Lost Save

It’s happened to us all at some point. You’ve bought yourself a cheap memory card that dies on you; You have a power cut whilst the save logo in the corner of the screen is spinning around, politely reminding you not to turn your console off; Or, as in my case, you decide to totally wipe your computer clean for Windows 8 and forget to backup your saves.
The internet is full of horror stories of people losing save games including one recent tragic tale of Japanese dev Masahiro Sakurai who lost nearly two decades worth of game time. Mine wasn’t nearly as bad as that, I simply lost 6 hours of Retro City Rampage that I was playing, but for some reason, I’m finding it much more annoying than normal.
I just can’t bring myself to play through it again to get back to where I was. Even though it’s only 6 hours (probably less as I know how to complete the missions from my previous run), it just feels like a slog that I’m not in the mood for putting myself into. All those brilliant game references that I found funny the first time round will lose their impact slightly on my second play through. All of that witty dialog that I enjoyed between missions will now just be hastily skipped in an attempt to conserve time. I will no longer be enjoying the experience, I will merely be working to get back to where I was. The rhythm of the game has been interrupted for me and it will take a while for me to get it back.
There are of course games where it has been a blessing in disguise to have my save game deleted. My Fallout 3 character “Lord Gorman” was destined to be a well dressed and sophisticated master of social manipulation specialising in the dark arts of hacking and pickpocketing. He turned out to be useless and I was over the moon to find my save game corrupted as I actually had a reason to discard those many hours spent leveling up a character who would have been killed if a person were to merely fart near him.
But, with Retro City Rampage, I feel like I would be doing it a disservice by rushing through it. My non-gaming wife offered some good advice; “Just play a different game for a while and then come back to it later when it feels fresh again”. I think she may be onto something there.

Have you had any save game horror stories you’d like to share for all the internet to cry digital tears over? Please leave them in the comments. I need some cheering up.