I hear a lot of people lamenting how much less time they have to play games these days. I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones, being almost 29 and having more play time than ever.

Actually, I'm not lucky at all. I make very deliberate lifestyle decisions. Not having kids is particularly helpful for maintaining my free time, admittedly. If I ever decide to go down that path I will have to re-evaluate my choices again, but that's true of any major commitment. Essentially, I've chosen to leave some time for games rather than taking on more things. Not watching television and living very close to my work also help a lot.

When I still lived with my parents games were a bit of a luxury. Then as a university student I simply didn't have time to play many games. Anyone who just looks at the contact hours on a course and thinks uni students are slackers has absolutely no idea.

Monster Hunter Tri has been interfering with my writing, my work, my personal hygiene... okay, maybe not quite that extreme. There is a point, though, where games become something like obsession for me. I think it's always been that way.

As a kid, I grew up without a console in the house, and we didn't get our first PC until I was in high school. But I have a good memories of visting and playing Sonic the Hedgehog with my neighbours and sister. We did get obsessive about it, as was pretty much required to finish games then. I lacked experience, and so spent a lot of time watching rather than playing. But I remained very much involved.

We sat for many hours, engrossed and determined to progress in spite of the lack of save files. If you watched us you may have considered us zombies, with our eyes unhealthily glued to the screen.