End the Shame_ Commit to 'Four in February'

My colleague Mike Suszek of Joystiq, with whom I appear bi-weekly on the Press Row Podcast discussing sports video games, has begun an initiative to help many face down their Piles of Shame: Four in February. The goal: Beat four video games in the month of February. That’s it. It’s kind of like National Novel Writing Month, if writing a novel involved sitting on your ass and playing 48 hours worth of video games (give or take). Mike brought this up on the latest edition of the podcast, and just now created a Facebook page for the goal, so if you’re up to it, check in there.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); I asked Mike if Four in February requires you to beat four games you’ve never played, or four games you simply haven’t yet finished. His reply: “Do it any way you want! There are no rules.” The idea is solid, certainly builds community and camaraderie, but January may have been a better month for it. Hardcore gamers, the constituency to which Mike’s appealing here, are facing a February release calendar that includes, among others, Dead Space 3, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Crysis 3 and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. None of those reviews are mine, but on a personal note, DC Universe Online has super slot a new expansion coming Tuesday that intrigues me. I haven’t played the game in a long time and I have a toon sitting on level 28, but I don’t think this counts. The image above is of Mike’s four games: Assassin’s Creed I, II and III, and Portal 2. n98 I’ve beaten AC I and II, left Brotherhood incomplete long ago and haven’t touched the series since. So I’ll commit to these four: The Walking Dead (all five episodes; I’m through three of them.) Does that really count? Well, considering my other three, I think so: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed III (yes, like Mike, I’m skipping Revelations on the way to III) and the most shameful game atop my incomplete list: Red Dead Redemption We’ll see how I do. That’s biting off a lot. I tell people all the time that “I’d have so much time to play video games if my job wasn’t to play video games.” And my sports duties have me spending a lot of time on games that can’t be “beaten” per se. (I’m not about to commit to taking my Road to the Show player to the Hall of Fame. That would take two months by itself.) I’m a momentum queen when it comes to open world games, so RDR may be played from the beginning, although crap, it’s a long slog when you get to Mexico, if I recall. What are your four? Four z16 ทางเข้า in February [Facebook]