Topic: Gaming Resolutions for the New Year 2024

@Th3solution I finished reading your new year resolutions! Quite an engaging read and it gave me somewhat of a baseline for future brainstorming plans! Definitely more comprehensive and orderly. Side note: I meant add it (the topic) to my watchlist. Not add you. That was a simple typo since I rely on my silly phone like @Ravix would. I’m definitely not standing outside your house or psychotically specific like that.

My gaming resolution for 2024 is just to finish my build for Elden Ring in the most efficient and timely fashion possible. Then I can get on and actually play the game!

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN seems quite doable.

@Yousef- Haha, I didn’t think anything of it. Not because I’m accustomed to being on a watchlist but because I figured you were saying “you” in the anthropomorphic sense, as if you were talking to the thread itself. 😅 Like when there’s one last chip at the bottom of the bag and I say, “Hey, little guy, how did I miss you?”

As for the goals, it’s probably an unhealthy preoccupation of mine. Specific plans and objectives have become part of my routine and now invade my hobbies! 😄 It’s even the way I usually play games — checking off lists of objectives in order.

@Th3solution I’m actually already modeling myself after you. I’m dividing my three month plan into being…. A three month plan…….. I swear this statement will make more sense with pics.

@Ralizah Chris Jericho… always a delight 😆 😂

@Th3solution you’re also giving me helping hand in finding a balance. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

You know me well enough to not be surprised I tried this before, but it didn’t go quite well. In 2022 and 2023. My issue? Too long of a planning period with no specific. The plan? Complete 50 games in one year. Sounds good? It is! But if you’re already forming a specific idea of what “50 games” entail, we have a problem. Because that number stops being impressive if you consider “25 games that are 1 hour long”. You may think I’m still completing 20 games anyways, you’d be correct.

But one problem ☝️
Bloat creates an illusion of progress, rather than being one. A concise and focused mission feels like a bigger deal, which would explain my sense of dissatisfaction with 2022, 2023 and early 2024 when I did this.

Solution? Or Th3solution, would be… take a break, contemplate my actions and strategize.
What I came up with? Hardlines.
Simply put, you have to draw a line in the sand.
My issue was the simple fact I was far too complacent with just any random games, irregardless of what they are. Didn’t care about the consequences, felt I’d be satisfied with it.
I wasn’t.
So what’s next? Learn Kung-fu to tackle such a challenge?
No, you don’t need martial arts. You need your HEAD, so go headbutt that list of games! And the answer, no, Th3answer, shall reveal itself.
What would that be, pray tell?
To quote a mediocre game that Foxy finished a few weeks ago, Size Matters.
The bigger the game, the more satisfaction is guaranteed.
That is my plan.

@Yousef- Sounds like a good plan for you is being developed. Hopefully this can help to direct your game time toward more satisfying ends.

When I make my goals/plans, I usually focus on looking for opportunities to push me slightly toward things that I might otherwise ignore. Humans tend to take the path of least resistance. Of course, gaming is merely a hobby to be enjoyed so it’s not something that should be made uncomfortable or a chore, but when there’s lots of options, it’s easy to look past something that would give greater enjoyment and diversity in place of something that’s comfortable, which usually leads to boredom and complacency. It’s a fine balance, to be sure.

@Th3solution fo sho fo sho! Organization is important for world domination! Err, I mean gaming. Forget that other bit.

But yeah, I myself like keeping things nice and tidy. I am addicted to overthinking, and this helps me manage this in a productive and healthy sense.

@Bob_Salat I’ve had a great year of gaming in 2024 fair play. Wasn’t necessarily expecting it when I decided to dedicate the year to my ps3 backlog… but there were some absolute bangers!

I’ve managed to finish 30 PS3 games this year, with 28 of them plat’d. I’m hoping I manage to finish off the plats on the remaining 2 before the end of the year too. Overall I’m currently on 44 plats in total for 2024 but could possibly make it to 50 by the end of the year if the stars align. Some biggies amongst those, as well as some not-so-biggies.

Condensing pretty much a whole generations best games into one year has made this possibly my favourite gaming year ever if I’m honest.

@Bob_Salat
I’ve had a pretty good year, 46 platinums in total but much of that is down to PS Plus Extra and my compulsive need to finish every game in the service, thankfully I’m free from those shackles which was quite draining I can tell you.
My year started with me finally finishing a Yakuza game, the turn based Like a Dragon which was great.
Also played quite a few multiplayer games and cleared some very old games, all thanks to the PushSq community.

And to top it off I finally jumped into Psvr2.
Plus finally got into Hitman, only for them to announce a VR2 version a few days later so I’ve had to shelve that till March.

Still haven’t played Sekiro beyond the first 20 minutes though.

@PeaceSalad yeah back to ps4 & 5 for the most part, with the occasional ps3 game here and there (as I have 8 remaining ps3 slots to get me to 50 ps3 plats). Gonna work on a few series’s that I’ve wanted to take a sizeable bite out of for a while, so I’ll be doing a couple of Resident Evil games per year, a couple of Final Fantasys, a Mass Effect, a Devil May Cry, a Darksiders and I’ll be following that plan for the next few years until they’re all done. Then in addition to those I’ll throw in a couple of souls-likes, an immersive-sim, a couple of open-worlds (one first-person and one third), a twin-stick and I’m getting quite close to finishing all the Assassins Creed series, so a couple of them. Another busy year I guess 😅.

How about you bud, what you got planned for ‘25?

I know it’s probably way too early for me to be making a resolution, but my resolution for next year is to actually buy more games and playing them since I’m stuck with only a handful and I missed out on a ton of good 2024 games since I didn’t really look up any new releases or researched them. I just realized now that my game collection is pretty small and kinda poor.

@PeaceSalad yeah the three you’ve mentioned looms large over my pre-determined plans tbh. I’ll do the online of GTAVI at release at the very least. I’ll probably play Death Stranding 2 at release too as the online aspects function best with a large player-base (if the original is anything to go by). My fomo can probably allow MGS Delta to stew a while… probably 😉

@PeaceSalad iirc you were playing the original Assassins Creed on Series X around the time we were playing through Zombie Army 4. Have you managed to play any since as if not, they do improve a fair bit after that first game. It might even be an idea to try one of the later trilogy (Origins, Odyssey or Valhalla), they’re all set before the original Assassins Creed chronologically and it was those that got me into the series tbh.

@PeaceSalad
I didn’t make any plans for 2024 tbh, unlike the Colonel who has more detailed plans which go further into the future than the governments net zero plans.
However my PS Plus was expiring so there various multiplayer games needed to be concluded.

As for Assassins Creed Origins and Odyssey are my favourites of the “new” Creeds. Valhalla was just okay. Kassandra from Odyssey is a funny and charming protagonist so that could make your decision about which to play easier.

… & I’d argue more successful 😉

I mean, surely for 2025 everyone's resolution should be to buy, play and become obsessed with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. It's not even funny how people would even consider denying themselves this pleasure 😛

As for resolutions for this year... I really, really, really must finish Hogwarts Legacy, as I'm falling into my usual trap. Loaded up Indy last night to play the intro, but stopped myself. Will go back to Hogwarts this evening. But then Cyberpunk is doing some kind of announcement today, and that's a game I need to actually finish one day, too 😭 so maybe I can get that wrapped up this year/January too.

I think so far this year I've completed Dragon's Dogma 2, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Iki Island DLC, and Jusant. Anything else I played got left in limbo including Astrobot ffs 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️😂

1) Finish ten games

Surprisingly, I actually managed this goal. I was once again optimistic at the start of the year that this would be the one where I get back into gaming. It seemed like that was going to be a fail, again, for the first nine months. In that time, I finished two games: It Takes Two and my fourth playthrough of Mass Effect. Hardly any exciting numbers, but I took it upon myself towards the end of September to rally and take the overall goal of getting back into games proper serious. I'm delighted that I did, and that so far — it seems to have worked out. Any time I'd tried before I'd end up playing maybe one or two games before abandoning the hobby altogether again, but this time I've finished eight games since then and am still going strong. I'm scared to speak prematurely and jinx myself, but I think I've actually rediscovered my love for gaming this year. Eleven games in and counting.

2) Try at least two games from a genre I don't usually play

This goal sounds harder than it was in reality, since I played pretty much exclusively walking simulators/narrative choice games for years. In fact, I'm completely certain that was the entire reason for my burnout. Every game I played for a while there had to fit in this one tight box of qualifications or instant disinterest would take over. I convinced myself that was the only thing I like and want to play, while that was fat from the truth. Much like Americans and fast food, I suppose. Instead, I set out this tims to slowly go out of my self-destructivs comfort zone and can now say I finished (and loved) games such as Bayonetta and Resident Evil 2 Remake. An action hack-n-slash romp and a survival horror game? I would've never touched those with a mile-long pole two years ago, yet here I am now. Success.

3) Be more active on PushSquare

While I maybe haven't contributed to the conversations as much as I'd have liked since actively gaming again, I'd still call this one a win. Even when not speaking up, PushSquare is back in my daily rotation of sites and I'm constantly lurking and spying on you all. I think one problem I still have is that all of you have far more varied experiences and a way bigger finished pile of games to discuss, but I hope to make my way there myself in the future. Maybe then I'll be able to interject into every conversation and make my opinions known about each and every game where no one asked.

4) Play one long game

Equally surprisingly, ding ding. I finished not one, but two, incredibly long games this year in Midnight Suns and Metaphor: ReFantazio. It says a lot both games instantly jumped to the top of my most played single-player games upon finishing, joining the likes of only The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Divinity: Original Sin. Delighted to have some more company at the top, since the latest entry between those was all the way back in 2020. I hope there'll be many more to come as rarely is there anything as satisfying as seeig an epic narrative slowly unfold over the course of many, many... many hours.

5) Don't stress the completionist urge

I plead the fifth. I don't need to complete this checklist if I don't want to.