No Gold, No Games…

I have a habit. It’s a fun habit, but it’s also a very, very bad habit. It’s buying almost every new game that comes out for the 360, regardless of whether it has a review or not, good or bad. This has cost me dearly in situations where I’ve bought numerous games before knowing anything about how good they may or may not be, only to be left massively disappointed (i.e. Lost Planet 2, Naughty Bear).

This is a habit (addiction?) I’ve been forced to give up, and not because somebody said I should, or because I had some kind of epiphany about how life could be so much more without games. It’s because I have no money…

I’m a chain-gamer, so when I completely finish a game I move right onto the next, and that usually requires a swipe of the old credit card at the local video game shop. But woe is me, as the worst has happened, and I’ve suddenly found myself in a position where funding for leisurely spending, a large portion of which is on video games, is not in a good place. So for at least a month I’m scrimping on all sorts of things, but the main pain comes from not having nearly as much new stuff to play when I’m done with the old.

Thankfully, we’ve all been graced in the last week or so with Alien Swarm for free, and Limbo for only 10 quid – two amazing deals that can hardly be beaten at a time when cash is mostly nowhere to be found.

I also have a fair few games on my Steam account (which I somehow got super-cheap during the summer sale) that I can try and squeeze some fun out of, despite the poor quality and lack-of-upgraded-ness of my PC. I’ve always managed to put up with minimal performance and lower graphics before, so I should be able to cope for now. I do however foresee some awesome upgrades in the near future, as long as I don’t spend all my money on a single 360 game…

Yuh, that’s a joke about how expensive they are.

September could be a bad month financially for me, what with so many potentially awesome games on their way onto retailers’ shelves. Mafia II, Kane & Lynch 2, Ruse, True Crime, and Dead Rising 2, to name but a few. But then there’s also Starcraft II which came out only yesterday, and I’m having to use all my mental strength to resist buying that right this second!

£34.99 for Starcraft II on PC does seem like a rather huge rip-off, considering the average cost of new games is usually around the lower end of £20+, does the gane really need to cost so much? On top of that, I’ve already heard some horror stories about the pain of setting the game up once you’ve bought it. Install this, update that, verify this, wait for that, over and over. I really look forward to playing the game, but I certainly don’t look forward to the ever-increasing amount of hassle you get these days with a lot of PC games.

I suppose I can’t really complain about the cost, mind, considering I’m usually happy to pay £39.99 for a new 360 game like a total chump.

Oh well – roll on, September!