Editor's note: I seem to be having a similar problem lately as well. I just don't have the time to devote to maxing out my Final Fantasy characters at level 99 anymore, and if games don't grab me pretty quickly, I tend to put them down and never return. I guess I'm not twelve anymore either. -Jay

I've wasted too many hours on Final Fantasy 13. At this point it doesn't matter if I think it is a good game or a bad game or anything else. When I can't feel good about the hours I devoted to a game, something has gone wrong.

Back in the Nintendo Entertainment System days, I was the definition of a slacker. I was unemployed, and I spent my days sitting on the couch or wandering the streets with my equally worthless friends. In a good week I might make a few dollars, but the money never went towards rent or anything of value. Like most seven-year-olds, I was a drain on society and my parents. 

When it came to games, I had one rule: the longer the game, the better. After all, I had a lot of hours to fill. The most damning evidence of this rule that still persists is my pulpy, torn, worn, and faded Super Mario Bros. 3 Guide -- a testament to just how much of my life went into consuming that game. A tiny sparkle in my eye and my parent's disappointment is all that is left of the hours spent mastering the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' dam level. I'm lucky no proof still exists of the summer I lost to Mega Man 2. Games were a commodity you did not squander; you had to lick the plate clean, because lord knows when your parents would buy you a new game, and you would get to eat again.

The mentality of the time was so feverish that it was an atrocity for any game to be too short or too easy to understand. At the mall one night, my grandparents decided I was worthy of a new game for my Game Boy. Without hesitation I pointed toward Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan on the wall of the KB Toys. I pulled out my Game Boy (for I was also a Boy Scout, and the Boy Scout motto was "Be Prepared"), and for the rest of the shopping trip I was lost in the pea green screen.

As we neared the end of the evening, and my parents finished buying whatever it was they were really shopping for, my blood suddenly ran cold. I had made it to the last level. During the course of one shopping trip, I had almost completely beaten my brand new game. Guilt started to rise, as did stomach acid, as did the number of nine year olds in the world who had ulcers. How could I be so irresponsible, and waste my poor grandmother's hard earned money? This game was supposed to last for weeks! On the final boss, my tiny brain snapped. I let Krang kill me. I knew I wouldn't be able to devote the next month of my life to cracking the Foot Clan, but at least I could start the game over and squeeze a little more enjoyment out of it.

As I grew older, the trickle of games I played slowly started to build. Soon I had my own job and could buy my own games; I was no longer at the mercy of the calendar's meager rationing of holidays and birthdays. The choke point now became the amount of free time I had. Somewhere my life must have taken a disastrously wrong turn, and I didn't wind up becoming a wealthy playboy who had a strictly coordinated regimen of gaming between late breakfast and early lunch. Instead, I had a job, a family, and a life.

I knew I was never going to find three hours to sit down and get into a game, so the games I migrated toward had to meet me half way. These games have to let me stop playing when it's time to make dinner. They must let me pause the combat when the dog gives me sad, pee eyes from the door. They have to grab me by the collar and never let go. Games need to respect the fact that I have more to my life than just them. In the end, I want more Fall of the Foot Clans -- games I could devour, digest, and discard rather than a game I have to devote myself to for months at a time.

Final Fantasy 13 and I definitely felt that certain "electricity" when our eyes first met; who wouldn't appreciate its eagerness to get into some hot-n-heavy action. After a few hours, however, our relationship started to sour. It seemed like I had to be available for hours at a time just to get anything out of the game, and it chastised me for every second I didn't play it. "You can't stop playing, you have to get to the next save point or you've wasted all this time."  "If you stop now you'll never get to choose what character you want in your party."  "Fine. Go play Red Dead Redemption. You'll never get to level 11, which the internet says is totally awesome."  "You don't like level 11? Oh, that's because you have been playing the game wrong for the last 35 hours; you need to use a Sentinel more often." I couldn't make it happy.

Final Fantasy 13 kept promising me it was going to get better, but it never acknowledged the personal sacrifices I had to make in order to give it the "slow burn" time it needed. Every day I spent going through its arduous tutorial was a day I could not spend working on "grown up" things. Or maybe I was working, considering that the thought of putting more hours in and hoping for a payoff 40 hours down the line made Final Fantasy 13 start to feel like a full time job. It wasn't a scope problem; my enjoyment of Oblivion and Fallout 3 prove that.  It was an instant gratification problem -- a game has to grab me from the beginning, and it can never let me feel like it is arbitrarily holding back the fun or restricting options. The game can certainly evolve over the course of its narrative, but that doesn't mean it needs to force me to clock in eight hours a day in the hopes that, come Saturday, it would reward me.

If I was twelve, this wouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't care if it took 40 hours to get into the game, because I'd plan on playing it for 100 hours minimum. I'd restart the game and use the knowledge I learned on my first play through to perfectly upgrade my weapons. I would level up all the characters to the point that giant turtle-elephant things would die in one hit. I would not only buy the guide, but I would pen my own pro tips in the margins for future reference, and then send them in to my favorite magazine.

But I'm not twelve anymore. I don't have the time it takes to dig into this "type" of game anymore. I am at the end of Final Fantasy 13, and I was just told "right after you beat the final boss it gets really great, just keep pushing". But I just don't have it in me anymore. After I beat the first end boss and  completed half of the second end boss battle, I put the controller down and walked away. Sadly, I just can't dedicate my life to a game anymore, so this game must not be for me. I just hope a kid somewhere out there has the time it takes to fully appreciate all the love that was put into this game -- someone whose whole summer is going to be absorbed in exploring the rich, complex world of Final Fantasy 13.

But that twelve-year-old is probably playing Modern Warfare 2 right now.