Amongst several others there’s a draft sitting in my, well, drafts, lamenting on how I jump from interest or hobby to another to come back to it at a later time thus effectively proving my nomadic nature. In that post I mention gaming, but seeing I can’t find any inspiration to finish it I thought I’ll make a separate post on gaming here.

I know that several people reading this blog are reading it, because they know me through gaming or gaming communities and they’re probably disappointed that there haven’t been many gaming related posts in recent months. Of course, there’s that whole argument that I blog for myself which is true, but I do know most of my audience on here.

So what happened?

Around April my gaming practically stopped. First it was me being busy and stressed and then I had to sell my 360, as I couldn’t afford it for the time being. Those who have known me for a long time know that this is by no means the first time, something similar happened back in May 2008 and it took me just over a year to buy another one as I ended up moving around like a crazy person and wasn’t settled long enough to justify a gaming console. However, in those 13 months I still fully kept up with all the gaming news and remained active in some gaming communities. And I tried playing some PC games, amongst them Deus Ex, Call of Cthulhu and the Sims 2.

Bring on summer 2009 and here I am back in full on gaming mode with another 360 playing everything I’ve missed out on and some old favourites, like Halo 2 and 3, SCDA and new games, like Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. The latter I’ve yet to finish due to originally dragging it out and later being unable to. Yes, the game I have, in conversation, called ‘the best game I’ve ever played’™ is still incomplete.

Since May I’ve tried playing a few games.

There was the Sims 3 which keeps me captivated for a few days or so and I then get bored of the game glitching on me. Nothing new there, I seem to pick that game up every quarter or so.

There was Deus Ex which I’ve tried playing again. This time I got used to the controls fairly quickly and made better decisions on upgrades. As such I have a, what can only be described as kick ass pistol and I’ve actually progressed through the game reaching a major twist in the story and being able to make decisions affecting the outcome of the game. But strangely it bored me and I’ve stopped playing it.

I’ve tried playing Dragon Age again, this time on PC, obviously. I originally said I didn’t like Dragon Age much [the comments on that post are hilarious!], but later changed my opinion as I realised I didn’t dislike, but rather expected another game instead and allowed my initial opinions to stay with me until completion. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t have issues, but it’s also a lot better than I give it credit for. However, I don’t like the PC controls. I have reached Ostagar with my human, female noble, but don’t see myself progressing much, as fighting the controls for 40h+ doesn’t seem like my idea of fun.

I’ve played and completed KotOR for the seventh time. Playing it on the PC for the first time meant I was able to use some of the mods to improve the game and I’ve also been able to yet again discover new things about the game, despite playing the game with my usual female light side soldier. I have nothing but praise for that game and the PC version is incredible, especially the controls. Let’s not mention the bugs at this point though..

The only reason I replayed KotOR was to have it all in the back of my mind [not that I actually needed to!] to replay KotOR II. Which has issues with Vista. Which doesn’t work on my laptop. I’ve tried patches, searched the internet for hours, downloaded a copy seeing my retail disc didn’t work, reinstalled my disc based version.. Nothing worked.

Moving on to a recent game I’ve played, GTA San Andreas. I’ve had a love/hate relationship when it first came out which has continued. I like the game, even love it at times, but its missions can be so incredibly tedious. I played it a few weeks ago over a long weekend that I was too ill to leave the bed or do anything. In fact the only time I could play GTA was when the flu medication had just started working and I was able to stay focussed for a couple of hours before hideously failing every mission again. As it stands I have just completed several mission in San Fernando.

So why am I not playing GTA now instead of writing this blog post? The answer originally was going to be that I don’t know, but in the process of writing this post I’ve realised that it’s not actually the games themselves [minus KotOR II, of course], but rather the platform.

I’ve given PC gaming a chance by trying several genres and playing some games at length, but at the end of the day all the games are incredibly buggy and have me despair at DRM issues [which is a whole other thing I’m not going to go into at this time] and the controls suck. For me. Playing on my laptop with keyboard and mouse isn’t comfortable. It’s not intuitive and even hours down the line I still had to take a step back with Deus Ex or San Andreas, though painkillers can probably be blamed a little for the latter one! I understand that I’m in the minority, but I can’t get used to it. There are so many great games I’m missing out on, like Deus Ex, but I don’t think I will ever be able to enjoy them.

As for where that leaves me with gaming as a whole? I’ve stopped keeping up with gaming news around April this year. I read two sites’ RSS feeds on a daily basis and skimread the others when I can be bothered. I’ve been getting annoyed with the general reporting of gaming news for a while and love reading GJAIF, but it’s more than that. I dislike what happened to the gaming community, going after new big titles like it’s the best thing ever only to completely forget a title exists after a week. I dislike the constant criticisms on everything. I dislike most of gaming ‘culture’. Yes, the freaking cake is a freaking lie and the fucking princess is in another fucking castle. We know this.

I’m aiming to finish Mass Effect 2 by the end of this year, hopefully, as I’m looking to borrow a friend’s 360 for a short while. I would also like to finish Fable 2 and have a crack at Red Dead Redemption as Rockstar hasn’t let me down so far. As for buying my own 360 I’m unsure at the moment as I have far too much on my plate.