I’ve notices a trend this last year that has been hampered my gaming for years. When I beat a game, I generally require a decompression period before I can go on to something else. This often involves going back and playing through parts of the game to get achievements, and to satisfy the completionist in me.
In some instances, this has led to me completing parts of the game that most people don’t complete. In the Batman Arkham games, for example, I collected all of the Riddler items (incidentally, I did this twice: once on OnLive, and again on Steam). In Sang-Froid and Gunpoint, I completed all of the achievements and tried out the final mission several times using different strategies. And so on.
The problem is this approach keeps me from moving on to other games. I’ve had many games on my Steam, XBLA, and PSN accounts that have gone untouched for years simply because I haven’t had time to get to them. Much of that time has been spent continuing to play completed games long after they were completed. Some games are very hard to break away, especially if the game makes it easy to return to previous scenes and locations to complete additional quests and achievements.
Earlier this year, when I beat Tomb Raider, I found myself doing this once again. In that instance, I tried to go back and get all of the items a la the Arkham Games. I found myself coming in during the evenings wanting to keep playing, but not wanting to waste time on a completed game. My solution to the problem at that time was to uninstall the game. I figured, once it was uninstalled, the process of re-installing it would be enough of a deterrent to keep me from playing it again.
It worked.
With that in mind, I’ve gotten into a new habit: As soon as I complete a game, I immediately uninstall it. This allows my laziness (not wanting to re-install) to overcome my comfort (the comfort of returning to a known game), and gives me an added motivation to move on to other games.
Consider giving it a try on your machine. You may find that experience more games as a result.