How much are you willing to obsess over a game?

[PsychoticThoughts]

When I was 17-years-old I managed to save up enough money to buy a second-hand PlayStation One that came with a few goodies and more than a couple of games... needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled with this purchase, not in the least because I had managed to make it out of pocket change earned by handing flyers to ungrateful passerby under the scorching sun day after day. I actually spend so much time obsessing over my PS1 that my grades started to suffer, which is insane to think about now.

I had a lot of fun playing with that console, creating entire rosters on "Winning Eleven" and going at it in games like "Twisted Metal 4", "Medal Of Honor: Underground", "Crash Bandicoot", "Gran Turismo" and "Spyro: Year of the Dragon", just to name a few... but then, there was the one: "Army Men - World War: Land, Sea, Air".

I found that game so frustrating that I actually wouldn't let it go. I would inch my way through the story day after day, with little regard for anything, much less my sanity (and what brought me to a boil was the fact that every single cheat for it listed at the time was WRONG). But here's where it gets nuts: at one point I got so mad at the whole thing that I actually set my Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter next to the TV and started typing my very own walkthrough of the whole thing, noting in writing everything that happened, down to the individual enemy pattern and locations of the many enemies found throughout the levels. I'm sure that testament to madness still exists somewhere in my library.

And while I actually did beat the game, the real kicker was that I tried playing it again nearly a decade later... and I beat it in one sitting. It's amazing how much of an insult that was.

What about you?

 

[MrDawn]

What about you?

When I was 24, I spent several years obsessed over Skyrim. It was the only game I played for a very very long time.