I mentioned some posts ago that, in 2011, my resolution is not to buy any games for the entire year. I have a few reasons for this resolution:

1. To save a bit of money
2. To give some time for the 2011 games I want to drop in price so I can get them cheaper in 2012
3. To spend more time fully enjoying the growing collection of games I already own
4. To encourage myself to check out some of the great, free games that are out there
5. To see if I can do it (part of me really enjoys a bit of self-denial)
6. To give myself something a bit out of the ordinary to blog about for a year

I've set a few rules to go with this resolution:

• For the entire year, I am not to spend any money on games or anything game-related, including controllers and peripherals, game books and magazines, or even game-branded merchandise.
• I will let friends and family know that I am doing this and ask them not to buy me any games for my birthday, Father's Day, Christmas, or other present-worthy occasions. (For Christmas 2011, I cannot ask people to buy me games and wait until 2012 to give them to me.)
• If, by some fluke, someone does buy me a game, I will not be a total jerk and refuse it. Instead, I will graciously accept it and then store it until 2012.
• I can download and play as many free games as I want to, but they must be legitimately free. No piracy.
• I cannot cheat by pre-ordering 2011 games in 2010. The last day I can buy games is December 31, 2010, and that only includes games that have been released by that date. After that, I must wait until January 1, 2012 to buy my next game.

I haven't thought of any penalty if I break my own rules. I guess I don't expect to, but maybe I overestimate myself. If you have any good ideas, let me know.

So, here I go for my year without buying games. Wish me luck.

Written The Week Before A Year Without Buying Games

Knowing that 2011 is my year without buying games, I thought it prudent to stock up on a few new titles in December. For Christmas, I got The Sly Collection (PS3) and StarCraft II (PC). I also took advantage of Steam's Holiday sale. I bought four games and two expansion packs for less than $25! I love Steam. I got:

• Super Meat Boy
• VVVVVV
• BIT.TRIP BEAT
• The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
• Puzzle Quest 2
• Magic: The Gathering – Duels of The Planeswalkers Expansions 2 and 3

Awesome.

I've also had to deny myself the purchase of a couple of PSN games (already!). I was going to get Pac Man Champion Edition DX and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time HD, but due to poor planning and timing, I kinda screwed myself over.

See, on December 23, I left home, and my PS3, to spend the holidays with my in-laws. I was gone until January 1, 2011, by which time it was too late for me to buy any more games on PSN. I originally figured I would transfer funds to my PSN wallet from my in-laws', and then use those funds to get the two games mentioned above when I returned home. However, when I thought more about it, I decided that it was against the spirit of my own rules. No games in 2011 means NO GAMES IN 2011. So, Pac Man and Prince of Persia will have to wait another year. More accurately, I will have to wait another year for Pac Man and Prince of Persia.

But maybe that will give me just enough time to get past the second world in Super Meat Boy. That game is hard!

And awesome.

And hard.

VVVVVV

The last game I played (and completed) in 2010 was VVVVVV. It was 2 hours of minimalistic action-adventure awesome. I'm loving this trend of games that reduce gameplay to a single ingenious mechanic that is then exploited fully through the course of the game. Braid did it with the manipulation of time. Portal did it with the manipulation of space. Now VVVVVV does it with the manipulation of gravity. Captain Viridian can't jump over a knee-high obstacle, but he can flip his own gravity field so that now he is sliding smoothly along the floor, and now he is safely on the ceiling overpassing both the obstacle and one of the game's hundreds of pits of V-shaped spikes.

I love the game's simple look, gameplay, characters, and story. The level of challenge was perfect. It was hard (I died 766 times in 2 hours), but not Super Meat Boy hard. It's fantastic proof, if it is still in doubt, that a game does not need to look cutting edge to be cutting edge.

I got the game for $2.49 during Steam's winter sale. I've still got some collectables and unlockables to finish scrounging up, and I'm sure I'll play the game through at least once more. Even for a 2-hour game, I feel that VVVVVV was awesome value and a spectacular way to end another great year of gaming.