My Name is Cory, and I Have Some Problems

I am addicted to video games. Naw, but I do have some concerns I’d like to bring forth about my other gaming problems. They say the first step to recovery is admitting one’s problems. Anything after that is a bit of a blur to me. It probably doesn’t matter what comes after that. The important issue is that I have found out that I am not alone in my gaming grievances. Those of you who frequent the forums already know what I am talking about. For everyone else, prepare to evaluate yourselves.

If, after reading this article, you have any similar experiences to what is about to be released, fear not for you are not alone. If you feel comfortable disclosing the information, feel free to post your own horrific gaming problems in the comments below. This is not a place of judgment, but a place of healing.  Let the healing begin.

I have character creation OCD. 

This one has been gnawing at me ever since I have been able to create my own characters. Why developers would be so cruel as to let me do their character design work, I haven’t the faintest idea. Maybe it’s all one sick joke to see how crazy I get when I find something I don’t like about my character 10 hours into the game. BioWare is especially guilty of this. After sitting on the character creation screen for hours in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, I decided just to go with the default Shepard, as anything I would make just turned out wrong if the light struck the face at a certain angle. My problem became worse when I got into The Old Republic. Unfortunately, there is no default character model for any of the races. I have pined over how my character should look again and again and again. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve lost track of how often I’ve deleted my character and started over because I didn’t like how my character talked in a conversation. Too many hours have been lost over this nonsense, but, alas, I can’t stop. Luckily, one company has somehow found out about my condition and decided to remedy that. The good folk over at Volition decided to let you change how your character looks at any time in Saints Row 3. You can even change the sex of the character if you so chose. Now why don’t more games allow you to do this once you’ve started playing?

I am a hoarder.

Give me an RPG, and I can guarantee you I will pick up anything and everything that’s not attached to the ground. It’s an impulse I can’t control. WHAT IF I NEED THESE BUCKETS TO GIVE TO THE BUCKET LORD? HOW WILL I GAIN HIS APPROVAL WITHOUT 30 BUCKETS? Sorry, I get a bit restless when I HAVE 30 USELESS BUCKETS IN MY INVENTORY! Again I apologize. I shouldn’t be taking my anger out on my readers. Bethesda really should be the ones I’m angry at. They enable my hoarding problem by allowing everything except the kitchen sink to be picked up in their games. Even if none of this junk will ever be used in the slightest, it’s there, taunting me.

TAKE THE DAMN BUCKET!

BioWare was guilty of this as well in Mass Effect. My inventory was filled to the brim with useless weapons. But I had to take them all because they might be useful in the future. Even when I had maxed out my credits and omni-gel, I would still collect any weapon I found because WHAT IF THE COUNCIL… Take a deep breath Cory. This is a place of healing. Luckily BioWare saw the the problem and decided to do away with inventory all together in Mass Effect 2. For that I applaud them. They are helping gaming hoarders one game at a time. My hoarding ways also leads me to my final and probably most frustrating problem I always have.

I NEVER use my healing items.

For this issue, I put blame fully on the games. They have babysat me to the point where I’m worried if I use an item now, I won’t have it later on when I really need it. This often leads me to die over and over again because I refuse to use that item. Since most games allow me to restart right before any difficult fight, I have learned to stockpile any and all healing items that would help me get through these tough encounters. I’ve even lied to myself by saying that I’ll use the items in the next fight, but that next fight never actually comes. I’ll hold off on the items time and time again until the game is beaten, and I am left with 99 phoenix downs because I refused to waste one in a difficult fight. And yet all the phoenix downs in the entire universe weren’t enough to save Aerith.

My name is Cory, and I have some problems.

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Comments

  1. Shadowflex

    I’m not alone! The bucket lords nice at least, but the cloth and shear lords from Oblivion are real hard asses. This was a great read, looking forward to your future posts, good humour. Thanks.

  2. asuicidalpanda

    OMG I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS, in Skyrim I would loot everything!!!! and end up carrying too much weight! and with the character creation… don’t even get me started…

  3. asuicidalpanda

    and I NEVER use healing or buff pots till SWTOR.

  4. TehCrisis

    I have the same problem with healing and buff items.

  5. Captain Hindsight

    Yep, I hardly ever use either the high end healers or kind of rare guns/ammo and above. I’ve also found it’s hard for me to through grenades just in case there are more then those 20 enemies to kill at once…

  6. Pandalicious

    I have the same problem with healing. Can’t wait to see more articles from you!

  7. That health potion thing is a problem for me, too. I’m getting better at it (by gruellingly forcing myself to use health potions). Hoarding was an issue for me in Skyrim, mostly because I played it on the PC and set my encumbrance to an unreachable number, so I just picked up every little thing that I saw. I currently hold in my inventory more than the entire economy of Skyrim could purchase.

  8. funkym0nkey77

    Ha ha, I’m such a hoarder too, Skyrim pushed me to my hoarding limits

  9. sidd5100

    I find one treasure chest and use it for all my hording needs… there is no bottom to those things.

  10. mcpa

    My name is mark and I too have a problem

  11. Mearnsonator

    I’m an ammo hoarder… especially in survival horror games (Resident Evil and Fatal Frame come to mind). I was so bad in Fatal Frame 2 that I had been so careful with the highest damage films, kiting and using the free “ammo” with nearly every battle I was able to down the large final boss in about 15 seconds using all of the big damage items I’d been holding on to… and I quite often finish games with full compliments of sniper/rocket launcher ammo in a backpack somewhere.

  12. Jamis

    I am 100% with you on the healing and buff items in most games. I keep holding on to them just waiting for some epic battle where I will only be able to survive with a constant IV drip of healing items that usually never comes. At some point, usually near the end of the game, I realize that I should have been using this stuff all along.

  13. I too am such a hoarder! I also refuse to use my healing items/buffs/special ammo. That actually proved useful in Knights of the Old Republic II where I had to lay all my landmines down and trick the final boss to run through them all.

  14. tominie

    Great post, I chortled throughout. Mass effect 2 made you go cold turkey on the gun hoarding issues though! I went from having all of the guns in the citadels black market to having 2 of each! Where’s my damned spectre gear gone?!

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