Too Many Games, Too Little Time

Do any of you know how I'm feeling? Just reading the title of this post should give you an indication to what I am getting at here, hopefully it's something you can sympathize with as I can imagine you are/have been in the same boat before. For those of you that are not in the know and don't understand what I am going on about then I shall elaborate.

As a gamerscore whore you are generally open to playing pretty much anything to boost your score. We've all rented Avatar for that quick 1000 and we've all played a few kiddy/move tie in games that afterwards we may have regretted (the stress some of them cause are not worth the 1000 gamerscore points you get from them). As a result of this I have turned in to someone that can't turn down an opportunity to bump my gamerscore no matter what the consequences may be. See a game for £5 which I know has some easy gamerscore on it? I'll most likely get it. Friend offering to lend me a game to see if I like it? Sure I say to myself, my gamerscore total will benefit from it. Friend offering to boost with me on a game despite me already playing a game I'm enjoying? Sure I'll stop and get me some gamerscore instead.

In order for me to get my head around the games I have and what I should focus my attention on I have decided to document it in this blog post, writing down my thoughts may help me to actually act and finish off games that deserve to be played.

My Deal With rover08

Firstly I need to point out again the "deal" me and rover08 have going on. He lives in Norway, a place where (from what I've gathered from him) games are not cheap. Over the past few months we've built trust up in one and other as he sends me money to buy him games at half the price he would usually pay for them. My side of the deal is that I get to play these games first, get the gamerscore and then post them off to him with the only payment being the postage (which is £1-£3). This is great as it's a win win situation for us both. It gets better, the trade in value of games in Norway also seems to be poor so he will send me his games I haven't played so that I can play them and then trade in for another game at a place such as CEX. This can ultimately mean I get to play 2 games for free which for me is fantastic. Finally we are now planning to lend each other games (I'm expecting Band Hero and Lego Rock Band in the post today except the postman has failed to come!).

This alone is the biggest reason behind me getting stressed about playing the games. I can't say no to rover08 as it's a fantastic deal for me and I love boosting my gamerscore. I don't however love trying to push through games quickly in order to send them to him or get a new one (that's not always true as at times I love pushing myself). He is quite a machine and gets through games very quickly enabling him to get nearly 100,000 gamerscore in a year and now has around 4,000 lead over me (a lead I don't think I will ever catch up on now :().

Buying Games Because I Saw Them Cheap

As I said in the intro I see games going cheaply and because I know it's such a great deal I buy them (losing £5 is not much right). The thing is in the past few months I've not really managed to play the new games I've bought as I've been busy playing the games I get from rover08. I had to stop myself ordering Fuel for £5.60 on Saturday because I still have an unopened copy of Bionic Commando which I bought a few weeks back for £4.50. I also got Fracture as a little gift from my girlfriend which hasn't been played, when I can't get round to playing them what chance have I got with Fuel let alone the 5+ other games I own and have never played.

Borrowing From Friends

This is the part I like to do the most as it's very cost effective (usually free) and I don't have to keep a game I will probably never play again once I'm done with it. I've been borrowing Army of Two from a friend (will call him FriendA) from college for around a month now and I am still unable to get round to playing it. I want to but I have too much other games to play. Another friend (FriendB) also randomly decided to bring Bioshock 2 in to college for me to borrow as he has barely played it and thought I might enjoy it. I was very grateful for his generosity but I decided I needed to play the original first so I understood the storyline. On the bus hope that very same day another friend (FriendC) got on and I told him about getting Bioshock 2. He offered to lend me the original so I could play that before I started the second. I haven't gone to get the game yet but I told him I very well might do.....


What I Need To Do!!!!!

The 3 above points show how I can have tons of games in my possession at one time which I have never played before but want to. I have a lot of free time (only have 3 days of college) but even so I don't have enough to manage the mammoth task of playing all the games I buy/receive. In the past I used to just play all the games and probably never get the thousand gamerscore and I just wouldn't care. For the past year though I have cared and it bugs me that games such as Prince of Persia sit on my gamercard unfinished simply because I got distracted in to playing something else. I decided that in order to stop this from happening again that I would only stick to playing a few games at once from different genres (an idea which originated from Thrawn). This works fantastically for me, as a result I have managed to finish the past few games in recent weeks.

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania (needed to finish quick to send to rover08)
Bayonetta (needed to finish quick in order to trade in for Bad Company 2)
Tony Hawk Ride (wanted to give it back to FriendC)

I did have 4 games I was rotated between at once and I was finding it stressful (especially knowing I had more I needed to play). Three of those games have now been completed and are in the list above, the other is DJ Hero which I've been playing quite a lot over the past few days and have nearly completed as much as I possibly can. From this perspective I've done good, now lets look at the other games that are currently on my mind.....

What I Need To Play

Army of Two
Bionic Commando
Fracture
Lego Rock Band
Band Hero
Metro 2033
GTA IV
Crackdown
Burnout Paradise
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Forza Motorsport 3
Bioshock 2

That above list consists of 12 games that are on my shelf right now (or would have been if the postman delivered today!) which I have yet to play. 11 games is a lot but I shouldn't forget the few games my brother owns (Stoked, Lego Indy, Lego Batman) which I also want to play at some point. How on earth can I digest all of these games and get them played? The answer is I don't think I can, instead I will prioritise a few and ensure I get them completed. Below are 3 games I want to have on my mind currently.

DJ Hero
Band Hero
Metro 2033

I say DJ Hero as I am nearly done and I think it will be good for me to polish it off as soon as possible in case FriendD ever wants it back. rover08 wants his Band Hero back as soon as possible as he will miss it so that's the priority in the Music genre and I want to finish Metro 2033 quickly so I can trade it in while it's actually worth something. For now I'm going to try and not worry about the other games, when I think about it I get stressed and it's not worth doing. I'll complete those 3 games and then decide what to do when the time comes. For now I am sick of typing as this post has gotten really long. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it with all these games to play.

200,000 Gamerscore before 2011

Is it possible? For me to get my gamerscore past 200,000 before the start of the new year. Ask me this question a couple of months ago when I made my gamerscore goal of 160,000 for 2010 and I would have said no. I saw gaining 35,000 over the course of 2010 as being a relatively simple goal to follow and one that I wouldn't be extremely proud over but nevertheless happy that I had accomplished.

Things are changing though. Me and my good friend rover08 have been swapping games with each other and this has enabled me to play a lot more easy gamerscore games than I was expecting too. We've not even finished the first 2 months of the year yet and I am currently at 137,375 which means I am 12,375 in to my goal of getting 25,000 by the end of the year. Lets say by the end of February I manage to make my total gamerscore currently earned this year up to 13,000, that will then mean that if I keep up the pace of getting 13k every 2 months then by the end of the year I would have accumulated 78,000 gamerscore (over double my aim!).

This is what's gotten me thinking that I could potentially get to 200k before new year. It would be another goal for me, one that I don't want to force myself to go for but one that would make me extremely proud to do. I need to look at how gaming these past couple of months has changed my life and whether I can keep it up for the rest of the year or not. I don't really have any commitments, I go to college 3 days a week and have assignments I need to do at home at times but really it's not too much hassle. A loving girlfriend likes to see me everyday plus I also love to skateboard as much as I can.

Now college is going to maintain the same until May or June and ultimately I am capable of maintaining my gaming lifestyle and still reach the Distinction Diploma I am aiming for. I feel like I could have done a slight bit more of work but screw it, I'll make up for it near my assignment deadlines (I feel like I work better under pressure when my time is nearly up). My girlfriend is the one part of my life that needs to be kept as she means a lot to me. I've still managed to spend hours with her pretty much every day (or other day) and it hasn't been a problem with my gaming ways. She'll leave me at 10 in the evening and I'll then game for a couple of hours before bed so that's no concern. The one commitment I have which I know will cause me to cease my gamerscore whoring ways is my skateboarding. These past couple of months we've had horrible weather here in England, all rain and snow. This weather makes skateboarding not possible to do and therefore I've not spent much time on my board (which I don't like). This is the free time I've had which has enabled me to spend more time on my Xbox. Unfortunately this will change come summer as I do want to get lots of skateboarding done as this could possibly be my last summer before I have a full-time job.

So really I don't think 200,000 Gamerscore is going to happen this year. It definitely is possible if me and rover08 keep up our current trading however I need to really want to push for that goal, something I can't foresee happening as my focus will be on my annual skateboard video instead. I'm thinking of going half way in the middle, aiming for 180,000. This way I can have my time to skate in the summer and then game on the wet days or when I'm injured. Only time will tell.