"Congratulations! You just beat the game! Now play it two more times to get the 'Real ending'." What does this mean to gamers today? Not much if you have an Internet connection and you know what Youtube is. What did it used to mean? Well, it meant I was going to waste about 50 more hours hating my life until I got this bullshit "Real ending".

What happens when you don't know when to quit.

It's taken me years of sadism to come to terms with the fact that I hate my life slightly less than I originally thought. Why am I punishing myself by collecting all of these stupid blast shards, or replaying the game with only the plasma cutter for a single merit badge that no one will ever see? Because I am a freaking idiot, that's why.

Not every game is meant to be played with a collection mentality, my preferred method. Some games are great when rushed through, others need to be appreciated at a slow pace and will reward you for every sidestep you take off the main path. The most important thing to keep in mind is "Does it stay fun?"

I am not exaggerating when I say that I loved every second of the 300+ hours I spent with Fallout 3. I can't say the same for the 25-30 hours I placed into Dead Space. It was a lot of fun for the first play through, and decently fun halfway through the second. The game didn't hold up by the third, and I stopped a chapter in. You might be saying, "Well of course it's not fun by the third play through! " The problem is that the developers sure thought it was when they made those achievements, and they were very wrong.

In a perfect world, developers would realize the limits of fun that can be had by their games. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world. Prostitution is illegal is most states, drinking and driving is a serious criminal offense, girls only tell me I'm the sexiest man alive a few times a month, and developers are too in love with their own games to properly guide the player in the direction of the most fun. I wish I could change all of those things, but unfortunately I can't. Luckily, I can use my head a bit more than usual (Which is still a very small amount), and find the fun for myself in the games I play.

I now have a zero tolerance policy with my games. When they stop being fun, I stop. I'm not going to do anything that isn't any fun to do, and why should I? I don't have an obligation to finish a game that the developers clearly were incapable of making worth my time. In a way, it's the best direction I can take for myself and for the developers. If I stop once I've had all the fun there is to have, then my impressions of the game will be much higher. I have bad memories of Dead Space, and it's because the majority of my time spent playing that game were wasted on the boring subsequent passes through the story. I do remember enjoying the game a lot the first time through, and it's unfortunate I was guided into hatred by shitty achievement design.

I can't imagine Stalker is a very fun game for everyone. Quest NPCs can die and prevent side quest completion, death is frequent and unforgiving, the frame rate chugs and crashes occur often. So why do I love it so much? I found a fun way to play it. I save about every 3 minutes, and after just about every kill. I don't freak out when my quest giver dies in the middle of a battle only to prevent me from finishing it, I just move on. The game works for me when I play it that way, but another mind set could easily destroy the experience and turn it into something I'd never touch.

There's always going to be terrible design in even the best games. Sometimes it's just identity confusion, other times it's plain stupidity. Regardless of the reason, theres a simple hot and cold test to find out how to play a game. The only thing necessary is to ask yourself the easiest question in the world: "Am I having fun?" If you're not, stop playing Prototype and move on to something worth your time.

I'm a stand up comedian, writer, engineer, and overall terrible person. I also think you should all watch American Idol Season 9 and vote for Siobhan Magnus, as she is a close friend and is super cute. Follow my shenanigans on Twitter! http://twitter.com/CasualAlcoholic