Thursday, June 16, 2005
It's funny how things come around. I have an uncle who also likes games and gadgets. When he settled down here and got married about 15 years ago (when I was 10) I used to marvel at the number of high-tech toys he'd buy that he didn't need at all. Never mind super-expensive toys like the remote-control helicopter he had that never saw more than a handful of brief flights -- of more relevance to me at the time was the massive number of great games he'd buy and then totally ignore.
It was strange, being a game-crazy kid who bought EGMs every month and ate up every detail about games like Super Mario Kart... and then suddenly without fanfare it'd appear in his drawer, untouched and pristine. He had a Sega CD with just one game. He bought a PlayStation when it came out, played it to bits on launch day, then ignored it. And he went one better with the Xbox: He bought it on launch day and took it out of the box just once, when I asked to see it.
Of course, I never complained, since I was the chief beneficiary of all this. Because he never touched those games, I got to play his copy of Super Mario Kart in the month it took for me to get enough money to buy my own. He noticed that I was using his PlayStation more than he was and just gave it to me. And that Xbox? The next time it was opened was when I gotit as a Christmas present. But it always struck me as odd and wasteful: Why would you buy all that and not play with it? He said that he was too busy with work and life to play. How, I thought, could you bring yourself to spend money on something you know you're not going to have time for?
Now I know exactly how he feels.
Today I received Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and StarFox Assault, which I picked up on the cheap from Play-Asia. Thing is, I honestly don't know when I'm going to play them because I still have a massive list of games I have yet to touch (MGS3 headlines that list) and even more I have yet to finish (RE4, SC:CT, GTA:SA to name just three recent ones). This does not include the vast number of games I have which I've played once and never touched since (MVP Baseball I'm looking at you). And then there is the legion of gadgets I own that honestly don't get as much use as they should have, from my two PDAs, BlackBerry and smartphone to the $250 remote control that costs more than my TV (until, er, tomorrow... when my $2300 LCD HDTV arrives).
I just don't have time anymore. When I come home from work, as much as I'd like to leap straight into Jade Empire I also want to just sit around and DO NOTHING for a while. The funny thing is while video games are seen as a bit of an escape, now that I don't have all that much time to play them it seems even just BUYING games has that cathartic feeling of escape attached to it. I buy them for that idealistic notion that yes, someday I will have the time to sit down and play this right the way through, even though I fully realise I won't. And being a young man with little financial responsibility and a fairly hefty salary, you can afford to do it. I finally get it. It just feels good. That's it.
So now I'm in the exact situation my uncle was... while my little brother, 12 years my junior, looks on and wants to take what I'm not using!
Posted at 5:00 AM
