my dirty secret

I take a lot of shit for gaming primarily on PC. Yeah, I'll tease some of my friends about gaming primarily on a console, but I usually reserve it for when they complain about something silly.

Occasionally, though, they get really pissed. No matter how much I reinforce that my preferences are not condemnations, friends (and not friends) will still perceive my stances as a slight. If I say, 'my kids liked the WiiU,' I'm not saying you are a child if you like it. I don't really enjoy anything on the console (aside from Mario Maker, which I'd fucking love to see on PC), but that doesn't mean other people don't. It's all good, man.

And genres. Holy shit. I love RPGs. I don't have a huge amount of gaming time, so I like to settle into a main RPG and a handful of MMOs, and just kinda ride that for weeks or months. I find value in occasionally deviating out of my comfort zone, but again, it seems to bug people, or they take it personally that my tastes skew toward deep roleplaying games.

Frankly, I find great value in diversity. I think having multiple genres is a great thing, because gaming shouldn't be all one way. The best thing about it is that it can be anything to anyone. Whether you wanna flick your finger across your phone for some period of time, or hone your reflexes in a super-deep fighting game, or live out your sports dream in a sports game, or bury yourself in story and math in an RPG, it's all there. AND the best is when genres colllide, and new ideas are born.

Honestly, it's started to get so bad that I've been pulling back from the gaming world in general. Years ago, I started to disassociate myself with the term 'gamer,' because a) I didn't like what the community was becoming (or maybe I was growing out of it), and b) I don't like belonging to things anyway. I don't like labeling myself at all, because I feel like it constrains identity and ideas.

I like what I like. I've been playing RPGs since the day Final Fantasy first came out on the NES, and I've been at it since. I outgrew most of the other genres. I'm glad you like 2D platformers and FIFA and the latest PSN sale and Mario and Rocket League and on and on. For real, follow your bliss, but try and let me do the same. A world full of happier people is a good thing. We all face enough trials without tearing each other down over something as silly as gaming genres and plastic fucking boxes.

Moving on ...

I actually didn't come here to whine about people being mean to me. I actually came because I have a problem that's been brewing for years.

Back in the 90s, and early 2000s, I was poor. I was working shit jobs, and then finally went to college, but didn't start really earning until the last five years or so, at which point, I did the natural thing, and started migrating to PC.

Before that, though, I was purely a console gamer. I missed out on all the amazing cRPGs of the era, and in fact, didn't get really converted until Dragon Age: Origins. That was my first balls-out PC RPG, and yeah, I know it was multi-plat. I'd played KotOR and Jade Empire on Xbox prior to that, so I wasn't a total BioWare noob, but I never played Baldur's Gate, or any of the Black Isle games, or any of the Piranha Bytes games, or any of the Troika games, and on and on. I've occasionally gone back and played footsie with one of them, but I always abandon them to play the new shiny.

Or in the case of Icewind Dale, it's just too fucking hard. Or I don't understand what I'm doing.

To that end, though, I've been toying with the idea of slashing this year's purchase list, and starting to play through the following:

Divine Divinity
Fallout
Gothic
Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale or Neverwinter Nights

Of course, I'm now focusing on Wasteland 2 and replaying DXHR. We'll see what happens. I've got Final Fantasy XV in the next couple months, DXMD next month, and Dishonored 2 in November. I'm guessing Deus Ex and Dishonored will both be pretty short, so maybe this fall and winter, I can finally rip through the classics.

And, naturally, I've loaded them with mods to modernize their look and feel.

Where do you think I should start? Any favorites, or other recommendations?

Alright, back to work. Thanks for reading.

Oh, and I'm going to append this post with some of my latest streaming fun.

-Blaine

RPGoodness

Something I've been mulling over lately is a recent streak, dating back to November of last year, in which my 'core franchises' have each delivered a new entry in the series. Dragon Age Inquisition, Pillars of Eternity, and Witcher 3 all released in a quick, six-month succession, and it's been kinda crazy.

Yeah, Pillars is a new franchise, but it also hearkens back to a different time, when the term 'cRPG' was still a thing, and imagination still colored in a lot of the experience.

In any case, it's been this really weird time in which I've gone from mega-huge game to mega-huge game, when I usually have some down time between monster releases. Given that I almost exclusively play RPGs, and big damn ones at that, I tend to have several months at a time in which I'm spending most of my gaming hours in the backlog, or in an MMO or two.

Instead, I played through Dragon Age (November) up to about the time Pillars hit (March), jumped right into that, then put down Pillars for a bit to play through Witcher 3 (May), which I finished over last weekend, and then I jumped back into Pillars, which it turns out, I'm almost done with anyway.

Of note, I grew up with most RPGs being in the 40-60 hour range, but each of those has been around 100 hours. Granted, I'm much more a completionist now than I was when I was younger, but still ... that's a lotta bang for my buck. And, shit, I was a day-one backer for Pillars, so that was about $20 for me (though I sunk in more later for some more goodies.)

And I expect to finish Pillars this week(end). After that, it'll be the first time since before Thanksgiving 2014 that I'm not committed to a new game. After that, the next new one will be Sword Coast Legends, from the great Dan Tudge, he of Dragon Age: Origins fame.

Oh, and The White March is hitting ... soon? And Witcher is getting a couple expansions, too. And DAI is supposed to get one more real DLC. It would be kinda neat if they all landed in a row.

Anywho, that's all for now. That's been rattling around in my brain for a bit, and I now wonder how long until something like this happens again? Mass Effect Andromeda is next year. Torment will come out some day. And I still have Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 unfinished ... and New Vegas. And shit, Fallout 4 this winter. OK. ENOUGH. I really do gotta go. I'll holler later tonight.