Early this summer we did a podcast where we talked about all of the games that we were going to play this summer. My gaming intentions were to play some catch up on the pile of shame that sits on my media stand in the game room. I was going to finish Infamous: Second Son, The Last of Us, and a lot of other stuff. I had enough unfinished games to get me through the summer without having to buy anything new. And then it happened…life. Conference travel (Pea and I traveled with the Wii U and played a metric sh*t-ton of Mario Kart 8), day camp, and general outside time since the weather has been hovering around the 75-80 degree mark. All of those things converged in such a way that just guaranteed that console gaming has been at a minimum for me. At least full sized consoles.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time doing handheld gaming so far this summer. My 3DS, Vita, and new Samsung Note have been getting a real work out. That’s right you heard me right…Android gaming and mostly glorified Facebook games, Farmville 2 in particular. As much as I laughed at Alex for her Farmville theorycrafting back in the day I have now fallen prey to the same monster. I have spent hours farming fruits and vegetables and cooking meals to sell on the open market. It feels so….sorted. Like I’m cheating on AAA titles (or Indie games for that matter). Games like Valiant Hearts sit untouched on my XBox One and AAA titles like Infamous: Second Son sit unfinished in my PS4.
To make matters worse I continue to download other little games on the 3DS and the Vita. And I don’t even have the decency to go for the new stuff. I’m going old school and mediocre. Harvest Moon: Back to Nature has killed the battery in my Vita more times than I care to admit in the last few weeks (in my defense it was on sale for 99 cents) and Pushmo puzzles on my 3DS have been driving me mad while the narrative based puzzle game Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask languishes in the cart slot. I’m not sure if summer has brought about some kind of gaming slump or if my own narrative has overpowered my need for another, but either way I have to admit that’s it’s been kind of a blast to play games that were obviously bad and didn’t require to think about much more than where to position things spatially or which crops to plant where.
We’ll see what the fall brings.
