Game Procrastination

No long essay today, just a quick minddump. Last night I finished Final Fantasy XIII, and two nights before I finished Mass Effect. On a happy sidenote, this resulted in a nice and big trophy and achievement boost. Funny that finishing a game can sometimes be worth almost as much as the rest of it. Did I start and beat FFXIII in two nights, or play both games simultaneously?

The answer is, sadly, neither. I purchased both games on launch day (January 26th for Mass Effect; March 9th for Final Fantasy). Both games I devoured voraciously, being a longtime fan of both series.

Now, please don't take this delay as some sort of judgment on both games. I adored them both. The issue was simply . . . procrastination. With so many great games coming out in those months and the following few months, plus me finishing that year of university, I was simply distracted by other things.

Or was I? I could have easily finished either game at any point, and I knew it. In fact, I had actually made headway onto completing FFXIII until a prior engagement forced me to turn off my Playstation in the midst of the final boss battle. I think my procrastination, in part, was because I didn't want either game to end. This is certainly true in Mass Effect 2; I knew I could have completed the game, but I continued to do DLC quests and side missions long after the final mission opened up.

Still, and it's embarrassing to say this, I think the real reason was simply that those games were no longer new. Much shorter titles (i.e. Heavy Rain, Gears of War 2, Uncharted 2) were purchased and finished around that time frame. After the first 40 hours of a long RPG, if some new game came out I'd pick that up, get into that and fall out of the previous game I was playing, but then I'd buy another new one a few weeks later, progressing this endless circle of unfinished games. Arguably, the real reason I didn't finish Mass Effect 2 wasn't a desire to keep it going; the real reason was Final Fantasy 13. Finally buying a computer that could play games was what pulled me from Final Fantasy 13.

It was only last weekend that, looking at my game collection, I saw that I had several choices of game to play, and many of which I had bought months before, played for a week or two, then abandoned. Again, not out of dislike, but simply because I had picked up something newer and shinier, and thus began my quest to finish what I had started. Next up on my list: Assassin's Creed 2 (purchase date? November, 2009).

Has this ever happened to you? And was it with happiness or irritation that you opened the dusty old cases to finish those procrastinated games?