Have you ever been playing a game and heard church music? Or any other completely unexpected style of music?

I was doing some deep-sea diving in the Wii's "Endless Ocean" this past weekend, exploring some ruins. And I heard "Amazing Grace," as sung by New Zealand classical soprano Hayley Westerna.

Really? "Amazing Grace" in a video game? Check out Hayley's website, scroll through the media player on the left and listen to the snippet they have of the song. It's not what you normally hear in a video game, even a deep-sea diving video game.

The thing is, it works. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.... should have nothing to do with my efforts to snap photos of stingrays and swim through a diving flock of penguins. But it somehow comes together. It creates the proper gentle, relaxing mood. Good thing a great white shark didn't show up.

Unusual song selection also worked in the Atari / Marc Ecko graffiti game "Getting Up." That game played an old blues song -- "I Smell A Rat" by Big Mama Thornton -- during a boss battle. If memory serves, I was punching an evil factory boss, while Big Mama belted out the tune. It was different, and it was wonderfully angry and frantic in a way I'd never heard before. When I asked Ecko about it a couple of years ago, he said that it was his idea and that it had been a hard sell to his game's creative team. (Listen to a sample of that song on this page.)

I've been sent reeling by speed metal in "Sonic" games and rap music in "Donkey Kong 64." I was surprised by the closing song of "Portal," of course. And there was that "Gears of War" commercial's unusual choice of the mournful "Mad World."

But I don't feel like I've been shocked enough by the soundtrack selection in games. Do we need more church music? We need more surprise, at least. I hope to hear more.

(Recent thing I’ve also done: Cancelled My ‘World of Warcraft’ Account (And Had Fun Doing So)

Alas, "World of Warcraft," I did not know you well.

I just canceled my account on Sunday. And it sure didn't go as I expected -- which is a good thing.

I subscribed to Blizzard's ridiculously popular nine-million-subscriber game some time in 2005, I think.

I could look up the exact month when I started, but, really, I don't want to know. I don't want to know how many months I let $16.25 or so pour from my bank account for a game that I hadn't played in... how long?

Let's see. When I finally canceled my "WoW" subscription this past Sunday, I checked to see which version of the game I had installed on my home computer. That would be version 1.12.1, circa September 19, 2006. That was the date, roughly, when I last brought my Level 12 Tauren druid into the game, the last time I got any bang for my buck. That is not the way to manage your finances, folks. I needed to finally take a step to improve my fiscal future.

I'm writing this post not to trash "World of Warcraft" (how could I judge a game I've neglected for over a year?), not to castigate those of us who foolishly pay for things we're not using (though I think I did), but to praise Blizzard for the easy -- and kind of enjoyable -- process of canceling one's "WoW" account.

Yes, you read me right. Canceling a "WoW" account is somewhat entertaining.

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It's been a while since I've written a Things I've Done, but it's not for lack of trying.

I started writing this one a week ago, but MTV Gamer's Week got the best of me.

This one is about how I feel when I finish games -- and about the grander question I'd love to hear others' thoughts on: how should you feel when you finish a game?

Here's how the piece was going to begin, back when I started writing it on November 12:

I'd like to tell you how I felt yesterday, before the feeling vanishes. It was a Sunday, the day of the week I seem to finish most of the games I play. Yesterday I closed the story on "Half-Life 2: Episode 2" and "Ratchet & Clank: Future." I had been two hours from the conclusion of each game and knocked through Valve's game, then Insomniac's.

I finish a lot of games and often enough I'm left feeling kind of strange: a little unhealthy, a little shell-shocked, strangely disappointed. I feel this way after games I really like, mind you. I seldom finish games I dislike.

This is something I should have written about a while ago, because, the feeling I get after finishing a game is rather fleeting. I can tell you that, in...

And there I stopped writing. A week has passed. And some interesting things have happened regarding what I wrote above.

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My birthday happened last week. And my Wii didn't seem to care.

Neither did my Xbox 360, my PS3, my PSP or my DS. Yeah, I got a big bag of "Halo 3" on my big day, but that was a coincidence.

This console cold-shoulder saddens me, because I'm pretty sure I told all of my gaming devices when my birthday was. I know I told the Wii. I even made a virtual version of myself -- my Mii -- and included my birthday.

What part of 9/21 do you not understand, Nintendo programmers?

Maybe my Wii has an excuse? After all, my first Wii did break, and my replacement one doesn't recognize me as the creator of the Stephen Mii that I transferred from the busted system.

But that's an easy out! I told these things when I was born. And they asked me!

I don't think it's right, and I think it raises questions -- seriously -- about how much today's modern consoles should be programmed to react to the ever-increasing amount of information we put into them.

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Did you ever play a game for a long time only to discover that you missed something about the controls?

Somehow you got through the game without ever figuring out that you could quick-switch your guns with a tap of the trigger button or get the map to appear by pressing L3?

It sounds crazy. And maybe I'm just a bad gamer. But that happened twice to me this past week, and it's got me wondering if I'm truly alone.

Check out my two case studies after the jump and then let me know if these kinds of things ever happen to you.

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People hate video game cut-scenes. I see their point.

People skip video game cut-scenes. I can't do that. In fact, I've never done that. Surely I can't be the only one?

Years ago -- before it was in vogue to hate health bars and boss battles -- it was cool to complain about cut-scenes. The flashy, melodramatic movies that appeared betweenc chapters of gameplay undermined games by interrupting interactivity. They misrepresented the graphics in the games they were in. They told bad stories. They needed to be skipped, and, wouldn't you know that the worst kind of cut-scene was one that an A or X button couldn't eradicate in one tap.

People who made games knew gamers felt this way. They still do. Konami employees, for example, tell me about avid "Metal Gear Solid" fans who ignore every cut-scene. And a few weeks ago, at E3, "Simpsons" TV show and video game writer Matt Selman made his case to me for the cut-scenes in this fall's "Simpsons" EA game by acknowledging their universal notoriety:

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Some games don't allow you to be bad. Take "Super Mario Brothers," which has you fighting a good fight -- regardless of how much the poor Goombas might disagree.

Some games allow you to be bad. You've got your "Fable"s and "Knights of the Old Republic"s, with their presentation of multiple, morally-defined paths. But those games don't really make you feel bad about being bad. In "Fable" you can give money to the spiritual authorities and switch back to being good -- guilt-free! In "KOTOR" you're primarily just picking an outfit and array of super-powers, not a code of ethics that defines your destiny.

Over the horizon are games such as "Mass Effect" and Sucker Punch's "Infamous" which offer new promises of malleable, playable morality (remember that "Jack Bauer in space" line?).

But instead of waiting for the future, let's take stock: Has a game yet made you feel like you were making your character do something wrong? Truly like you were not on the side of the angels?

I felt that way this weekend as I played a game I expected no such surprises from: "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 2: Justice For All."
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Two weekends ago I asked Chris Zukowski for help. He's a gamer I think every other gamer should listen to and I needed to hear what he had to say.

He replied with blunt advice that I'm not sure I can accept.

Let me explain: I was stressed about "Final Fantasy XII." I was far into the game and unhappy.

This was a game so highly touted that I waited to play it for months. I waited until I had a relatively empty summer gaming schedule during which I could appreciate it properly. This was a game I was enjoying so much that -shock - I ditched dinner with a friend so I could play it more.

And then, there I was two weekends ago, feeling like a dope, staring at Chris Zukowski's "Final Fantasy XII: Fun Graphed Against Time" chart.

I saw in cold, hard type that Zukowski and I had reached "FFXII"'s Golmore Jungle in the same 21st hour, that he and I had played this game at the same pace. I suspected that he and I might have similar impressions of this game -- in fact I knew so since I'd been reading his hilarious guide to the game on his site Game Intestine*. His chart promised I was about to sink into a valley of non-fun just a few hours from my save point. This chart also showed that I had 50 hours to go in the game and that nine consecutive hours would have to be spent... leveling up.

I shot Chris a note and asked him for help. How could I bail on a Game of the Year? What should I do?

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All of us gamers have a story of choosing to play a video game rather than meeting our societal obligations of spending time with other people. Sometimes these stories even involve not wanting to go outside. How can games have such a hold on us? And is it a design flaw in them -- one that needs to be corrected -- that makes this so?

A little over a week ago I found out that my wife wouldn't be home the following Monday, a first in our very young marriage. She was going to Pennyslvania to celebrate her brother's 21st birthday.

I was sorry to see her go. That was my first thought. My second: ditch dinner plans with my friend Matt so I could stay home and binge on "Final Fantasy XII." Sorry, Matt!

He said he understood. The problem is: I didn't.

I had started "FFXII" about a week before, diving in for nine hours during a few focused play sessions. I didn't expect to become enraptured with the game. I'd played up to the final boss of "Final Fantasy X," and sampled a few hours of the "Final Fantasy IV" re-make on the Game Boy Advance. I had played tiny bits of "Final Fantasy VIII" and "IX" years ago on a friend's PSOne. I also spent many hours on "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" on the GBA. I wasn't blown away by any of them, and only played "X" as long as I did so that I could say I gave the popular franchise a fair shake.

Still, number "XII" had been praised so highly I had to give it a try. I'm glad I did. The game's designers solved my two biggest reservations about the series. They canned the franchise's traditional turn-based, random-encounter combat in favor of real-time, semi-automated, "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic"-style fighting. And they replaced their typically emotionally immature whiny wracked-with-dad-issues protagonist for a likable young guy caught up in a web of political intrigue (in a plot that pilfers shamelessly but stylishly from the "Star Wars" movies).

What they didn't change was the game's duration, which even in the early stages looked to stretch to 60 hours and beyond. That's the kind of discovery that gives me looming dread. I don't have that kind of time for a game these days. But when a game hooks me, I want to give it that much time. And so the stress develops: my loyalty to the game vs. my loyalty to everything else. If you're not a gamer, this probably sounds absurd. But if you are you know the feeling. And there's a twist to this feeling, at least for me: the ever-present notion that maybe the game isn't really worth that kind of commitment.

Recently I've been hooked by "Pokémon: Pearl" and "Odin Sphere." I said as much here and here. But my immediate days-long obsessions with those games were recently followed by a week off from each, first from "Pokémon," then from "Odin Sphere." In both cases my fixation was replaced with relaxation. I didn't mind not playing them. Think of the different states of mind of eating potato chips. There's that moment, hand in bag, when eating a fifth chip seems like the best next thing to do, then a sixth, then a seventh. Then there's that moment an hour after you stop eating them when you realize you're not hooked and didn't really need to be in the first place.

How do we tell when a video game is worth playing through or when it's just a bag of potato chips that you don't really need to finish? How do we know when the game is really worth cancelling dinner plans with your friend Matt? Taking a break is a good idea. I'm about to have a week off from "Final Fantasy XII," because I'll be in Santa Monica, PS2-less, covering E3.

Oh, but here's one more twist regarding "FFXII." It may be one of those games that demands a lot of the player's time. But it does so in a strange way. The semi-automated battle system lets you assign default fighting orders to your team. You can tell Vaan to always swing his sword at the nearest enemy and Ashe to always heal anyone in the three-character party who's health meter drops below 30%. What this meant on the Monday I ditched Matt was that, after sitting down, turning the game on, and sending my "FF" guys into battle, I was able to walk into my kitchen and cook dinner. My guys fought well without me. For a game that demands so much of my time, it sure doesn't actually need me to pay it much attention.

Kind of like a house cat, I guess.

Chosen "Final Fantasy" Over a Friend. That's a Thing I've Done.

(Recent Thing I've Also Done: Tested the Bad-Mood/Bad-Score Theory.)