More like "Sea of Delay".


A Confession - (Or, why it's good that a lot of games have been delayed.)

I'd like to admit here, first, that I have a problem. A serious one. and I need help. It has plagued me for years, pushing away friends, loved ones, and family, and causingme much grief. My problem is - I suck at finishing games, of any genre. And I keep getting more. On my hard drive, and on my shelf, there are games from eras past that I have barely even touched, much less finished. My copy of Suikoden 2 lies unfinished, weeping silent tears on my shelf...that is, until I get around to actually finishing it.

I doubt I'm the only one with this "problem", considering nearly eveyone I know who games always complains that they have "too many games" to play. It's expected. Even the most hardcore of gamers in their 20s has bills to pay, obligations, friends and a job. (This is of course excluding the lucky 20 year old-ish gamers who get to live at home and somehow aren't made to worry about that stuff.) There just isn't as much time to marathon gaming sessions anymore as there was when on summer vacation.

There is also the case of someone, who I shall not reveal the identity of, who only got around to beating Final Fantasy VII just last year. But that's a story for another time...Anyway.

There is a point to this, I'm not just telling you about my gaming habits for shits and giggles. If you've been following the news around the industry this week, you've noticed that all the blogs have been raving about how the 5 month rush to this holiday season is being wracked with delay after delay; Bioshock 2 among the casualties, relegated to a cryptic "Fiscal Year 2010" according to most sites. There has been talk and speculation about what this means for the industry's holiday projections, and even speculation about the future of gaming, claiming that the "casuals" have taken over, with the next logical step being the subjugation and domination of "core" and "enthusiast" gamers, leaving us with nothing but an endless cascade of shovelware and "petz" games. To people such as these, I say "Chill." The delays are actually a good thing, for a multitude of reasons. I'm sure it's no consolation, but, yes, delays can actually cause games to turn out better. Imagine that. Oh, and we still get Brutal Legend on time (knock on wood), so Christmastime will still be merry for non-casuals.

Also, am I the only one who hasn't taken for granted how often game releases happen? As a hardcore RPG fan in my preteen and teenage years, we had ages of waiting to do between releases, and even when the games were released, they were a bitch to find, and went for outrageous prices if you weren't lucky enough to get a copy on day one. Like Suikoden 2, or virtually any SNES RPG cart that now costs a ridiculous amount of money.

So, while this Christmas season may feel a bit sparse, rather than doom and gloom, I'll be taking the bad with the good, and using the time to actually beat some of my unfinished games (Now somewhere around the 70 range), and maybe even second playthroughs of finished ones.

Earthbound, here I come! (Again.)