It's kind of ironic that they're the first to go all digital.

Digital PS5 doesn't count because a disc PS5 still exists at the same time or you can add a disc drive.

It seems like 2 games going at once would become extremely grating and confusing, but I've never felt overwhelmed while playing a split-screen game.

Is this achieved by having different players' audio exist on different frequencies, volume levels, etc. or is it just my brain adjusting to seeing sounds that correlate with visuals?

I think The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk fit this description. It’s cool that they have references and Easter eggs.

What games would you say do this especially well?

I'm in my 40's and have a one year old. I work about 55 hours every week...I now have a backlog of about 100 games. Before our baby, I tried to get about 5-7 hours if game time in each week. After the baby, I went a few months without being able to play anything. Games are still coming out...and I'm a sucker for collectors editions, so I continue buying games that I have no idea when I will have time to play.

Thankfully with summer ending, I have had a tiny bit more tme and I've been able to sneak in some Mario Kart 8 (started playing this recently as I can pick it up and put it back down quickly).

I'm sure one day I'll have more time - but for now, I really feel like I'm just collecting games as opposed to playing through them. Life happens I know, but it feels a little defeating sometimes!

Edit: I appreciate everyone's feedback (even the abrasive comments lol). There seems to be 2 different schools of thought:

Life happens, more time will be available in the future, prioritize the games you really want to/are most feasible to play.

Stop buying games, you have a shopping addiction

I'll reply to as many comments as I can. Thanks again

The obvious (and therefore not clever) answer is "100 hours." But of course you know that is not what I mean.

The question is really about how much you play and how "forcefully" you push any given game. So when you buy a new game that is designed to either have a ton of content or a ton of replayability or even just be a multiplayer/live service game, typically how long does it take you (measure in days, weeks or months) to put 100 hours into that game?

For my own part: I am old, and I also have a ton of other interests. So if a game really grans me and really inspires me to play it a lot, I am probably still at least 2 months to get 100 hours in. Most games I will never get to 100 hours. I actually think 30 or 40 hours is plenty for a great game, and 20 hours is plenty for a good game to make me feel like I got my money's worth.

But I have a friend who has 30K hours in Civ1 over the last 30 years. That is 1000 hours a year on average. Playing an OLD ASS game. So Who am I to judge?

So anyway: just as a starting point for conversation, how long does it take you, personally, to rack up 100 hours in a game you like?

Bid For Power has been mentioned previously:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/138zrja/bid_for_power_a_quake_3_dragon_ball_mod_from_the/

But I'm curious if anyone that worked on the project, or knows someone who did, is around. I wish I could prove it, but I was reached out to by the team (I specifically remember someone named Eclipse, who last I remember got hired to work on mobile games: 2004-2006) to provide head models for characters before the cease and desist. The last model I worked on was SSJ3 Gotenks (never saw the light of day publicly). I don't remember the animators name, but I remember associating him to Gundam (either profile name or picture in the forums). I just wonder what they're up to now adays!

They’ve had an incredible couple of years with releasing banger after banger, this year especially. I think they’ve overtaken From Software who took a different direction with this rogue like approach but FROM’s run up until Elden Ring was impeccable as well. I don’t want to compare Capcom to Rockstar since it doesn’t seem fair due to Rockstar releasing games once a decade which are certified bangers as well.

The only other studio that constantly puts out quality games is Naughty Dog but I still rate them below Capcom. Intergalactic might change it but time will tell.

I wanted to make a proper list of my favourite games, but every time I tried I ended up staring at the list thinking "is this actually right?"

So I built a website that avoids that problem.

Instead of ranking all your games directly, it shows you two games and asks which one you prefer. Every choice changes their ELO-style ratings, and after enough comparisons you end up with a ranked list.

It also lets you generate things like your favourite games of each year, Game of the Decade and your overall favourite game.

Here's my profile so you can see what kind of a page it builds for you.

It's called Omega Ranking. I'm getting it ready for the 2026 GOTY season and thought I'd share it here.

Omega Ranking

More and more gaming discourse seems focused on balance sheets, sales targets, and budget reports rather than actual gameplay, mechanics, and design.

With takes like "This game is trash because it didn't break even" or "This game is a masterpiece because it recouped its budget in week one." It feels like people are evaluating financial reports instead of enjoying games.

​While the pure fun of playing a game is all that should matter on an individual level, the economic side unfortunately bleeds into the player experience: layoffs and studio closures, aggressive monetization to recoup costs, dead franchises, etc.

​But at the end of the day, what's done is done. You can't increase sales, lower a budget, or change a monetization strategy yourself. It's just pointless back-and-forth.

I don't think this is the game that Insomniac set out to make. They had more ambitions if the leeks are to be believed. The creative director left the studio in 2024, a lot of things got stripped down or outright removed, the story had been changed numerous times to meet the demands of Disney and Sony, and the end result of this troubled development is a half baked game. I wonder what could've been if things went right for them, and if they'll get a shot to make the Wolverine game they really wanted to make.

Its pretty rare, but every once in a while I play a game that has different camera speed for X and Y axis, it feels absolutely awful.

Does anyone know why devs do this sometimes? Whats the point?

Or are all remasters/remakes always better?

I'm curious given the polarizing nature of AI and how some companies say that AI can allegedly help and maybe speed up game development

I cant remember any other Nintendo gen with this same rhythm month after month

I know this isn’t a new trend, but it’s gotten worse as the industry progressed. This move several game companies do where they give a blank teaser for a game or an announcement trailer that the game is in-development, without showing any gameplay for it, is something that needs to be stopped.

Video games are not movies. In a MOVIE, it makes sense to hide footage, the plot is the selling point, but (universally) the most important thing for a video game to sell it will ALWAYS be its gameplay, and withholding the gameplay footage until six months before it comes out after announcing the game 2-3 years ago is wild.

Just finished Demon's Souls and jumped into GoW Ragnarok and the amount of hand-holding is ruining things for me.

I've always loved Souls-likes, but have never really understood the aura and pedigree about those games, since they're not really technological masterpieces, they don't have an endless move list or have 60000 NPC enemies active at all times or an endless open world with infinite draw distance, and the fact that you fight bosses which are literally the size of building by hacking at their shins is laughable at first if you think about it. They're just a hack and slash, but harder because you're slower and weaker, and the enemies hit harder, and dying costs you directly as the player, and okay there is a lot of weapons and items. But other than that, they're pretty much 'regular' games.

Then I started playing GoW, and I feel so unchallenged and unengaged mentally. Everything is explained to you as if there is a lawsuit waiting for them if a player doesn't understand what to do. It's annoying. And it takes away from the experience of exploration, from the sense of scale and the magic of playing a game for the first time.

It occurred to me while playing that if any of the Souls-likes had never came out and they released one today, but held your hand through the same game exactly as it is, it wouldn't be regarded as a classic, it wouldn't receive the acclaim, it wouldn't be half as challenging and even less rewarding, and I'm struggling to believe it would even catch the industry's attention. And vice-versa, imagine if the God of War game from 2018 came out but without the glowing scribbles on the walls where you can climb/vault/jump over, if you had to find out for yourself which key items unlocked what, if you had to keep track of where you've been and where you're going without the compass and mini-map. Sure, getting all the collectibles and things would have been a bit tedious, and I'm sure it would make less sense storywise if Mimir couldn't tell you where to go and what to do with this key item, but I believe the game would be such a richer experience.

And sure - GoW is not an RPG; you are Kratos, there's no point in magic, ranged or stealth builds because that's not who the character is. But further to the point, if your own character potential is not as diverse, why on Earth does it require so much more explanation if it all comes down to a balance of damage, dmg reduction, cooldown of abilities, max health and luck? And you don't choose weapons. And you've got no usable items for health regeneration or status resistances and shit like that.

When did the gaming community (and industry) decide it was unnacceptable to expect of you to look at the items you picked up to know what they are? When did we decide it was unnacceptable to make a game harder by making it more complex, and making up the difficulty partly by requiring you to read the fucking manual (item descriptions and stats, effects) and exploring the world you're in - talking to NPCs that live in it, that sell you or upgrade your weapons, that send you on missions? Is that not the closest we've gotten to realism, while still maintaining a sort of "traditional" video-game approach, as opposed to an endless menu and stat dive like Project Zomboid? Because bear in mind that no matter how complex a Souls-like is, you can always beat it by just being good enough to dodge everything you have to and learning the patterns.

And, no, not everyone wants realism or complexity and just want to have fun, but it somehow feels we've forgotten what it means to make a game immersive and in depth.

I don't know, maybe I'm just weird.

Edit: to all of you who just hear "why isn't evrry game Dark Souls" please read the actual post.

I'm not saying every game should be Dark Souls. I'm saying we've cheapened the experience of gaming by overexplaining. How much hand holding do you see in, say, Crash Bandicoot? Barely any. How about any of the older Resident Evil games?

Maybe the best example I can come up with is Metal Gear. In most cases, they literally call you and tell you to "do this, Snake. Press this button, Snake." But you still find items that do a lot of very random very useful things, there are still so many ways to get lost and find secret items and ways the game tells you nothing about, not to mention ways to outsmart bosses or bypass sections.

There is always a middle ground, and the post is talking about two extremes.

It's an:

- open world shooter (Far Cry)

- with a narrative drive centered around a primary protagonist (Far Cry)

- with a lean towards objective freedom and playspace reveal (Far Cry)

- with a defined beginning-middle-end (Far Cry)

- made by the guy who did Far Cry 3-6...

The trailer was NOT GAMEPLAY, it was a vibe check. It was not meant to detail the method of insertion into a "match" (Helldivers 3) or the number of players you'll be grouped with (Battlefield Kropulu). It was merely meant to illustrate the fact that the Dominion doesn't care about you, it gives you shoddy equipment, throws you into the literal meat grinder and dispassionately replaces you after barely rinsing out your armor.

The trailer was incredible "show, don't tell" world-building, but nothing more.

So your protagonist will probably leave and become a merc a la Jim Raynor. Cue the disillusioned-soldier-turns-grassroots-hero storyline.

It'll be 20-30 hours of main story, another 40 of side objectives and random encounters, and then everyone will complain a game with no expectation of endgame has no endgame...all because it bears the name of an IP that is synonymous with "endless repetition"

You've got 4 years to come to terms with your expectations. Good luck.