One of the things that I will admit is that I’m not your typical gamer. Yes, I’m obsessive about the games that I like to play, and collect lots of games. I love talking to others about my favorite games, and sometimes spend a lot of time thinking about games when I shouldn’t be. However, the one thing that makes me not a typical gamer is that I don’t feel obliged to buy brand new games and games consoles as soon as they come out.

A good example is my Playstation 2, which I only just bought around Thanksgiving 2005. This was one year before the launch of the Playstation 3, and 6 years into the life of the unit. I now have around 150 games for the PS2, most of which I’ve been able to get for under $10 each, free or for around $20*. I’ve got a nice collection now and it didn’t really cost me that much to build it up. The most recent PS2 title I have is Bully, by Rockstar Games.

See, I don’t feel the pressure to buy new games as soon as they come out. I want to, of course, but something inside of me tells me not to bother spending that amount of money when I can wait a year and get it cheaper. This also explains the lack of an XBox 360 in the Bagder household at this time (although the failure rate of units is also a factor in that). Besides, I’ve got more than enough games to play. On top of all those PS2 games, I’ve got about 50 GameCube Games, 25 N64 games, 30 SNES games, 25 Dreamcast games, and about 1000 PC-based games to still play. And this doesn’t include all of the old 8-bit home computer stuff I have for the Acorn Electron, Sinclair Spectrum, Atari ST or Amiga. Phew! So, it’s not as if I need to spend money on games.

This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma, but only a bit of one. All the cool kids are playing the new games on the newer consoles. Games such as Crackdown, Gears of War and that one cool game for the PS3. Many of these games are multiplayer and as much as I’d love to get in on that action, I tend to play a lot of games solo, even the online games such as Guild Wars. Why, you ask? There are a few reasons:

• I don’t often have a set time that I can play games with others, although I do make time when I can.
• I hate going through the trial and error process to find people that I’d enjoy playing games with on a regular basis.
• Even worse than finding people to game with is trying to find competent people to game with.
• I hate having to have to pay over the nose for a game that will drop to half price within 6 months at retail. Then again, I tend to buy a lot of games second-hand, which makes me a game publisher’s nightmare and a retailer’s wet dream.
• Most of the games I tend to play are solo-centric anyway, such as adventure games.
• I just plain like playing games on my own without any distractions from family or others, which means I play games as a way to get away from other people, not to spend time with them.

That last reason is probably the biggest for why I don’t play a lot of multiplayer games. I’m also the type of gamer who loves certain classic games and often is more keen to revisit them rather than to play the latest chart-topper that everyone else is into**. It’s not like I don’t have enough games to play already.

Which leads me to finally get around to talking about what this post is really about. Most game blogs focus on the current industry, and the games and consoles and computers  that have just been released. Pshaw! They can have that. I’m going to focus on stuff that’s been out already, stuff that’s Behind The Curve ***, stuff that others have played and forgot about.

Once or twice a week, I’ll dust off one of the games in my collection and play it for a bit, then post about it. I’ll post what I like and what I don’t like, what intrigues me and what doesn’t. It won’t as much be as review, but a revisitation, because I don’t intend to spend 20-40 hours per game playing it like many other game reviewers do. I don’t have time to do that. I do have time to create a little capsule about each game, and give you my impressions. It might interest you enough to hunt down the game yourself and either enjoy or hate it as much as I do. You never can tell.

Expect the first BTC entry by the end of the weekend.

* $20 is what I call my GPL, or Game Price Limit. I try not to spend any more than that for a single game, although on a few occasions I have done, but for notable games that I felt were worth the price. These include Star Trek: A Final Unity (which I’ve still to complete), Zelda games, and all of the Guild Wars games.

** This is a normal pattern for me. What everyone else is into, I’m not, or at least not until they’re not anymore and then I am. If you can grok that.

*** See how adroitly and cleverly I slid that in there? That’s hawesomeness in the making right there.

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Categories: Behind The Curve //