I beat Metroid Prime with 100% of the items yesterday. And when I got that last missile expansion under a mushroom in the Phazon Mines, I felt like I had made a major accomplishment in my life--an achievement that, as a gamer, I should be proud of. It's not that easy to figure out where to look for these expansions and energy tanks and artifacts. It reminds me of how ingenious the level design in the Metroid series has always been, and it also makes me believe that Gunpei Yokoi, if he were alive, would be proud of how this kind of creativity still exists, even without his direct contribution to a game such as Metroid Prime. This is the first time I've really pursued something in a game other than the end of its story: although GTA3 and Vice City consumed a lot of my time, I could have easily spent more time finding all the hidden packages and playing all of those optional missions that I missed out on. And, unlike my time with the first three entries in the Grand Theft Auto series, I had never spent any time in GTA3 and Vice City just causing mayhem by blowing up cars and going on killing sprees, which is what I had spent countless hours in the pre-3D GTA games doing. When I played Halo, yes, I had beaten the game, but I never bothered to replay it on Legendary, which is a large accomplishment for anyone when one beats the game on such an overwhelming difficulty. And, lastly, in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I beat the game with the light-side ending, but I never even bothered to replay it. I had missed out on two things: one was the dark-side ending, and the other was Juhani, a potential ally that I ended up killing due to some bad decision-making and a lack of persuasion. Now that I think about that one accomplishment I achieved with that one game and then the things I never bothered to look into in several other games, I regret taking the time to go beyond just beating those several other games and milking as much fun as I can get out of those games. But, of course, I have every chance to redeem myself, now, don't I? If I ever get an Xbox, I swear to God that I will do everything that I said I hadn't done: I will cause absolute chaos in GTA3 and GTA:VC! I will beat Halo on the Legendary difficulty! I will beat KOTOR on the dark-side ending and with Juhani by my side! I will play the s*** out of these games until there is nothing else to be done that I haven't already done in these games. And I will continue to do the same with every other game that I come across and end up liking a lot. I now realize why I get bored of games so fast, and I will now overcome this. If you're a gamer with a problem like mine, take my advice: look a little harder for some fun things to do on the side when you're playing a game--like, say, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City--away from what you're required to do to beat your games. Take a panarama picture instead of a normal one, for, in that picture, there will be more than just a thousand words.