Lunchtime Discussion: Sessions

Yesterday I played a game. To be more accurate I finished playing Crackdown, which was a rather enjoyable experience. Now, most of you probably know I don’t actually ‘properly’ play games very much. If someone asks me to play a game I’ll happily sit down and play it with them for an hour or two, but I don’t play by myself all that often.

Something really has to grab me as being a worthwhile investment of my time for me to actually play it, let alone dedicate myself to the game. I’ll admit there are a few games I’ve played because I felt I should play them, but in general for a game to get played it has to be head and shoulders above, not just other games but pretty much all other media.

The thing is when I play a game, I really play it. Games that are high up my favourite list get a lot of time put into them in one big lump. When I say I played Crackdown I mean I sat down with a sandwich at 3pm and the next time I looked up it was 10pm, the final boss was dead, my sandwich was long gone and my eyes hurt. That’s the second or third time that’s happened with Crackdown, Halo 3 and Assassin’s Creed also having a similar effect.

The problem is I don’t really like playing games that way. Compressing it all down into one block not only means that I only really play games once in a blue moon, but also means that I almost dread gaming. Ending a marathon of gaming is very unpleasant, like coming off a long haul flight or a cross country train journey.

You feel tired, slighly achey and fairly disorientated by the world at large. In general you just feel nasty. I have no-one to blame but myself, but my gaming sessions are a bad thing in general.

So are you better at structuring your gaming sessions than me? Do you try and set aside a little time each week to play? Are you better at limiting yourself than I am?