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  1. #1

    Default Battling the to-play pile

    Froggy sticks a poster up on the wall by the front entrance to the Arena. It shows a picture of a gamer about to be buried by a teetering pile of unplayed games. In clear type the poster enquires of readers:
    Do you have more games than time to play them?
    Do you find it difficult to finish the games you begin?
    Does the lure of the new and shiny always pull you away from the here and now?

    Come to room 307 (formerly the lion’s den) in the Arena and meet other sufferers! Swap tips! Get support! Learn ways to deal with your problem! Cry on supportive shoulders!(*)

    *Please note that crying on supportive shoulders is a metaphor. Anyone actually attempting to blub all over another patron will be escorted to the exit by our friendly security agents.

    Froggy hurries away to make sure the slaves have got room 307 ready for use. It wouldn’t do to have traces of the lion incident remaining …






    My name is frogbeastegg and I have a problem. I’ve got loads of unfinished games. Worse, I own loads of games I haven’t tried yet. There are more games I want to get. I’ve got thousands of hours worth of gameplay sat waiting for me.

    Since the start of this year I have been trying to tackle this problem. I’m trying to reform. It’s been hard. It’s working, slowly. I’m seeing results, enjoying my gaming time more, and feeling less like an out of control amphibian pinwheel of a gamer. There’s still a long way to go.

    I know I’m not alone in this here at the org (Xiahou! ) so I thought it might be interesting to start a topic, see what people have to say.

    To get things started here’s the things I’ve found to be helpful.

    Play a small number of games at once!
    Hopping around between a mass of games gets you nowhere, take it from a frog who played that way for years. Better to put 10 hours into one game than 1 hour into 10. Bluntly put this will get you completing games. The obvious reason for this is that you will progress further, faster. The less obvious reason is that because the experience is more concentrated you will often find yourself enjoying the game more, and won’t have problems with being unable to remember what you were doing or finding your skills have rusted.

    I play 1 epic, 1 portable, and 1 other game at any one time.

    Epic is any game which takes 40 or more hours to complete. Only one to be in progress at any time; playing more than one behemoth of a game is a bad idea. Working away at the same pair of titles for months gets boring.

    Portable is any game on the DS, PSP, or GBA. Except in rare circumstances there should not be two portable games on the go at the same time; unless you begin to play these titles during ‘normal’ gaming time then you’ll find you get nowhere fast. These games tend to be played for short periods at random times, e.g. during the lunch break at work. When I do play a portable game at home it’s almost always a big, chunky game in its own right, and so needs a fair bit of time.

    Other can be anything, but you should exercise sense. Typically my other is a shortish game, or a single campaign in one of those games which you can’t really finish (e.g Civ 4, TW). Unless you like to drown yourself in same, same, same you should pick a game which is different to your epic and portable. Some people can enjoy playing 3 different varieties of JRPGs. Most can’t, and certainly not me.

    Adjust this to suit your needs. Maybe you don’t have a portable system, or maybe you’ll do better with only one game at once.

    Aim to finish whatever game you start, but define ‘finish’ as something reasonable for yourself.
    This applies heavily to some games but not at all to others. In a game with a lot of sidequests you could choose merely to follow the main plot from beginning to end and call that finished. Alternately you could go for 100% completion and only consider it finished then. Perhaps a balance between the two: you’ll only do the side quests you think sound like fun, leaving the annoying, tedious or overly difficult ones. You could play start to finish on one difficulty, or you could complete the game on every difficulty. You could get all the unlockables, some or none.

    Be realistic. If you don’t want to spend hours trying to complete some mini game to unlock some extra don’t do it. Simple as that.

    Ignore what other people say. If you consider a game done when you complete it on normal don’t let anyone tell you that you need to complete it on the hardest difficulty for it to count.

    If it’s not fun then don’t play it!
    If I’m really not enjoying a game, or it's lost its fun factor, and can’t see myself doing so then I will call it a day and shelve it. It’s done with, no longer an entry on the list of games to complete. There are many ways a game can cease to be enjoyable; in my experience it's rare for them to recover and go back to being good if they haven't picked back up after a couple of hours.

    This includes getting stuck at a certain point and becoming completely fed up of trying again. If you’ve failed that boss battle 31 times and have come to loathe the game, the developers, the developer’s cat, and find the mere sight of the boss makes you want to snap the disc and grind the pieces into fine powder which you’ll pour down the throat of the person responsible for designing the battle then it’s better to walk away. It's not worth the misery.

    Be realistic about your abilities.
    Everyone knows that only n00bs play ‘Generic Action Game 27’ on normal! Real gamers play on suicidal! Except maybe you are rubbish at FPS and will get killed over and over on suicidal mode, meaning you make little progress and end up loathing the game.

    Likewise if you’re an action game god then there’s no point in playing ‘Generic Action Game 27’ on normal – unless you want to complete it quickly. That too can be a valid way to play, and can be a boon in getting through several lesser titles in a short space of time. Not entirely recommended, as you'll probably be a bit bored.

    I’m rubbish at FPS; I can’t dodge to save my life (har har). I can admit it. This does not harm my ego. I’m playing Bioshock on easy, and I’m probably the only person on the org doing so. The important thing is this: I’m enjoying myself when I play, and I’m making good progress. If I replay it in the future I may try normal and see how (badly) I do. But for now easy gives me enough trouble when I encounter a boss or Big Daddy.

    Categorise titles.
    This falls into two for me; you may want more or fewer categories.

    1. Interest.
    It is a simple truth that some games will appeal more than others. Identify those titles which you are most likely to enjoy, and those which will be fun but not great.

    2. Time taken to complete.
    Aim to know what you are getting into.

    From there then you should try to play the factors off against each other. You can finish 4 10 hour games in the time it takes to finish a single 40 hour game. If there are 4 short games of high interest you might be better off playing them instead of a single big game of high interest. Then again, maybe that big game is so much more appealing than anything else that it deserves to become the focus of your play time.

    Read games sites and forums in moderation.
    I read this forum and a single gaming news site. I will occasionally venture into gamefaqs if I need something in particular. With very, very rare exceptions I do not read previews or interviews, watch trailers, or dabble my toes into the murky pool of hype. Why? Because I found I was spending more time reading about games than actually playing them. I found I was always looking at what would come next rather than playing what was here.

    As a side effect I don’t often get let down by games. Quite the contrary, there’s a constant stream of nice surprises as completed games I didn’t know about land and are well received.

    Prioritise your buying.
    So two games you want are out at the same time? You know you can’t possibly play both right now, and you already have a mountain of ones to play. At this point you should look carefully at both games and see if they are definitely worth getting. For example, do you really need another quite-good-but-not-great game of a genre you already have a lot of? Especially if you still have some better entries in that genre waiting on your to-play pile?

    Next you should consider how likely it is that both will be easily available in a few months. Big name games stay on the shelves for a lot longer than smaller titles, so it’s best to buy the smaller title now and pick up the big title later. Often you’ll be able to get the big title for a reduced price as a bonus for your patience.

    Big to-play piles come about through bad buying. If you can get your buying under control then you’ll see your pile steadily decrease.

    NB: I’m currently failing miserably at this. Gah! Too many cheap good games!

    Make a list of your games collection.
    I did this a couple of weeks ago for insurance purposes and it was most enlightening. I broke it down by platform to make life easier. Since the information was there, and I was curious, I tagged each game I’d finished or am done with. Games like Civilisation 4 I tagged as unfinishable. Counting these up then allowed me to calculate the percentage overall I’d completed in that category. I’d done far better than I thought in most categories, and that is very encouraging. At the same time I now have a better feel for how many games I have left to play, and that makes it harder to justify buying news ones to myself.

    To give an example using my DS collection:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Nintendo DS

    Final Fantasy III
    Magical Starsign – finished
    Etrian Odyssey
    Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime – finished
    Pokémon Pearl
    Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Blue
    Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time – done with
    Castlevania: Dawn of sorrow
    Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
    Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales
    Kirby: Canvas Curse – done with
    Mario Vs Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis
    Lunar Knights
    New Super Mario Bros.
    Yoshi’s Island DS
    Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – finished
    Phoenix Wright: Justice for All - finished
    Another Code: Two Memories – finished
    Hotel Dusk: Room 215
    Meteos – unfinishable
    Meteos: Disney Magic – unfinishable
    Puzzle League DS – unfinishable
    Picross DS - unfinishable
    Cooking Mama – done with
    Trauma Centre: Under the Knife
    Age of Empires DS
    Advance Wars: Dual Strike
    Anno 1701 - unfinishable

    Total: 28 Completed: 8 (46%) Unfinishable: 5
    Frogbeastegg's Guide to Total War: Shogun II. Please note that the guide is not up-to-date for the latest patch.


  2. #2
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Battling the to-play pile

    Well you could of course forward them to me. But as it seems you have with games what normal women have with clothes. Me, I have loads of to-play games as well (and clothes)

  3. #3
    Needs more flowers Moderator drone's Avatar
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    Default Re: Battling the to-play pile

    I can't say I've gotten as far behind as you have on games, but I suppose I have had a similar experience: Warhammer.

    Back in the days when I had spare time, no worries, and plenty of disposable income (in other words, my 20's), I became a Warhammer fan. First 40K, then FB. I also have a slight OCD condition, where I like to collect complete sets of things and oddities. Not a good combination, as eventually I had to take great lengths to prevent the EPA from declaring my apartment a lead-saturated Superfund site.

    Now, the point of the Warhammer hobby is to paint up an army and play it. I enjoy the painting (probably more than the game itself, used to do models and artwork as a child), and I like to add lots of detail to even the rank and file. But there comes a point when one looks at the vast pile of bare metal, and despairs where to start. I reached that point, and from then on, I made the following rule: Not allowed to buy a new figure, until one of the same size gets painted. Definitely made it more manageable. The same rule can be applied to video games.
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  4. #4
    Lesbian Rebel Member Mikeus Caesar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Battling the to-play pile

    You're lucky you have so many games you need tog et round to playing - i have a very small income, and as a result have to be careful about what i choose to buy.

    Oh, to be spoilt for choice...
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  5. #5

    Default Re: Battling the to-play pile

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragony
    But as it seems you have with games what normal women have with clothes.
    I think you could be onto something there. Instead of clothes, shoes and handbags I've got books, games, and more books. Lol, at least I keep up with the books - mostly. When you read a couple of hundred titles a year and work in a bookshop it's inevitable your house resembles a library.

    Quote Originally Posted by drone
    The same rule can be applied to video games.
    Drastic! I admire your willpower.

    Hmm. Might have to take the plunge on that since my current set up is failing miserably. Gah! It's going to be tough. I shall have to keep away from the sales and online shops; I refuse to pay anything like full price for most games, so when I see something like Valkyrie Profile 2, a game I've been hoping for a PAL release of for months, for £17.99 I'm useless. :sigh: That's another 40 hour game which will take me a month or two to get through.

    Quote Originally Posted by currywurry
    You're lucky you have so many games you need tog et round to playing - i have a very small income, and as a result have to be careful about what i choose to buy.
    Indeed. I worked my way out of the 'Gah! I have no money!' phase a couple of years ago, and those years have left their trace of me. I buy books and games now because one day I may be back to getting by on next to nothing. At least then I won't be back to struggling to afford the 90 pence library request fees; I've got my own library.

    I'm presently in the 'too much money for my bills and savings, but not enough for the exorbitant house prices' phase. That's what I really want: a home of my own. Instead I end up with Final Fantasy XII because it was half price.
    Frogbeastegg's Guide to Total War: Shogun II. Please note that the guide is not up-to-date for the latest patch.


  6. #6

    Default Re: Battling the to-play pile

    Originally posted by frogbeastegg
    Lol, at least I keep up with the books - mostly. When you read a couple of hundred titles a year and work in a bookshop it's inevitable your house resembles a library.
    I remember with horror the period of my life that i did the same thing as most books aren't worth the paper they are printed on IMO; eversince then i read few books many times rather than few times many books and have made the most like this out of my reading experiences, i feel.
    Last edited by Noir; 09-06-2007 at 19:18.

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