I have a huge pile of shame as do most (if not all) gamers. Especially on PC, it’s too easy to go to Steam and pick up ten games at a dollar each. They have sales all the damn time. I just bought Steelrising (Spiders) and Judgment (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) in the Autumn Sale and while I fully intend to try them both, it’s equally likely one (or both!) will end up installed, but unplayed. Steelrising is a soulslike that is set during the French Revolution and involves robots with fans. Yes, you can use fans as a weapon. What is not to love?
I watched a video of a guy who wwhittled down his backlog to games that he actually wanted to play and thought he would get to in a year. I have included it below. He did it in fornt of his chat, which was an interesting choice. I’m sure they were helpful and passionate in pushing the games they loved, which was the point.
I’ll be real with you. I have hundreds of games that I bought on impulse and never played. I would not be surprised if it was five hundred or more. This is from a decade of playing video games. Whether it’s a humble bundle’s worth of games or just an interesting title on steep sale, it gets added to my digital pile, never to be thought of again.
I have a vague idea of doing something on stream like trying each game for five minutes before deciding if I would keep playing it or not. While doing it on stream, I could decide to kep playing a game if I were feeling it, or I could put it aside to play later or never to touch again.
Here’s the thing. I can tell within five or ten minutes if I will like something. This is not just games–it’s all pop culture. For better or worse, I hve very strong and definite tastes that really don’t change. I have to correct myself. I have strong tastes, but they tend to be more what I DON’T like than what I do. As with most of the things in my life, I’m hard to pigeonhole. Games-wise, I love FromSoft games, yes, but after that, all bets are off.
Ian has said that it’s difficult to recommend games to me because it’s hard to know what I will gravitate towards. You might think that soulsilkes would be a lock, but they’re actually the most difficult to figure out if I’ll like them or not. Why? Because the thing that draws me to Souls games is hard to replicate. it’s not just pure difficulty. It’s not just losing all your stuff when you die. It’s not just bombastic bosses. I think too many developers focus on the surface things that set a From game apart without going deeper.
Let’s put in hard bosses, punishing enemies, skimpy save points, and an endurance bar! That’s all you need, right? Nope. that’s just the start–not the finish. I have tried dozens of soulslikes, and I think the only one I finished was–wait, there are two. Salt and Sanctuary was one and The Surge (the original one) was the other. The former was more a clone than an homage, albeit in 2D. The latter was a janky mess, affectionately known as Junkyard Souls, but it was so satisfying to clunk off a robot’s arm and take it for my own.
In RKG streams, I made people’s heads spin by saying that I preferred The Surge to Nioh (Team Ninja). i had so many incredulous and indignant comments aimed at me about how Nioh was the far superior game. They were completely flummoxed when I cheerfully agreed with them. Nioh IS the better game, but I vastly preferred playing The Surge. Why? Because Nioh was too grueling for me. If you started a mission, you had to finish it. You couldn’t dip out and go somewhere else to grind. It was just relentless, and I did not gel with the combat system the way I did the From games (eventually). Plus, the levels were just ugly. Yes, The Surge levels were samesy and not very creative, but they weren’t butt-ugly the way Nioh‘s levels were.
Back to the backlog.
When I am in between games and don’t know what to play, I usually go back to a From game. There ain’t anything wrong with that, obviously. However, I would like to expand my horizon. Watching my brother date has really made me more cognizant of how I’m stuck in a rut. He just doesn’t let his doubts get in his way. I’m not sure he has doubts–at least not in doing the dating apps. He swipes, ah, right? Whichever way is the ‘let’s talk’ way then sends a quick message. He tailors it to what he’s read/seen in the pics, but he doesn’t spend too much time on the initial comment. Then, he just moves on.
It smacks my gob; it really does. I agonize over e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. The last time he was over and swiping away, I swiped with him. Except, I only swiped left (the ‘no thank you’ side). In addition, on Okcuid, you can pick hundreds of questions to answer. I wasted a lot of time doing that. Well, not wasting, but I spent most of my time answering question after question.I didn’t actually message anyone. To be fair to me, I was doing it more to keep my brother company than because I was actually looking for someone.
I don’t really want to date, by the way. I just want a few booty calls. Or more to the point, two or three friends with benefits. I prefer to spend my time alone (with my cat), and I have so many issues that would make it difficult for me to be with someone. I’m not talking emotional issues, though I have those as well, but physical issues. I am allergic to everything under the sun–including the sun. I am wary of going outside and I have gotten sick three of the four times I’ve been to Target since the pandemic restrictions loosened a year-and-a-half ago (vaxxes becoming available, too), and once was in a life-threatening manner.
Add to the fact that I can’t eat anything, can’t be outside, can’t go to crowded places, andcan’t eat in restaurants, and, well, why the hell would someone want to date me? In addition, I’m a weirdo who doesn’t fit in anywheere. Too arty for the mainstream and too straight edged for the creatives. I’m much more artsy than ‘normal’, but I have no interest in mind-altering substances including alcohol.
How the hell did I get stuck in the dating lane? I was talking about my pile of shame. It’s the same, really. I don’t really fit in anywhere. Yes, I love From games, but after that–it’s anyone’s guess. It’s hard for me to know if I’m going to like a game, but it’s easier for me to immediately know I won’t. I hated Dark Souls the whole time I was playing it. I finished it with hate in my heart (including the DLC). I played it a second time through to prepare myself for the second game and that’s when I saw the beauty and the creativity in the original.
By the time Dark Souls III came out, I was hooked. That was the first of the From games I played real time as it were, and it’s my favorite game of all time. Yes, even after playing Elden Ring. Dark Souls III edges it out by a hair.
I really do think I’m going to do a ‘is it worth more than five minutes’ kind of stream to get through my pile of shame If I’m not feeling it in five minuet,s it’s out! Then maybe I can whittle down my backlog to a manageable size.