Be Excellent To Each Other

So what games have I played the most over the last year or so?

Rocket League
PUBG (although currently on hiatus)
iRacing (same)
FIFA 18
Poker

Apart from Bloodborne and Assassin's Creed I can't think of a single narrative/story-driven game that I've played recently from start to finish and enjoyed, giving up most of the time barely started. Why is this? It's not the fact I don't have time as I'll regularly have gaming sessions of 1-2 hours or more.

Is it that I crave a competitive element in my gaming that isn't satisfied by shooting AI baddies? Is it that I have such a huge choice in my backlog I don't know where to start? What has changed?

Personally, I prefer games that do end (at least single player ones.) Games come in two types: ones that end, and ones that I play until I get bored. I’d rather my last memories of every game I played weren’t half-hearted “well I guess I could do one more quest/level/mission/thing” and then drowning in apathy.

For avoidance of doubt, I’d put all open world and RPG games in the “don’t end” category, because I’m never gonna see them all.

I prefer games that end. Looking at my completion history I’ve played a ton of good to great games with SP campaigns. I’ve got a list of games that I still haven’t played but are all awesome. My biggest problem is finding the time to sit down and play em.

If you want recommendations you can’t go wrong with God of War.

With story driven games that have a definite ending, I really don't get on with them anymore. I seem to feel a weight of expectation with them, a sense of all this "stuff" I know I have to get through and deal with, that just puts me off even playing.
I still play a lot of games, but it is all WoW, hearthstone and random mobile games these days. Stuff I can pick up and play and set my own goals, and follow my own path.

For me, I don't have the time to dedicate to long story-driven games, especially as games have more and more complicated control systems. I've restarted Arkham City a couple of times as when I have a break from it, I've forgotten how to do half the stuff in it. So quick fix stuff like Binding of Isaac and Rocket League are more up my street now.

Yes, I very much feel like this. I'm not sure why. I'd like to know why this change has happened, as I used to love them.

Not really looking for recommendations, I still have tons of good to great games in my backlog that I just can't be arsed starting.

I feel the same generally. There are times when you feel that you're just playing to inch the story forward, and you're not necessarily enjoying the mechanics all that much. I always found Uncharted to be a particular offender for this.

I'm increasingly finding that open-world games which feel good to muck around in (i.e. mad Max, far cry but NOT GTA) are where my head is at increasingly. That said, I am enjoying god of war.

You might like Rimworld then. Because it does end, but it's on your terms.

I don't think it has to be one or the other.

I've been playing Hearthstone for over four years (which is 100% competitive play against other people) and WoW for over a decade (!), both of which never end. But at the same time a God Of War or Dishonored or Borderlands 2 can keep me engrossed for 50+ hours until I've done and seen everything and completed them.

I get what Mr Fop is saying above, there is a slight feeling as I'm playing The Last Of Us that it's the world and the story and the characters that are keeping me playing, as the actual gameplay beats aren't amazing (compared to say, God Of War), but even then I tend not over-analyse and just go with my feelings. (Prey for example, I dropped because the combat was so bad, and No Man's Sky didn't grab me at all and only got a few hours out of me).

Just go with what you feel like doing, we all end up dead in the end anyway and nothing we do is ultimately of any consequence.

I mostly just ruin games for myself. I'll be happily playing something, go to bed and then the next day when it gets to the time where I'm thinking about playing a game I'll start dwelling on any tiny annoyances or thinking of other reasons why I'm not going to enjoy playing that game again. And as soon any of those thoughts creep in then that game is dead to me, even when I leave it and try to go back I just can't get any enthusiasm back for it.

I honestly don't know why this happens to me, it's like I'm on some demented quest to find the perfect game and nothing else is worthy of my precious time. Except when I don't play the game I was previously enjoying I'll just end up fucking sat there for two hours flicking at my phone and watching something on Quest about how combine harvesters are made.

I just spent 80 hours with Persona 5 and loved every minute. And the ending was the icing on the cake. It was a proper ending, as well. Too often games nowadays have proper shitty endings. (Far Cry 5 I'm looking at you).

Maybe you're sick of games that end poorly? And make you wonder why you bothered?

I like games that end. The 'Souls', Wolfensteins, Yakuza 0, Nier Automata (ends!) from the top of my head have all been excellent. I think because I've limited time to play I prefer something that wont go on and on. Saying that though I'm only playing No Mans Sky at the moment and that's ace (30hrs in).

I enjoy the odd game that last 20-100 hours but too many of those really burn me out if they’re not top-tier stuff. It’s difficult to get around to start something if you know you ain’t going to see the end for weeks or months after starting it. I’ve had two massive JRPGs sat on the shelf for months because the prospect of starting them seems like work. Personally I like to play shorter games (and the odd MP shooter) in between the big stuff which helps maintain my interest in gaming. I know Myp ain’t looking for recommendations but maybe something you can finish in a night might bring you back into the fold. If you haven’t played INSIDE then you definitely should. It can be finished in a couple of hours but the experience is better than most campaigns (yup, even better than God of War).

I'm the polar opposite of the mindset many here are putting forward. The idea of playing a game with no end seems pointless to me and utterly demotivates me from even starting. The closest I've come to this kind of thing is eyeing up Rocket League now and again, but I'm pretty sure I'll only play it a couple of times before moving back to stuff with an actual story and defined end point. There are so many fucking brilliant games out there and I want to play as many of them as I can, so spending time on something that I can't ever properly 'tick off' seems weird to me. This is especially true given that I don't like to have multiple games on the go at once--I know for a fact that for me that's a recipe for just never properly enjoying or finishing any of them--so having an 'endless' game on the go would just fuck that up. And I do appreciate that attitude will probably be utterly alien and bonkers to most people. I dunno, I suppose part of me likes feeling like I've 'progressed' and with something that's endless I don't feel that's possible. I know you can hit certain goals in these type of games but when there's no actual end point it doesn't really work for me. Moving further down an infinitely long line is the same as not moving at all, if you see what I mean.

Ultimately none of this matters, as long as you're having fun when you're playing a game that's the be all and end all; because that's the only reason it exists. If you play one single game forever, or rattle through them at a furious pace, as long as you're enjoying yourself then you're Doing It Right.

I play either. I don't care. I'm easily pleased.

Just as a side-bar, unlike the way The Doc looks at this stuff, I don't have an issue with open world or RPGs in this regard. All those games still have a story with a beginning, middle and an end so there's a defined end point for me to hang my hat on. Taking stuff like GTA or Fallout as examples I'm done when I've finished the main story and done as much of the side stuff as interests me (a metric which varies with each game). GTA was easy because the 'open world' is a bullshit shell with nothing actually interesting going on in it so you just smash the story and you're finished. And if you ignore the nonsense Radiant quests in FO4 there always comes a point when you've done all the quests you can; at which point it's over.

I think I like seeing myself improve at competitive games, climb up the rankings etc. Although online shooters tend to bore me a lot these days. PUBG is an exception because I play it more like a tooled up game of hide and seek. Also because we have a very fun squad.

I mean, yeah, it works in many a context.