Gorging yourself Vs savouring games you're excited about

[Jamie John]

With all this talk about people taking weeks off work to devote themselves to Zelda this Friday, it got me thinking about whether gorging or savouring a game you're hyped about is the 'better' approach.

 

Personally, I've never taken time off work to dedicate solely to a game. Largely, this is down to my work (education) deciding my holidays for me, but even if I had the option, I'm not sure I'd want to plough through a game I'd been waiting (in Zelda's case) half a decade for. The first time through a game is almost always the most magical, so I'd hate to temper that by feeling like I was rushing through it.

 

As a result, part of me always feels a little bit sorry for people who post to say that they've just completed a fifty hour game five days after release, and now they can't wait for the next installment of the series, in another 4-6 years' time. I felt this way last year when Elden Ring came out. That was a game that entirely consumed all of my leisure time, to the point where I didn't want to do anything else except play it, and I got all the achievements, but it still took me a month or so to complete and felt like an epic, memorable journey. Not something that I'd just blasted through in a week.

 

Of course, I could be talking about of my backside and there may be many people on here who get the most from entirely immersing themselves in a game for a week before they come up for air. For me, though, even when I do eventually get my hands on Zelda, I'm going to do my best to savour it and limit myself to an hour or so each evening (ok, maybe a bit longer at the weekends... ).

 

What do you like to do - gorge or savour?

[anewman]

7 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

Personally, I've never taken time off work to dedicate solely to a game. Largely, this is down to my work (education) deciding my holidays for me, but even if I had the option, I'm not sure I'd want to plough through a game I'd been waiting (in Zelda's case) half a decade for. The first time through a game is almost always the most magical, so I'd hate to temper that by feeling like I was rushing through it.

 

Totally agree. I am pretty sure I'll check Zelda out and see how it feels, then leave it for a bit until it finds its own slot. That's what happened with the first one - I ended up doing my first playthrough weeks after release, then playing through a second time in a completionist way a couple of years later, and that was my favourite experience of it.

 

When Halo 2 came out, it was similar. Halo obviously massive and I loved it, Halo 2 hyped to the max. I queued to buy the game at midnight, played it for a bit when I got home, then went to sleep because I was just tired, then played it the next day and after half a day just felt burnt out and stopped. Don't really have super fond memories of Halo 2.

 

I also just think the hype can make your expectations too high and you don't appreciate the good bits when they come. So savour for me.

 

I pity the reviewers.

[Broker]

I’ll be gorging. I’m also in education so can’t take time off, but I’ll be playing all weekend and every night until I finish it. Then I’ll play it again. When I really love a game I’ll often play through it over and over, I’ve played through Dark Souls about 40 times and I’m currently on my fifth full run of Breath of the Wild (not including Koroks), with the fourth one having ended last week. So for me the first run isn’t done discuss magic, it’s just the start of something beautiful that lasts years.

[Thor]

Some games I need time off for to gorge, because if it hooks me in it will be all I can think about. 

[PaB]

I play for about 2-3 hours a day regardless so games tend to last me a while. Especially if I’m splitting my time across a couple of games. Like Hogwarts took me a few weeks to finish and I put 60 hours into that. I’ve just started Jedi survivor and I guess that’s going to take me a couple of weeks then I’ll have Zelda as a distraction . For a bit and I’ll be ready for the main course of  ffxvi 

[Jamie John]

41 minutes ago, Broker said:

I’ll be gorging. I’m also in education so can’t take time off, but I’ll be playing all weekend and every night until I finish it. Then I’ll play it again. When I really love a game I’ll often play through it over and over, I’ve played through Dark Souls about 40 times and I’m currently on my fifth full run of Breath of the Wild (not including Koroks), with the fourth one having ended last week. So for me the first run isn’t done discuss magic, it’s just the start of something beautiful that lasts years.

 

Blimey. That's a lot. Even my best-loved games I've only ever played through a handful of times as there's always the lure of playing something new that tempts. This is partly why I like to completely rinse everything I can out of a game I'm really enjoying the first time through.

[Hawklord]

I'm not one for taking time off to play something* and I have limited time to play. So I tend to stick to the one game until completion (usually 20+ hour games). I'll dip in and out of others (more arcadey games) if I have time. I do like to get my money's worth though and spent 350 hours on ER lol. Just about to finish 2nd play through of Cyberpunk and just started  Jedi Survivor which I reckon I should finish in time for FFXVI 

 

 

*I took the release day of ER off. Mentioned to my other half that I was off that day, forgetting why and I was promptly dragged out to the pub and didn't get time to play until the Sunday!

[MattyP]

Like the build up to release and then spend an initial 4-6 hours playing then drip feed time over a while. Think there is always a  point where you take a break from a game because you hit a difficulty spike somewhere.

 

Last time I took a day off for a game I think it was GT7 and played pretty much 6 or so hours straight.

 

Before that PGR3 and Xbox 360 at launch.

[fat flatulent git]

I’ve taken one day off but I won’t spend the whole day playing Zelda.  My gaming sessions always start with a couple of retro games first, then at the moment it’s a round of Easy Come Easy Golf.  Then and only then do I get stuck into the main course of the session.  So I’ll probably have about three hours of Zelda on the day off and one hour on working days after that. 

[Wiper]

Gorgeing is the only way I know to really enjoy a game. If a game hooks me I'll bask in it while I can, and if it's really compelling (or, well, short) it'll carry me through to its finish. If not, it won't, and after a few days I'll stop playing it.

 

If I force myself to take a measured approach I'll lose interest sooner rather than later, and if I take a break that break will end up lasting months at least — the "slowly savour" approach is a reliable method to ensure I don't fully appreciate a game.

 

So, no, I'll jump on TOTK and play it solidly until I'm bored of it; no days off for it (work this time of year makes that impossible), but it'll take up my weekend at least.

[joffocakes]

I rarely have time to gorge on a game these days. I've mainly only been playing Street Fighter and Yakuza, the latter for 30min to an hour every other night. It has taken me three years to complete four Yakuza games but I've very much been enjoying my time with them.

 

I bought Elden Ring, Resident Evil 4 Remake, The Last of Us 2 and Returnal at launch and have yet to properly start any of them.

 

I'm sure the FOMO will hit when Friday arrives but I'm thinking of holding off on Zelda until later in the year, so I can properly focus on it. I won't have much opportunity to play it uninterrupted this month then Street Fighter 6 arrives at the start of June to completely distract me.

 

I do want to glue some flying logs together though.

[Bacon Horsemeat]

Sadly I don't have much of a choice nowadays, I remember in the teenage years doing FF marathons over a couple of weeks, now the best I can do is get the Friday off work and spend a long weekend on a game.

[Calashnikov]

BotW was the first open world game that I played and I felt that I had to spend entire consecutive days gorging on it just to make sure that I got everything out of it that I could. I was daunted by the prospect of open worlds, they’d never ever appealed to me because of this weird anxiety that I had about them, but because this was my precious Zelda, one of the series that I’ve been most invested in throughout my life, I felt there was no other option but to throw myself at utterly submerging myself in it.
 

I ended up putting 350+ hours into it, and enjoyed every blessed hour of doing so. Please note that I wasn’t just blasting through it, mainlining the main scenario / story or whatever. I was allowing myself to go off on tangents and detours galore, something I doubt I would have done had I been limited to just a couple of hours every other night. Each session was an unexpected adventure, and because it all went so perfectly for me, it’s why I’ve also booked off several days of annual leave that I’m due, just to make sure I similarly get the most out of TotK.
 

I don’t think I would have got everything out of BotW that I did manage, had I not played 12 and 8 hour sessions etc across consecutive days for several weeks. By the time I’d got to the end game, which I played over a few more months, I was down to playing the odd couple of hours every few days. That was Korok hunting, levelling up equipment just to have an excuse to still play around in the game world, and of course setting up Tarrey Town ❤️ 

 

I anticipate doing similar this time with TotK. Live, breathe and sleep the game, utterly consumed by it for the first few weeks, then continue to tinker and dick about with it for a laugh, on and off, over the course of the next few months after.

[Calashnikov]

(I also work in education)

[df0]

Gorging. Spent 18 hours on a game - Dead Island 2 - this weekend alone am and close to Plat. Before that I gorged on Ratchet & Clank, before that Ghostwire Tokyo. I think deep down I worry about not getting my money's worth if I take it slow; what if a different/newer/better game shows up? Once I move in there's a slim chance I'll return to the previous thing.

[Broker]

1 hour ago, Jamie John said:

 

Blimey. That's a lot. Even my best-loved games I've only ever played through a handful of times as there's always the lure of playing something new that tempts. This is partly why I like to completely rinse everything I can out of a game I'm really enjoying the first time through.

I really love the feeling of knowing a game inside out, especially a big one that seemed intimidating at first. I can tell you where pretty much any item in dark souls is, navigate the tomb of giants in pitch darkness without a light. I love that feeling so much. 

[Calashnikov]

Some games I do take my time with tbf. I’m still playing through Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which I got exactly a year ago. I dip in and out and play a couple of levels and bonus stages every other month, just for a colourful hit of joy.

 

REm4ke is another one that I took my time over, but mostly because I found it such an intense and exhilaratingly exhausting experience any time I played it. I could only play a single chapter a night, and by the time I got to the island I was only mustering the energy and strength to play it every 3 or 4 days, despite enjoying the shit out of it every time I played. I only completed it last week despite buying it at launch and playing it quite frequently. It was fucking excellent btw, I haven’t the strength or energy to go into it’s official thread to really further extol it’s virtues. It’s just a fucking banger, simple as that.

[Qazimod]

I gorge. If possible, I'll try and "free up" gaming time so that I'm not distracted with anything else when a big release hits, and I'll subconsciously dedicate weeks to the hot new thing.

 

That said, I have my eye on XVI next month and I want to try and dip in and out of that. For a while I've been thinking of doing some blind livestreams when Square's RPG hits, and I'm not going to be doing 8-hour broadcasts 7 nights a week. So I might take things slowly so that I have more evenings for streaming. (Unless the whole idea is ruined by my internet, or by external content blocking shenanigans, in which case I'll sack it off and gorge in private. ) 

[jonamok]

Savour the flavour, on the first run. My initial 150 hour playthrough of BOTW (no DLC) took months. My recent 60 hour replay took a week or two, inc. DLC. I expect I’ll do the same for TOTK.

[HarryBizzle]

I don’t have that much time to play games so I can’t really gorge on them. If I play a game every night for a week that’s a pretty good sign that I’m hooked.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever taken leave for a video game but I wouldn’t be opposed to it if I could guarantee the wife and kids would be out of the house. 

[Gabe]

Neither, really. I guess it's a good thing that I don't suffer FOMO (in games or anything), so I'm always playing old stuff, and playthroughs can last years (I recently completed Fable 3 despite starting it the first Christmas of release). I will sometimes get fairly engrossed and it will take up a fair amount of gaming time (Elex was the most recent, but even in that example, I started that at least a couple of years ago) but I'm always flitting between different games and it's rare that I would only play one thing in a session. I consequently have lots of games on the go at any one time to dip in and out of.

 

I'm also not a completionist nor a replayer - I'm a one-and-done with my games. I've said before across the forum that I'm a narrative-led gamer, so for me the appeal is different settings and stories and that trumps mechanics (as evidenced by a lot of the crap I've completed over the years).

[teddymeow]

I've taken a day off work for console launches.

 

The only game I've ever taken a day off for at launch is The Last of Us Part II.

 

I've TotK on click 'n' collect with Smyth's and, at the moment, my work diary is a WFH admin day so I'll take the kids to nursery / school, go for brekkie and then pick Zelda up on the way back home.

 

I'll pop it in the Switch to see if it needs an update and then wait to start playing it in the evening once everyone else has gone to bed.

[Vorgot]

I'm a savour kind of guy, I like the experience to last. My other big hobby is building Lego sets, and I know people who do the same big ones I do in a day. I like to take my time with them, do a couple of bags a day, post an update on Instagram and one set can last me a few weeks. There is something really satisfying about seeing it build up over time.

 

Same with games. A big release for me like Persona or Zelda, I'll play maybe an hour or two each night, I want it to last. DQ11 took me months as I was doing bloody everything in it. I got my Switch late but Zelda took me months to months to finish because I took my time. Still not finished Fire Emblem Engage. 

 

The only reason I speed up is if my 2 boys are playing something I want to play on the TV and I can't avoid seeing what they are doing. I never did Witcher 3 DLC because Harry played through it and I saw it all (I live in a flat, when the boys are here we all spend out time together in the lounge). But now Harry is at Uni and George plays different games to me, so it all works out. 

 

I will play a lot of Zelda next weekend, I am out of work at the moment and have time so may well play more, but I want that experience to last for a while

 

For the record, Lego sets I've done in the last 18 months include 

Spoiler

Super Mario 64 Block

NES and TV

Horison Zero Dawn Tallneck

Van Gogh's Starry Night

The Tumbler Batmobile

2 Batman masks and a SW Trench Run diarama.

 

And I'm working on Bowser now. Got 5 more sets lined up too, they will last me the year.

[Monkeyspill]

I’m really slow. I don’t get that much time to play and I can’t play for long extended periods without feeling I’ve had enough. I’m also slow at playing. It takes me 30 hours to finish what other people will get through in 15 and I’m not sure why (I don’t feel like I’m taking my time).

I’ve been on my first playthrough of RE4 remake since release and I’m not nearly finished yet.