I think I played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas for a combined total of 400 hours or so. I logged another 100 in Skyrim. That's a downright embarrassing amount of time to spend doing something that's fundamentally useless. While I was playing them, a correlation occurred in my mind that went something like this: Ive spent so much time playing these games, they must be in my Top 5 favorite games of all time! Only after I had distanced myself from those games did I realize that in reality, those games really werent going to displace Skies of Arcadia or EarthBound in my Top 5. The only reason I had spent so many hours in-game is because Im a neurotic completionist, and I wouldnt stop until Id found every damn bobby pin in all of New Vegas. I wasnt playing because I was genuinely enjoying myself, but rather just because it was there. Its like a fat guy at a restaurant who was full 6 or 7 bites ago, but feels the compulsion to clean his plate because theres still food on it, even though hes damaging his body. Games brag about play hours all the time. Skyrim boasted about having over 300 hours of playtime. I made the most of those hours, but at the end of the day, it was just another predictable story with forgettable characters. Not only that, but I was doing the same thing over and over again. It got to the point where I could walk into a dungeon, discern which bodies on the floor were going to jump up and attack me, and plug them each with a super-powered enchanted arrow before they got up. Rinse and repeat until you reach 300 hours or whatever. By contrast, the recently released Bioshock: Infinite has a comparatively paltry 15 hours of play time, except that it packs each of those hours with varied environments, unique weapons, distinct characters, and brilliant plot twists to cement its place as one of my favorite games of all time (which, for a post-2007 video game, is pretty remarkable). See, just because a game has a ridiculous amount of play time doesnt mean that each of those hundreds of hours contains meaningful content. It basically boils down to this: If you're going to spend $60 on dinner, would you rather eat a perfectly cooked, delicious filet mignon, or an all-you-can-eat microwave chicken tender buffet?
Eller likes a lot of old video games, and some new video games. Follow him on Twitter (@JordanEller) for updates about articles, but mostly silly jokes.
I think I played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas for a combined total of 400 hours or so. I logged another 100 in Skyrim. That's a downright embarrassing amount of time to spend doing something that's fundamentally useless. While I was playing them, a correlation occurred in my mind that went something like this: Ive spent so much time playing these games, they must be in my Top 5 favorite games of all time! Only after I had distanced myself from those games did I realize that in reality, those games really werent going to displace Skies of Arcadia or EarthBound in my Top 5. The only reason I had spent so many hours in-game is because Im a neurotic completionist, and I wouldnt stop until Id found every damn bobby pin in all of New Vegas. I wasnt playing because I was genuinely enjoying myself, but rather just because it was there. Its like a fat guy at a restaurant who was full 6 or 7 bites ago, but feels the compulsion to clean his plate because theres still food on it, even though hes damaging his body. 
