Back to backlogs

I’ve been enjoying the shooting parts of Rage 2. Still trying to get use to the driving feel. Story is horrible. :)

I played the first hour or so of Rage 2 through Game Pass… two weeks ago now? and it wasn’t really clicking for me. I may go back at some point (stopped right before entering the sewers) but I won’t shed a tear if I never get back to it.

I had forgotten about The Outer Worlds. I did the first planet and then put it on hold. I really should return to it at some point. I enjoy this kind of game a lot.

I played it on Xbox and enjoyed those first couple of hours a lot. But last night I started over on the PC and did the same section, and I’m not feeling it this time. Even skipping all the cutscenes, I was kind of bored by the action at the start. But I put that more to the fact that I’ve already played through this part before. Hopefully after I get to new territory, I’ll start enjoying it.

I don’t knock anything out these days. More like a couple of soft jabs.

I preordered RE2, was so excited about playing it. Played for an hour and haven’t returned to it.

Now I know you’ve gotta have better choices than that in your backlog!

Well, I do have my PS4 backlog too:

Yep, I’d go with one of those. Dad of War was very good. Uncharted 4 was good, I like those characters. U:LL is supposed to be even better. Horizon Zero Dawn is very good.

I don’t always knock out the games I play but when I do … ok I don’t know how to finish that. But I’m just like you guys, if a game doesn’t engage me, it’s hard to motivate myself to beat them. And sometimes I just don’t. I started The Outer Worlds and it wasn’t grabbing me. I stepped back, played some other stuff, then started thinking that I should get back to it - it’s totally up my alley, and probably the closest thing I’m going to get to a new Mass Effect game for some time. And I’m glad I did - once you get a few folks in your crew and get out and start seeing new worlds, it really picks up. That first world is kinda slow though.

Rage 2 I wasn’t terribly interested in until I caught a streamer going through it just having a blast. So now I kinda really do want to play it. Maybe not next, see how I feel after Outer Worlds. Which will probably be after Christmas.

As far as Resident Evil 2, well … I feel like I need some time with that one because I figure I probably want to play it twice. It still has that thing where you can play as Leon and then Claire right? A and B scenario? So that will probably take me a while. Plus, I really wish they had dropped the price around Halloween because that would have been perfect timing to play. But, it is what it is, as John Madden always said. So yeah, I’ll play it, just not totally sure when.

This is the main reason I don’t have a PlayStation, I’d have yet another backlog to sort out.

This week I went back to Skyrim and I’m determined to finally finish the main questline. I vow to never get sidetracked. Never!

This is a character I created in 2014. Five years of on-and-off play, though this year more off than on. Going back – it’s like gaming comfort food.

With Skyrim I just did the main quest and beat it at 12 level. I just couldn’t be bothered doing a lot of side missions that seemed pointless.

I guess if you feel that the point of playing a game is to finish the game, then yeah.

So, the urgency of backlogs has shifted for me this past year. I used to have this constant buzz in the background in my mind, a reminder to myself that I need to play certain games in my backlog. While that’s still there, it’s faded a bit. The more urgent one is my ever-growing book backlog. I’ve bought SOOOO MANY books this past year, and my reading speed is so slow, I just know I can’t read them all, even if I buy nothing else from now on.

Of course, that’s been true of games for a long time now. Maybe that’s the secret. You get to the point where the backlog is so big, and full of so much good content, you stop worrying about whether you’ll ever get to it, and focus only on the new and upcoming games/books instead.

To me, it’s always been about having a deep pool to dive into when I’m looking to get into a new game. If I lock into one out of every four I try, that’s not too bad a ratio. Even easier with low-risk services like XGP.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention XGP. Xbox Game Pass is one of the major reasons I think the game backlog suddenly stopped mattering to me. Now, there’s always something excellent to try/play at all times, no matter what I’m in the mood for.

I remember Christien saying something about looking at the list of books you want to read and realizing there is no way you will ever read them all. Hits harder now that he’s gone.

Wonder if there’s any software for tracking backlogs, progress, etc, and also one that would randomly recomend you pick one (so you do not have to decide).

Or if someone should make one, let me just patent the idea first.

Guess a spreadsheet… or text file, just use powershell to print out a random line.

http://steam.scenariogenerator.net/

:thumbsup:

Wonder if there’s any non-steam ones also. I guess there are some “game library apps” taht can be used, think I had one long time ago that I used for different emulators and stuff, maybe I remember what it was called and can use that.