Patient Gamers

Same, new releases seem much more focused on being slot machines instead of actual games fun to play.

Do you watch any gaming-related media, like YouTube or Twitch? It's quite an accomplishment to not get sucked into the hype of a new release - it used to be for me, anyway. Recent bad game releases have made me a little more sceptical.

Comfort games are the best. You just always know you'll enjoy them - no matter what. And again, it doesn't feel bad at all to drop them on a whim if you've had your fill.

I really don't get hype. I do look forward to new releases but I always sit back, wait for reviews, and if they're good, add them to wishlist and then wait for a sale (I'm cheap that way).

What really boggles me is all the people who watch a trailer or similar and go HYPE HYPE HYPE, er, people, you all know this is marketing right? All that hype is just asking for disappointment later.

Yea, Nintendo games are kind of a safe bet. They're usually quality games, so I also tend to pick them up sometime around release too. My SO has been playing TotK and has been having a lot of fun - seems really good so far.

PC releases have been kind of a mess, right? lol

For sure! Trends dictating what you should and shouldn't play are kind of a mess. It's nice to feel like a part of a community who's "playing the game together", but usually big releases have a good following a couple weeks or months later too, so you're not really missing out, I feel like.

Dude, the PSP was my childhood! I didn't play anything else back then lol. The portability was king.

Even for Nintendo IT could be beneficiary to stay Patient and buy later, AS their cardridges will get the newest Game Release regularly. Patches, Features, Bug fixes.

I can definitely relate when it comes to Nintendo games. I bought ToTK on day one, and I still haven't finished it. I'm trying to pace myself and make it last as long as possible. Once I'm done with it, I'm not sure which game to play next on my PC.

Replaying old games and discovering older "new" ones, at least to me, has been the norm for me for a few years now. I told myself I would buy Cyberpunk 2077 on day one, but I'm still waiting for it to be considered "done" and released as Game of the Year edition.

It's going to be really hard for me to be a "Patient Gamer" with Starfield later this year. I've been a fan of Bethesda RPGs since the days of Morrowind.

Okay, so just a heads-up: this came out to be a lot longer and thorough than I had initially expected lol. Feel free to not read it all.

Well, let's take the couple games I mention in my post, if you're interested:

ME1-3: The first time I had played the game was back on the 360 when I was just a little kid trying out random games. I was too spooked by the beginning of the Eden Prime mission where the Husks jump off those spikes and chase you around lol. On a whim, I gave the first game another try a couple months ago and didn't expect too much. The beginning was a little rough to get into, but ultimately, the lore drew me in a lot. Sure, even with the Legendary Edition and its additions the game is a little clunky at times and shows its age, but it was perfectly serviceable and a lot of fun to to play through. I enjoyed the dialogues and voice acting, the choices felt meaningful and had quite a bit of an impact on ME2-3, and the banter with your crewmates was amazing. There were bits and pieces that were just ok-ish, like driving around the Mako, and the rather repetitive sidequests, but the main story kept me interested.

ME2 is the real deal. Everything good about the first game has been expanded upon and made even better. The interactions with your crewmates have been made even better and are the best in the series through their loyalty missions, the story was - albeit sometimes a little "willy-nilly" - even better and felt meaningful, and the combat was superb. Enjoyed my time there a lot, and the final mission was just chef's kiss.

By the time I hit ME3, I was slowly starting to get a little worn out by the games, but I kept going. The story was amazing again, the combat was still good but didn't blow me away as much as it did in the second game, the interactions with the crewmates felt nice, and it was cool to see so many familiar faces again. The ending was... not as bad as everyone makes it out to be imho. It was a little abrupt, I'll give it that, but it was nowhere near catastrophic as people claimed it to be. It was serviceable and the ending I chose felt like a good canon ending to Shepard's story.

That's all I can think of right now - it's a couple months ago that I played the games, so I don't have it really fresh in my mind.

Bloodborne: Like many others, I put off this games for the longest time and came back to it years later. First tried it sometime around 2018 when it was a free PS Plus game and tried it again last year. The initial difficulty scared me off especially considering that it's been the first soulslike I've played up until that point.

It was really difficult to get a hang of things, and a couple of times I was about to drop the game altogether due to frustration and impatience. Ultimately, the mechanics, overall theme and atmosphere, and its open-ended story and lore are what pulled me back in constantly. I had a couple of months where I was obsessed with the game and couldn't think about anything else: listened to the Paleblood Hunt probably 3-4 times (it's on Spotify and is amazing), I platinumed it, started several other characters, and had a blast.

Sekiro: After finishing Bloodborne, I felt confident and gave Sekiro another shot which I had also put away for a couple of years lol. The learning curve was brutal and getting used to the rhythm of the fights was quite difficult. I ended up platinuming the game in the end via 3 separate playthroughs and, once again, enjoyed the game a lot. I feel like the parrying mechanic actually made me dislike other games for some time because they didn't feel as weighty and meaningful as Sekiro: Sekiro has a certain rhythm, a dance even, to its combat and is really rewarding when you get a hang of it. The final boss might be the best I ever had the pleasure of experiencing - they still kicked my ass a bunch of times lol.

Overall, Sekiro just might be my favourite game of all time. I enjoy the story a lot, the combat feels really good, the score is superb as is the case with most FromSoft games... I could go on an on. :)

Frostpunk: It was actually pretty random that I gave it a try. I saw footage of a couple years ago in videos and didn't pay too much attention to it because I'm usually not some who's interested in city builders. Boy, was I wrong about Frostpunk. I found it on PS Plus Extra, gave it a go and couldn't stop playing for a couple hours straight.

The loop of identifying a problem and thinking of a short-term and long-term solution is key here. The game presents problems naturally and introduces them over time instead of off-loading them immediately. Even though the game is quite stressful at times, it is very much manageable and is ultimately what I enjoy about RTS, which I cannot play because they're too stressful and present too many problems and unknown variables all at once. I finished all the main scenarios in normal difficulty and am currently playing The Last Autumn DLC, which puts a nice spin of things with its different mechanics and challenges. Really good game overall.

I guess it is kind of implied that you have to finish a game once you start playing it. At least this was the case for me because I felt like I didn't get my money's worth out of it if I didn't finish it. But you're completely right.