I think many a gamer has been in a situation similar to my own. Be it because of school, a significant other, or any number of other distractions, you left from the fold somewhat. Gaming fell to the wayside, whether by choice, or due to outside interruptions.

This happened to me during the last generation, when my PS2 experienced the dreaded DRE, and being a hormonal, typical teenage male, the pursuit of women came before replacing my beloved console. In my mind it was more important to put my funds toward hip threads and taking the ladies out. That's not to say gaming left completely: I spent a decent amount of time in the arcade, and I got an Xbox for playing the Halos and such, but the PS2 obviously dominated last generation, and by-and-large it's the only generation I feel passed me by.

Now I've made it my mission to go back and collect all the "must-have" titles from the console, and have been slowly but surely trying to work my way through them all. With so many games though, this is a very daunting task. Everything from Final Fantasy to Grand Theft Auto to ICO beckons me, and there are only so many hours in the day. This is made all the more difficult by a compulsive need to keep up with all the latest-and-greatest titles coming out.

The biggest hurdle has been my Xbox 360 and its online play. In my mind, my single player PS2 games will always be there, but the multi-player experience for games on the 360 won't. It can be hard to make my way through a great game like Bully, when I know my friends are having a blast playing Gears of War without me, and getting better, meaning later on I may not be able to keep up with them when we play together. Oh the choices that must be made.

I've actually considered the lack of offerings on the Wii and PS3 a blessing right now, as I'm not sure I'd ever get to experience all the wondrous offerings of the PS2 if I was constantly trying to keep up with monthly releases on all 3 systems. Don't get me wrong they have games I've been playing, but they are released far enough apart as to leave me time to catch up on my required last-gen gaming quotas.

Now I'm off to decide whether I should crack open FFX-2 right away, try to finish Kingdom Hearts, take my first step into Beyond Good and Evil, start God of War 2, or finally get back to Persona 3. That or one of the countless other games sitting on my shelf. Oh but how Call of Duty 4 and Burnout Paradise beckon. Whatever the case, I can't let this intraweb distract me from the task at hand any longer.