypse, its just a fun game that the amount of time put in is controllable
Man, you i have much leftover games too GTA IV,CoD World At War,Ratchet and Clank:A Crack In Time and a bunch of others and to and i try to end a game so then i can end the other but i just cant cause everytime i buy a new one i just wanna open it and thats what i do and there is where i leave the game that i was playing and start playing the one i buyed. I think i pass playing like more than 5 hours a day specially CoD Modern Warfare 2 Online almost every day,But now the same is happening with assasins creed II.Now im trying to play only from friday to sunday and i think is working.
i got fallout 3 for christmas to but while you have 20+ hours on your only save i have 80+ hours on 2 separate saves and i am starting a new one now.by the way is fawkes invincible all the time when he fallows you or is mine glitched?not that there's anything wrong with having an invincible soldier with you at all times.
after you are done with fallout 3 play uncharted 2 until you win it.
i have my mass effect 2 copy reserved but i haven't played the first one yet,i know i probably won't want to play the first one after i play the second one so i will probably end up having mass effect 2 staring at me while i try to win the first one.
I just got a LOT of DS games recently, and I've been jumping between about 10 of them. Here's just some I've played in the last few days: Tetris DS, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Bomberman Land Touch, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (yes, I am one of the 3 people who bought it), Castlvania: Dawn of Sorrow/Portrait of Ruin/Order of Ecclasia, every Phoenix Wright game, and Pokemon Platinum. Yeah, I got a lot. And that's only a fraction of what I really got.
I need to finish X-Men 2: Rise of the Apocalypse, but recently Oblivion, Modern Warfare 2, and Dead Rising have been stealing my time. Throw in the fact that I need to finish Mass Effect and I won't be outside anytime soon.
I'm with you on Oblivion, I feel like I've done almost every side quest and I'm not even half way through it. I already have 540 Gamerscore and I haven't bothered much with the main quest. I completely forgot about it actually and kept doing side quests because they were amazing. I personally enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood the most.
Every time I get close to beating a game something else comes out or I feel the need to buy a new game. Near the end of inFamous, I bought Batman:AA, near the end of that I bought Uncharted 2 which is the only game I've finished recently. When I came close to finishing the new Ratchet and Clank, the MAG beta stole my weekend and then I bought Street Fighter IV on impulse because Gamestop had it cheap. And now MAG, Final Fantasy, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are in the near future. I'm looking forward to beating inFamous.
@ anthony,the dark brotherhood was my favorite thing to do in oblivion to.
RF: Guerrilla and KZ2 are extremely long campaign games with added multiplayer. Plus, there are at least 10 other games coming out in the next few months that are going to be long and fun. You've got a lot of work ahead.
I'm making a commitment: No new games between now and the new Pokemon game. I'm going to try to finish as many of my backlogged games as possible between now and then. Right now, that means a whole lot of Legend of Zelda. Hacking my way through Wind Waker and Spirit Tracks at the moment, and I may very well finish Majoras Mask on my collection disc for Gamecube after those.
The only problem is, I know there is simply no way I'll finish even half of my backlog before March 14th, and a new Pokemon game is guaranteed to suck up at least 3 months of my life. I have 450+ HOURS of play time between all my other Pokemon games! *sigh* Curse you, Game Freak!
Mass Effect, since I wont allow myself to even fathom purchasing the sequel before completing the game that started the craze.
Also, played ONE game of Halo 3 for a change. Some Social Slayer, when +13 and did some sweet handiwork with the Banshee on Valhalla. That enough made me crave more, but I had stuff to do.
There is nothing like a good Bethesda RPG. I realized recently that I don't even necessarily want an Elder Scrolls V. I just want another game by them with the same formula every few years to eat up my life... It would just be great to always wonder- "what kind of universe are they going tackle next?"
In the last year I've completely fell into the time crunch problem a lot of gamers face.
Games I've been dying to play, ran out and bought them on release day, and then find myself spending the next month falling back into Fallout 3 (again) or InFamous (also again) for no rhyme or reason. (I've beaten/thoroughly explored both games at least 3-4 times each.)
It's only when the games start piling up do I break the spell cast by certain games and jump into territory that I've never seen. On a slow year, it's not that bad. But in a year like this, where every month is seeing some great releases...it can be over whelming.
i am addicted to assassins creed 2! i deon't even play the missions that much i just run around and for some odd reason search for the treasure chests!!
Dear God, that is an insane list of games to play. I just picked up the Fallout 3 GOTY edition, and I'm planning to play that as well as some Wow this entire weekend. I've been going back to some slightly older games too, like Star Ocean 2 and 4, along with random 360 games to farm achievements. I agree with you, I have GOT to stop buying RPG's.
Just finished The Phantom Hourglass, and am a 1/4 of the way through Spirit Tracks now. I have to say they took some of the annoying things from Hourglass and fixed them in Spirit Tracks. I'm very glad I bought both. I still have Kingdom Hearts 358/2 to touch and the Force Unleased for DS. Final Fantasy IV is also sitting in the wings as well collecting dust. Those bosses are annoying, I'm not going to lie.
For PS3 I am just getting into Dragon Age and I still have Resident Evil 5 sitting there staring at me while I am trying to get work done. Am waiting for Taxes to come back before I get Fallout 3 (GOTY Edition), Darksiders, and The Saboteur, which I am sure will suck up most of my life for the next year.
@hale_is_back
fawkes isnt invincible but close to being invincible. The only way I have ever seen him die is if you let him die. I once sat back and let a behemoth super mutant pound fawkes into the ground just to see if he could be killed and he can, just takes a lot.
Jeff, my list nearly mirror's yours haha. I am a sucker for all Bethesda's RPGs. I have logged nearly two weeks of play time when I combine Fallout 3 and Oblivion! I don't have a PS3 so I would have to substitute LBP & GOW with Call of Duty and the Halo collection. Instead of timing the lights, I have my wife to keep me in check. BTW, if I were your brother I think I would have beat you out of envy for playing games while I go to work. Then you go and snag a job at GI; talk about rubbing salt into the wound. Sucks to be your brother!