Player2’s 2018 Gaming Resolutions
The new year is well and truly upon us and brings with it an opportunity to reflect on the previous 12 months and a chance to remove or improve some of the bad habits and choices we’ve been making. While many of Player2 crew have already made New Year’s Resolutions regarding fitness, careers and wellbeing – it is our love of gaming that ultimately unites us. Unfortunately, some of us have room to improve when it comes to this passion, so we’ve decided to make our 2018 Gaming Resolutions known here for posterity and the inevitable ridicule when we’ve all but given them up in a few weeks time.
Paul James – Play More Switch
Despite being host to two of the best games of 2017 as well as several other excellent titles, the most time I spent with my Switch this year was when Golf Story came out. Golf Story is great, but as the year came to a close, it was crazy to me that I’d put in a combined play time of 150mins into both Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. On top of that I’ve barely made inroads into Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, enjoyed, but quickly got over ARMS and never started Splatoon 2. Thankfully, as you’re reading this, I’m rectifying that Mario and Zelda problem as I spend many hours in the air on route to my honeymoon, but 2017 has highlighted my need to manage my time better, sharing it more equally between my beloved PS4, XB1 and the handheld Switch. A traditional Nintendo console wouldn’t have been neglected by me, but there seems to be this stupid part of me, somewhere in my brain, that labels handheld games as second-class citizens – it’s been the case for most traditional handheld games, but with Nintendo shaking the established system to its core – I need to quickly adapt and give more TLC to my beautiful little Switch. In 2018 I’ll be much better to you my friend!
Sarah Ellen – Finish Something Current
It is a running joke that I am notorious for playing games a good 12-144 months after their original release date. Especially in 2017, I was so overwhelmed with the number of new games that I felt guilty about my stockpile of old games that are still sitting in limbo, beckoning to me.
Stephen del Prado – One At A Time
Last year brought a host of changes to my life, not the least of which was the birth of my son Link in January of 2017. Increasingly gaming had begun to feel like a chore, mainly due to my tendency to spread myself too thin across work and family. Thanks to advice from the wonderful Ken Lee and some terse discussions with my wife regarding the amount of unplayed games in our media room, I began to divest myself of unplayed titles and games I hadn’t really clicked with. I also had an ‘aha’ moment during 2017 when good friend of Player2 and freelance writer extraordinaire Jason Imms described Persona 5 (and I’m paraphrasing here) as a “game he’d like to finish rather than play”, which to me was a perfect description for how I was feeling about a lot of the games that I owned or planned to get around to – I wanted to finish them, but I didn’t necessarily want to play them. These new behaviours will carry forward into the coming year – my planned purchases are low and my backlog is slowly getting cleared.
Looking forward, my next area of improvement is the way I play. I often rotate between a few titles which makes completing anything an extremely lengthy affair. I also tend to leave some games longer than others to the point I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing and have to resort to a guide. I’m resolving to make 2018 the year that I focus on a single game at a time and drop absolutely anything that isn’t holding my attention.
Royce Wilson – Finish More Games
I play a LOT of them but due to the time constraints involved in getting a review done while the game is still “New”, it’s uncommon for me to actually get to see the ending(s) for them.
Stevie McDonald – Play More, Buy Less
My gaming resolution for 2018 is twofold: first, I need to play more video games, dagnabbit! My gaming time was woefully meagre for most of 2017; partially due to work and parenting duties, partially due to the fact I’m an extremely dedicated procrastinator who kept “saving up” games I was looking forward to playing. Why? Don’t ask me, I just live here.
Secondly, I’ve decided to try and attack my backlog. Thanks to the same reasons stated above, my pile of shame keeps getting bigger and shamier every month. There are so many fantastic games I haven’t yet finished (The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Watch Dogs 2) and so many more I haven’t even started (Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3, Until Dawn) that I shouldn’t need to buy any new games for ages!
… right?
Matt Hewson – Try Something New
It is hard to come across new things in gaming, but they do exist and it is my goal to seek them out and give them a red hot go this year. It might be a genre I am not familiar with, a gameplay style that hasn’t gelled or even a system I haven’t really used, but my intentions are to seek these fresh ideas and experience them first hand.
This might mean I tackle an MMO, learn how to play NHL or even give Dark Souls another crack (probably not) but I feel like I am playing the same types of games over and over again so I need to refresh my outlook on gaming with something different and new.