I just went back to look at my review of Legend of Keeper on Steam and it was essentially: I was bored after about 10 hours of gameplay and that while in the realm of StS and Monster Train, it did not bring anything new to the genre.
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Still bouncing between games - MTG Arena, Reus 2 and Unicorn Overlord.
Iām slightly mourning the fact that I just gave up on the entire Mass Effect series after just a couple of hours.
See, I never had an XBox and missed out on the trilogy. As an RPG fan I know I needed to get around to it sometime so I just started up the trilogy on my PS5. I ran the intro mission, spent hours exploring the Citadel, talking to everyone, completing side quests, etc., then ventured out into space. After landing on my first planet and driving around the map looking for mineral deposits I put the controller down and realized I donāt have the time or patience in my life at the moment (anymore?) for something so vast.
I can absolutely see the brilliance in the game and I enjoyed so many aspects of it. If I had any complaints at all it is that the weapons felt a bit uninspired and I didnāt get the thrill of picking up a āStinger IIā or whatever that I would get in a more traditional fantasy RPG where I find a new longsword or whatever. Theyāre the same thing, but feel different.
I enjoyed the writing and the characters. My Shepard was a little ugly but oh well. I played as an infiltrator since I like sniping in shooters but I probably should have tried a Soldier.
Iām in a time of life, though, where I need games that are constantly moving forward. I honestly find myself playing mobile roguelikes more often these days, and if Iām playing a bigger console game I either like multiplayer games with quick sessions or games with a little more focus and direction that bring you right through a story.
I think this bodes ill for my wish to play Baldurās Gate 3 and the upcoming Dragon Age gameā¦
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That it does, it seems.
On Mass Effectā¦.too bad. Really. I am a sucker for this series (currently on my 5th playtrough) but I can understand the problem. In about 80% of my games (that I like) and some O donāt like I go for the (pointless?) side stuff. So in ME1 the planet exploration, in ME the planet scanning, in Open World games doing all the litter that was crapped all over the map. So I often lose sight of the plot.
Such a shame. Truly, maybe if you try it again go HARD for the main missions only and ignore the stuff with a high risk of getting you bored? I am really biased here (sci-fi trumps fantasy all the time) but the overall trilogy plot is such a great experience.
I am biased here but I have a soft spot when plot goes hard in games (or sometimes even for events which the kids these days would describe as badass moments) and I STILL get goosebumps on planet Virmire when the big bad reveal happens.
Some people can quote their favourite bible chapter, some can go hard for an whole act in McBeth or Hamlet or what have youā¦I can quote the whole 5 minute and 30 second Planet Virmire sequence by heart, and if I am drunk enough I could also do the different accents of all 5 parties involved.
I use games as tool for escapism, and what a heavy duty tool it is. Especially Mass Effect I played in a very dark time of my live and it helped. I am in a somewhat better place as I was back then but the games left such a big impact on my life that I can overlook all the bad parts of the ME series, warts and allā¦ā¦
But I am still cross with you if you decide to go for the much inferior Dragon Age over Mass Effect HARUMPH! 
(totally subjective opinion ends here)
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One of my problems is that I am a completionist and very easily pall prey to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Iāve tried so many times to play big games and ignore the side stuff and I simply canāt do it.
It donāt get me wrong, it wasnāt that I was bored and I absolutely appreciated the game. It was probably just the wrong game at the wrong time.
Iāll likely get to it some day. Itās a good game for my PlayStation Portal and itās also the type of game I can play when I work out every day, which is always a plus. Lift a set, click a dialogue, rinse and repeat.
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Iāve noticed the same shift in my interests over timeādonāt know if Iāll ever finish a long RPG or the like again. Some of thatās age, some of thatās different demands on my time, and some of itās the huge increase in games available to play. When I was younger, I had one or two platforms to play games on (console, portable, maybe PC) and a couple of games I was playing or replaying at any given point. Now I have a massive backlog that probably cost less than my old collection despite being at least three times the size of that old collection.
My gaming tastes have also shifted, and my perfectionism has a little bit to do with that, too. I also fall prey to doing all the side quests, but my bigger issue in longer games is fear of making a mistake early that will slow me down later. I remember playing one of the Game Boy Final Fantasy games and getting stuck in the last area because my party simply wasnāt strong enough. Iād played enough at that pointāmight have been my 5th or 6th playthroughāto know no upgrade path existed to let me finish, so I just scrapped the run and restarted.
Each of those runs probably took 10 hours, but I loved trying to beat games like that with different parties. Now, Iād probably want to play it once and move on to something else. I donāt want to take the time to be wrong and restart, so the sight of a massive upgrade tree sends me into paralysis trying to determine the ārightā path. And donāt get me started on XCOM, where the first high-level soldier I lost basically ended my playthrough.
I donāt really lack time, cause Iāve poured hundreds of hours into games like Slay the Spire and Balatro. Iād just rather take multiple short runs through the same game, as long as it has enough variety to keep me interested, than attempt one long run through something I might screw up.
Not sure I added anything to this discussion, but I think about this stuff a lot, and these posts prompted me to type it all out. 
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I am amused with myself that I cannot put 50 hours into finishing an RPG any more, but can put 2100 hours into Path of Exile.
I like short runs and seasonal play that changes things up. I have a nice loop right now of Path of Exile, D4 and Hearthstone Battlegrounds - with some Backpack Battles mixed in.
Add to that the amount of Star Realms/Hero Realms/Dominion I play on iOS along with my current Gacha habit of Honkai Star Rail - I donāt really need anything else.
And every once in a while I am between seasons with everything and have some good backups that could use some more playtime in Path of Achra, Soulstone Survivors, Hadean Tactics and Last Epoch.
(And then every once in a while, I spend a weekend playing Civ 6)
I would love to believe that if I bought Baldurs Gate I would play it - but here is what will happen, in 2 years from now it will be like 80% off in a Steam Sale - I will pick it up, put in about 20 hours in a single weekend (that will include restarting at least once because I think i made bad choices at the start) and will never pick it up again.
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The only way I was able to finish Baldurās Gate was starting a playthrough with a low-intelligence character I regarded as a joke, and accept that all my mistakes were just good roleplaying of him being a dumbass. I noticed the need after I got a few hours in with a gnome monk, and just got horribly disheartened after realizing that his short little legs werenāt going to let him get into melee combat, so he was kind of worthless, and my reaction was just to stop playing for a week.
And, even still, I kind of regretted not doing a bunch of research about the best path, because there was one moment when the game told me āonce you talk to this person, youāre irrevocably moving the story forwardā and I took it to be saying āHey, before you go anywhere, talk to this personā. One of the reasons I enjoyed the Mass Effect series was that I did google little stuff (this was back when āgoogleā meant āFind something on the internet which is correct and written by a personā).
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This pretty much where Iām at as well. Iām responding to @geigerm but I could have concurred in response to any/all of you, I was nodding my head to so much of what you all wrote.
I bought the first two Baldurās Gateās in physical form when they first came out, and Iāve repurchased them in digital form in various incarnations over the years as well because itās one of my all-time favorite games (maybe #1 fave for PC games). Yet I have not been even a little tempted to shell out for BG3. Not because I donāt want to play it or am not curiousāI just am aware that I will not play it right now, so why bother spending for it? I just donāt have the time or ability to focus right now. And maybe it will be that way always now for me, or maybe not. But I know my limitations ATM.
Is it age? Having small kids? Being busy with a list of a bunch of other IRL stuff that seems impossible to pare down? All of it, probably.
Itās been sort of a relief reading all your comments about this because I assumed it was just me, and several of you are (by far) my most reliable bellwethers as to which games I will like and should try. So if this is affecting you all as well, it means Iām not senile : )
Right??
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Iām with you all on this too - I canāt do anything that seems like a solid commitment. Yet I will still put hours into things.
Itās crazy
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I hear you all, and I feel it too.
The one caveat I will add is that sometimes a game will grip me, and its like I was young again. Im fortunate that when lightning does strike, I can just let go and enjoy the ride.
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I blame Youtube for my shift in focusā¦
I love games with lots of story/plot/worldbuilding. Also I like replaying games a lot. And to make the trifecta complete I like good gaming soundtracks.
But darn it, I also like listening to a lot of podcasts and other content creators yapping in my ear. I delude myself in saying it is for English Comprehension, since I am totally fine with reading English, but I am not quite as quick on the uptake on the spoken word (non-native here if you havenāt guessed by my endless grammatical errors until now).
But Podcasts eat into my gaming time, so what do I do? I spend way too many hours in Diablo, Warhammer 40k Inquisitor - Martyr, and lots and lots of roguelikes or strategy games while listening to podcasts instead of playing the good story games that are piling up more and more and more. And it begins to stress me out.
If there was ever a first-world gaming problem then it must be this.
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Iāve been lurking here since the migration from the Other Site, and finally registered just to say āme tooā. Most of my gaming is now on mobile, including Steam Deck (which replaced my Switch). Iām not sure if aging plays a part, or if itās just the state of the world in general which has reduced my attention span, but Iāve almost completely moved away from games that require long (>5 hours) commitments in favor of pick-up-and-play.
The last game that I āfinishedā? A Short Hike (lol). On the other hand, Iāve put hundreds of hours into playing Dead Cells . I tell myself that I will have time to play Civ or ME after I retire butā¦ Polytopia is calling me now.
I donāt really have a point except that I suspect this is an issue for an increasing number of people across all types of entertainment including movies and books.
Anyway, enjoy what you play!
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Finally got to Ascension 20 in Slay the Spire (for two of the characters at least, Ironclad and Mystic). Been binging it lately, need to move on to something else.
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Wow, thatās impressive. I donāt have the patience or brain cells to play those roguelikes on harder modes. If I finish a normal run and unlock everything Iām content.
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Nice work! Iāve been on Ascension 20 with the Defect forever ā¦ and have only reached the boss once in all my Ascension 20 runs. StS remains a game I keep returning to.
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I like the challenge. Got the taste for it playing Dream Quest. That game makes this one look like a cakewalk by comparison, but that made the times when you could triumph more meaningful.
@geigerm Defect is not one I do as well with. I play equally with each character but Silent is only at A15 and Defect A16. Might be because I have a bad tendency to get my decks too large in these sorts of games, and those are ones where that tends to hurt more. Ironclad is easy because of the cards and artifacts that boost Strength to crazy levels, and Mystic is all about one card: Talk to the Hand. I live or die by whether I get it and how many copies I can manage to have and upgrade.
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@Hustlertwo Ah, Iām more likely to go defense and let something else do the work, so the Defectās orbs click very well with my play style. Got Silent to A15 primarily through heavy poison decks, and my greatest successes with Ironclad (A16) are usually Body Slam decks. Watcherās only at A11 as I havenāt played it as much.
All this progress is only on the mobile version, mind you. If I could have transferred my progress from PC to Switch and then to mobile I like to think Iād be a little farther along the Ascension ranks. But the gameās well worth all the hours Iāve put ināI think the only thing thatāll finally get me to put it down is Slay the Spire 2 when that releases next year.
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I actually just got my first A20 win, which also saw me beat the heart and get an achievement I never really expected, You Are Nothing, for beating a boss on turn 1. I got the Bottled Flame relic and didnāt have any great attacks for it, so I did Eruption (was playing Watcher). Man, that coupled with some good card draw options (like Scrawl) and I was wiping out fights in 1-2 turns. The boss I beat in 1 turn was the two guys you fight right before the heart. Very satisfying.
Iām at 16 and 17 for Silent and Defect now. Hopefully can get them there.
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Dysmantle, on both iOS and xbox (also available on Steam and other places, Iām sure).
Do not, for the love of all things holy, spend $10 on this game or its DLC.
Do not, for the love of all things holy, fire it up half an hour before you intend to go to bed to ājust see what itās about.ā
Do not, for the love of all things holy, purchase it on every platform you can and run three concurrent games, cursing when one is behind others and your toon is less advanced.
Best described as a post-apocalypse survival / crafting game, which I normally abhor. Everything is destructible once youāve upgraded your weapons enough, which you do by discovering new materials in things you couldnāt previously destroy, rinse and repeat. A huge world to discover, things to build, and lots of stuff to smash.
This might seriously be the most addictive game Iāve played this year. Easy to pick up for ten minutes, impossible to put down.
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