Cracking Down

For the forseeable future (the next 3 months at the minimum), I'll be changing my gaming philosophy considerably in terms of what I play. Without over-sharing in a public venue, let's just say I'm in a mood to pinch pennies across the board, and my gaming hobby isn't safe from the intense crackdown. Here's my new limits:

If a HOTBA member picks a game to boost that I don't own, and it's under $20, I'll pick it up. I'm still planning on getting Crackdown 2, and Halo Reach has already been paid in full. My stash of Microsoft points I can still spend as I see fit, as I've already paid for all that.

Other than that, I'm not getting anything unless I can trade in games or find a deal where a game costs me next to nothing. I'll be raiding bargin bins for gems I missed before shelling out the cost of the new retail title everyone else will be playing. Oh, I'll still be gaming as much as I always have, though the focus will be on the abundance of games I already own. I'm not going to pull a jackanape and list every game I need to work on yet (the list is far longer than I care to type), but I will not be running out of things to play for months. Without naming everything, here's just the games I own and have NEVER even played yet or have 0 gamerscore in:

Puzzle Quest 2
Prototype
Need for Speed Undercover
The Last Remnant
The Incredible Hulk
Deadliest Catch
Ninety-Nine Nights
Lego Batman
Spectral Force 3
Sonic Unleashed

I really need to do a better job of putting the time into games I have already paid for. Who knows? Maybe my completion percentage will actually increase due to this effort.

With the 8x XP event going on in Gears 2, I'm once again wasting time in the persuit of the rank 100 achievement. I've made it all the way to rank 91, with 5.25 million XP, so I'm getting close. If I should somehow fail to get there by the end of this event, the next one will surely put me over the top. Last night I boosted for about 5 hours with the Rogues (1 and 5), Rand al Thor, Mr Blackmagic, and a few others. They're definitely not a bad group to boost with. All were very efficient, and the conversation was better than most of the boosting sessions I've been in lately.

Today, I'm trying my luck in public searches, trying to luck into boosting games in progress where I would join as the 10th person. I've been successful twice at this point, with the first lasting only one match until it devolved into a free-for-all. We'll see how this second group fares.

Depending on the level of success I have with this crackdown, I may just turn myself into a true cheap ass gamer, and make it a matter of pride to see how little I can pay for games (while still keeping my disc tray fed and happy, of course)