Welcome to casual core, a new monthly series on the games and culture of the weekend warrior. Scoff at the casual gamer stereotypes, yet you can’t devote 24 hours a day to grinding your character to godlike levels? You have war stories of your own but can’t find the time to master every FPS to spawn an Internet meme? You’ve come to the right place, friend.
The unfinished game
Just a couple of weeks ago, I finished The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I watched puppet Gannon go down for the first time in that big beautiful cel-shaded blaze of glory. Now for confession time: I began this game in April 2003, just days after its initial release.
I have enjoyed it quite thoroughly, in fits and starts, until that fateful day last month. That’s right—it took me over five years to play one moderately sized adventure. It’s not as if I had any difficulty with the game (and surely, as a Zelda fan and someone who actually loves the cel-shaded look, I loved the experience from start to finish), I just had difficulty finding time for it, save for one glorious 36-hour stretch that was fueled by wisdom-tooth removal and associated painkillers. Not that I’m advocating the use of pharmaceuticals, mind you. I’m just saying that enjoying a game takes some level of commitment, and these days I’m having trouble making time for them without medically mandated excuses.
My pile of shame – or, more pointedly, my pile of unfinished shame is a mile deep. So many terrific games fall casualty to the pressing demands of a busy schedule, and it’s just tragic. Perennial games-as-art poster child Shadow of the Colossus fell pray about a year ago, and I haven’t touched it since. Every time my gamer friends talk about how amazing those final colossi are, I smile and nod, remembering my blissful three hours of gameplay and making a mental note to go back and play it again. It never happens. It took me six months to play through BioShock, and that was relatively quick (for me) because I was so in love with the story. The less said about Metroid Prime and Final Fantasy 12, the better. Finally, and most shameful of all, is my ten year on-again, off-again love affair with Super Mario RPG.
I know I’m not alone in this - I suspect that everyone has unfinished games, from the hardest of the hardcore right down to the most ADD-inflicted consumers fondling a Guitar Hero controller for the first time. After all, we all have responsibilities: work, school, families, parole officers, what have you. All of these things keep us from doing what we really love – playing games. Message boards and hardened game journos alike have lamented their respective piles of shame and busy schedules all over the Internet. Gamers who once had oodles of time now have jobs and kids to feed.
