I'm Trying to Beat Way Too Many Video Games Before 2019 Is Over

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The end of the year is nigh. OK, it’s only Thanksgiving, but that also means we’re only a few weeks out from ringing in 2020. It’s when I need to start thinking about game of the year, and begin budgeting time accordingly. No one can play everything, so my best bet is to randomly guess what games might make an impression, check out what HowLongtoBeat has to say about the hours needed to see them all the way through, and go from there.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwmmy/im-trying-to-beat-way-too-many-video-games-before-2019-is-over
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i was gonna try to play outer wilds but the nier automata effect of everyone saying it was the best game ever has made me too intimidated to play it (that and hour counts ranging between 15-30 depending on who you ask.

so i’ve just narrowed it down to beating
Eliza
Spring Leaves No Flowers
Pokemon Shield and
Wattam.

I think wattam will be a good way to chill out at the end of the year.
Sad i missed Control and Fallen Order but i might get origin access to play star wars near the end of the year but not pressuring myself to finish it before end of year. might play borderlands 3 next year when the discount on it gets bigger (i plan to play it with the dialogue off and just listening to podcasts)

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There’s plenty of things that appeal to me about the idea of writing about video games for a living, but the need to have an informed opinion on every major release is definitely not one of them. By the end of 2019 I’m probably going to have beaten Lost Planet 2, Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, and maybe Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun. Playing the games I want to play at whatever pace I’d like kicks ass actually.

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I’m trying to finish Death Stranding, DQXI S, Pokemon, Outer Worlds, Eliza, Star Wars, and that new game from the Zero Escape guy. But on the plus I give myself until end of January to finish my Top 10~ish.

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I’m not following closely all the big AAA releases, so I don’t have that pressure of the top 10 hanging over my head, thankfully. Except this year, kind of? I’m writing a series of posts on investigation mechanics in video games, and would like to get it done by the start of January. So before then I need to get to:

The Sinking City
Disco Elysium
Hypnospace Outlaw
The Shapeshifting Detective
The Occupation

Doable, I think. Even if some of them are frustrating to get through.

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I’m hoping for some sales here in the near future to pick up Control but otherwise nothing pressing in the absence of Doom Eternal this year. I’m going to finish up Code Vein and then start Atelier Ryza at my leisure since it’s not like any English sites are going to be spoiling either of them during their GOTY stuff.

That recent Nioh 2 demo made me kinda want to just play Sekiro again for fun but we’ll see.

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For whatever reason, I’m already done with my big gaming to-dos! I finished Outer Wilds this week and since Star Wars got good not great reviews, I feel ok letting that shift to next year and just poking around Pokémon. Would really like to get to Eliza and Telling Lies if possible.

Also if anyone is feeling stressed about trying to fit in Outer Wilds, maybe don’t rush to finish it. It’s my GOTY, but it benefits from having time to openly explore the universe.

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One of the upsides of not working for an enthusiast press outlet is that I don’t have an end-of-year deadline to play through anything and am only really guided by release schedules. Since the first 2020 game on my radar is Ori 2 (drops 2/11), I have quite a bit of time to play games.

Actively finishing: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
In my backlog: Sekiro, Wolfenstein, Untitled Goose Game, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, SteamWorld Quest, Dragon Quest Builders 2, Astral Chain
Not started: Fire Emblem, Daemon X Machina, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Indivisible
Need to get: Disco Elysium, Hypnospace Outlaw, Luigi’s Mansion 3

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People who don’t have to interface with games the way media members do shouldn’t feel pressure to finish current year games. If you have a bunch of games that came out this year, just add them to your “want to play” list and get around to them when you get a chance.(not that the zeitgeist isn’t fun, it totally is! Just don’t let capitalism convince you that it’s the only way.)

That being said, games that have come out in 2019 that I have put on my “need to play” list that I still haven’t played.

Disco Elysium
Candace of Hyrule
Dicey Dungeons
Elsinore
Telling Lies
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Remnant: from the Ashes
Jedi Fallen Order

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I recently built my first desktop PC, which has opened up a lot of possibilities in terms of video games that my 2012 MacBook Air couldn’t handle. This has resulted in a lot of impulse buys; I had to try pretty hard to retrain myself from getting the Battletech-with-all-DLC bundle they talked about on the last podcast.

I’m going through the Unity of Command 2 campaign at a pretty relaxed pace, and that’s definitely front burner until the Nazis are crushed. Also started a Cao Cao campaign in Total War Three Kingdoms, no idea whether I’ll get through that by the end of the year, as Total Wars have tended to burn me out around the midgame. I’m saving Pathologic 2 for the holidays, when I can really just sink into it.

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I need to play the last 40 hours of Persona 5 so I can start Persona Q2 so I can get it onto my 2019 list. Resident Evil 2 was on sale for $30 (Canadian) this week, so I should get to that so it can get onto the list too. Other than that I want to try Willmot’s Warehouse, Baba is You and Professor Proudbottom’s Typing Party. Also I want to start a multiplayer Stardew Valley farm now that 1.4 finally came out yesterday. So that’s the to do list. What I’m actually playing is Hitman 2 and Gran Turismo Sport and Rocket League. Once all that is done I should finish Prey and restart The Witcher 3.

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Pokemon distracted me from Death Stranding for a bit, which I’d like to finish before I make some fun end-of-year blogs, but otherwise I’ve made my peace with pushing the couple of big games I haven’t had a chance to play this year (Fire Emblem mainly, and to a lesser extent Jedi Fallen Order and maybe Disco Elysium) to next year. Outside of a group of 3-4 really standout games (Outer Wilds chief among them, which I knew would be my GOTY as soon as I played it), I’m probably going to remember this year more for the non-2019 games I played in it, because this was the year I finally got around to trying Dark Souls and utterly fell in love with those games.

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What’s it like to be able to afford to play games the year they come out?

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It means you have no time to play anything you have.

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I’ve been really struggling not to put myself in a place where I’m constantly playing games in my free time because I end up doing that sometimes for a week or two at a time and it sucks.

That being said, I’d like to finish Pokemon Sword and hopefully play Disco Elysium this year (or at least soon). I’m also interested in Death Stranding, Control, Outer Worlds, Outer Wilds, and Eliza, but they’re games that I’m letting myself brush aside if I can’t find the time for them.

I have a feeling that once I finish up Pokemon and Disco Elysium I’ll find some random game I’m interested in and pick it up instead of what’s on my list though (as I tend to do)! There are so many good games and not enough time to play them, even if I didn’t work 40 hours a week. I really need to work on figuring out what I’ll like best and forgetting about the rest as a self-care technique, and I’m slowly getting their but its hard

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Because of the X-Box Ultimate game pass deal I’ve been finishing Outer Worlds, with the intention of giving Void Bastards a run after that. Not sure how long I’ll stick with that, I’ll likely switch over to Halo ODST when the Master Chief Collection drops. That should take me through to the end of the year.

I have been tossing up whether to get something for PS4 as well, though. Shortlist is:

Nier: Automata
Control
Death Stranding

Doubt I’d finish even one of those but I have 2 weeks off so it’d take me through to early 2020.

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If you have a regular PS4, Nier runs pretty well on it.

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I have about… four games I’d like to spend time with, and that’s after viciously cutting down my list.

“Sekiro? Nah, I don’t have enough time to wrap my head around a “SoulsBorne”, a genre I’m still largely inexperienced in. DMCV? Nah, I’ll play the rest of the series first.” And so on.

In the end, I’m left with Fire Emblem, Pathologic 2, The Sinking City, and Void Bastards. And yeah, realistically I probably won’t get through them all, but it would also take a minor god damn miracle for anything to beat out my current top four of:

  1. Disco Elysium
  2. Outer Wilds
  3. CONTROL
  4. APE OUT

@Hache I have a problem with compulsive spending, so it depends what you mean by “afford”

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I am so glad I am not alone in having an entire list of the games to think about picking up from this year. I finally picked up Outer Wilds and am playing through it. I personally have a whole system I’m trying to keep in check.

Summary

Disco Elysium is currently the only game I feel really itchy about. My plan is to pick it up when my winter break rolls around so I can put time into it.

After that, I’ve divided it into games I’ll wait on and make sure I have time for before I pick them up, but am very stoked about. On top of that is Indivisible. then there’s the goose game, Heaven’s Vault, and Nauticrawl, all of which look like stuff I’d love. Eliza and Anodyne 2 seem awesome, make me intimidated for some reason.

Then I have the box of “these are indie games that will stay on my Steam Wishlist for a very long time”. Games I think look neat, but don’t know if I’ll ever play just due to the volume of games out there. I’ve heard great things about A Short Hike and Mutazione, but I want to give them an earnest try with a clear mind. Ape Out and Gato Roboto look fun as hell, and hopefully I’ll find a good time to squeeze them in over a weekend, funds withstanding. Friends of Ringo Ishikawa look swell, but not when sure I can give it my time.

…and then I have a whole section of roguelikes, because hey, a girl can’t help but love dying eternally in horrible dungeons. Void Bastards and Dicey Dungeons are the big two there. (I’m waiting for a mobile/Switch port on the latter) Hades, Ancestors, RAD, Creature in the Well, Overland and Plunge are the rest of this list. A girl can’t help it.

After realizing almost my entire list was independent games, I made an entire section just for AAA releases, most of which I will probably never pick up. I am probably going to fall deep into Death Stranding when it comes out and my computer can actually run it. I want to get my shield dog in Pokemon Shield, but I should probably actually finish a single other game in that series first. CONTROL seems like very much my shit, but again, no way I could run it right now. Daemon X Machina is waiting patiently for me to play, but I honestly can’t tell how I’ll feel about it just yet. Code VEIN is in the same boat there. Then there’s assorted stuff, Link’s Awakening, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Astral Chain, stuff I probably won’t pick up for a long long time, but I’ll still think about from time to time.

All this is to say: Hey Video Games, what the heck, there are so many video games, oh my god, I haven’t even caught up from the games from last year, hey bmaybe can veverybvody slow down there’s so many FGaMES

Anyway thanks for coming to my TED Talk, please like comment and subscribe, follow me on twitter and rate me on itunes

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I want to finish Death Stranding before Christmas because Jedi: Fallen-Order has some heavy Christmas-break vibes coming off it. I’ve long since given up trying to have a comprehensive list of games from the year that I can rank, so the only new games I play are ones I desperately want to play.

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