My Mission

Hi. My Name is Keith. I'm an English Major, and a gamer. Now, though I think that being educated in writing, and fairly educated in gaming, or at least as far as one can be, it should be pretty much a given that I should flex my bulging literary muscles and write about video games. Unfortunately, I'm also poor, so very poor.
As you may be guessing at this point, being good with words, does not equate to being intelligent, and I spent quite a bit of time thinking that I simply could not write about games because, unlike most people who I know who write about games, I can't afford them. I mean, what's the point of writing if I can't be topical? Surely, nobody wants to read about games once they've been out long enough that every gamer with disposable income has already covered them in writing, video, and podcasts.

Then it hit me. I can't be the only person out there that can't afford to throw down $60 on new releases and play them from atop his golden throne while the servants feed him fine cheeses and polish his scepter. And here I am, starting a blog about budget gaming.

What does "budget gaming" mean exactly? well, I'm sure everyone would define "budget" in their own way. Some people consider themselves budgeting if they only buy one triple A title a month, and that's fine. I on the other hand, am lucky if I can afford a full priced triple A game once every two or three months. Now, sometimes that's okay. A lengthy RPG, or large sandbox game can last a few months. What is a problem though, is that sometimes you'll end up with a great game, that takes about eight hours to finish. And with focus shifting towards a multiplayer based experience, stories are getting shorter and shorter every year. Even worse yet, sometimes you'll end up shelling out half a weeks pay for a game that turns out to be either not your thing, or in the worst case, something outright unplayable.

So, In hopes of remedying that problem, I'm going to try to do the following for you:

- Try to find good games for reasonable prices. Hopefully within the $5-$10 range, maybe closer to $20 if the game is phenomenal in some respect, but never more than $30.

- Try to find the best value games. You know, most bang for your buck, to use a colloquialism I'm not particularly fond of because it makes me think of prostitution.

-Try to sort through the mountains of free to play games and pick out the ones that seem to be most worth the time.

I also have a few General Rules when finding games:

- No "Freemium" games. Aka, those games that are "free", but you can't possibly compete without paying for upgrades.

- Nothing subscription based. I don't know about everyone, but in my opinion, a game that bleeds away your money month by month until you've payed more than you ever would on a single game is worse than a $60 price tag.

- Generally, I wont recommend anything that I feel pads it's game time. I don't care if it takes fifty hours if half of that time is spent replaying levels or backtracking for things that are arbitrarily locked until you beat the game, or you spend ten hours of that just traveling.

Now, there will be exceptions. And sometimes, I'll probably write on other things, like my opinions on gaming trends, the good and bad going on in the industry, design pet peeves, etc. But the main focus will be on reviewing games based on just how much fun and time you get out of games.

That just about does it for introductions. Here's hoping you find something worth your time here, and feel free to recommend games, comment on my content, call me out if you think I'm wrong, or even comment on my writing style if you think I can do something to improve this project.