Beware the time-suckers.

A little while ago, I decided to take tentative steps to re-enter the world of gaming by buying an Xbox 360.  Although I used to be able to wipe the floor with the majority of my friends (as well as anyone at school or the neighbourhood kids), I suspected this time I might fair less well. Due to being an adult with a family and full time job, there isn’t a great deal of time to really get stuck in. Furthermore, gaming isn’t really a domain occupied only by children, and to keep an adult interested, the difficulty would likely have to be steeper. Well, it turns out my suspicions were right on the money.

After resisting for a number of years, the buzz around Bayonetta was what finally pulled me in. So, one Friday night after the girls (little and big) had gone to bed, I fired up my new toy. And then had to spend time creating an avatar. This was a tad annoying, but due to my habit of trying to make everything just-so and as exact as they can be (a personality trait that is deadly in this world, but more on that in a bit), I duly spent hours choosing what my little electronic self should wear and how he should look. Then came the game. I couldn’t bring myself to choose a difficulty setting lower than ‘normal’ – I still have some pride. It didn’t take long for me to get my ass handed to me. Repeatedly. It didn’t take long to figure something else out. Bayonetta is insane. To my credit, I persevered, refusing to lower the difficulty. I recently completed it. It’s right up my atheist street because it essentially ends with you summoning the queen of hell to punch god into the sun. Like I said, insane. What do I get for my hard work? The chance to do it again on ‘hard’ difficulty. Yeah, cheers for that. I’ll do it though. Or at least I’ll try. And I’ll try because the obsessively anal (snigger) personality trait mentioned above demands that I do.

You see, there is something I was completely unaware of that forms part of the Xbox gaming world, and that is the system of unlocking achievements to earn points. Everyone on Xbox Live has a points balance. Most games have about 50 achievements worth about 1000 points. How could I ever finish a game and not return to it not having earned all of the achievements? Simply put, I can’t. It is the same reason I won’t buy a James Bond film on DVD or Blu Ray. I would have to then get the entire collection. And really, who wants a copy of Moonraker sitting on their shelf? Nobody in their right mind.  Although, the pleasant surprise that I could download a bunch of those old Atari 2600 games, allowing me to remember a little of what it was to be a kid, is worth almost any number of frustrated attempts to earn meaningless achievements.

Anyway. Now I’m stuck in this limbo; unable to stop, and unable to devote enough time to it. Doomed to be forever on the cusp of competence. My little collection of games is growing, as is the number of locked achievements my stupid brain tells me I must earn. I have now introduced myself to the world of Mass Effect (a trilogy of ridiculously deep and endlessly variable games with a sci-fi plot worthy of James Cameron), Project Gotham Racing (in which it is possible to have a racing career spanning years – I cannot stop until I’m number 1), BioShock (quite simply frightening, to the point where I dread putting it on a little) and Gears of War (which basically involves shooting lots of aliens. Well, perhaps that’s a touch harsh, there is more to it. You sometimes blow them up, too). And this is before the fact that you can play these things online against other people, something I’ve only dabbled in a little, due to the embarrassing level of my shiteness. It can still be a great deal of fun, even though the emphasis is on shooting people a little too much. The way all the big releases seem to be shooters is a large part of the reason I never really wanted one in the first place. It’s probably a good thing there are other demands on my time preventing me from becoming a fully fledged gaming addict. I might have ended up like this guy.