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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 15, 2014 6:27:52 GMT -5
I'm feeling the same guys, I love roleplaying games like Skyrim, especially on PC where I can play with mods too, BUT have only so much time in the day. These types of games, and my mildly OCD personality, mean I end up obsessing for months to the detriment of other hobbies.
My TV viewing habits have altered vastly, shiftwork doesnt help, (though I prefer the interactivity of video games) as I try and juggle time to read,watch or play, and I rarely have the attention span to watch a whole movie without wanting to go online or read my tablet.
As for being addicted to the net...you fullas arent helping any, so glad I found this site, but oh so addicted to it.
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Post by The Captain on Dec 15, 2014 7:01:49 GMT -5
I've drifted away from video games since I've been married (exactly 12 and 1/2 years today, actually). We have a Wii, but that is more for our daughters; the only game that is "mine" is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, and I probably play that on average 4-5 hours per month. I will break out my old Playstation 1 maybe once a year to play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but that is just for nostalgia sake.
I spend virtually zero time on You Tube. It's a neverending series of rabbit trails that one can very easily lose 2 or 3 hours in, and that is just something I choose not to do. There are only so many times a person can watch Hans Moleman get hit in the groin with a football until it ceases being funny.
I still watch too much TV. My wife and I have our regular shows (only 5 of them) and we watch a lot of baseball in the summer, but there are too many evenings where we just aimlessly channel-surf or watch reruns of Modern Family or Big Bang Theory just because they're on. I recently started watching Doctor Who (the Matt Smith episodes), and I'm enjoying that, so maybe that will take the place of the reruns and OnDemand stuff we've been filling our time with.
I'm working out four mornings per week, trying to read more comics, and spending more time with my girls and my wife. I'm probably going to be going for my CPSM (Certified Professional in Supply Management) certification next year, which will cut into any extra free time I have, so I've had to be very mindful about cutting out the mindless time-wasters in my life.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 15, 2014 7:28:46 GMT -5
Well, many of you mention that you watch too much TV and too many movies, but this is something I'm looking to increase. Getting the internet was the exact moment that I started losing interest in TV and movies (Once again...YouTube). At least with the quality shows and movies, you're experiencing something of substance and quality as opposed to the disposable junk that is the par for the course for most internet videos. Case in point, a few years back I rented the first season of The Wire since I heard such good things about it. I loved it, but thanks to games and the internet, I got sidetracked and I've never finished the series. The Wire is considered by some to be the greatest show ever, yet can I say that the games and internet nonsense that I decided to substitute for are nearly as good? Hardly. I have a little bucket list I'd like to share:
1. I want to finally watch all of Shakespeare's best plays. I'm going to start with the Kenneth Branagh films.
2. I want to start keeping up with the Science News website. Now that's an interesting and worthwhile way to use the internet.
3. I want to learn more about politics and economics. Not the BS spin that you get on cable news, but how the world REALLY works.
4. I want to finish my comic trade backlog and I want to finally complete a chronological reading of Marvel's Silver Age.
5. I want to ride a griffin. (The tell me that they don't exist, but I more than willing to wait for some wacky geneticist to make it a reality.)
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Post by badwolf on Dec 15, 2014 10:49:04 GMT -5
The video game I'm playing now isn't exactly sucking me in and I have no patience for watching videos on the internet so I never got into YouTube. I guess my guilty habit is internet forums! Probably because I have no other social life...
I do try to make an effort to read books more, which is ultimately my favorite pastime.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 15, 2014 12:21:52 GMT -5
I lost touch with video games a long time ago. I still play the old ones on occasion (though not very often), but once systems evolved beyond the traditional Nintendo/Sega D-Pads, games just got too complicated. It takes a lot of time and work to get into a game these days, whereas you could teach someone to play Mario Bros. in minutes. I just don't have the time, interest, nor energy. My favorite pastime remains writing about what I read and watch, and reading about what others read and watch. I'm quite thankful I have the CCF for that  I think I'm pretty much at that point now. I got a Wii U for the boys for Christmas and it might just be the last system I play on, as it's intended to be a multiplayer system with a lot of games that support that mode. I dunno if I can do more than that. I played Halo Reach with my boys and one of their friends and I got lucky I got one kill. Between the three of them I spent more time spawning after being killed than I did anything else. It's a good indication that gaming requirements have surpassed my skills. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 15, 2014 12:35:13 GMT -5
The skill level some of these kids have is ridiculous. I'm still fairly good at these things, and can hold my own on most hard level difficulties, but after watching a video of Batman Arkham Origin's, and seeing the massive scores they rack up on the challenge maps, I realized that I'd have to devote myself to mastering it to an absurd point to reach that level; I imagine trudging night and day through forest, mountains and snow, to reach some forgotten summit where I'd find the greatest gamer of all-time to teach me advanced button mashing techniques. No thanks.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 15, 2014 19:40:49 GMT -5
Yeah they are pretty insane. I do appreciate how my son carries me through a lot of the two player shooter games we like. Army of Two 40th Day was the last one we completed together and while I can stay alive fairly well on my own his kills are twice or three times mine.
But I do agree that time and practice is what kids have time and desire for. I just don't anymore. If a game is too hard on normal or easy then I don't play it. Video games are a relaxing pastime for me. When they stop being relaxing I lose interest.
Also whoever mentioned Castlevania SOTN, it is one of grandest achievements in gaming. My PS1 console crashed about a year ago so I downloaded it on the 360. The improved graphics are nice (though you can play without them) and the only differences are the glitches in the original game aren't in the 360 version. But the gameplay didn't change at all.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 15, 2014 20:46:11 GMT -5
The thing about modern games is overall depth and complexity more so than pure difficulty level. Most games today have adopted RPG type progressions and menu interfaces. Even sports games like Madden.
Some of those old classic Nintendo games and arcade games still take the cake for insane, blood-pressure raising, difficulty.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Dec 15, 2014 21:12:04 GMT -5
Speaking of old NES classics, when playing SMB3 yesterday with my son he was blown away by games no memory cards, no auto save, no game save files on the majority of the games I grew up playing. I said unlike playing it on the Wii were it saves your progress, if I had to go to sleep or school I had to leave it on to start where I left off. Lol. He was like whaaaaa  !!!! |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197 
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Post by Confessor on Dec 15, 2014 23:10:48 GMT -5
I haven't been into video games for years...like, not since I was 15 or 16 (nigh on 25 years ago). But lately I have been finding that YouTube and other internet-based time wasting pursuits have been eating into my reading time. I was saying to my girlfriend just last week that I'm gonna try and make more time for reading in the new year. Part of my motivation for that will be starting a new review thread here in January. Shhhh...it's a secret.  |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 15, 2014 23:12:38 GMT -5
I can honestly count the number of hours I play video games in a decade on the fingers of one hand.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 16, 2014 1:00:41 GMT -5
One thing I've come to a conclusion on is that I should never, ever, again attempt to play open-world RPG's, or RPG's in general, during the work week. I can't just play those things for an hour or two and get into it. Also, many, many times in the past those things have made me stay up way past my bedtime.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2014 3:42:22 GMT -5
I don't play video games - but I sure do watch a lot of movies on TCM, AMC, and other movies channels that I have and I just can't stop!
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 16, 2014 3:48:15 GMT -5
Well, at least you watch classic movies. If you were watching direct to video level fair, that would be different. |
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Post by The Captain on Dec 16, 2014 7:00:36 GMT -5
Well, many of you mention that you watch too much TV and too many movies, but this is something I'm looking to increase. Getting the internet was the exact moment that I started losing interest in TV and movies (Once again...YouTube). At least with the quality shows and movies, you're experiencing something of substance and quality as opposed to the disposable junk that is the par for the course for most internet videos. Case in point, a few years back I rented the first season of The Wire since I heard such good things about it. I loved it, but thanks to games and the internet, I got sidetracked and I've never finished the series. The Wire is considered by some to be the greatest show ever, yet can I say that the games and internet nonsense that I decided to substitute for are nearly as good? Hardly. I have a little bucket list I'd like to share: 1. I want to finally watch all of Shakespeare's best plays. I'm going to start with the Kenneth Branagh films. 2. I want to start keeping up with the Science News website. Now that's an interesting and worthwhile way to use the internet. 3. I want to learn more about politics and economics. Not the BS spin that you get on cable news, but how the world REALLY works. 4. I want to finish my comic trade backlog and I want to finally complete a chronological reading of Marvel's Silver Age. 5. I want to ride a griffin. (The tell me that they don't exist, but I more than willing to wait for some wacky geneticist to make it a reality.) IRT my comment about watching too much TV, I'd be OK with watching the same amount if I was watching better things. The problem is that my wife doesn't really wind down for the evening until around 8:30 or so after getting our girls to bed, so we can't sit down and watch a 2+ hour movie on a Tuesday night if I'm going to be going to bed around 10:00 so I can get up the next morning at 4:15 to go work out. So, we fill our time with short shows and things that won't cause us to think too much. As I put in my previous post, I'm starting to get into Doctor Who, and there are a number of other shows that I'd like to watch if time permitted, but right now, it doesn't. One nice thing that will happen in the next month or so is that our basement will be finished and there will be a TV down there. Because my girls are still fairly young, I am mindful about what I watch in our family room; this means that I don't typically watch Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow, or any R-rated movies when they can just wander in and out of the room at random. As such, I have a DVR full of movies and numerous DVDs that I want to watch or re-watch (everything from Alien and Platoon to Stripes and Caddyshack) that I won't put on when they are around. With the basement set-up, I would be able to hear them open the door from the kitchen and come down the stairs, which would give me at least 5 seconds to pause anything; with things right now, they can slip down the stairs from the second floor very quietly and sneak up on me from a couple of directions. And by the way, I should have a griffin by sometime next summer. My 9-year old is a huge Harry Potter fan and is working on a way to make one for herself; she's in the gifted program, so I'm figuring she has a shot at it  |
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