I have actually heard of that club before but until you brought it to my attention I was largely unfamiliar with it, which is why I didn’t include it. I’ll take a squiz at the link.

I would be remiss if I didn’t speak up on behalf of the gaming “book club” that I belong to, the 1UP Squadron of Shame. It was born out of the concept of the “pile of shame” mentioned on the 1UP Yours podcast, those great and worthy games that you’re ashamed not to have played. The group has been undertaking “missions” to play through these games together and discuss them (mostly with a critical eye) since August 2006. Lately, a handful of our dedicated members also started a podcast in which they discuss their mission experiences (all members are invited to submit their own audio clips as material between segments). We’re definitely glad to see likeminded groups continue to form!

http://squadronofshame-club.1up.com/

That’s a far cry from what it was like when we were kids and had to plunk down 40-80 bucks for a single game (seriously, does everybody else remember those 70-80 dollar SNES games? Ridiculous!). When we got a game, we were stuck with it for better or worse and we enjoyed it, damnit.

I owned more than my fair share of horrible games as a kid (though it’s only in retrospect that I see that they are horrible), but I’m willing to bet that I spent at *least* over a dozen hours with each, no matter how frustrating or poorly designed. That might not seem like much, but we’re talking mostly about games that, when played perfectly, wouldn’t take more than an hour or so to beat.

The point of all of this is that games were nowhere NEAR as expendable as they are today. Hell, even if you happen to buy a crappy current gen game (which is much more unlikely than it used to be given the wealth of easily accessible and reliable information), you can just trade it in to cut some of your losses.

This kind of mindset is all too easy to fall into, especially when playing retro games. Whether you’re a pirate that downloaded torrents containing thousands of games or you’re a collector that just bought a huge grab bag off of ebay, it’s extremely tempting to have ridiculous expectations for how entertained and comfortable you should be every second you’re gaming. Get frustrated? Can’t figure out a puzzle? Can’t overlook some questionable design choice? No biggie, just keep popping in different games until you find something you can stand to play for more than five minutes.

I do my best to keep out of this kind of mindset, but lord knows I’m not invulnerable to it. That’s why it’s so great when there are further incentives to stick with one game for a bit - which is one of the many blessings I’ve gotten from reviewing games, actually ^_^ Some games just can’t be enjoyed that much unless you force yourself to slog through the initial boredom and disinterest, and having the journalistic integrity to not review games you haven’t thoroughly pwned has been enough to make me get a kick out of games I would normally put down after about 30 seconds.

Holy crap sorry for the friggin’ essay, I guess there’s just something about your posts that makes me want to ramble @_@