When one game takes over
By blog on Apr. 29, 2009.
Sometimes you start playing a game, or even return to a game, and then once you have started that game, it takes over all your gaming time.
I installed Sim City 4 on my PC a couple of days ago, and now I haven’t been playing anything else! I have to admit, I missed the game when it originally came out, so this is my first play though, and I am having a lot of fun.
It looks a little odd, this little box on my HD monitor, but what the hey, good games are timeless! I am still getting the hang of it, trying not to bankrupt my city, trying to bring in enough of a population that I can actually make some headway, and generally having a good old time. It’s always fun when you don’t really know what you are doing with a game, and yes there is a good tutorial, but I can’t really be bothered going the whole way through it… I am just like that.
Other games have done this to me too; Rune Factory 2: A fantasy Harvest Moon on the DS for instance. Since I started playing that, I haven’t made any progress whatsoever on Hatsworth or Ninjatown, and these are all very enjoyable games. I think it is the building type games that do this to us; The Sims and Civilization are prime examples of this type of game and what it does.
Any game that brings out the ‘one more turn’ or ‘just a little bit longer’ mentality seems to bring a screeching halt to the playing of any other game. They suck you in, make you think only of getting just a little further in, and before you know it, it’s 2:00am and you realise you haven’t moved in three hours. I actually know of an incident when my SO was younger and still living at home. She went off to bed one night, whilst her mother sat playing the original Sim City on the SNES. When my SO got up the next morning, her mother was in the same place… still playing the game…
That’s obviously going too far, but you see what these games do!? You see!? Bah, I am off to play more Sim City 4… I am working to get my city population over 2,000.
Category: Technology