Too Many Games, Not Enough Cash!

So, for the past couple of years, I’ve been buying a lot of games. Like, too many games. I’m trying to figure out what happened. When I was younger and I worked at my game store, I never owned more than two or three games at a time, because I would trade in games I had beaten to get the new hotness. After my store closed and I decided that I wanted to pursue game design I set out to build up a game library for research purposes. I started snatching up interesting games for PlayStation 2 and Xbox on the cheap. These games are there for the shelf so I can pop them in if I want to take a look at something first hand. It was a weird thing for me, though, because I always would finish my current game before moving on. That rule got thrown out the window a long time ago- there’s just too many games to get through lately.

But I think the main reason I’ve been buying too many games has to do with all the video game podcasts I listen to. When EGM went out of print I tried to follow the people that I respected to their new endeavors. That led me to the video game podcast, and with it, I found myself trying to keep up with the current games discussion. I’d buy a new release, power through it in a week or two ,and move on to the next one. In a way, it was almost like I was a reviewer, minus the whole “writing a review” part of the equation.

Well, that was all fine and good when I could afford it. But financially, things have changed for me this year.  Oh, I’ll be fine, and there are people way worse off than I am. But I love video games, and each year seems to top the previous one. To quote a famous cover of EGM, there are too many games!

So, with that in mind, I’ve decided that I can really only afford 2, maybe 3 more games this year at full retail price. Barring some crazy sale on Amazon come November, this may be it for me. I know that Batman: Arkham City is at the top of the list. There’s no question about that; Arkham Asylum was my second favorite game of 2009, barely edged out by Dragon Age: Origins. But beyond that, I’m really not sure. Gears of War 3 may be on that short, short list, mainly because I’d love to play through it with my cousin who, when not kicking my butt on Street Fighter IV, is constantly playing Gears of War 2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is relevant to my interests, but as a good friend of mine said, there’s a good reason to wait for Bethesda to get the bugs worked out, release DLC, and just buy the inevitable “Game of the Year” edition for 40 bucks. I wouldn’t mind picking up Dark Souls, but Demon’s Souls is one of those games that I bought during a crazy sale and haven’t played yet.

I don’t know what I’m going to end up picking up besides Batman: Arkham City. Fall is looking good, but thankfully the games I’m really looking forward to aren’t coming out until next year. Although, I’m kicking around the idea of only buying one new game next year: Mass Effect 3.

What games are you looking forward to as we head into the end of the year? Do you feel there are too many games releasing in a short time period? Let us know in the comments below!

Edit: Not too long after writing this, I picked up Deus Ex: Human Revolution based on the excellent reviews. I’m loving it, but that leaves one last spot. What will it be? Gears of War 3? Diablo III? WWE ’12? Only time will tell!