The Beauty of the Binge

I spent my weekend engaged in what others might classify as a frivolous pursuit: video games.  

Normally, saying I played some video games last weekend wouldn’t be cause for judgment or concern from anyone; it is, after all, one of my major hobbies. 

However, this weekend I spent a near-embarrassing number of hours playing Dragon Age: Inquisition; in a 72 hour period, I spent close to 30 hours parked in front of my computer screen, killing demons and fighting armies. 

And it. Was. GLORIOUS. 

I have never had a binge like this, not even when I re-played Mass Effect last summer while I was off school and had whole weeks without any obligations.  At one point, Monday night at about 7:30, I realized that I’d had the game running since 9:00 that morning, with only a short break to grab lunch dragging me away.  Usually I go to bed around 9:00pm too, since I work out at 5:00am before I go to work; last night, I went to bed at midnight, wired with adrenaline from the boss fight I’d just finished before I could force myself to shut the game down.  (I didn’t make it out of bed for the workout either, for the record – too busy with Dragon Age dreams.)

Inquisition shines as the most engrossing game I’ve ever played. It took me a while to get into it, for sure (see previous post), but now I can’t turn it off.  I lulled myself to sleep replaying boss fight highlights and romance cut scenes in my head, and I realized mid-lecture this morning that I had made a poor decision about who to kill in a big moment the previous evening. The average person, when faced with that realization, might say, “the hell with it, I’m leaving the decision as is.”  Not me.  Even when it means I have to reload about 1-2 hours from where I left off and replay it all, I’m doing it.  I won’t mind re-playing it again – let’s not lie, it’s a 50-60 hour game and I’m probably going to re-start it the moment it’s over anyway. 

It’s such a rich game! The world is wide open for me to explore and do what I want – not Skyrim-wide, don’t let me mislead you – but each area has the potential for hours and hours of play time.  I may even go back before the last mission, a setback of 5-8 hours depending on where I reload, and level up some more, build some more skills and influence before I head into Adamant Fortress.  And the characters, I just love them.  I’m over my lack of good romance options, especially now that I’ve started one and developed a real-life crush on an NPC, and I’ve learned to love those I wasn’t wild about in the first place.  The personal missions are involved both for the characters and for the overall plot, which provides so much depth, and I got to know some of them enough to figure out their hobbies and dark histories.  

Frankly, I’ll probably turn my computer on and get started the moment I get home, letting myself unwind as I fight monsters and mentally let myself off the hook for my brief exercise backslide.

The most beautiful thing? Inquisition still has about 15 hours to go.  And I cannot wait to hit the weekend again.