Keeping Time

Let me go off on a little bit of a geeky rant for a minute here.

I play a lot of video games, and when I play these games, I either go for one of two approaches when trying to beat a game;

1. as fast as I can
2. as high of a completion % as possible

Now I realize that the latter means that I actually get more for my money, but at the same time, I like having a respectable time for game completion, especially since for many, speed-running a game is just as impressive as beating the game 100%.

But at the same time, going through a game relatively fast is generally a by-product of the game’s saving feature including a “Tim Played” clock. For some reason, whenever that clock pops up, I panic. I know it’s not a race, but I still feel this need to rush through whatever I’m doing. It’s about the same as rewarding points for completing a puzzle or a level; if you don’t get a large amount of points or a good grade, you almost feel stupid for not being able to perform well.

This may be a key reason as to why I don’t play J-RPG’s that often; they always have that damn clock. Instead of taking my time and leveling, I just push through, level by level, until I finish the game. If I die somewhere or have to retry something, I know that clock is just getting higher, and for some reason, it frustrates me.

/rant