Why do I waste my cash ?

[egparadigm]

Oh I can relate to that. I went through a phase a few years ago where I bought every 'good' game and forced myself to play it, simply because I felt I had to. I didn't enjoy it one bit, quality games ended up being under-appreciated because I was so down while playing it, and I ended up lacking money, and significantly... I constantly felt burdened with all these games to play.

You know my pain.

I'm getting the itch I can't scratch on a couple of games at the moment that I'm sure I won't like but know I'll end up getting, Banjo Nuts & Bolts I'm looking at you.

Have you tried the demo? The thing that put me off was the description of the florid menu system in the EDGE review.

[prinnysquad]

The demo doesn't do the game any justice at all.

I suppose I've bought a few RPGs in my time that I just know I won't get round to playing, but end up buying anyway.

[dataDave]

I would of thought it would be obvious to buy what games you like rather than what's been reviewed good.

This is the truth I've been trying to expose for centuries.

[Decider-VT]

I'm doing this a lot. I bought the limited editions of Fallout 3 and Fable 2 on release as well as Dead Space and several others still sitting in their shrinkwrap. I'm still willing myself to finish Gears 2, then I'll be playing through Uncharted and Tomb Raider, also still in their packaging. Luckily I've learnt my lesson a bit now and have waited for the recent price drops to come into effect. Staff discount doesn't help me resist temptation, though.

A lot of my friends and co-workers are rushing through their games, already hungry for the next one before they've even started what they're currently playing. (A lot of that motivation comes from gaining achievements, though.) I'll admit that hearing of somebody rushing through games like Fallout and Fable makes me wonder if they've taken the time to truly appreciate them.

[dataDave]

(A lot of that motivation comes from gaining achievements, though.)

I can't believe how many people are totally obsessed with this facet. It's sickening. They will force-feed themselves utter dog ****e just for pointless little rewards that don't even unlock anything.

[capcom_suicide]

I think the play.com sale has made things better. I have bought loads of games and can trade them on without losing money. This way I can try out a game I wouldn't normally play and if it clicks, great. If not, then I didn't lose so much.

Last year I bought Mass Effect, played 2 hours and hated it. Came back to it 3 months later and it was my GOTY.

I don't normally play action RPG's and if I hadn't taken a punt I would never have experienced it.

Where I am bad though is JRPG's. I tend to buy them all at launch, my latest being Last Remnant, but don't normally even open them. Sometimes I sell them, sometimes they sit on the shelf.

In my wierd mind I think I have them as "Redundancy insurance" as the only bloke I know who has a family and rinses JRPG's only manages when he is out of work, or as in the case of Lost Oddessy, he took 7 days holiday, playing 12 hours a day.

I think it's because I loved Zelda and phastasy star games so much as a kid (8/16bit) and I ache for having the time to enjoy these games again.

Anyway I just went downtown yesterday and got ?85 trade in on Mirrors Edge, COD5, Armoured Core & Quantum of Solice. 3 of which I completed, 1 of which I never opened.

I think I'll have a serious cull of other games in the coming months, but need to prioritise which ones to play.

[Concrete donkey]

Personally I love long drawn out games. The longer I spend playing one game the more happy I am with my purchase. There are exceptions of course. I brought the Orange Box solely for Portal and it was money well spent. Games like Fable, Oblivion and Fallout 3 rank among my favourite games of all time next to Civ.

But I am equally guilty of buying games I don?t like in other genres.

I don?t like survival horrors despite my willingness to and the money I?ve spent on them. I own Resident Evil three times (PS1, GC and DS) as well as 2, 3, code veronica and 4 (both GC and Wii), the first three silent hills and others like Siren and Obscure. Can?t stand them and never played more than half an hour on any of them.

Rhythm based games are the same. I?ve brought both Ouendans, Donkey Konga, Gitaroo Man, Samba De Amigo amongst others but lack any sense of rhythm and am completely useless at them.

Japanese RPG?s are the worst. I used to like them and play them a lot but during the reign of the original xbox I was slowly being seduced by the western kind like Fable, Knights of old Republic and liked the Jap ones less and less. I still brought them though intending to play them later but it never happened. I?ve brought a bunch of Nippon Ichi games, even buying a US PS2 especially to play Disgea before it was announced for the UK but never got to even approaching finishing Disgea not to mention starting all the others.

Like others I used to buy any well respected, high reviewing games but have since stopped this practice and being much more selective on what I buy. Hence this Christmas Fable 2 and Fallout 3 were the only games I brought.

[Decider-VT]

I can't believe how many people are totally obsessed with this facet. It's sickening. They will force-feed themselves utter dog ****e just for pointless little rewards that don't even unlock anything.

Too true. One of my friends has recently completed Lost: The Game on 360 and said that he's interested in watching the TV show now. I don't know how he coped with the storyline without at least three series' of back story but he pushed all the way through it for his 1000 points before moving onto the next game. He must have close to a hundred games listed on his profile, 60% of which are questionable at best.

Competition with another friend of mine has led to them both keeping games with easy achievements "in reserve" so one of them can quickly pull ahead of the other's gamerscore while the other one is at work or out for the evening. Madness.