Welcome to the Nut House…

Something you need to know about me is that I’m kind of like a squirrel. A slightly OCD squirrel. A squirrel that likes a particular type of acorn, and will scour the ground to find every single one. A squirrel that’s sure the day will come when it can sit happily atop its hoard of nuts and go through them all in turn, never finding one that’s gone stale or that simply was in abundance the whole time. A rather good-looking squirrel….

Wait, I’ve gone off-track again, haven’t I? Back up.

I like video games. You probably could have guessed that much. My problem (if you want to call it that) is that I like the type of video games that you can play for forty or fifty hours, building up your intrepid party of beautiful-girl-haired adolescents until you face the final big baddie in all his (multiple formed) glory. Yep, that’s right…. I play JRPGs. Guilty. I don’t just play the big ones, though—yes, I am a rabid Final Fantasy aficionado, and I am pissed as hell that I don’t even have a remotely solid release date for XIII yet (if I don’t stay angry, I’ll get sad….), but I also really enjoy the obscure, frequently unpronounceable titles that I’m relatively convinced no one but me actually looks forward to. This is where my squirrel analogy comes in. From past experience, I’ve learned that these types of games don’t have a particularly long shelf life, which is understandable when you consider that their target audience is…. well, me. And when I, or someone like me, gets a hold of one of these games, we’re not likely to give it up particularly frequently, so they’re not easy to find used, either. What this practically means for me is that I get really paranoid about snapping up my games when I know they’re going to be available. I preorder. I search. I stalk. And, of course, I buy. However, when you factor in that it takes me, on average, at least a few weeks to complete one of these titles, and that I do have two jobs (fortunately that pesky “social life” thing doesn’t get in the way much), you end up with a great big stack of unplayed games. Or, in my case, a very full bookshelf. I have, as they say, a backlog.

I’m telling you this not simply to confess my problem—although it does feel good, sort of like my own Backloggers Anonymous meeting!—but as an explanation. I guess I’d be in better shape if I played stuff like Gears or Halo, where you know you’ll be able to find a copy until Doomsday, and I don’t exclude those types of big titles entirely; I played and loved Fallout 3, for example, and I even did it within about a month of launch. Mostly, though, that’s not really me. So when you see me talking about playing something you’ve never heard of, or just something that’s been out for ages that I’m just now getting around to experiencing, just remember that there’s a good reason for that. Winter will come! I’m sure of it. Right.