Ever done this "experiment" with your collection?

[Steven]

Now I'm sure there might be an exception here or there but for the most part I bet all of us here own over 30-40 games. Hell, I'm sure many of us are 100+.

If you were like me, you grew up thinking that owning 10 titles meant you were overly lucky. Nowadays our collection is so huge we tend to not juice every last ounce of gameplay into all the games we own. Sure Karnov on NES wasn't the most brilliantly constructed game ever, but damn if I didn't play that game to death.

How many of our games do we do that with today?

That's why in the past week I picked out four titles from my Saturn collection that I'd all play and rotate for at least 2 weeks. That way it'd kinda be like me going back to the late 80's appreciating truly what little I had.

Making the rounds in my Saturn has been Sega Rally, Bust-A-Move 3, Street Fighter Collection and 3D Baseball. I got the puzzle genre, fighting genre, sport genre and racing genre all covered.

So my question is, have you ever isolated out saaay 3-7 or so of your games and devoted your gameplaying to just those selected games? Trying to master each one as much as possible -- "just like in the ole days"?

If you never tried it, I suggest you do. At first you might feel "this is silly, I own hundreds of games but am restricting myself to just five?" But play it out... after a while you may appreciate those five games more than ever.

Just something to experiment with sometime maybe. Try to represent each of your favorite genres one at a time would be my advice if you do try this "turn back the clock and pretend you only have so many games" experience.

---

BTW to further chronicle my experiences with the four titles I have hand-picked to play for two weeks:


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/sz/sfc/s2b.jpg

-SFC
Good stuff all around. Trying to see each character's endings. I noticed some minor slowdown in SSFII Turbo. Blasphemy.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/sz/sfc/s3b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/segaral/sr2b.jpg

-Sega Rally
The best racing game on Saturn period. All-time? It's debatable. Improving my time and learning how to handle tight turns. Love catching some air and skidding on that tarmac!


http://www.sega-saturn.com/saturn/software/pics/3dbb-02.jpg

-3DB
The fastest 9 innings of solid baseball out there. Just a fun game that is shy of capturing WSB 98's sheer greatness

http://www.sega-saturn.com/saturn/software/pics/3dbb-03.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/mr/puzzle3/saturn1b.jpg

-BAM 3
Great puzzle game, not sure if I like this more than 2 (2 was awesome!) as I feel 2 had better "soul/spirit" but the new 8 character choices in BAM 3 help to sort of modernize it. Trying to play through each mode and each puzzle... trying out all 8 characters. Been a blast. Especially if you use Super Sonic Blastman! I'm still not the biggest fan of its aiming practices but it can be fun. I'm learning better to not screw up so much. I can't help but love it though. I'll have to try part 2 again soon. BAM 2 holds a soft spot as it was one of the first Saturn games I played and really, along with SF Alpha 2... all which I got free from a friend... I never looked back. :D

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/mr/puzzle3/saturn2b.jpg

[Nesmaster]

ive done somewhat similar things, but not with the same system. example im playing bomberman 2nd attack, as well as rescue rangers 2, and seldomly super mario sunshine which ive got into but sorta forgot about. it wont compare to playing the same 10 games i had for the nes years ago though. thats when i truly appreciated what i had. playing double dragon 2 until 11 pm was great :)

[SkiDragon]

That, I think, is what is missing in video gaming nowadays, at least for me. I have so many games that I do not take the time to really appreciate any of them.

[Kamisama]

hmm I always take 1 game of my collection and play just this until I finished it ^^ but the problem with this is that you have 100 games and only really played 5 of them :(

[s1lence]

I try to rotate games like that. Your right it isnt like it was when I was younger and having 10 NES games was a big deal. I try to rotote any new, well new to me games in to my game playing. I have a bunch of games that I had tried to do this with, but I ended up not having the time to play them. I'm finally going to beat kingdom hearts this weekend, after its been sitting for 2 years on my shelf. I just got some nes games that i would like to put in to my playing time, but I think that wont end up happening. I've actually started to bring games and systems to work to play during my lunch hour so I have the opportunity to play some of the great games that I have purchased but are sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

[joshnickerson]

Hah, I surived for several years with only about eight SNES games at one point. I should really try this soon, especially since there's no new games I want coming out for a few months.

[Cmosfm]

I've been meaning to getting around to playing a lot of my games that I have, thing is, when you have 2800 of them....it makes it really hard to chose a single game you want to play.

I usually wind up spending all my game time trying to figure out what to play. :(

[shvnsth]

I've been meaning to getting around to playing a lot of my games that I have, thing is, when you have 2800 of them....it makes it really hard to chose a single game you want to play.

I usually wind up spending all my game time trying to figure out what to play. :(

i know exactly how you feel, and i have 1/3 the games you do. i think about what game to play, pop one in 1/2 an hour later, and then swap it out after 10 minutes. i need to get back into playing games again. burnout 3 and god of war got my attention recently, and jade empire and gran turismo 4 had it for longer than usual, but i have been addicted to a game since ff7 about a year ago.

[Fuyukaze]

I know the feeling. I used to spend hours and hours playing the same game, not because I loved it more then any of the hundreds of others, but because it was the only new game I had and would have for a good amount of time. These days, I try a different aproach to gaming. I dont limit myself to any small number of titles, I simply take it by the alphabet. I start off on what ever system it is I want to play the most, and try playing each and every single game from the Letter A to Z and beat each and every one before moving on to the next. Sometimes I never finish the game as I cant finish the game before the game beats me, but I try to atleast put some serious time into them as I want to apreciate them for what they are rather then simply how valuable they may be. Sometimes its hard to find the time to do it, and sometimes its very hard to find the system to do it on. With 10 systems and 300+ games to my colection, sometimes I dont even know where to start. I aint bitching as I like having this as a problem. It sure beats the old days when all I had was 1 system and 3 games to my colection.

[imanerd0011]

I usually pick 1 game and play it until I either beat it, or become really really good at it. The problem is, I pretty much only play NES, and the NES has ALOT of stinkers. When I was growing up I had around 15-20 NES games, but oddly enough all of them were great games. The only bad games you could say I had was Batman, and Double Dribble. I was into basketball as a little kid, and I guess I thought Batman was pretty rad too, so those were the only choices I made based on the title (without playing the game first).

[Rugal]

I have been doing this alot lately (especially since there really hasn't been a great game for the next gen systems for me to play) I am currently playing these 5 games on my PS1: Intelligent Qube, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, Metal Gear SOlid and Medevil II. I find playing these games makes me realize that the era of the PSone was so great, the current generation has taken steps back by concentrating on amazing graphics instead of the real reason why we play games.........gameplay.

[Jibbajaba]

That, I think, is what is missing in video gaming nowadays, at least for me. I have so many games that I do not take the time to really appreciate any of them.

This is a very sad statement, and it is certainly true in my case as well. I have so many games that I don't play any of them for any great amount of time; especially the older titles that I pick up. I am more inclined to play games that just come out, because I feel obligated to having paid $40-$50 for them. I guess I am just more of a collector than a gamer, but if there were more hours in the day then I would definitely be playing more.

Chris

[Steempy]

I think it's an excellent idea to pick a game and concentrate on it. I've had some guilty feelings about this myself for some time, and now and then I deliberately try and fixate on one game for a while. I have to say, though, that even "back in the day" with my Commodore 64 as a kid, I was always more about playing a little of every game I had, rather than trying to complete everything - once in a while I'd pick something and go crazy then (Pitfall 2 - took me forever to get past that last section with the bats and vultures before getting to the effing mouse - nowadays I can blow through the whole game practically without dying).

When I started collecting as what I laughably refer to as an adult, once in a while I'd pick something and go crazy (Bomber Raid for SMS - sucked at it, but decided to complete it at any cost, and spent 8 hours straight playing it).

Nowadays when I'm buying PS2 and GC games like there's no tomorrow (and the way I spend, there probably won't be, but that's between me and my bank manager), once in a while I pick something and go crazy (Dead to Rights - but how the hell do I get past that bastard fat guy on the roof? I hate crappy fighting bits in cool shooting games).

After all that blathering about me, me and me, I've also got a useful idea for y'all... if you need more encouragement to perservere with one game at a time, why not do it because you're going to write a review for Digital Press?

Yes, I'm talking to you - get off your asses and write game reviews!

[vulcanjedi]

Yo

I have been thinking quite a bit about this issue since last week when a church burned in my neighborhood.
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=676900#676900

in 1981 you were lucky to have any money at all left over after paying $200 for a game system so nobody had more than a handful of games. The local (ha, it was 4 miles away) video store rented games for $1.99 per game per night. Everybody had the same idea of renting first thing saturday morning and returning late sunday night so there were never any good games left on the weekend. But when you got one I remember spending every waking minute playing something.
Over the next 3-4 years as prices came down a little my collection slowly grew but there was always one "latest" game that got the most amount of play.
This changed in 1985 when I picked up a box of atari games at a flea market. For $5 I got 3 2600 systems and a coleco with over 40 cartridges. That doubled my collection and they were almost all games I didn't have. Playing them later that night was sort of channel surfing. One game, five minutes later another, and so on. Things just were not the same...

VJ

[slip81]

I kinda do this when I play games. What I've been doing is I pick out two story driven games(adventure, action, RPG, etc) and one non story driven like a racer or sports title, and only play those games, and when I beat one I move onto another.

Like right now I'm playing Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, Brothers in Arms and Midnight Club 3. When I beat either R&C or BIA, I'll move onto my next game which will be Tales of Symphonia and then Beyond Good & Evil.

So usually I just pick out three, play them to death and then move onto the next three. The only time I won't finish a game I've started is if I hate it, or I get stuck and have to come back to it later.

[blissfulnoise]

I spend an hour in front of my collection, pick a system, narrow it down to a dozen games...

Then just give up and turn on the MVS.

Sigh. The more available choices, the fewer options one really has.

[hydr0x]

yeah i try to force myself into doing this, but it doesn't always work out ;)

i only had 14 NES games for over 5 years back then, starting out with only 3 games (Super Mario Bros. , Tetris and Nintendo World Cup) and boy did i play the hell out of them. I can't even give you an estimate on how often i won that World Championship LOL i guess i shot ~ 10k-30k goals in that game (usually the first game in the tournament gave you a >50:0 win). i wish i'd get the same feeling again, but that's the problem if you spend all your money into games, you just have to many x_x

[aaron7]

I'm nearing 400 NES games, and I really don't ever play any. In fact, my NES isn't even hooked up. I just use ROMS (legally, since I own most of them lol) with my USB NES controller.

[Raccoon Lad]

I just pick a system and go alphabetically through everything I haven't beaten yet.

[Emily]

I've been meaning to getting around to playing a lot of my games that I have, thing is, when you have 2800 of them....it makes it really hard to chose a single game you want to play.

I usually wind up spending all my game time trying to figure out what to play. :(

i know exactly how you feel, and i have 1/3 the games you do. i think about what game to play, pop one in 1/2 an hour later, and then swap it out after 10 minutes. i need to get back into playing games again. burnout 3 and god of war got my attention recently, and jade empire and gran turismo 4 had it for longer than usual, but i have been addicted to a game since ff7 about a year ago.

Thats me! I actually spend very little time playing games, and I can never make up my mind. Ill just sit in my Room of Doom staring at my NES games, pondering my games for days.
I usually focus on 3-5 games to switch through. But then I go and buy 6-7 more games and have to start all over.
I also screw myself a bit by buying games Ive always wanted to play, so I have hundreds I would love to beat someday. Its a relief some days when I accidently buy all shitty games that I wont play....

Over the years Bee 52 gets the most consistant Lovin.
I can play that game for ever, and Its one of my original 15 games.

[googlefest1]

that certainly fits me aswell

and i treat my collection exactly like that - i isolate games i want to play and try to play till i finish them ---- BUT it never works like that - i get frustrated and move on to something else --

i have gotten to the middle of somany games - most of which id have to start over to get the enjoyment out of

-- i also remeber as a kid i had very few games and played the crap out of them -- ive made a couple bad choices with purchases and got stuck with something i didnt like - and i had to keep it -- it was a long time in between games

i had a C64 with mabey 6 games split between my sister and my self - and i couldnt count her crap games (why the F would you want a brush your teeth game anyways) - that lasted for years untill i used gift money i collected and got ripped off buying a mastersystem (Bastard crazy eddie employee taking advantage of a little shy kid)

and had 4 games on that for years unitll my parents got divorced and my mother tried to buy my little sister off by buying her a genesis (late in its life) then i had 3 games for that for years untill i graduated college got a job and have over 2000 games with over half the systems ever created
oh i fogot my mother trying to buy me off by buying me a 386 16Mhz computer - then gettign games for that was easier since they had great bargain bins in computer stores - but even then that was like 6 games


(i gues i went nuts collecting one of the things i realy wanted as a kid but couldnt afford )

well the point is -- now i have all these games - and no time to play them and when i get a chance to its like "what to choose overload" - so i try to isolate them - and play them when the opertunity comes

[hydr0x]

Steven are you German? i'm asking because you are using screenshots from the archive of Maniac! magazines website which is not too known, even in Germany (the site, not the mag!)

[Steven]

Steven are you German? i'm asking because you are using screenshots from the archive of Maniac! magazines website which is not too known, even in Germany (the site, not the mag!)

Nope. I only use it because it has a lot of quality Saturn shots. I found the website by sheer luck :)

[legov8]

Not really, seeing as my collection isn't really that big. However, I play them all every now and then.