Gamer’s Block

It’s very frustrating when you don’t enjoy your favourite hobby as much as you should. Right now, I’m in the middle of a gaming slump. You could call it ‘gamer’s block’. There just isn’t anything I really want to play, and not for lack of trying. Rather than playing long sessions, I can only just about manage short bursts before I get bored. Seriously bored. It’s like switching onto autopilot. The main thing that manages to hold my attention nowadays is Picross 3D on the DS, a casual puzzle game. I’m trying to play through the excellent Okamiden on the DS too, but it’s always quite long between save points which grates my short attention span.

Sitting down in front of the Xbox at the moment is also bit of a chore. It shouldn’t be – usually I enjoy settling into a good game and was going quite well through Red Dead Redemption and Assassins Creed Brotherhood. Maybe it’s because I’ve hit the wall on both of those games and it’s reached a point where a certain mission just seems like a mission rather than something fun. Trying to play Star Ocean: The Last Hope without a guide in an attempt to put the fun back into gaming isn’t really working, either. It’s a beautiful game but man, is it ever a slog!

What to do to fill the evenings, then? Well, nowadays I’ve been watching a lot of TV, doing some knitting and also just chilling out. The first year of my MA has just come to a close which has given me a lot of free time. When I was really busy, there was always time to game, whether that was as a treat or as a way of procrastinating. Now that I have this extra time, it’s strange that I’m not using it to play all those games that I love playing so much.

So how to get over gamers block? Maybe if I get over the difficult bits that I’m stuck on then things will get better. It’s just a case of getting through them… But games really shouldn’t be such a pain to get through. Perhaps then it’s time to revisit my Wii collection, which always has something fun and casual to play. Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Disney’s Epic Mickey are still unfinished, and they’re good games to play for short bursts of colourful fun. Maybe I could sign up for Backloggery or True Achievements. It might encourage me to finally finish those games, but it could turn into a checklist nightmare as each game becomes a task to complete rather than something to be played purely for fun.

I’ll have to accept that for now I’m not really in the mood to play anything major, if at all. There’s no rush to get over the wall and I have a lot of other things to do, too. It’s also summer, so the weather will hopefully be lovely enough to be out and about. Maybe on a typically rainy British summer day soon I’ll finish those annoying missions or find a game to get excited about. Maybe it will be a new release or a bargain, or a rediscovered game at the bottom of the pile.

Strangely enough, writing this post and thinking about all of these games and how fun they can be has really made me want to play! As I finish writing this, it’s early on a Saturday morning too, usually the best time for console time. It’s time to give it a go, and if it doesn’t work out, well, there are always my casual block puzzles.