I have a secret that makes me feel terribly ashamed. Throughout my short life I have played hundreds of games.Literaly devoted thousands of hours of my life to them. And still I have yet to play a game that has left a lasting impression on me. Never have a played a game that I could truly and with every fiber of my being say, "Wow i'm going to remeber this game for the rest of my life.", it just hasn't happened.  This isn't to say that I have never played a fantastic game that left me with chills at the end. I'm just saying that it didn't grab me in a way that made me stay up late at night thinking about it. Actually that last sentence is sort of a lie because I have stayed up late at night thinking about games. Just not the kind that I play.

Instead I have spent many a night thinking about the games I wish I could play. The games that in a perfect world would be on every store shelf. The only problem is we don't live in a perfect world and the games we have put me to sleep. Games like Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 2 are great sensory stimulators. While playing them I often find myself engrossed in the epicness of the situations at hand. At the time that I am playing them I see nothing wrong with devoting time to something that I will probably forget about when the next big title comes out. But afterwards when I look at the clock and see that I just spent three hours not studying for my mid term and instead helped a virtual lover get into contact with her equally virtual sister I wonder is there really anything more. Shouldn't something that can be so stimulating  while plugged in be equally stimulating when I turn it off. To bad this usually isn't the case.

The same can be said about most cinema and literature. I can't lie and say that every book I have ever read was worth the ink that was used to print it. This article probably isn't going to be giving you much to think about in the aloof  minutes between sleeping and conciousness that many go through before they finally close their eyes and exit the twilight.. But there are some books that I have stayed up and tput in late nights just pondering their basic implications. Books that have consumed me and made me question things. The same can be said for movies. Not most but a few.

This isn't to say that one day a game won't come along that blows me away and leaves me up at night bursting with joy at having played it. Maybe one day I will have to retract this piece because a game will come along that seriously leaves a burning impression imprinted on the fluid surface that one calls a soul. Sadly, I'm not going to hold my breath and wait for something that probably won't happen until the next generation of consoles at least. Basically what I am trying to say is that when someone tells you that they played a game that kept them up at night they must have really low expectations for the industry. Please don't be the person that buys into the hype.