Okay, this is not nearly as soul-searching a post as I feel like writing, but it's what I have time for and I think Silver, Infernal, and any other readers of mine or random guests who are gamers will enjoy it.

This post contains abbreviations and references that may not be recognized by all readers - and gets rid of unsightly dandruff flakes! [in joke] Reader discretion is advised.

My husband and I are gamers, predominantly of the console and PC variety.  Hell, we met in Final Fantasy XI, an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).  It's true!  I made an entire post about it back in the early days of my blog.

He's old-school and I'm a new kid on the block.  It's not a May-December relationship but he does have a few years on me, so while I vaguely remember the older kids playing with a little jumping man who ate mushrooms, he actually owned an original Nintendo.  He even played paper-and-pencil D&D in his younger years.  He adores RPGs and has lots and lots of them.

My dad didn't really approve of videogames.  He didn't think they were the devil, either, but it was not the kind of thing we were going to spend money on at OUR house!  I did play a lot of classic games on an emulator on my computer though - All 3 Super Mario Bros., some Zelda, etc.  My first start-to-finish console game was in college: Sonic Adventure on a friend's Dreamcast.  Some friends down the hall got a GameCube and would have all-night Smash Bros. marathons.  Then my friend with the Dreamcast bought his own Cube and got Zelda:Wind Waker with it, which I devoured, along with the new Mario Kart, Super Mario Sunshine, and Pikmin.  And, of course, FFXI (on PC).

We still play FFXI, although we take hiatuses from time to time.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder and lowers the incidence of "noob rage."  We also play Guild Wars, another MMORPG but with gameplay more along the lines of World of Warcraft than FFXI (we don't play WoW however.  I'm sure it's a good game but you can only spread your interests, time, and money so far.)

Lately I've been playing Vagrant Story and having a blast.  Though I got stuck in the Snowfly Forest and killed by the Earth Dragon, but that's okay!  I also have save files for Xenogears, Grandia and FF9 that I have to finish.  I've played FFX (and LOVED it) and Eternal Darkness (loved that one, too).  And I got Pikmin 2 a while back as a birthday present - haven't beaten it yet, but it's a great sequel.  A lot less "Press A button...watch all your Pikmin die...bang face against wall...repeat."  Though there's still some of that, or it wouldn't be Pikmin!

I've also been playing a lot of what I call "stupid online games," meaning flash-type games from shockwave.com.  Insaniquarium is a family favorite with us, and I'm pretty good at Diner Dash-type games.  And Sudoku and Mah Jongg.  I just started Glyph (reminiscent of Collapse) and I'm liking that too.  Oshiro is more of a thinking game but it gets hard fast and I've kind of hit a wall.  Still, I retry the level I'm stuck at at least once a day!  SandScript is a word game that's actually kind of challenging - and at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, that means something coming from me.  And my little Virtual Villagers are farming, fishing, and breeding so much they had to construct a new hut!

My husband, meanwhile, is amusing himself with the PvP (player vs. player) in Guild Wars and Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete.  Though I think he may have given up on Lunar.  Naturally, he has plans to get FFXII!  Though we were talking just this evening about how he's starting to put a bit more value on gameplay.  As he put it, "a game that has more to do with your actual skill than with how much time you can afford to put into it - where you're rewarded with one minute of storyline for every 30 hours of levelling."  He didn't draw the connection, but now that I think about it, he often talks about how little gaming time he has anymore, now that he's working, and has a family life, and is getting old enough that he can't push his body to the limits that he used to - how he can't compete, in FFXI, with the 12-year-olds and the unemployed who have endless hours to give to the game to get the best gear and level all their jobs to the top.  I've heard Shadow of the Colossus is good; maybe I'll suggest it to him.

That is, when we get a CAR so we can actually go to the STORE!

MMORPGs always make for great conversations, though, about economy and social behavior and "holy cow, can you believe what a noob this guy is?"  I read somewhere that there was even a college economics class studying data from FFXI to help them learn the basics in microcosm.  Which earns cool points in my book!

Well, I'm sure I've gone on long enough, and I do believe I'm starting to lose cohesion.  Anyway, this is a topic with a fairly small audience and I've said all I meant to say.  I'm thinking my next "I don't quite have time but I want to post something" topic will be webcomics!  I think it's a good sign that I'm wanting to post more than I have time, instead of having more time than I know what to do with.  I've even left a few comments today!

Have a good night, everyone.