Blargh, I tell you. Blargh!
I find it extremely difficult to write about gaming when I am not gaming. It’s frustrating as I see all of you poking your noses in here to see what I’m writing about – and no doubt that comes with heavy dissapointment. Bored and Unispired Gameaholics Anonymous (BUGA) chatter, after the break.
I haven’t been playing anything. A little bit of MLB 2K9 – which has beauty presentation but the more you play the lack of basic baseball mechanics sucks. There is nothing wrong with all pretty and nothing upstairs for a little bit, but after a while it lacks any sort of staying power. First date yes, second date maybe not. I took the WAR 10 day trial (again) and made it through 30 minutes before shaking my head and wondering… why am I doing this again? Booted up the EVE trial – SUCH a beautiful game. I could just fly around and enjoy the immersive scenery. After waiting 20 minutes for my first skillup I was reminded why I didn’t stick with it. (I am too casual for EVE – make no mistake about it. While the visuals and mechanics are sweet, I need a game that LOOKS like EVE, plays like EVE, but made for faster gratification in shorter bursts. I am not bashing the game, I have done trials on it a few times and often very close to buying. It just doesn’t fit me, unfortunately). I popped into L4D for a couple survival modes, and flirted with the thought of honing my leet FPS skills with my shotty in BF2142. I just.. well.. not having fun playing games right now. It just isn’t doing it for me. I almost resubbed to WoW (yes, I unsubbed again – 4th or 5th time) just to see the new Druid skins. I am in a downward cycle of booting up games I have, being “surprisingly” disappointed after 20 minutes, then digging deeper on my harddrive for the next “dissapointment”.
I am in dire need of a new experience. My wife thinks I am cheating on her right now. Usually come Friday and Saturday nights, and my little one is off to bed I am entirely content toiling away at my PC gaming while she watches her shows. It has been a very consistent thing in our lives, and we are both happy for it. Lately I have been going out “with the boys” for the odd adult beverage. “Whats going on with your games?” she asks – inquisitively and hardly trusting. She doesn’t mind I play them, and realizes it is a huge source of entertainment for me. “Nothing. Sadly, nothing is going on with them.”
“Did you just put gel in your hair? Is that cologne” – cue suspicion
“I thought you wanted to raid again?” – blow below the belt, of course. That’s just mean.
With the lack of fun gaming on my agenda right now I have stuck towards working Friday and Saturday nights. It is amazing how productive you can be when the phone isn’t ringing off the hook. For the sake of my marriage, and my sanity (all work and no play…) I need a new game. I need a single player game though, something I can jump in and out of. This game needs to capture my imagination, challenge me in some ways (physically, intellectually, or hell, even emotionally at this point).
I have promised myself to go give M59 a whirl for something old, something new (something borrowwed something blue?) to support Psychochild after reading his input on many o’ blogs (I do like to vote with my wallet for support – whether it has any real effect in this market or not, it’s the principal) but hardly have the time for any sort of  MMO and actually want to give it a fair shake.
I am curious about Blood Bowl – I never played the table top game, but I love sports, and fantasy characters, and blood, and uh, strategy games. Mostly here though I am curious if that Blood Bowl is a pure tabletop conversion with fancy graphics – can someone please do that to Battletech?
Other games I even have an inkling for are a couple years stuck in development. I can barely Beta test the games I am in right now as they are the same games I have been playing for 6 years already.
Any suggestions? Anyone else feeling the same pain as me?
Remember, the first step in BUGA is admission.
Not to dissuade you from trying Meridian 59 (when we finally get billing back up and working… *sigh*), but one thing you should do is find some good friends to play with. The main reason I’m playing LotRO right now is because the game got my better half playing it. Playing a new game with friends gives you some of the fun back.
Otherwise, do something completely different. Maybe play some Flash games (I recommend http://www.armorgames.com/) or buy some cheap games off gog.com or Steam. There’s a lot of variety out there if you let yourself have some fun. 🙂
You sound like a gamer after my own heart, and I think I understand how you are feeling, if not, well here is a completely random post.
I would point out that almost every game you listed is heavily steeped in statistics and numbers.
I love stats, I play sports pools, I make bets. I have made many a spreadsheet on things for WoW. Hell, as a kid I invented pen and paper sports leagues and meticulously monitored my fake players percentages. (I was an only child 😉 )
My gaming catalog is full of these games. Baseball and Soccer managers, RPGS, turn based strategy, etc. I love them, but they cannot stand on their own. They require some sort of flesh, something to hold it all together, and when that binding agent is no longer interesting, well, its game over.
I would suggest playing something for a while that doesn’t require numbers. Something scripted, something linear. May I suggest Trine over on steam? Or Time Gentlemen, Please. I’m sure something will come along again soon that will remind us why we like our analytical games so much.
P.S. Looks like EVE, plays like EVE, faster gratification? What ever happened to Microsofts Freelancer franchise??
I don’t remember… Do you have an Xbox? If so, try out Battlefield 1943. It’s slated for PC release in September, but it’s out now for Xbox and PS3. It’s fantastic. Three maps (four if you count the plane-only Air Superiority mode) that for a BF1942 player look extremely familiar, but are fresh and new in almost every other way. It’s been a great change of pace.
@Brian: I am definitely going to give m59 a good shot – right now with my gaming ‘mood’ I know I won’t be able to dig into it and really enjoy it. MMO land for so long – I truely miss the people to game with/against but I just can’t schedule things like in the past. I’d be an unreliable gaming buddy – and it’s hard to game with friends when I can only dedicate minimal time (will surely get left behind in the current iteration of the mechanics). Thanks for the thoughts though!
@Liam: Similar indeed – I used to play a lot of pen and paper games, and fancy board games (there was a card baseball game.. Think it was by Avalon Hill…) and you put in lineups and flip cards for outcomes based on player stat cards. I would build my own spreadsheets on player stats and performanes to track the league 🙂 I even made a few of my own RPGs. I wasn’t an only child (middle) but it sure felt like it growing up in a small rural town. I might try basic and linear but I fear it won’t capture my imagination enough to keep me interested – although I do see the purpose of mixing it up a good strategy.
@Pope: no xbox but I do have a wii. As a full FPS purist I can’t imagine playing the BF series with a controller – although it’s good to hear the new release is solid. Looking forward to September.
Freelancer is a sweet game, but it never hit the monetary success to spawn sequels or an MMO iteration. I’m looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution, m’self, for that space sim…ish fix.
I’ve been playing offline games for a while now. The latest great game is Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. VP Tactics, effectively. Yummy yummy goodness. FFTacticsA2, Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis and Disgaea DS round out the handheld fun, and when I have the time, I’m finally playing FFXII. Oh, and some Wizard 101 here and there when I feel like experimenting with their card combat, or running instances for furniture to give to my daughter’s character.
I’m happy to be off the MMO treadmill, m’self, and these handheld tactical games have me ready to do some more non-MMO game design. I followed up on an old Psychochild design challenge over the weekend, actually. It’s been a great change of pace.
Oh, and yes, it’s high time they make a high polish Battletech conversion.
These guys are trying, but it’s just not the same:
MegaMek
http://megamek.notcows.com/
Neveron
http://www2.neveron.com/
Invasion 3042
http://www.invasion3042.com/
I did note that MechWarrior 4 is being released for free sometime soon, in preparation for a new MechWarrior game… and it’s got me itching to do some sketches of steampunk ‘Mechs. I’ve got one that I need to scan in…