Here's a rambling entry about my love of videogames and packratting. It will probably degenerate and veer off into unknown and ambiguous directions. Editing is not one of my strong suits.

I love videogames. There. I said it. I don’t say I love you to my parents, didn’t say it to my ex-girlfriend, but I say it to videogames. And beer (but that’s another blog entry).

Because of this love affair to videogames, I’ve noticed that around my bedroom are more games than I have time to devote to them. A number of them have been played for an hour over the weekends when I bring them back fresh from the store. And then, for some reason, they get relegated to the dreaded stack, a wasteland of neglected games that brought joy for some time, but thrown aside like a cheap date at the end of the night, no staying power.

There are others that have never been opened, having been collected, and now collecting dust in a drawer. My intentions were good for these cretins. They were bargains and I would enjoy them as soon as I get the chance. Unfortunately for Eternal Sonata, Yakuza, Destroy All Humans, Dragon Quest VIII, there are just not enough hours in a day to give you attention. I have other interests. Carjacking interests. Star collecting interests, coconut collecting interests, and its just much too difficult to break into my too few hours gaming life.

I’ll admit that I’m a packrat. I love to collect games. I believe it started when I was a poor lad who was only allowed to pick one game from the electronics store. My dad believed that having too many games would spoil me (in hindsight, he is 100% correct). And so, every so often, I would look at the boxes and pick up a game, knowing that it was the only one I was going to get for a real long time.

I remember being enamored by the action-filled cover of Gradius. This one ship, lasers blasting, against an entire armada. I also remember wanting to pick up Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, and it being sold out at the store, I decided that instead I would pick up Rambo. Luckily, my older and wiser brother talked me out of that impulsive decision, that need for a new game, and he would later surprise me with Punch-Out a few weeks later.

As I got older and got a job, I could now afford to finance this addiction. And so, it leads to modern day. My gigantic stack of neglected games half finished, half started, and never opened. I guess I shouldn’t feel guilty as I am feeling happiness from them, and in the end, that’s the point, regardless of whether I finish them or not.

I was quite happy with playing just twenty minutes of Two Worlds, creating a cross-eyed Nordic looking guy, and then getting killed by an orc-like creature.

I'm also quite happy with never finishing Dead Rising. It's one of my favorite 360 games, but I don't think I have the stamina that it requires.

When I play videogames, I'm quite happy.