In truth, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with a number of other responsibilities that have kept me from exploring as many titles in gaming as I would have hoped. It’s a bit backwards, but gaming is the whole reason I got my start as a writer in the first place, and yet I found myself spending less time doing both in the second half of 2023 to facilitate a better quality out of the two practices. Life is Strange (was an alright game that I enjoyed a lot).
I think many people are going to relate to the fact that my year was not spent exploring the latest and greatest titles around, but instead rummaging through games that I already have 500 hours or more in. League of Legends, CS:GO(2)(two), Skyrim, Skyrim, a ton of Skyrim, Morrowind, and I even put twenty hours back into Oblivion for research purposes.
But from this year? The biggest reason to give me a slap on the wrist is the fact that I haven’t touched Baulder’s Gate 3, yet. I’m playing through Divinity 2: Original Sin and would like to finish it before starting that which seems untouchable.
Aside from that, I haven’t touched Fires of Rubicon, Starfield, Call of the Mountain, Amnesia: the Bunker, nor have I played the masterpiece that is Gollum of the Shire (Mordor Addition). There are an infinite number of high quality games that came out this year, but I’m not sure I’ve actually touched a single one out of sheer interest for the titles that don’t seem to die.
League is a fairly easy one to understand: I’m an addict, and Riot Games, as much as we hate them, produces high-quality content. That’s just the truth. CS2? Same deal. Quality game, even though I am not addicted to it. But Skyrim?
I consider myself a fairly well-versed aficionado when it comes to Roleplaying Games. I’m not the most knowledgeable guy around, but I can read the skeleton of an RPG’s makeup pretty early on in a playthrough. So I can see the surprise on your face to see that I’m spending as much time as I am on Skyrim, still. The game, bluntly, isn’t great. It hardly resembles a Roleplaying Game, it lacks depth, and for the “modern” mechanics and streamlined handholding it creates in the face of Morrowind it trades for quality writing and rewarding questlines. Yet, I cannot evade its allure.
Oblivion? I genuinely don’t believe anyone who didn’t play that game at a very young age at the time of its release can look back on a playthrough of Oblivion very fondly in the face of Bethesda’s TES 3 and 5. The game is a Skyrim larva, with poorer combat, worse leveling, much worse level scaling, unsatisfying exploration and economy, and despite having all of these attributes, doesn’t retain any of the quality Morrowind had aside from some charming characters. I simply can’t make it work with that game, and I wish I could because everyone and their mother keeps telling me that it’s “the most fun TES game!”
As you can see, my 2023 was pretty much a display of me not being able to take a dive into any new games of this year, and I don’t think I’m very much worse off for that.
GLHF,
-E
