Approaching the Wall

This afternoon, I managed to complete the second chapter of Baldur's Gate. If memory serves, this marks the third time I have collected Mulahey's letters and set off to find the bandits mentioned therein. Both times previously, extended periods away from the computer on which the game was installed kept me from advancing any further.

While taking care of my duties around the house this evening, I started to think about various 'walls' I have hit in video games. The aforementioned chapter boundary in BioWare's classic is one of the three biggest examples I can remember. I have yet to complete the first chapter of Neverwinter Nights, after a few distinct attempts. The last occurred in Final Fantasy X, where I managed to run out of steam on the game three separate times upon arriving in the Calm Lands. As any Final Fanboy can tell you, this is doubly creepy, since the Calm Lands are a place in the game's world where many journeys like the one your party is undertaking come to an end. Cue the eerie music . . .

Why do I have issues like this with games? Most of it (I think) comes down to my desire to follow a game's narrative. Like most gamers, I play several different games at once. However, I also tend to get absorbed by a single title, so it is not unusual for me to play, say, Oblivion for almost a month, to the exclusion of every other game I own. I then recall the thirty other games sitting on my shelf awaiting play and spread the love again. For games like the Elder Scrolls series, this poses little problem, as the main storyline is approximately one twelfth, if that much, of the game's true appeal. But for stuff like Japanese role-playing games, the story is the main draw, and a disjunction of several weeks or more drives me to start over rather than try to remember the nuances of what is going on in my existing save file.

Time will tell how I handle the remainder of Baldur's Gate, but I intend to see things through the end this time. Besides, Xan the enchanter cracks me up. 'Our quest is vain' . . . what a crack up!