Binges: Two Down, One to Go. 

When I enrolled in the class “The Binge”, I knew I would have interesting and new experiences when binging on multimedia for several days in a row! Although I hadn’t ever binged on books, tv, or video games to the extent that was required for the class, I did have experience binging… on two of the three multimedia forms.  Reading has always been an activity I enjoy, and although I read for pleasure less often than I did when I was younger, it is still a positive experience for me.  Similarly, I enjoy watching television, and often “binge” watch series during school breaks… so with both of these entertainment forms I had an idea of what to expect…

However when it came to my video game binge, I was clueless. Not only did I have little experience binging on video games, I had little experience playing video games, period!  I was in the dark, and anything could be at the other end of the tunnel. When I was younger, I played games like Wii Sports, Cooking Mama, and Dance, Dance Revolution, hardly the highly marketed popular sort of games most think of when they hear the term "video game". 

I purposely chose the game Psychonauts hoping it would have an interesting gameplay and not be too violent.  I hoped I could enjoy a game whose goal was not just to kill others, but gain skills or complete challenges of some other sort. 

The caption in this graphic makes a pretty bold claim, and I have to admit I thought I would really like the game!  There were different challenges to complete in order to master certain skills, and they were not very violent!  When I completed a challenge, the reward was very satisfying and motivated me to keep playing.  However, it reached a point where the challenges became too difficult.  I simply could not beat them!  This led to a decrease in my motivation and desire to play the game. Psychonauts is a clever game, and had the challenges not been so impossible, I may have continued playing after the binge.