Editorials

A New Year’s Resolution I might actually stick to

January 13, 2015, Author: Dan Moore

It’s the new year, so of course resolutions are now a thing. Let’s be honest, most of those will last for all of five minutes, resulting in one day at the gym or a week off sugar before cracking and gorging for the rest of the year.

However, what if it’s possible to make just one stick? A relatively simple one. Not ‘I must get a six pack by the end of February’, but something realistic. I have been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks, and I think I actually came up with quite a good one.

You see, I have always only thought of my gaming habits in terms of the games I fully finish either on PC, console or handheld. I never count mobile games, board games and games I only play for a little bit and, after writing for our End of Year series, I realised this was doing a disservice to both myself and the games.

If you are reading this, chances are you are quite into games. You want to know the latest and greatest, and which to avoid. You want to know your favourite writers’ opinions on these games and what they play randomly. It might also be useful to know which have been played, but didn’t really ‘take’ in that writer’s mind.

I have never voiced my opinion on Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Crossy Road and Viewtiful Joe. The first two due to them being mobile games I play on iPad, and the third because I never finished it all those years ago. It is this that I want to get away from. I want to start using Twitter and Facebook to share games that are interesting, even if I only play for a little bit. I want to voice my opinions on games I might not finish, perhaps not in the form of a full review, but just an opinion or think-piece.

I want to use my position as a writer on this site to inform people of games, new and old, good and bad, and to change my own thinking about what I play. I play lots of games, some I might monkey around with on my phone for a couple of hours before deciding it isn’t for me, others might be too hard for me to beat but I’ll play until I can’t go any further. In my head though, they should count to my gaming time, and I want to express my opinion about them.

I try to say to people that while I might think a game is great or another sucks, they might feel different, trying to respect their views. Watch Dogs last year was a good example of this, with some friends saying they quite liked it, while I thought it was one of the worst games I have played in several years.

So, my resolution is simple: Talk about every game I play. It might sound obvious, but if you have it in your head that you should only talk about games you fully complete then it can be a tough nut to crack. As I said before, this is a disservice to the games, and those that create them, so I should talk about everything I can.

I think this originally came about because I don’t have many friends into gaming as much as I am. I have friends who play, sure, but where I might play every night for at least an hour, they might play for two hours once a week. So they tend to play only the AAA games like Call of Duty and FIFA. Generally, there was little point in chatting to them about indie games, and I got a bit of stick for not completing stuff so that was that. Now though, screw it: they will hear about what I am playing from this point on, no matter what.

Sure, they might not play the latest indie game, and I know for fact there is maybe two people I know that will play Hearthstone, but if I don’t say something about them, they might not hear about those games at all and who knows; it could be the best game they ever play.

In 2015, I will talk about every game I play, whether I complete it or not, be it a video-game or board game. It is a medium I love, and so I should talk about it more than I do. It might only be a tweet or a status update, but least I can say I have. It won’t be hard, I love this stuff!

Tagged FIFA 15, Happy New Year, Hearthstone, New Year Resolutions, Resolutions, Viewtiful Joe, Watch_Dogs