Which Game to Play?

Starting late June I stopped playing games for a about a month.  I think most of it can be attributed to focusing on the coursework near the end of the summer semester and reading from the programming book during my free time.  After a while of that the desire went away...but a week after class ended I felt too dull to continue my days reading the book.  I had no drive to do anything else and boredom settled in.  In an effort to dispel those feelings I played a single credit of Perfect Cherry Blossom which I hoped would feel like a beginner's experience after not touching that genre in over two months, but it was too soon and the effect was spoiled.

A few days later (7/28) I built my first computer (with some help from my father deciding on a few of the parts).

$700(ish) rig, not counting old components.

I wouldn't consider myself to be someone who plays a wide variety of games or picks up new titles as soon as they're released (with a few exceptions).  World of Warcraft aided in consuming my free time and keeping my interest in one spot, and after abandoning it in the middle of 2008 and drifting for a few months I found Touhou Project as a substitute for my singular focus.  That slowed down as early as late 2009, but I still played more than I should have.  With the discovery of programming this year I'm finally ready to enjoy it (more) casually, clocking only around 30 hours these past eight months compared to over 2,000 spent overall playing/watching replays.

Aside from those crazy instances I usually rotate between titles.  Play for a few days, probably finish the main story, put it up.  That sounds normal, maybe?  I don't think it's the right time to dump a list of all the titles.  They're usually PC games and RPGs.

To kick off the test run I installed S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.  Maximum setting goodness.  Installed Fallout 3 after that.

I'm one of those people who didn't play the first two Fallout games.  I also never experienced the Elder Scrolls games prior to Morrowind, or Might and Magic before VII, or Heroes of Might and Magic before III, or Final Fantasy before VII.  Well, I did watch my father play FO2, HoMM2, and all of Might and Magic VII.  Anyway, thanks to all this, hearing that Fallout New Vegas is more faithful to the Fallout universe didn't mean much to me as I cared more for the exploration and atmosphere of FO3.  At least, based on someone else's opinion that FO3 is more centered on exploration.  I think the preference is heavily influenced by Morrowind.  Also, I haven't experienced more than an hour of New Vegas because I still want to finish up FO3.  The older computer had a say in that (NV, not FO3).

I'm just a sucker for urban settings with cloudy skies and dirty streets and sidewalks.  I didn't pick up and play FO3 until last November, but I watched a relative play it on the Xbox during fall of 2009.  And I had this to help keep my imaginations afloat:



I was overjoyed when I was able to get it to run on the older computer.

Picked up Skyrim the other day; by sheer coincidence I told myself I'd start checking regularly for deals and it so happened to be 50% off.  I would have liked a physical copy, but soon enough I'll forget I ever worried about it.  Haven't touched it yet (I guess I should make sure it starts at least).

In a few days I plan on starting a new playthrough.  The first time around was quite vanilla with a few tweaks, but this time I want to include an overhaul mod.  And then the dilemma...what sort of character to play?  Sure, let's be another goody two-shoes.  Let's be another cookie cutter build with the exact same race (maybe switch gender) in Morrowind.  Let's start another fire/light/cold sorc or summon necro.  I decided on a not entirely evil unarmed specialist knowing that I still have my first character's save file where mostly everyone isn't screwed over.

But first, it's postponed for a few days because of an urge to play Dungeon Siege II.  Not much else to say about that; I'll probably only do the first difficulty again and probably won't pick up the expansion.  And I'll use the exact same party composition.  Nevertheless, it holds a special memory.  I don't remember when we got it but I remember being put off by the graphics.  Didn't proceed much into the first act after my melee party of two got beat down.

For some reason or another I picked it up again in the summer of 2007.  The house was sold and we were ready to move; just waiting on my father to finish his last year in the service for a bonus.  Rather than stay in the regular-sized housing on base (where we lived before buying the new house) we moved into billeting.  The order when moving to the US would be billeting -> apartment -> on-base housing -> real house -> billeting again.  Two rooms; the bedroom and kitchen/living room space.  There I played the game with laptop and mouse on my couch bed (it doesn't extend into a bed).

It wasn't just the game that made it memorable.  A few things were happening at that time (maybe I'll cover it later), and it was a humbling experience to live in small quarters again, with its own scent.  Doing laundry outside the house.  I had long walks on the field, appreciating the massive, detailed cloud formations displayed magnificently with little to no obstruction.  One of them one late afternoon spanned across with tops standing high.  It could be the makings of an empire.  I enjoyed those last days before we moved out of state.  It was all my fault.