Over the weekend, I went out and bought myself a Playstation 3.

“But you fucking hate consoles, Calreth”.

Well, maybe, I’ll let you know after a couple of weeks. It’s true, however, that I used to rail against consoles for their inferior controls, but seeing the gameplay trailer of The Last of Us made me determined to master the controller. This game is, emotionally, everything Dead Island promised but failed to deliver. I highly urge you to watch the gameplay trailer, even if you haven’t the slightest interest in video games. It’s a survival game, but it’s not about zombies. It has a uniquely human aspect. The closest equivalent that I can think of is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

While I slog through the rest of this year until the release of The Last of Us, I’m going to play another game that I’ve been wanting to play since it’s inception – Heavy Rain. It was something that used to make me consider getting a PS3 for, because I’m a sucker for story intensive games, especially those that aren’t puzzle driven.

At the same time, I’m going to be put aside my bias against consoles and console games, and explore the various offerings. I’m going to try some PS3 exclusives and classics, especially some of them Japanese games. To date, I still have not played any game in the Final Fantasy series, and it’s increasingly difficult to live as an Asian in the gaming world and know nothing about Final Fantasy. I’m also going to take this chance to improve upon what I’ve always been in weak in – movement coordinated games, à la platforming. Maybe this would help improve my reflexes, and make me less terrible at avoiding ‘the fire’ in MMO raids.

Yep, that’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to improve myself as a person.

I’m going to learn how to platform.