That was the point of my question, to be honest. I don't understand. Cheating in a single player game to experience it I get. Unlimited ammo, all unlocks, that kind of thing - it lets the game be played differently. But against other players it seems completely pointless from my perspective.
Infinite Backlog gives you one place for your entire gaming collection and encourages you to play your games and get your backlogs under control. It provides a visual breakdown of your cross-platform collection, tracks gaming achievements and statistics and lets you connect with other gamers with the same games....
I may be from another generation (I am in my 40s), but I don't get the point of spending money on a title I don't know if I will have ever time or interest to play.
The price isn't static. If one buys during a sale then it's available whenever one feels like playing. Much like stocking up on shirts during a sale at a clothes shop - clothing options are then available at home. Of course buying games one isn't interested in would be strange behaviour but I don't think anyone else is suggesting that's normal behaviour.
Also, this feeds stale mechanics, since most titles are bought in bulk during sales that are usually centered around game categories.
Why would I want to deplete my entertainment options?
That's like attempting to watch everything on a streaming service. The goal would be to run out of novel entertainment, which seems antithetical to the point of the product.
I know they exist (the sales by topics) but my emphasis was on "most".
And just like weight and fashion changes for shirts, I may change my schedule and interests not to fit games I bought years ago.
Where one draws the line on min/maxing is deeply personal. I'm happy to take a risk that my tastes will remain close enough to justify the purchase, evidently you feel otherwise. Neither of us are wrong (other than you, obviously - we're arguing on the internet so I need to be needlessly confrontational, it's the law or some old charter or something).
I was mostly replying because I don't think your way is wrong but I don't think mine is either. I have at least a thousand games in my collection. Unless something really enticing is released that calls to me (rare) then I always have fresh experiences waiting in my library. It's probably cost a few thousand pounds over nearly twenty years and I feel that's a reasonable trade-off to have that facility.
It's not the result of frivolous spending or poor impulse control. It's a deliberate choice to min/max in a different direction. I too use IsThereAnyDeal and slowly hoover up titles that I've got my eye on. I rarely immediately play things I pick up!
The "point of the product" isn't to provide theoretical novel entertainment value by sitting, unplayed, on my digital shelves. Bold take here, but I'd suggest the point of a video game is to be played.
I see it as its job is to provide an option for entertainment. To use another flawed analogy, whilst ideally I'd like to wear everything in my wardrobe at least once I don't feel bad that my jeans see much more use than my tuxedo. I don't avoid buying a pair of shorts because I already have plenty of shirts. My goal is to have a good selection of options available in the hope that I'll never find myself short of something suitable.
I grew up playing games in the '90s. I remember running out of new things to play. It was miserable!
So I make a point of having a large library so there's always things hiding in there that I might enjoy. The last thing I want is to have played everything in my collection. The very notion of a "backlog" is strange to me. It's a library or a collection, not an obligation. Trying to min/max it doesn't feel particularly healthy framing to me.
I really don't think it's a particularly hot take. The very term "backlog" normally refers to obligations. Plenty of people suffer from productivity guilt and applying that kind of framework to something that by its very nature is designed to be unproductive feels like a dreadful idea to me.
so how do you know you're going to enjoy the games you're buying if they sit in your library past the refund window?
Knowing that about any given media before consuming it is an impossible ask, so that's a bit of a deadend to start with. I make my purchasing decisions based on a combination of developer reputation (e.g. FTL was great and Into the Breach was awesome too), reviews (not from any major game sites, I'm talking about friends and similar), and experience with the genre.
Also, as I've said elsewhere, I'm spending less than the cost of a pint of beer. Any given game doesn't have to deliver all that much to justify its cost.
Even if I don't enjoy it, perhaps my wife will, or eventually my daughter.
Do you not worry they may end up being unplayable bloat "polluting" your library?
I don't really understand the concept of what you're asking. I understand the words but the emotional meaning is completely lost on me. There's a load of assumptions underpinning it, from what I can see. Is someone else supposed to be looking at my library and drawing conclusions about my character based on it? If so, I couldn't possibly care less. Or is it a convenience thing, like finding a game would be hard? There's text search and there's not an insurmountable quantity regardless.
Or something else? I don't get what you're asking, sorry.
Or do you have a super broad taste and you enjoy everything?
I don't know how broad the average taste is, I'm afraid I have no point of comparison. I've played most genres over the last 30+ years and there's only a few I find tedious (sports games, medieval fantasy-themed stuff, simulation-focussed stuff). What is a normal breadth of taste?
I really enjoy looking at my library and going: "Damn, I could launch any of these games right now and have a great time!" which wouldn't be true if I have a bunch of shit I don't enjoy playing and can't refund.
Whilst I have some stuff that I wouldn't enjoy, most of what I have was bought because it had some appeal to me. I don't buy many games, I've just been buying them for decades so it adds up.
I prefer having a large selection so there's always potentially new fun things hiding in my collection. Knowing everything about it removes some of the mystique, essentially.
It's also worth noting that I don't know what I'll enjoy anymore. When I was a child I really enjoyed management games, for example, so on the one hand they have nostalgic appeal, but on the other I have enough to manage in my life now so find them exhausting. There's also an element of enjoying things that others don't - I spent a lot of time playing Godus and listening to audiobooks. People do not like that game!
You can perhaps start to see why I don't like the concept of a "backlog" - my perspective isn't built that way!
I don't so much struggle as not enjoy it. It's not what I'm here for. Kind of like if I go to an acoustic gig and there's dubstep. Nothing wrong with dubstep but it's not what I was in the mood for.
It feels like an additional layer of mechanics that I didn't sign up for. I used it as necessary when playing Titanfall 2 but didn't care for it there either!
for me mine are 1. Elden Ring, 2. RDR2 3. BOTW, all because they genuinely blew my mind when playing them for the first time and changed how I saw and played video games.
Fallout 2 isn't as refined and tight as Fallout but I personally enjoy it more. It's arguably far too big but as I've played it so many times (unusual for me - I'm usually a one-and-done person when it comes to time sink RPGs) that isn't a bad thing. I enjoy the writing, mechanics, and atmosphere. Also I voice a robot dog in a mod for it.
Red Alert 2 is the best C&C game ever. I do not care for any of the 3D ones and Red Alert 1 is rather too difficult for me. However RA2 I have finished on hardest difficulty several times. I've never really bothered with the multiplayer for it outside of co-op because I don't play to be competitive. I tend to take my time and like it that way.
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is maybe my favourite point and click RPG. I go back to it every few years and it always sucks me in. I know most of the puzzles off by heart but I'm more there for the sense of escapism and gentle humour. There's other amazing point and click games but for whatever reason this one really speaks to me. It's not even a nostalgia thing - I've only ever played the 2009 director's cut! I'm old enough to have played the '90s version but never did.
Honourable mentions:
*Startopia
*The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
*Theme Hospital
*What Remains of Edith Finch
Startopia's music, humour, and gameplay are all top notch. Runs on a potato, makes me laugh, and features my old pal, Arona.
BoI:R is great. I've put a ridiculous number of hours into it. The latest DLC has made it a bit too big for my tastes but in general I enjoy it a great deal.
Theme Hospital is like Two Point Hospital but tighter, funnier, and prettier. Lots of fun.
What Remains of Edith Finch is art. It's funny, moving, tragic, and beautiful. I encourage everyone to play through it. It won't take that long - a few hours. Such a fantastic experience. Gone Home is pretty damn good too.
Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare was excellent.
I quite like most of the The Binding of Isaac DLC (although sometimes they're a bit too big, to be honest).
The Vietnam DLC for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was also rather good. I didn't get to play as much of it as I might have liked but I remember it being more than just a resin.
Bonus: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge (an expansion pack rather than DLC admittedly)
The official reveal of Battlefield 6 is still a day away, but a fresh leak has spoiled some of the surprise, detailing an October release date, an $80 price point, and a pricier premium edition if you want to spend even more money on EA’s latest FPS....
Hello, in the recent years I find myself willing to spend much less time and energy on games, but I do still enjoy them. Oftentimes I end up quitting a new game I tried out relatively early on, because I’m encountering some block, grind, non-optional boring side quest, empty open world, uninteresting clutter or details that I...
Looking to ask for people’s favorite tactical RPGs because I have played a bunch but never really gotten into any. XCOM, Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Advance Wars, Fallout, etc....
Thank you! I felt like I was the only person on the planet to think that those games only hit the dizzying heights of "okay, fine at a push". They're perfectly serviceable and not much more.
I know lots of people hate it but taken in isolation it's okay. I found its aesthetics charming and its pace generally pretty chill. It wasn't good but it wasn't terrible. Low medium perhaps but I have comfortable memories of listening to an audiobook whilst playing it.
Honestly? Not really. My best memories of gaming were in my 20s in my student flat. Lots of Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
I played games in the early '90s and don't have much nostalgia for most of the games themselves. The late '90s had the PSX and N64 and whilst Mario Kart 64 is probably the best in the series I can't say I feel most of the games of those platforms were "the best".
I think I would say that the best games are the PC games that came out between 1998 and 2002. Those I can genuinely enjoy today.
I cannot say the same for much that came out in the 1980s. Most of them entertain me for about thirty seconds, without hyperbole.
Once we get past the early 2000s I'm hard pressed to find any games that I think are truly "the best". 2007 was pretty damn good as was 2009.
When it comes to gaming with friends any game can be good. The game is practically just a framing device. I've not made many friends whilst gaming. I've gamed with friends but mostly I've found that people either just want to be arseholes or are extremely serious about playing online. In person I've found that the skill disparity means that it's a complete crapshoot. I played a lot of Mario Kart 64 over a ten year period and don't have any outstanding memories of it being the best thing ever (I think it's the best MK game but that's because the others are worse).
Mostly I like games that I can use as escapism. Exploring fun places and getting away from the day to day. I've rarely had all that much fun gaming with other people. Exceptions exist though - playing through the recent TMNT game with my teenaged niece was a blast. Playing KeyWe with my wife was also great.
Hiya, just newly thought about something: wouldn't be nice if there was a simple way of checking what games you have played over the years, a way to keep track of wether you liked the game or not, how much time you spent playing it etc.. Currently, personally i only check steam library for those kinda details. But it would be...
I can definitely see the appeal of being able to do stuff with the information, and I doubt I could sit down and make a list of every game I've ever played. However my memory is pretty good for this sort of thing. It's very rare for me to lose objects as I have a database-like memory for that stuff.
Amusingly this means that if someone else moves things then I'm comedically awful at searching for whatever it was, and if I move house or re-organise then it takes me a few weeks for my brain to record all the new data. Until then I'm a clueless idiot.
Oh and as I said in another comment - time is my nemesis. I often don't know what day of the week it is and anything beyond about a week and a half into the future has almost no meaning to me. It's not a very useful trade-off!
I played this on Game Pass (Gamepass? I don't recall how they brand it) years ago and had fun with it. I'd enjoy playing it again, assuming I could forget my previous playthrough.
Randy Pitchford Snaps Back at Borderlands 4 Criticism: 'Code Your Own Engine' (insider-gaming.com) angielski
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Star Citizen fans sigh deeply, rub their foreheads as developer casts doubt on Squadron 42's 2026 release: 'I don't know if we're going to make it' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
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Infinite Backlog | A Video Game Collection Tracker (infinitebacklog.net) angielski
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To the dismay of sweaty 'movement kids,' Battlefield 6 is nerfing Call of Duty sliding and jumping to maintain a 'traditional Battlefield experience' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
DICE is yet to give clarity on map sizes, comment section is the usual dumpster fire.
To the dismay of sweaty 'movement kids,' Battlefield 6 is nerfing Call of Duty sliding and jumping to maintain a 'traditional Battlefield experience' (www.pcgamer.com)
DICE is yet to give clarity on map sizes, comment section is the usual dumpster fire.
what are in you're top 3 favourite games of all time? angielski
for me mine are 1. Elden Ring, 2. RDR2 3. BOTW, all because they genuinely blew my mind when playing them for the first time and changed how I saw and played video games.
Xbox Series X and S: Microsoft Has Reportedly Sold Less Than 30 Million Consoles This Generation (in.ign.com) angielski
For reference, Sony was recently boasting that PS5 sold over 80 million copies. This is terrible for Xbox.
A game you think does DLC incredibly well?
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Leaked Battlefield 6 release date semi-confirmed in standard and Phantom Edition post, and it looks like the threat of $80 games persists (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
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Hello, in the recent years I find myself willing to spend much less time and energy on games, but I do still enjoy them. Oftentimes I end up quitting a new game I tried out relatively early on, because I’m encountering some block, grind, non-optional boring side quest, empty open world, uninteresting clutter or details that I...
What are your favorite Tactical RPGs? angielski
Looking to ask for people’s favorite tactical RPGs because I have played a bunch but never really gotten into any. XCOM, Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Advance Wars, Fallout, etc....
What's an absolutely medium quality game? Not great, incredible or terrible or any single ended extreme. Dead medium quality angielski
Following up on this comment since I haven’t seen a thread about it: lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14639216
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How could they do this? angielski
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Hiya, just newly thought about something: wouldn't be nice if there was a simple way of checking what games you have played over the years, a way to keep track of wether you liked the game or not, how much time you spent playing it etc.. Currently, personally i only check steam library for those kinda details. But it would be...
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Why was the Nintendo 64 so Blurry? by Kaze Emanuar - YouTube [18:26min] (youtu.be)
Alternative link: skipvids.com/?v=BA_HMsznNKg (Ad-free and does not use YouTube directly)...