There are no pictures in this blog. Honestly, I like writing them but I hate searching for images to put in and caption and whatever. I won't be offended if you don't like reading a wall of text.

Kind of a serious title for a blog, don't you think? Sometimes we all take video games a little seriously. So, before getting into the meat of my ramblings, I thought I'd take a little bit of a side-road and talk about something we all know and love: Christmas.

Growing up, Christmas was the 25th of January, when a new video game sat under the tree. Once I discovered the internet, Christmas started taking place in May or June - E3, the big and shiny event when all of the greatest things in the coming year would be revealed. Currently, Christmas is in a better position than either of those. It's every Thursday and it's provided by Sony's PSN update - a lovely mix of quirky titles, retro love and only a tiny hint of corporate greed.

This last PSN Christmas, as I now call them, was one of the best of all. It brought with it a Bionic Commando patch for the carebear in all of us, updates to Rock Band music, a PS1 classic for the ages and of course a few new PSP games. Obviously to those of us in the know, those were just icing on the cake in relation to the real prizes: WipEout Fury and Shatter.

Being the brain-washed consumer that I am I picked up both. Since then, I've spent every day playing both. Both have received critical acclaim and are hot topics of discussion on all but the most prejudiced of gaming boards. I've put the same amount of time into each of them.

It's strange then, that thinking back on it, that one of them I really don't like.

The Meat of It

Hardcore and casual. Good and bad. We use a lot of relative terms to describe our games. But when it really comes down to it, there's one classification that supersedes them all: liked and didn't. Despite the critical opinion or classification of it, when it comes down to it there are games we personally love and games that fill us with disdain. Most of the time, we only play the former. But the latter are the ones that are fascinating, because they describe to me a part of gamer culture that is astounding and unnerving.

We play games we don't even like.

And of, course, there follows the question:

Why do we do it?

I thought on this for a while and came to a strange conclusion. For even the most committed of book, movie or television enthusiasts, the hobby is simply that - a hobby. The hobby of playing video games, however, for many of us is anything but - it's a lifestyle.

It sneaks up on you. You play a few games and you realize that you love them. That's fine and good. Then you start reading news sites and keeping up with what's available - just as good. Now you're an educated gamer. Soon you're spending time on forums and other social networks, which is fantastic. You're taking advantage of the web to form a social bond with others who share your hobby. And, while this is delightful and pretty and correct in every way, with video gaming, it doesn't end there.

You start to play every AAA release.
You need to own every console.
Your backlog grows and grows.
You start to play a game not because you necessarily wanted to, but because it was there.
You start to play a game not because you wanted to, but because you had free time - and by tradition, every moment of free time is spent playing video games.

Obviously this isn't true of everyone here. Most gamers play only a subset of big releases, stick to what they're interested in. But for some reason, some of us feel the need to do more. We feel obligated, like it's important that we remain aware of every aspect of the industry and follow all the big titles.

In the past few months, I've done a few things that, looking back, were simply ridiculous:
I ruined Killzone 2, playing it only because I had to.
I ruined inFamous, playing it only because I had to.
I ruined Shatter, playing it as though I had to achieve an artifical goal.

These are all games that some people take great enjoyment from. But for me, personally, they are not successes. Yet I played every minute of them, having no fun in the process; just wasting time.

Now I come back to my opening point. There are games we like, and games we don't like. For some reason, more gamers than seems proper feel the obligation to play the latter in addition to the former. It's hard to put away a game knowing that you paid full price for it and didn't enjoy it - but that's what the wonderful service of Goozex is for. And when it comes down to it, video gaming is about an experience. It should be a good one.

So, when the PSN Christmas comes with Fat Princess in tow, I'll skip it because I know I won't enjoy it. Next AAA Sony title that honestly doesn't seem that appealing, I'll skip it. And while I'm not wasting time playing those games, I'll enjoy some more WipEout Fury, or whatever game I'm enjoying at the time. Video games are a huge part of my life, for better or for worse. Some of you may feel the same way. If you do, I hope, like me, you'll keep this in mind: if they're going to be a part of our lives, they should be a damn good part.