Welcome to Eye-Life. 37?!….IN A ROW?!?

The release schedule of the big tier titles throughout the fiscal year can often be a fickle beast. Sometimes games have a tendency to be released in a way that your title are staggered, as to avoid any kind of overlap that takes away from any one game.

Take this comic from internet perennial Penny Arcade, as per example.

See? Apt time for every game….

Sometimes this just doesn't always happen. Sometimes… life gets in the way.

Curse you, real life!

So, what happens when our gaming needs start getting backed up to the point of no return? What occurs when we have SO MANY titles to play that your life becomes an ABSOLUTE spiral of shame and woe?!

The pile of shame. It's as consistent as gravity.

The pile of shame occurs when you have multiple titles in your possession to play, yet you have no time to get through them in a timely manner. When the PoS rears it's ugly head, bad things can happen.

So, now I present to you my three most epic PoS tales. Listen, young ones, and learn from my mistakes.

Pile of Shame Tales #1: "My Girlfriend's Keeper"

This tale is not directly mine, but I felt the need to pass along the tale as a warning to what can happen when you have too many good games in your stead, and how sometimes you don't get to play anything at all.

My girlfriend, the witty and intriguing Rachel Jagielski recently fell into a PoS situation of her own that crippled her very ability to play ANYTHING at all. During the early winter, before and around last Christmas break Rachel came into a bevy of titles. Said games included Fallout 3, Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2, and a few other random titles of equal caliber. Good news, correct?

You could NOT be MORE wrong.

[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g9WjcGdxuM ]

The combination of her school-related duties, and the sheer fact that she just didn't know where to start when the time did come to play games emotionally crippled the poor girl into submission. Unable to play any of these titles, she retreated into cheaper, quicker titles for pick up and play ease.

To this day she hasn't completed any of the titles in her possession. She spends her time sitting in the corner mumbling about Nathan Drake dancing the Charleston and wearing a Shirley Temple wig.

Uh… or something like that.

*cough*

Moving on.

Pile of Shame Tales #2: "Forty Days In The Desert"

I could not be more excited when the day arrived to purchase my Playstation 3. I was in need of a new gaming experience, and the Wii had simply let me down (more on that at another time). Mostly, though, I was looking forward to FINALLY getting the chance to play Metal Gear Solid 4.

That was at the beginning of 2008. I didn't get the chance to play MGS4 until January 2010. What happened? Allow me to elaborate.

You see, during this time period I pretty much only played World of Warcraft. As I've said in previous posts, WoW was my go-to game because I only had to pay fifteen dollars a month, and as such was the cheaper option than continually buying sixty dollar games (Gamefly would later alleviate these woes of mine). So, as my opportunities to play Metal Gear came and went, I would continually pass the title off in thoughts that I would eventually get to own and play the game.

Never happened.

[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g9WjcGdxuM ]

Point in fact, when I did get the chance to complete the game, it was due to my girlfriend owning the game and having an urge to watch someone play through the story line again.

So you see… sometimes you have all the intent in the world to play a title. But the shameful pile that is the pile of shame (no matter how few titles may be in said title) can beat you down relentlessly.

Let us continue on to our last sordid tale.

Pile of Shame Tales #3: "Games > School"

2006. I was in the midst of attempting to finish my first (and only) quarter of nursing school. I had been struggling in a few of my classes, but had managed to keep my grade above the passing level. I figured I was in the clear with a month to go. I just had to hunker down and get the job done. Right?

WRONG!

……

Um… Hello? I said…. WROOOOOOOOOOOOONG!

[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g9WjcGdxuM ]

There we go.

This quarter of school had the misfortune of also being the timeframe in which I purchased Guitar Hero, Final Fantasy XII, AND had started playing Dark Cloud 2. The gaming Gods had surely mocked my Icarus like presumptuousness, and struck me down for flying too close to the proverbial sun with wings made of videogames.

I played. I failed. I played some more.

In retrospect, starting two long hour RPGs and picking up a music genre game (which I easily get addicted to) was a poor choice. But, it turned out for the best because my failure here would later lead me to Ohio University, the school I just graduated from last week.

So ends these tales. I hope you all have learned something from these experience and won't let the same thing happen to you. Feel free to leave your own Pile of Shame tales in the comments. Would love to know I'm not the only one.

Later, kids.