The Gamer's Eye of Judgement

 Being a Steam user certainly has it's downside when it comes to the annual sales. The Summer Sale is probably the one that hit me the hardest as I bought almost $100 worth of games just in the sale alone. The Fall and Winter Sale's were not as damaging but were not without roughly 10+ games bought from those as well.

 This will be the year I start grinding out all those games as efficiently as I can to minimize any more potential loss of money on more games that won't be played for extended periods of time. I've come up with a couple tips to help you get the most out of your Steam backlog.

1. Play the indie titles first! Ones that have just a couple achievements tied to it (less than 10, or up to 15) usually are the ones with roughly 5 hours of gameplay to them. The only exception to this rule are the rogue-likes, which can take anyone 50-100 hours to fully complete if going for all achievements and not just play from beginning to end.

2. Not sure of the average length of a game? HowLongToBeat.com is your friend! This site provides the average length of just about every game in existance based on user feedback. This site also includes the fastest completion, main storyline, and 100% completion times. An excellent source to pick out the shorter games from the long.

3. Game first, achievements after. If you're like me and you absolutely have to get all (or most) the achievements, make that your second priority when it comes to longer games. If you worry about achievements, you'll only be wasting more time on a game when you could be playing something else. A great example of this is Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. To play through just the main story could take you roughly 20 hours the first time through...however if you aim for all the achievements during your playthrough expect to spend a good 50+ hours...That's 50 hours you could have spent knocking off another 2 or so games in your backlog!

4. No achievements? No problem, play to enjoy!

 With these points in mind I will most certainly be able to get through roughly half, maybe even most of my backlog by the end of the year, but I won't call that definite for sure. Anything can happen that may potentially turn my attention away from Steam altogether for an unknown amount of time (such as my slightly growing backlog of PS3 games...).

 I own a lot of video games, and by a lot I'm talking over 300, spanning across all generations dating back to the early 80's of Atari and Intellivision. Throughout my life I've talked games with numerous people and during these conversations there's always talk about a big title that they've played and absolutely loved to death that I have not had the chance to buy or try out. I guarantee every single time I'm asked to play the awesome game I always have to bring them down with the excuse "I'd love to play it, but I'm busy with other games at the moment."

 My gaming style is not the most common amongst other gamers, but I like to play a game straight to the end as soon as I start playing it. On rare occasions I could do this with 2 games at a time, but a majority of my time is spent on one game. Of course that one game could take a few days to beat to a few months depending on what my schedule looks like, and how difficult the game itself is. Achievements are also another factor in this as well...I hate to say that I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to 100% a game's achievements, but there's always a few that I'm almost certain not to obtain and so I passively move on to the next game. However in most cases if I have a hunch that I can get a specific achievement, no matter how excruciatingly long of a grind it'll take to get me that achievement, I will spend as long as it takes to get it no matter what.

 A perfect example of this is the achievement to reach level 50 in multiplayer on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. That one achievement took me a good month of grinding games to reach and it was worth the blood and sweat. As a result, I never want to play multiplayer to that extent again...however I regret reading ahead on the achievements for ACIV and finding yet another "level 55" multiplayer achievement. The good news though while reading the comments on the achievement, is that the leveling is not as bad as was in Brotherhood, and with the Wolfpack mode there's really no need to sit in a lobby waiting for other players to join. So in the end maybe this max level achievement won't be as terrible, but still a tiny bit of a grind.

 I know there's a lot of gamers that don't spend countless hours on every game they get their hands on. I know for sure there's at least a couple games that will be played for countless hours, while the rest are only played for a couple hours at a time. Yes, I do know and realize the games you play are absolutely amazing and I would love to play them. I do know I will be most likely playing them from start to finish one way or another, but I've got quite a line of other amazing games that are also on my waiting list to be played that I need to go through as well.

 I had one such discussion with a co-worker trying to get me to buy and play Skyrim. He did nothing but talk nearly everyday about his happenings with the game and what he's been doing and how I should seriously be playing the game because that's all there is to play and no other game matters except Skyrim. I told him the usual "I have other awesome games that I need to play too" and gave him a couple like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and the original Resident Evil trilogy (I've only really played part of the 2nd). He then turns and tells me that I need to play those too, and I just simply rolled my eyes at him since these were only a few of many I still needed to play on top of just Skyrim.

 There is good in some of today's games when it comes to not buying them day 1. A year or so down the line there'll most likely be a special edition of the game that includes all DLC that was released for the game all packed in one and for the same price (if not cheaper) than when it was initially released without any DLC. All in all, buying late is better with the much cheaper price and possible added content.

 Hopefully before I die I will have played all that needs to be played both old and new. With the rise of concern for the future in console gaming I hope to have just a LITTLE bit of a breather to catch up on some older games while I continue to potentially flood my Steam account with more games...

A couple days ago I looked through my YouTube videos and playlists and seemed a little disgusted with how it was all organized based around all the different kinds of videos I upload. I then remembered a couple people I follow that had made their own web pages that basically simplified the traditional YouTube playlists to make it a lot easier to find what you're looking for. So with that inspiration to go by I went ahead and made a new page to link all of my YouTube videos organized by which games I have played and the videos associated with said games. You can check out the link on the right, or by clicking HERE.

I've been having a little bit of a rush in terms of working on my channel again (along with this blog, of course) and thinking up some content ideas to upload and share. There's not much in terms of thinking up an original idea. I've done both a speedrun and a let's play, and that's probably as much of those as I'll do. Maybe down the road I'll do more on speedrunning at the least, and as for let's plays I don't have a proper microphone. I'm also way too shy to speak, so I don't think I would be much entertainment for people in that sense...but I guess you'll never know.

I also had an idea to go through my whole collection of games and beat them all from start to finish. Kind of like a longplay / walkthrough, but just mainly gameplay while skipping cutscenes, optional objectives, etc and keeping any deaths intact. I've also thought up possibly doing post-commentary on a few games if there's a need for explanation on a lot of choices I make during the playthrough but as of now that won't be the case without a mic. This might be what I'll end up doing, but the ideas are still floating around for now.

Point and Click, or Graphic adventure games used to be a pretty major genre in the PC market back in the 90's. LucasArts was the one major company producing such great hits as the Monkey Island and Sam and Max series, Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle. These type of games were focused more on the story development and presented gameplay through various puzzles that had to be solved in order to progress the story forward. One would have to use the most of their imagination to get through these type of games.

In recent years this once PC exclusive genre has had a growth in game releases not only on Steam, but also showing light on current gen consoles. Remasters and sequals to past franchises have returned along with new titles such as Back to the Future, The Walking Dead, and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. A remaster of Day of the Tentacle was in the making before LucasArts was closed by Disney therefore shutting that project down never to be seen by the public.

A newer company, Daedalic Entertainment, has been hard at work continuing the graphic adventure game legacy that LucasArts has left behind. While not affiliated with LucasArts, the games that they produce have that same quality that you would find in a LucasArts game. Some of their games including Edna & Harvey, The Whispered World, and Deponia received various awards such as best story, best youth game, and best soundtrack.

While I can understand these games aren't not the most appealing to most gamers, if your into a rich story, beautiful artwork, and challenging puzzles, point and click adventure games are surely something to look into and enjoy. There are a wide variety to choose from and can be found on almost any platform nowadays.

I've been playing video games for most of my life. Being someone with that level of experience and devotion to a hobby does have it's ups and downs. For one, being a gamer keeps you away from all the "bad" the world has to offer to you. But at the same time as you grow older, and start living life the way society wants you to live, it becomes more and more difficult to find the time to actually play games. Even today I'm writing this now in bits and pieces due to such minimal free time in posting because of the two jobs I work everyday. I know it's becoming an issue because I still have 3 sealed PS3 games still sitting behind me that I had got the end of last year that I haven't touched yet because of the mass amounts of games I got on Steam, which I've only played maybe 10 or so out of the 50+.

This got me thinking if your still a gamer and still just as passionate as you were when you were younger, does it come a time where you just want to buy the games despite not having time to play them? I'm not sure if I'm the only one that experiences this, but I sometimes feel as though I'll buy the games I want and then "get to them whenever I can", which could be months or years away. Usually this is because I'm in the middle of playing another game or two. I can never keep myself from buying a game that I want because I'm such a smart consumer whore. I basically just want the security of actually having the game so that in case one day every store in the world just stopped selling video games altogether, I can have no regrets skipping out on the mass amount of games that I could have gotten, but decided to save the money and space for something more important.

 Then there's the side of me that suggests I get into just simple collecting. No huge worries of buying games and then have to play them within a certain amount of time, just buy them to have them. Although that's a good idea in theory there's that small group of skeptical individuals that see a huge gaming collect and they ask the question "Have you even played/beaten all of these?" I'd like to be one of the few that can simply say "Yes, I've beaten most of these, but have played a good amount of every game here". My idea of collecting is more on collecting quality, fun, rare, and unique games and not just buying every single game good and bad. When I see such collections that have a lot of sports games, or really low quality games I usually assume the collector doesn't play every single game that they own, and just collect games for the numbers.

I currently own 403 games between console, handheld, PC retail, and Steam downloads. I'd say about 98% of all games were bought during the consoles retail lifespan, so I've spent a pretty good amount of money on these games (roughly $15,000). By now the price of my collection is probably more down to about $5,000-$10,000 even with all the console games in very good condition with cases and manuals and no scratches on any discs. This is usually another aspect to a collectors rule of thumb that all their games are in very good, almost perfect mint condition, and just about all of my games meet this rule with the exception of Game Boy and Game Gear games, which I only have the game and manuals for.

I love playing video games and I don't ever see myself quitting. Even if real life tries to take over, I will always try to fill some time in the week for my gaming needs if only for just an hour or two. Collecting video games leaves me with something to do on my down time from all the chaos life throws at me. If a game is unfinished or has not been played, I'll fill the time to play it all the way through, or at least most of the way so I don't find myself bored with nothing to do. There's also times where I find myself with TOO much to do on my down time, but I'm alright as long as I'm not dying from boredom!

Games are a great way to escape from the troubles and stress of everyday life in the real world. Though sometimes there's no way to get your hands on a controller or find any sort of time to just sit down and play a game. Sometimes when you think about gaming one aspect that would come to mind is the music that plays during the game, and a lot of that music would be stuck in your head for eternity. Many games are beloved by many partially due to the amazing soundtracks that come with the game. This is especially true to such classic RPG's as Chrono Trigger, the Final Fantasy series, Secret of Mana, and Legend of Zelda. The soundtracks are amazingly well done and are very memorable to many to be some of the best work produced on 8 and 16-bit consoles.

It's not just RPG's that have fantastic and memorable music. A lot of other genres can carry some pieces of music that are loved by many gamers from action/adventure, platformer, fighting, and even puzzle games. There's something about the simplicity of these soundtracks that are soothing to the ears and bring in that same kind of escape from reality as the games they are featured in. The music, when heard outside of the game, will usually bring you to that specific point in the game where the music was played, and will provide you some loving (or hate to love) memories.

Today's soundtracks are just as important in games as their older brothers from the 80's and 90's. Many soundtracks today are produced with actual instruments, practically orchestral. Even now with actual orchestras bringing back the older soundtracks and re-imagining some songs to give a new direction of those same memorable chiptunes we heard when we were younger. One such concert series that does these orchestral performances of video games is Video Games Live created by music composer Tommy Tallarico, whose done music for countless number of video games such as Earthworm Jim, MDK, Maximo, Unreal, and Metroid Prime just to name a few.

Whether your taste in music is for the classic chiptunes of yesterday, or the orchestral and rock pieces of today, there is sure to be a piece of music you heard in a game that really caught your ear. It's those kind of songs that can take us away to another land that is out of the ordinary and fills us with excitement, peace, and happiness all around.

What a year gaming has been so far. If the next gen console wars between the PS4 and Xbox One weren't enough, other companies decided this was the year to make their own consoles. The first of which was the Ouya, an Android-based console which started off as a Kickstarter project that raised $3.7 million in just two days! The best part about this console is that it only cost $99. However the console, and the customer service tied in with it weren't not as devoted as one might think. Many problems followed the Ouya's pre-release from the shipment of the console, to various controller problems and lack of replacements. Upon official retail release, however, many of those problems were greatly reduced and solved, however sales of the console were not as demanding as people had hoped, with the lower-than-average price tag. This didn't stop other companies like Google and Amazon to think up possible gaming consoles for the future. Will they succeed or be a mediocre release much like the Ouya?

If the overwhelming news of gaming consoles didn't hold you up enough, the games certainly make up for it, and then some...or much more. There were a vast amount of big releases (and disappointments) this year including reboots such as DmC: Devil May Cry, and Tomb Raider, and sequels to fan favorites like Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Resident Evil 6, Saints Row IV, Bioshock Infinite, and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Remastered old classics were brought into the mix such as Ducktales: Remastered, and the soon to be released Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse. The online gaming world saw it's next big release with Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which is also a sort of reboot/relaunch to the first release of the game, which met with a majority of negative feedback from fans. So much so that SquareEnix decided to pull the plug on the game and recreate it from the ground up, and this was a good move on the companies part.

Of course we're not at the end of the year just yet. There are still many more amazing releases to come including Grand Theft Auto V, Batman: Arkham Origins, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Call of Duty: Ghosts. This year is looking to be quite an extraordinary year for gaming with just about everything from reboots, sequels, new IP's, new online games, new consoles and new controversies. There's a whole lot more I could get into about this years games and console news, but I'll save that for my 2nd half of 2013 post. As with all the previous years in gaming it doesn't matter who wins what war, because the real winners are the gamers.