Yup. I haven't been achievement [word that sounds like a mash up of horse and boring] for a long time, choosing instead to give a shot at playing video games for the simple love of playing them, something that has taken me nearly a year to rekindle.

Achievements became my primary goal. My 'next to get' game was no longer the best game out there, but rather the game with the easiest achievements, as rated by my peers on achieve360points.com. After a year or two of this, and tens of thousands of gamerscore, I realized that I actually did not enjoy playing video games any more. And this was in the height of last year's awesomeness, including Mass Effect, Gears 2, and Fallout 3. I would go through the motions with them, but not really enjoy my time playing. My biggest realization that I had a problem was when I went to PAX 08, and got little excitement from the expo hall, or from much of any of the show. '08 was the weakest year for me, because it was the year that I wasn't really into gaming, anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I still go out of my way to get additional achievements in a game, I don't think anyone with an over 50,000 gamerscore could say otherwise; but achievements aren't my main goal, anymore. After realizing my problem, and deciding that I wanted my gaming passion back, again, my first course of change was my Gamefly queue. Your 'Q' on Gamefly says a lot about your gaming style, and mine was absolutely LOADED with games (many from 2006, when achievements were generally easier to come by) with an achievement difficulty rating of 1. So many horrible sports games I HATE VIDEO GAME BASKETBALL, IT HASN'T BEEN GOOD SINCE THE DREAMCAST!!!

Now, I've been on the road to recovery for about 9-10 months, and feeling much better. I just finished up Godfather 2 in 3 days. It felt great working to take over neighborhoods, and overcoming the challenges presented within. I never would have put down 17 hours in 3 days during my [that mashup word, again] days. I'm also playing Shadow Complex, which is incredible! If you ever wanna bring back your classic love of games (not just your love of classic games!), play Shadow Complex (Xbox 360 XBLA). It's so amazing, I just want to play it constantly, and it only has 200 gamerscore potential!

So, I'm back, deal with it. (feels really good to be back)