Principal Lesson of this Blog: The cost of time is immeasurable and you should base your gaming on this thesis.

I used to play games based on the fact that I paid for it and I wanted to get the most out of it, even if I did not like it that much. (Such an example could be Star Fox Assault. To me, the game was not that good. Yet I completed it because I had bought it for full-price and at the time, could not afford to buy any other game.)

Now, I play games based on their worthiness. Final Fantasy XIII, I ended up disliking after 16 hours. The only part of the cast which I enjoyed at that point was Hope, Snow and Lightning to a lesser extent. Vanille, Sazh and Fang were just unbearable. Furthermore, while I liked the battle system in theory, in action, I could not enjoy it.

So, I sold it at a loss. I'm willing to take that loss now because I don't want to waste my time on a game that I do not enjoy and I can afford to do so as long as I purchase in...

Every day, from forum to forum, I read of people struggling their backlogs. Backlog measures -can- be taken.

Backlog MEASURES:

1) Don't buy games if you already have games that you are interested in playing.

Ex. You have Dragon Age. You really dig it. Play it instead of thinking about what else you can buy.**

2) Sell games that you try and don't like.

Ex. You have Superman 64. You hate it. Get rid of it instead of letting it be dead-weight.

3) Depending on your frequency of game play*, decide on how many games you need and whether you can stomach more than one in a certain period of time.

Ex. It's Spring Break, you have a ton of time to fill, nourish that time with a couple of games that you've been interested in and that you've found cheap at sales like Gamestop's Game Day Sales.

4) Sell games that you don't intend to play and don't care about when you can capitalize on it.
...

I just beat Borderlands again. This time, as a Lilith on the PS3 version. I beat the 360 version at release as Mordecai. I no longer own the 360 version.

At this point, I've got my fix in and I'm thinking whether I want to go for the DLC or not. It's almost certain that a GOTY Edition with all the DLC will come out. -Probably- around the 3rd Quarter of this year.

Therefore, I'm wondering if it's worth dishing out the money now for the DLC or trading in my copy of Borderlands (PS3) for $27.50 from Amazon. (Please note, I got the copy at a net cost of $9, on... Saturday.)

So, I'd be coming out ahead if I traded it in and I could spend the credit on all the good stuff coming out in the coming months. The downside being that I wouldn't be playing the DLC until the GOTY Edition comes out. However, I don't believe the DLC is that long anyways, so I'm not sure if it's worth putting out.

Also:

Dragon Age Origins PS3 for $40.49 New....

Vote and Why.

I'm a very... thorough person when it comes to looking at upcoming releases and pre-ordering them in preparation. I've spent weeks deciding on what I wanted to pre-order over the first half of this year and I've vetoed my own pre-orders many times. (I canceled my pre-orders for Yakuza 3, Bad Company 2 and Just Cause 2 so far this year.)

When I was looking through related games on Amazon, I facepalmed. There was Red Steel 2 releasing on March 23rd. I can't believe I missed it. I've spent months, since October of last year, planning out my preorders for this year. And never ONCE did Red Steel 2 come to mind nor did I ever realize that it was coming out in March. I knew it was coming out -some- time in the future, but I never.. fathomed that it would be so soon.

I quickly added it to one of my orders, a few days ago, and pre-ordered the Wii Motion Plus bundle ($56.99 for Red Steel 2 and WM+)

Who else is pre-ordering Red Steel 2? Did it sneak up on you...

I'm really.. peeved right now. I was playing some Final Fantasy XIII, I'm almost 12 hours in to it.

I can't really state what cutscene, but if you've played that far, you -probably- know which cutscene I feel was the important one.

Somebody walks in, ruffles through my desk for a paper while I'm watching the cutscene.

I miss a few moments and the emotional impact is lessened. (It was a pretty emotionally awesome scene.)

-_-; I'm hoping there is some way to view the cutscenes.

So, I have a demo problem. I like playing demos and I like to play them alot.

This is bad. For example, the recent Just Cause 2 demo. I played it for around an hour and decided that I would def. keep my preorder on it. However, after playing around with it for another two days (for an extra.. two hours or so), I've basically turned to an apathetic viewpoint of pre-ordering it.

Even with the $15 Credit that Amazon is offering, I've really been turned off by the demo. It seems like the world is -too- big with not enough to do in it. There isn't much of a point in a big world if every town/village/military base has the same structures to destroy with the same weapons. This same problem occured when I replayed the Yakuza 3 demo.

It was cool stuff and I was really digging the fighting system. I still do. But the story didn't really.. intrigue me. I realize that the story is a big part of Yakuza 3, but I just couldn't get hooked into it. I don't want it...

I've been meaning to upgrade my desktop for many years. My current Desktop is a Dell Dimension 2400 that's been upgraded with a Radeon 9250 video card and upgraded from 512 MB to 2 GB of DDR2 RAM. 2.4 GHZ Single core Processor.

I'm long over-due for an upgrade. I'd like to spend as little as possible while still building a computer that will run World of Warcraft on Maximum Graphics Settings and get -at least- 25 FPS in 25-MAN Raids. I'd also like to be able to run games like Starcraft 2, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2 and most upcoming games.

That's my simple goal at the moment. I have a 19" monitor and a 320 GB Hard-Drive that I'll use with it, so that will cut my costs done quite a bit. And I'll run the Windows XP OS from my hard-drive.

For the rest of the components, I'm looking to spend $400 -maximum-.

That includes:

1) Processor
2) Video Card
3) 4 Gigabytes of RAM
4) Motherboard
5) Power...

I'm three hours into Heavy Rain.

I've actually had to -take- a break after the scene that I just played, because of how stressful the game is.

It's a great stress, though.

DO NOT POST SPOILERS ABOUT THE GAME IN COMMENTS.

So, I bought a copy of Mass Effect 2 CE for $70 when a couple hundred came into stock around a week or two ago. I didn't think far enough ahead to realize that the selling market had become saturated. Considering I might get $105~ for it on Amazon or Ebay, minus fees and shipping on it, I'm a bit wary of selling it through those channels. My options are as follows:

1) Sell it on Amazon for $105, get around $85 after Fees and Shipping.

2) Split it up, sell the discs to GameStop and sell the Cerberus Network Card, Collector's Weapon/Armor DLC Code, Artbook/Comic, Developers Commentaries on CAG.

I'd get $56 in Credit if Mass Effect 2 still trades in for $35. This doesn't seem half-bad at all, considering I spent $70 on the CE and I can get a decent amount of paypal for the DLC codes. The Artbook and commentaries though, I don't think I'll get much for them.

3) Keep it in hopes that the values go up.


Considering how many...

I'm only buying PS3 games, for the moment.

I ended up skipping Heavy Rain (in favor of picking up a sealed copy of ME2 CE to keep sealed.)

Once my trade-in's arrive to Amazon, I'll have $153.75 in Amazon Credit.

I have God of War III and FF13 for 360 paid off already. Interests are:

Battlefield Bad Company 2
Yakuza 3
Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
Just Cause 2
Heavy Rain


At this point, I'm leaning away from Heavy Rain because it's too short for a $50~ purchase for the moment. Battlefield is a game I'm highly conflicted about. I've played quite a bit of the demo (10 hours or so) and I've liked what I've played. But.. I'm -almost- burnt out of the demo. I feel the same might happen with the game itself (and I might be dissapointed with the -full game-)

The big thing keeping me is the $20 video game credit being offered by Amazon. With the 10% ECA I pre-ordered it with, I'm looking at around...

It's becoming harder and harder -not to buy- new releases.

Why? Because of all the good deals coming out on games that I'm highly anticipating (even games I'm not anticipating -that- much are hard not to buy)

Just Cause 2 for example, is a game that I would usually wait for it to drop like most open-world multi-platform games usually do.

But with the 10% ECA when I pre-ordered it, I'm looking at $53.99 with a $15 Credit. That's a -net- cost of $38.99 for it, on release. How am I to refuse?

Over the next two months, I'm buying at the minimum:

Final Fantasy XIII ($10 credit)
God of War III ($10 Credit)
Just Cause 2 ($15 Credit)
Battlefield Bad Company 2 ($20 Credit)

I can't deney $51.29 with a $20 Credit for BF:BC2.

Can you?

Last month, I beat:

Demon's Souls (PS3) - easily one of the best current-gen Action-esque RPGs.

Assassin's Creed II (PS3) - For a bit of backstory, I couldn't stand Assassin's Creed 1. This game -almost- pushed me away, but as it got deeper in to the story and gameplay, I couldn't let off. Great advancement compared to what I played of AC1.

Bayonetta (360) - DMC 1 is one of my favorite games. Bayonetta does not live up to it and while the gameplay is impressive, the plot is nonsensical.

Mass Effect (360) - I bought this game near release, got about eight hours in as a Male Paragon Solider and put it on hold. Fast-forward to now, I got really excited for ME2 and decided I needed to beat this before I could get the second game in the series. Beat it as a Female Renegade Vanguard. Good stuff.

I finished up Mass Effect up in mid-january and am almost done with Mass Effect 2. (18 hours in)

Mass Effect 2 is really, really good.

If Mass Effect 3 is anywhere near as good, I can say that the Mass Effect Series is the best video game series I've -ever- played.

In December and late November, I made a few blogs denoting my interest in buying a PS3 and collecting games for it.

There were many reasons -why- I wanted a PS3 and thought it would be a good fit for me. Now... I feel like every feature I thought was important and I thought would make buying a PS3 important to me, were really not that big of a deal.

1) Online - Yes, having free online is nice, but when it comes down to it, I'm willing to pay a few dollars a month.

2) Hard-Drive Space - No point in the hard drive space if there are no games to fill it with.

3) PSN-Exclusive Games - I found many of the games I was excited for like PixelJunk Monsters, didn't turn out to be so great.

4) Blu-Ray Player - I thought having a blu-ray player would be great, but in the scheme of things, I don't really watch movies again, so dishing out the $15 for a -cheap- Blu-Ray movie doesn't really cut it when I only watch them maybe.. once a year...

Recently, Mass Effect 2 CE pre-orders have been running out. So, eyeing a single copy in stock on Amazon, I checked out with it and set up a pre-order.

I never finished Mass Effect, but I did like it. Mass Effect 2 looks great. It's something I'd dish out for within the next few months.

However, the CE is nice, no doubt. So I decided it was worth the initial cost.

Now, eyeing the price of it now on Amazon (and presumably Ebay too?)

If more copies are not printed, this is rare before it even comes out. Do I sell it and make a nice tidy profit? Or do I keep it and play it.. and stomach that guilt from not selling it?

To me, by it being worth "$150", I would see it as -spending- $150, since that is what I would get for it or whatever value it ends up being.

So, in the three blog entries I've made so far on CAG, I've gone on about the small collection of PS3 games I've been amassing for when I got a PS3.

On the 20th, I plunged and spent -all- my Amazon credit I had from quite a few trade-in's to get myself a PlayStation 3 w/ 120GB HardDrive.

Whilst it was shipping up until today, the 24th, and even as I was setting it up.. I had my doubts as I always do when I open a new game or system that I spend a good chunk of of money on.

I'm -so- glad I bought it. As soon as I started playing Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction (and a bit of UnCharted), I realized that I had made the right decision. I'm now a good few hours into Ratchet and Clank and a good hour into UnCharted: Drake's Fortune.

Having a blast here, but since I don't have HDMI to DVI cables yet, to connect it to my monitor, I'm using a TV in the living room. The TV that is -always- being used.

I'm probably going to be...

If you've read my earlier blogs, you know that I bought a good chunk of games for the PS3, before I even had a PS3. Sure, I got them at cheap prices, but I realized that there is no point in building a backlog that I'll never get through. Especially if I'm not all that interested in some of the games.

So, in the intermittent time between Entry #2 and now, I downsized a bit, dropping games I did not want to keep for the time being.

I traded Devil May Cry 4 and Dead Space into Amazon for $18 credit. Sure, it's not a lot. I realize that. But it both clears room, gets rid of games I won't play in the next year and adds a little change to my Amazon account.

For Christmas, I found out I will be receiving from friends and family:

Assassin's Creed 2
inFamous

I can't wait to rip open inFamous, it was one of the main reasons I bought the PS3.

Oh, and on that note, I bought my PS3.. yesterday? It should be here tomorrow,...

I ended up picking up more than I thought I would over Black Friday:

UnCharted: Drake's Fortune
Assassin's Creed
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

^from Amazon

I also traded in my used copy of Valkyria Chronicles in for $20 Amazon Credit and finished up my GS Credit by buying a new copy for $20 at GameStop.com. Pretty happy about how that turned out.

I ended up deciding I didn't want Dead Space anymore, at least in my collection for the time being. The used case is a bit -nasty- feeling from taking all the GameStop used stickers off, and I'm just not happy with that. So I'm gonna trade that in to Amazon (for $9, I only paid.. $11.88~ at GS with the B2G1)

I'll eventually pick up a new copy, maybe. Anyways, on my list of to-get's are:

Retail

Metal Gear Solid 4
UnCharted 2
Assassin's Creed 2
Demon's Souls
InFamous


Motorstorm: Pacific...

I've been around CAG for a bit over a year now, but I didn't really become active until around June of this year.

Since then, I've re-hauled how I purchase, trade and play games. I've been buying games more and more, and playing them less and less. I don't see a correlation between them though, it's more-so due to school taking up quite a bit of time, along with others in my house hogging the 360.

This leads me into now:

I've been saving up for a PS3 and an HDTV to call my own. So I can play whenever I want, without having to care about others in my house. So, I've slowly sold off the ten or so 360 games I had over the last half-a-year or so. I'm left with Shadowrun (360).. and I think that is it.

And now, as the prospect of buying a PS3 comes closer, I've started buying some PS3 games to start my PS3 collection. Honestly, I forgot how nice it was to have a collection of games. I had become.. a bit obsessed with counting my cash/credit...