Gaming thoughts 2/9/12 - Pistons and lots of gaming

So last Friday, my wife took me out to a basketball game - Pistons vs. Bucks.  Her perspective of it was more from the 90's night music and Vanilla Ice halftime show.  I wish I was making that up, but she has the proof here on her blog (and while this post is tame, some of her others?  Not so much - you've been warned).

For me?  There was a basketball game, and lots of throwback to the 90's Pistons, which was awesome.  Oh, and we wont the game too:

 

So that was fun.  This week?  Yeah - I get to go again.  My wife's gotten me even better seats to the Nets game (whom we beat last night away)

This has of course led me to playing countless hours of:

 

Yeah.   A lot of hours.  Just finished my first season with my created player.  This is without a doubt my favorite mode.  Franchise/association is cool too.  Online would be better if I knew more people who played it because I would rather just have a few friends w/ teams and not a full roster of people I don't know which makes getting games played a pain in the arse.

I've been pretty busy as well - I got that promotion, and have decided to hold off on the tv for now, but wound up getting a slew of new games.  The one I've been playing the most so far is Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.  I know there's been some mixed reviews on this game, but so far I'm really enjoying it.  This + Skyrim does mean I'm not playing much else.  Oh, and NBA 2K12.  And some NBA Jam and Mario Kart... okay, so I'm playing a few games, and that's a quick list of the ones that come to mind, but I'm sure there's more.

The career mode in NBA 2K12 made me think though - what are the gaming 'activities' that chew up the largest amount of time?  Is it the online component to a FPS like Call of Duty or Battlefield?  Getting through seasons in a sports title (NFL?  Not as bad.  16 game regular season.  NBA?  82 games.  And that's not as bad as MLB...).  Grinding for experience in an RPG title? 

Being that I play a lot of different game genres, these were the 3 biggest 'time sinks' that jumped out at me, but of them I have to give the nod to a sports game's seasonal grind.  Don't get me wrong, I love it, but the trophies/acheivements are usually spread out in such a way that you spend forever getting them (make 5 All-Star games!  That means you're going to play over 350 games!  Get your created player to an 80 overall.  That could take 2 - 3 seasons.  And then there's the different modes like franchise, online, career...)  I think perhaps the trophies take much longer to get in most of these titles than in others.

A case could be made for FPS games, but the sense of progression I think breaks things up more, and you have different modes, maps - there's just a bit more variety.  In RPG's the grinding never really bugs me either, but it feels more incremental.  You get to a point in the game where you might grind a bit for a few hours.  I have no idea how many hours I spent getting through a season of NBA 2K12, but I'd guess at least 10.

I'll have to detail some of my new titles when they actually arrive and get to play them.  I will no doubt be plugging away heavily at Skyrim and Amular for the next week or two to try and wrap those up and review them soon.

What are you playing?  Any game types you feel have a really long, grind-like time-sink to them?  Anyone out there as a big of an NBA or NFL fan as me?  Let me know in the comments!