Playing With Myself: Being Sucked In

Other semi-recent moments to uproot me from the couch include, predictably, the entire final chapter of Portal, the last level of Braid and the Spire in Fable 2 (despite the rest of my issues with that game).

My habits have changed since I was a younger gamer. Nowadays I have less time available to game and more things to distract me from it, like the internet, when I do have the time. That's why I often have a laptop running in the background when playing single-player, why I find myself pausing to do other things and why so it's easy to become detached from the experience of playing a game. In a way, then, it's comforting to know that every so often a game can still, even for just a moment, capture my attention so completely that I can be wrenched from my seat without even noticing.

A multiplayer game can be powerful in its own way, sure - but the best single-player games have friggin' telekinesis.