Author: Ray Mcgill
I am not typically one for the standard New Year Resolutions. I tell myself I will get to the gym more, or I’ll stop cursing so much, or…yadda yadda yadda. Point is, anything I promise to myself in that grand scheme idea, never works. So I don’t do it. Impossible to disappoint yourself if you don’t pump yourself up in the first place folks. Words to live by. Now resolutions about something smaller, that works. So I decided this year I am going to try some resolutions for gaming. As an adult who likes playing longer games, it can be difficult to hit everything, simply because the time isn’t there. How many sprawling Japanese stories about teenagers killing God while romancing the local sales clerk can I get through while I have to work a day job and go to school? The answer is probably not many, so that is why I am thinking I need to change the way I play games at times. So to that end, let’s get into my gaming resolutions of 2022:
Don’t dedicate all game-time to the “main” game I am playing: I tend to gravitate toward Japanese RPG’s, which has been the case since I first played Final Fantasy III on the SNES. These games can be easily dozens of hours long, many of them hitting the 100-hour mark; something that the first Persona game actually bragged about on the back of the box in the United States as a “Special Feature”. However, the way I play these games can actually lead to burnout, because I will play them to the exclusion of anything else. I just go all-in, much like I did this past Summer with the Trails of Cold Steel series. Instead, I plan on letting myself take a night off from a game to play a different, albeit smaller one. Something like a relaxing night with a Shovel Knight can be put in after 3 straight days of a Shin Megami Tensei V.
Accept that I won’t be someone who streams regularly, if at all: I am not someone who can be “on” with any sort of regularity. I love the idea of streaming, I love the idea of talking with some people while playing games, but I know that I am not someone who can keep that up on a steady cadence, and build an audience. I should stick to what I know, feel good with, and feel comfortable with. That is writing, and being on the occasional podcast. Now that’s not to say that if Rich or any of the guys ask me to come on a stream, I’ll say no, I just know the person driving that truck can’t be me.
Keep a list of games that I play, and write notes about them: Generally, I can remember a lot of details. My memory is good, maybe not the best, but good enough. I should start writing notes as I am playing a game for the first time, especially if I plan on writing about it. Also though the number of games I generally play in a given year is pretty low, so that may help. But I want to start keeping some sort of document that tracks the games that I play for the year, and I have already started that document, and it currently sits at 3 games. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, Nobody Saves the World, and the latest game I played, which I won’t mention, because it feeds into my next resolution…
Do more retro reviews for the site: One of my favorite things I wrote last year for Sword Chomp was my review about Spawn on the GBC. It’s a bad game, but I had fun playing it because it allowed me to give some amusing stuff for the site, and sharing that experience made it worthwhile. In a bubble, talking to no one, should someone play that game? Hell no; but with a potential audience to talk about it with, changes that calculus entirely.
Stop playing MMO’s when there is no content I wish to engage with: MMO’s like WoW in the past, and currently FFXIV serve as this easy escape for me. I know how to play these games so deeply that I can just sink into them for hours. The thing is, I will never be some hardcore endgame raider. I will never make billions crafting. I am a casual player of these games, and as such I need to treat them more casually. Come back when a big patch hits, have my fun, then play other stuff. I can waste too much time logging on and accomplishing nothing. But this also feeds into the last review, which is almost a synthesis of these other resolutions…
Don’t become paralyzed by choice: Owning a lot of video games has never been easier. When I was a kid, I only owned like 3 NES games, so those 3 games I played over and over and over again due to the lack of choice. That is not the case anymore. Between what I have on consoles, Epic, Steam, and Launchbox, I have thousands of games. What that doesn’t help with though is part of how my anxiety works. When I am presented with too many choices, I can become paralyzed by the sheer volume, and either shut down, or go to a default game like FFXIV. This is something I need to work on, and plan on doing so in 2022. I want to be able to look at that list I am keeping, and see a plethora of titles. I want to look at a notebook, and see a bunch of notes scrawled on many pages. This year is starting with me in a very different place than I was at this time last year. So with games at least, I plan on making the most of it.
What about you, dear readers? Do you have any gaming resolutions for 2022?