Cleaning House (or Wisdom's excuse to play more games)

Some gamers are completionists.  Let's use Brad as an example.  Brad needs to complete every mission, every side quest, and find every secret before moving on with the main story of the game.  He gets his money's worth out of the titles that he buys, I mean lots of time played.  Gamers like these are the ones that find the easter eggs left for gamers by devs, they know the ins and outs of their favorite games, and more than they ever wanted to know about games they didn't like.  I'm not Brad.

I am not a completionist.  As such, I can get distracted by different games very easily.  I'll start playing one game, and my gaming ADD will kick in when I see a new shiny game trailer.  This doesn't mean that I don't finish games, that I haven't sunk multiple hundreds of hours into franchises like The Elder Scrolls, it just means that I do not have some inner mechanism compelling me to finish every game that I play, let alone explore every nook and cranny of it.

Needless to say this has left me with many games that I've started, but never finished.  I got to thinking about that the other day, and I came to the conclusion that this is a tragedy.  Writers, programmers, artists, and others put their blood sweat and tears into these games, and I have carelessly thrown their work aside.  If I was talking about bad games, this wouldn't be that big of a deal.  But I'm talking about games like Star Craft 2, Half  Life 2, Deus Ex, and others.  I must repent of my gaming sin.  The best way that I know how to do this is to play these games, and share the game completing glory with you.

First I believe it is time to finish Half Life 2.  I got part way through Ravenholm when I stopped playing HL2.  It feels like I am returning to an old friend.  This game was crafted, not just developed.  It's fun, challenging, and I care about the people in the world, not just the story.  I found myself sympathizing with the combine soldier fleeing from me yelling "OUTBREAK! OUTBREAK OUTBREAK!" as I mercilessly shot him in the back.  What must he have felt to see what he thought was a zombie or monster who had learned how to use a gun?  Valve does a great job putting a lot of character into their games.  Enjoy the first episode, more will come soon!

- Wisdom