I second this! Thank you so much for saying this! If only more developers paid attention to the AI in F.E.A.R., most games today would actually present a challenge beyond the trivial "duck, shoot, run to another cover, toss frag, repeat" NPC actions that plague shooters. Pick an FPS, anyone, even acclaimed ones have silly, basic AI. CoD, Bioshock, Killzone, Far Cry, Resistance, Borderlands, Metro, etc.The harder difficulties seem to always mean higher enemy health and damage, lower health and damage for the player. I LOVE F.E.A.R.! Grew up with that game, that was my first shooter that got me into the FPS realm and yet, no game has surpassed it in terms of AI. The sequels ruined the F.E.A.R. name and disappointed me of course, but the first still had some damn good AI, and will always be my favorite FPS. Even though the main game can be completed in roughly 6 hours.

1. Fallout 3

2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

3. F.E.A.R.

4. Red Dead Redemption

5. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

6. Half-Life 2

7. The Last of Us

8. Super Smash Brothers Melee

9. Diablo 3

10. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I don't think Jacanuk meant to offend you MWright, but it can be hard to detect tones by way of reading text on the internet.

Anyway, to the topic at hand here. I have been gaming since '98 with my first game ever played and beaten Zelda: Ocarina of Time (the emotions I felt at the end was so surreal, but hey, I was 7). I don't have much to add, but I agree with the already mentioned points such as boredom, distraction from newer games, other things in life coming first, and whatever else that puts gaming on the backburner as we have already stated. I personally have about 60 games to get done with in my backlog (30 on Steam, 20 for PS3, and 10 for my SNES emulator, namely FF6 and Chrono Trigger). Many of these games are known as some of the best games of all time, and so I feel that it is my duty to play through these ones at least once and then delete them, never play them again. Its like when people regard The Godfather, Citizen Kane, or Casablanca as the greatest movies ever and you have never seen them, their reaction: "Come on, man! What are you waiting for?" I feel like I NEED to complete these games/movies/books/etc or my life won't be complete...in a way. Finished FF7 for the first time ever a week ago and am just about to finish System Shock 2 (amazing creepy atmosphere, beautiful game, but HORRID, clunky gameplay).

Sort of went off on a tangent and didn't really answer the post. To be honest, I used to get really distracted by newer games and once I got my first job I was buying them up by the doubles and triples (hey, while I'm here buying Skyrim I might as well get Deus Ex HR and ME2, oh and here is DA:Origins, I hear that's one of the best RPGs of modern gaming...that's how I used to work). Now I don't do that impulse buying anymore. I have 60 full length games that I have never started and need to get done with (Deus Ex 1, STALKER series, Vampire Bloodlines, Jade Empire, and on and on).

What it really comes down to with me anyway, I feel that it is a complete lack of self control that makes us not finish our games. This would lead to boredom (just need to collect the last 60 light seeds and I can...ah, screw it, this Prince of Persia sucks), distraction (gotta finish Killzone 3...but Shadow Fall is out now. Did I even finish Killzone 2? Gonna have to buy that one again), or anything else. Sometimes it really isn't our fault. Sometimes things come up in life or maybe the game just really, truly sucks so much for us to never want to play it again (despite how critically acclaimed something is, we just can't get over the fact that its controls are so awful and the learning curve is too steep). That is my honest answer.

Someone online said to me while I was playing Diablo 3 (PC) a couple days ago that the reason they made it always-online was to prevent people from exploiting the game in some way, shape, or form to make it easier, to "cheat" essentially. This didn't make sense to me, because if this was single player offline, then who cares? you're the only one playing it, so who cares if someone found a hack or whatever because he wouldn't interfere with your single player offline game, right? I asked him this and he said, well then that hacker would go to the forums and preach about the exploit he found and more and more people would start doing it and Blizzard would find out and be very unhappy to say the least. I guess that sort of makes sense, but then again, doesn't this stuff happen in single player offline games like Skyrim and Fallout 3? I mean what is the difference? Bethesda released those games as single player with no worries about hacks/exploits, so why is Blizzard so against the idea?

Still doesn't make sense to me, but whatever. I have both the PS3 version and the PC version. I like the PC one better even though it does suffer from very annoying lag moments during the afternoon to evening times. Then again, it could be that I live in a college dorm with awful frat guys that bring routers to mess up the wi-fi. Morning is the best time to play it seems, no lag just smooth sailing. I figure if I can get a couple hundred hours out of it, say 300, then I will be content. I'm at 50 hours after owning the PC release for 2 weeks now. Not that any of this relates to the topic, just thought I would share.

Sadly I let them become the "Why I play video games" for the past four years. I lost a good deal of money (probably around $500-$1000) buying games just to get all the trophies, which I knew meant nothing in the end, only to find that it diminished my quality of fun. I let the trophy obsession consume me for the end of high school through my college years until around the time GTA V came out. As soon as that game came out, I promised that for at least 3 years I would not buy anymore games for full price anymore and rather just spend money on games with low prices at the Steam sales, IF that. Let me tell you, as OBVIOUS as it sounds, do NOT buy games just to get the trophies. Maybe it is just me, but I developed a really sad addiction to video games through the trophy hook and rather than meeting new people in real life at college and making memories (within reason, I didn't want to trash myself like everyone seems to wanna do these days for having fun at my age), instead I go to do another game just so I can finish it and never play it again (some exceptions) to the point that I have no friends outside of my family at all. I'm not a huge Beatles fan, but I really have become a Nowhere Man as all I seem to want to do is play video games (in addition to running and getting the best grades I can for graduation this May). At least I don't care as much about getting ALL the trophies anymore, just some...

I'm pleased to say that I have gotten a better grip on reality and even though I still do not have any friends and live a sad life, I think I have made a step in the right direction with my current attitude of having a more moderate approach to gaming. I'm getting too old (been gaming since 1998) to justify spending more time than is considered healthy on gaming. Anyways, that is my stupid story that I have to contribute to this thread. I recognize I did not need to post all that, but getting trophies was a big problem for me during the recent years so I thought I would share.

Well I am taking either a long break of 2-3 years of not buying anymore games or never buying anymore games at all due to my 70+ games of backlog that I am currently working through. So as soon as I get done with the games I just wanted to play once and delete from my steam account (Deus Ex, Stalker series, KOTOR 2, Amnesia TDD, Vampire Bloodlines, System Shock 2; I got them all and many more pretty cheap on the steam sales of course), THEN I will devote much of my time replaying my favorites (Oblivion, Skyrim, HL2, Bioshock, FEAR, Last of Us, and many many more). I spent thousands of dollars on new PC specs, replacement PS3s, controllers, gaming laptops, and games over my 16 years of gaming (since 1998) and I figure as I finish my college business degree this May, I will not buy anymore games but just replay my favorite ones over and over again. It also helps my decision to quit video game spending now that creativity has been declining and several influential key gaming studios have gone out of business (Irrational games? Wow!).

So overall, replay value is the MOST important aspect of video gaming in my personal opinion.