These last two months have been difficult for me. At the end of January, I lost my job due to circumstances beyond my control. It was the first time I’ve been unemployed since I first began working in 2001. The good news is I just got a new job. I start as of Monday and I’m really excited to begin anew.
On my first day of unemployment, I wrote a blog post outlining a few gaming resolutions of sorts to tide me over during this tough time. I can say right now that I failed horribly at not purchasing games, having bought a total of 16 games during these last two months, but how did I fare at the rest of my resolutions?
1. Get a job.
Success. I got a job in the field that I studied for, so my professional career ambitions will continue as planned. Say what you will about money, but I was going to do anything possible to not take a job just for the money. I’ve spent 8 years of my life doing that and I don’t ever want to do it again. Thankfully, I won’t have to for the time being.
2. Play games I started and never finished.
I made a few dents in my stash. I’ve beaten Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the former I still need to write about at some point. I also gave Silent Hill: Homecoming a legitimate shot, before the game broke. I have also beaten a number of my new games since purchasing them.
3. Start playing games to 100% completion.
The only game I did this with was Borderlands. I managed to get all 1,000 achievement points on the disc and beat every quest in playthrough 1 and 2. I even beat The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC, but I don’t have all the achievements in that and I don’t think I ever will.
4. Exercise…video game style.
Epic fail. I did do some jogging and play some basketball though.
5. Start actively playing for achievements.
Sort of. In four months, I’ve been able to boost my score by over 7,000 points. Some of that is from grinding through some familiar games for tougher achievements or ones I left behind, but most of that happened organically by playing a lot of new stuff. I got 1,075 points out of Borderlands, 905 out of Assassin’s Creed 2 and 750 from DJ Hero, plus a number of points across a ton of other games.
6. Train to be a Street Fighter IV master.
I haven’t put that much time into the console version of Street Fighter IV, but I have played the hell out of the iPhone/iPod Touch version. As a streamlined experience, I’m still loving it. In fact, I’m now regularly hitting big combos on the mobile version that I can’t do in the real thing.
7. Dig into the “Pile of Shame”.
Epic fail. If anything, I’ve made it worse with the landslide of games I’ve purchased. Now that I’ll be working again, my time for gaming will be limited and the number of games I leave behind will only grow. Oops.
To bring it back to more serious matters, it was kind of awesome to be able to sleep in and play video games for a good chunk of the day. However, this was definitely not the life I would want to lead forever. Regardless of my love for the medium, I want to do things other than play games, such as build income and advance my career. It was nice to “live the dream”, but I’m happy to get back to reality this Monday.
In Third Person 