Down, but not out.

It’s been over six months since I started my yearlong mission to clear my 50-game-tall Pile of Shame. 28 weeks and 25 games later, and I’m feeling a bit down in the dumps.

Generally I’ve been getting my head down and hammering away. The weird thing is that when I take a moment to lift my head and take a glance at what’s going on in the gaming world I find that it’s not exactly how I imagined it would look when I started this journey.

Imposing a twelve month ban on purchasing any games is bound to be hard on a gamer who clearly loves to amass new titles. I had visions of new games coming out during this time, and me sitting there desperate to play them, champing at the bit to be enjoying them at the same time as everyone else. But it seems that every game I had kept an eye on hasn’t really made me that desperate to play it at all.

There are a couple that seem to have been received quite well, but they didn’t exactly set the world alight. Hitman: Absolution, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Crysis 3, and Dead Space 3 all came and went without much fanfare in regards to either greatness or calamity.

Then there were the failures. From the extremely mixed reviews of Assassin’s Creed 3, to the disastrous catastrophe of Aliens: Colonial Marines, right through to the laughably unplayable Sim City, I find myself sitting there not really feeling like I’m missing out on anything. Even GTAV got pushed back, how good is that!

So why am I feeling in a funk? I’m not really missing out on anything. I can play my way through my pile. I can have fun, and I can achieve my goal. I should be happy. So why am I so glum?

Oh yeah, that’s right. Because I’ve been playing Dirt3.

I know I’ve previously gone on about how annoying this game is, but honestly, this game makes me so mad. The loading screens, the endless fucking loading screens, oh my god, enough already. I must have put twenty hours into this game, and I swear I’ve only actually been driving for about eight of them. I know that sounds like a total exaggeration, but I played for an hour and twenty minutes this morning and I tallied up the total amount of time I spent on the track.

It was a mighty 37 minutes.

That’s how long I was actually playing the game for. Even though I sat there for 80 minutes, for 43 of those minutes I was resigned to watching dozens of loading screens, and listening to those bastard douchebags carrying on. And the worst thing is that this is a good game, the driving is really enjoyable. It’s so infuriating that it’s buried under so much ugly trash.

It’s like going out on a date with someone you know is attractive, good looking, and fun to be with. You wait for them to turn up at the arranged location (they’re late, of course), but when they arrive they’re wearing really shit clothes, and they’ve done something weird with their hair. It’s just so off-putting. You know that underneath there’s something you really want to get your teeth into, but you just can’t get past their abysmal presentation.

Then they keep disappearing off to the toilet every five minutes, and each time they come back they’re talking in a different obnoxious, stereotyped accent, spouting bullshit catchphrases and trying to give you high fives, before fucking off to the toilet again for another ten minutes. Utterly infuriating.

So the date with Dirt3 ended, and I settled the bill. I left it at its doorstep with a polite peck on the cheek. There won’t be any future dates unless it gets an extreme makeover.

One game that I did successfully take out to dinner this week, and enjoyed copping a feel of its afterburners, was Tom Clancy’s Hawx. This fighter jet action game stood out as being utterly unique within my pile, so I decided that this would be a nice companion to Dirge3, and the combination of two vehicle games was actually a great start to the second half of my journey. Hawx was a standard military affair, blow up this, attack this, defend that, but it was fast paced and I enjoyed its company. I’m struggling to find much to say about this one. Complaining about Dirt3 has thoroughly worn me out.

27 down, 23 to go.

Over the hump

I must have been the only person in the world that was happy to hear that GTAV had been delayed until September. I wasn't sure I would have been able to stand knowing that a brand new Grand Theft Auto game was out there in the wild, being enjoyed by millions as I plugged away at my monstrous pile of shame.

Having a self-imposed embargo on purchasing new games until all of my existing ones have been completed has been pretty hard. There have been several releases that have tested me sorely. I’d love to get my hands on Hitman: Absolution, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and X-COM. 

I know that as a massive Aliens fan, had Aliens: Colonial Marines been any good I may have faltered. But it turned out to be a gigantic turd, and while that may be good for me in my current situation, it breaks my heart to know that once again the Alien franchise has been mistreated by another bunch of useless bastards.

But, enough wallowing.

After hog-riding and shotgun-blasting my way through GTAIV’s biker themed The Lost and Damned last week, I carried on by shimmying, shaking, and skydiving my way through the fabulous club scene that is the setting for the second GTAIV episode, The Ballad of Gay Tony.

As with The Lost and Damned the tighter focus on the story, and a lot fewer fetch quests, made this a great installment  The missions were big, varied affairs that kept throwing up surprising and entertaining scenarios. Riding on top of trains as you shoot helicopters out of the sky, stealing an armoured car and destroying an entire police precinct, tons of fun was to be had here.

There was one thing it sorely needed though; either an instant replay feature, or the ability to post video of your antics would go down a treat. So many times something hilarious would happen and I’d think to myself, ‘I would love to see that again.’ Perhaps GTAV was delayed so that it could appear on the newly announced PlayStation 4, where it can take advantage of the new ‘Share’ feature that allows you to record and upload any portion of the last few minutes of gameplay? That would be nice.

And so it was with some sadness that I ended my short visit to Liberty City. I hadn't been there for a while, but it turned out that upon returning I was warmly welcomed by friends old and new. They had some interesting jobs for me to do, and far less calls pestering me to go bowling, which was a welcome change from the last time I saw them.

So that makes it 25 games completed. I’m officially halfway through my pile of shame! And pretty much halfway through the 12 months I set myself. It’s nice to be on target and making good progress, but I can’t allow myself to slack off. I must keep the pedal to the metal, blinkers on, head down, ignoring any distractions in the form of nice shiny new games that come out.

25 down, 25 to go.