A recent post on Tobold's Blog got me thinking about the number of games I play and whether I like to flit between games or spend a lot of time in one game. The truth is I get far more satisfaction from investing a lot of time in one game than from flitting between games and never the less I still do flit.
Sometimes flitting is an inevitable consequence of a game not appealing to me as much as I thought it would. If I move on from a game because I am no longer enjoying it then I don't feel particularly bad about it. Sometimes however I just get distracted by something else and temporarily take a break from a game I fully intend to come back to. Unfortunately these days there is such an overwhelming choice of games to play (often at very little cost) that such temporary breaks almost inevitably become permanent. This ever growing list of unfinished titles that I intend to get back to some day is a source of frustration for me.
To illustrate the above with examples here are the games I have played (a little or a lot) over thee last couple of months:
1. Total War Warhammer 2: I have been playing this game intensively since its release two years ago and have derived tremendous satisfaction from it. It has slipped into the background now and will probably remain there until the third instalment comes out in a year or so but I still fire it up occasionally.
2. The Outer Worlds: I expected to like this game a lot and to be honest I did like a lot of things about it but after playing through the first planet for a few days I found myself getting bored by it. I don't feel any need to go back to it.
3. Battletech: This replaced Total Warhammer as my immersive strategy game and I played it intensively for about a month before taking a break. Even though I have completed hundreds of missions and developed some mastery of the game I didn't actually finish the main campaign but I got enough enjoyment out of this game to feel satisfied by it even if I don't go back.
4. Halo Reach: I played this before on console and I am long time Halo fan. When it was finally released on PC I had to go back in and finish the campaign all over again on the PC. You can bet I will be replaying the other Halo titles as well when they come to PC.
5. Gears of War 4: Played single player campaign to completion. Enjoyable but forgettable.
6. Gears of War 5: Played single player campaign to completion over a few days. I enjoyed this even more than 4 but again it is ultimately forgettable.
7. Metro Exodus: I really enjoyed the previous Metro games so I was happy to load this up from my Xbox game pass subscription. Unfortunately I got distracted almost immediately so this is still sitting accusingly on my desktop. I will probably go back to this.
Sometimes flitting is an inevitable consequence of a game not appealing to me as much as I thought it would. If I move on from a game because I am no longer enjoying it then I don't feel particularly bad about it. Sometimes however I just get distracted by something else and temporarily take a break from a game I fully intend to come back to. Unfortunately these days there is such an overwhelming choice of games to play (often at very little cost) that such temporary breaks almost inevitably become permanent. This ever growing list of unfinished titles that I intend to get back to some day is a source of frustration for me.
To illustrate the above with examples here are the games I have played (a little or a lot) over thee last couple of months:
1. Total War Warhammer 2: I have been playing this game intensively since its release two years ago and have derived tremendous satisfaction from it. It has slipped into the background now and will probably remain there until the third instalment comes out in a year or so but I still fire it up occasionally.
2. The Outer Worlds: I expected to like this game a lot and to be honest I did like a lot of things about it but after playing through the first planet for a few days I found myself getting bored by it. I don't feel any need to go back to it.
3. Battletech: This replaced Total Warhammer as my immersive strategy game and I played it intensively for about a month before taking a break. Even though I have completed hundreds of missions and developed some mastery of the game I didn't actually finish the main campaign but I got enough enjoyment out of this game to feel satisfied by it even if I don't go back.
4. Halo Reach: I played this before on console and I am long time Halo fan. When it was finally released on PC I had to go back in and finish the campaign all over again on the PC. You can bet I will be replaying the other Halo titles as well when they come to PC.
5. Gears of War 4: Played single player campaign to completion. Enjoyable but forgettable.
6. Gears of War 5: Played single player campaign to completion over a few days. I enjoyed this even more than 4 but again it is ultimately forgettable.
7. Metro Exodus: I really enjoyed the previous Metro games so I was happy to load this up from my Xbox game pass subscription. Unfortunately I got distracted almost immediately so this is still sitting accusingly on my desktop. I will probably go back to this.
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