I've been on a three-week hiatus taking care of some pressing real-life stuff, but now I'm back to deliver blog-based content to your eyeballs for your enjoyment.
I love playing games- different varieties of games. I have played many in my years on this Earth, and own many now- but I'm horrible at completing them. And, as it seems these days that many gamers find it a great injustice if a retail game is not of a decent length, I especially suck at finishing more epic, time-consuming games. Sometimes I reckon I should just stay at home, drop everything that I do and try and smash out some quality game time. However, below are five games which I should probably quit my job for, in order to get adequate time to play, finish and enjoy them.
Monster Hunter Tri (Wii)
"So much talk these days seems to be about accessibility and mass appeal - apparently no one passed along word to the folks that work on Monster Hunter..." - Charles Onyett, IGN
A true statement by a member of the IGN team, speaking on the game's IGN video review, in which the third console iteration of Capcom's epic beast-hunting RPG scored a stellar 9.3 out of 10. It's true- this game is not accessible for newcomers, nor does it have the same mass appeal as most mainstream games on the market these days (i.e. it does not consist of the same recycled, mind-numbing drivel which makes up a Call of Duty game). This game is huge, deep and challenging- but if you have the stay-in power and patience to see it through, it is also vastly rewarding.
... Or so I'm told. I've had this game a couple of years now, but I've only played a few hours, and am still stuck doing rather simple and sometimes tedious fetch quests- and then when it comes to actually dealing out some slaughter to some proper monsters, I usually end up dead, be it due to the challenging nature of this game, or my sheer ineptitude.
I love the idea of Monster Hunter. I enjoy playing Monster Hunter- when I'm not fetching, dying or waiting for the next area to load on the Wii's lame hardware every thirty feet. I love the promise of awesome armour and weapons crafted from the bones of fallen beasts- the likes of which I have so far only come to experience on Youtube. I do feel like it is going to be hugely rewarding and satisfying once I get stuck in, but this is a game that requires patience and time. This is a game I wouldn't mind taking a few days holiday for so I could smash out some quality monster slaying.
I've tried to give it a real go these past few weeks- but then what happens? Guild Wars 2 comes out. Poor Monster Hunter Tri.
Guild Wars (PC)
At some point in his life, a male gamer should- and probably will- experience the joys and strife of an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, for the uninitiated of you out there). So, back when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen, I had some money given to me at Christmas, and, wanting to experience the world of MMORPGs, I went off to PC World to see what I could get with my hard-earned holiday loot.
So, I bought World of Warcraft.
I took it home, took a look at the back of the box, and realised to my horror that there was a monthly subscription fee- so I took it straight back to PC World and exchanged it for Guild Wars (and to this day I've never played World of Warcraft).
And y'see, that's the thing about Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs- is that they're usually massive. Guild Wars is so much fun- some of the most fun I've had with a video game- but some quests can take take a while to beat, especially the ones that require you to walk across half the map to reach where you need to be. I basically gave up playing it one day when I got stuck on a quest that required me to walk for ages before I arrived at my destination and then got slaughtered by a horde of enemies, and coupled with school exams and starting college, that was pretty much all she wrote for my time with Guild Wars. I basically didn't get very far and regret it, because it was such a good game. Hopefully, I will put that right with Guild Wars 2.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2)
By the time I was eighteen, most lads my age had already played this game to death- probably because they'd some how conned their ill-informed parents into buying this game for them. However, I had to wait until I could legitimately buy this game once I was of age (or, because I did not actually look eighteen when I turned eighteen, I instead got my under-aged, bearded, six-foot-something friend to go in and get it for me).
That was probably three years ago- and I still haven't beaten San Andreas. It's so much fun, but it's so easy to get distracted on this game and basically end up not having achieved a fat lot in terms of storyline progression or game completion. But c'mon, let's face it- holing yourself up in the police station with a dubiously-shaped pink rubber object and beating as many police officers to death with it as you can is surprisingly/worryingly satisfying. It's a good job that we play games for the fun of them, right?
Fallout 3 (PS3)
Allow me to cannibalise a previous blog entry I posted about completing Fallout 3 last July:
An awesome game- and perhaps one of the best I've ever played- I was always going to finish Fallout 3, so I'm glad I finally did. It's a vast, expansive, free-roaming first-person-shooter-come-role-playing-game which seems to be alive- you never find the same enemies in the same place, nor the same items, and there are so many different outcomes and consequences for your actions. In certain instances it is possible to screw yourself completely by making certain karma-based decisions, or to just break the game by killing the wrong character in the wrong place or at the wrong time. It's not overly-structured and the game doesn't molly-coddle you into doing what you're supposed to do, march off with the spoils and then thank-you-very-much- it just lets you wade in up to your knees, not knowing what might happen, but loving every minute of it.
The probably is it took me over two years to beat it. I bought it some time in 2009, and didn't finish it until July 2011.
Why did it take you so long, I hear you ask? Well I'll tell you why- because I'm a terrible video game completionist (and apparently,completionist is not a real word, hmm...), and any time I got stuck on some particularly long and arduous or simply frustrating quest, I'd just give up, and decide that playing FIFA was far easier- if not infinitely more mind-numbing.
I'd love to play it again- but I'd probably need another two years.
The Entire Metal Gear Solid Series
The only Metal Gear Solid game I have played is Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In fact, it's the only Metal Gear game I've ever played. I hear that MGS 2 is probably the least popular one, too. Hey, I thought it was awesome- but was a bit miffed that, after all I'd heard about MGS, I managed to pick up the only one where the legendary Solid Snake was controversially not the primary protagonist.
I enjoyed it immensely, but it took me forever to complete. I found it quite tough at times, and those long, drawn out cutscenes and sections of dialogue took a lot out of me. I just wanted to play the game! But that's the thing- the story is an important part of the game, and is actually really good, and makes me want to play the rest of the games to enjoy more of that excellent gameplay while immerse myself in the rest of the MGS canon. But that's a lot more gameplay and cutscenes to find time for.
Perhaps some day I shall have to treat myself to the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for PS3. Also, the trailer/demo of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes which I watched on IGN looks fantastic.
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