Topic: Gaming Resolutions for the New Year 2024

@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.

@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?

@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.

1. Finish 50 backlog games, but it's okay to give up on certain titles

Did not reach this goal as I've only finished 45 games this year (including some new releases and some backlog titles that I've given up on). However, I've played through a lot of long games, which is more impressive to me as it's generally harder to keep your interest up for a longer game. These are the games I've finished this year:

Dragon’s Crown Pro
Tomb Raider: Legend
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Resident Evil Revelations
Paper Mario
DiRT 2
Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box
Burnout 3 Takedown
Persona 3 Reload
Binary Domain
The Last of Us Part II
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Chorus
Picross S Mega Drive & Master System Edition
Control: Ultimate Edition
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero
Still Wakes The Deep
Far Cry Primal
Silent Hill: The Short Message
Kirby: Planet Robobot
Saints Row: Gat out of Hell
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Resident Evil VII: Biohazard - Gold Edition
DiRT 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Racedriver: Grid
Red Dead Redemption II
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Maneater
BioShock 2
Child of Light
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Condemned: Criminal Origins
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
Hydro Thunder Hurricane
Persona 5 Strikers
Fire Emblem Awakening
Firewatch
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
The Great Ace Attorney Adventures
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

I feel like I've played through tons of great games this year, which is nice.

2. Only buy new releases that I really want to play

I've barely bought any games to begin with this year lol. I've been focusing on saving money after I moved, so I haven't really bought many games. But in terms of new releases, I feel like I've reached this goal as I've only bought two that I really want to play (Persona 3: Reload and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door) besides Game Pass that I got in order to play Hellblade II and Indiana Jones.

3. Finish enough backlog games to be able to put away at least one system

So I haven't really finished enough backlog games to put away at least one system, but I did put away my original Xbox as it won't work on my new TV and I won't bother buying a converter in order to get it working just to play a few games. So it depends on how you view this lol.

All in all, I feel like it's been a pretty successful year for me as I've completed more games than I've bought and I feel like this trend will continue for me in 2025. I just don't care about buying new games as much anymore as I have so many I want to play already.

I don’t have much of a final update for the year. I really haven’t made much progress since my October update and so I will finish the year at about 40% of my goals.
It was a great year for gaming, but I didn’t get as much time as I wanted to make it through everything. In the immortal words of Vince Lombardi, I didn’t fail, I just ran out of time. 😄

I’m already mulling over ideas for my 2025 goals.