It's April again...

Posted Apr 8, 2015

… and my cake gains another candle.

I can’t believe how some people come up with material for daily or even just weekly blog posts, god damn. Since my last awkward attempt at updating this thing, I have resigned from my (now previous) job and started another, and on top of that I’ve become involved in a side project that’s very ambitious for two guys to be developing in their spare time. In addition to my education of course, which my parents keep reminding me not to neglect. Don’t worry, mom and dad, I won’t. Too badly.

Gaming-wise, it’s actually been a slow year so far. Just for curiosity’s sake, I’ve got a text file where I try to place as many games as I can onto a when-did-I-play-this timeline (which I might integrate into my collection app at some point). Maybe it’s just because remembering what discs I was putting into my PlayStation a decade ago is hard, but there’s a pretty clear trend going on:

You know, I feel slightly embarrassed. Being a half-casual gamer is a dubious claim when you finish 50 games in a year; that’s roughly one each week. And it’s not even socially acceptable games like FIFA or Halo where playing the game doesn’t automatically place a giant L on your forehead in the eyes of society. It’s more like BioShock and Skyrim. “I just play it to pass the time.” Yeah right.

If only the internet didn’t exist so I could be blissfully unaware of new releases and not just rush through everything. With the internet gone, maybe I’d even gain some social skills and meet new people. Oh well, a guy can dream. Or have nightmares. It’s both, really.

But it looks like 2015 is bucking the trend. So far I’ve played three games to the credits: Far Cry 4, Alien: Isolation and Wolfenstein: The New Order, and I’m currently a few cases into L.A. Noire. That’s more like one a month.

It’s alright. As I said there are plenty of things to do and so gaming time is deprioritized, as it should, and I consciously try to avoid turning a fun hobby into a chore by rushing things.

Of course, I’ll have to play GTA V when the PC version comes out in a week, and I’ve also been hearing a lot of praise for Pillars of Eternity, which several of my friends are playing. Maybe I can finally get into something that can’t be played with a controller. Maybe I’ll also suddenly become a cool dude and accomplish something with my life.

Yeah right.