Don't rush playing through your games

I came across this video on YouTube titled "You NEED To Stop Playing Games Efficiently". It kept appearing in my suggestions (which thankfully are actually quite useful) and as it wasn't particularly long I decided to give it a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2dJzRBLN78&pp=0gcJCZEKAYcqIYzv

Yeah, this guy isn't wrong. I do recommend you watch the video itself, but the gist is that if you are rushing through a game just to complete it, basically for the sense of completing it, then you're not going to enjoy it as much. Now, this might sound like someone saying "you're enjoying it wrong", but crucially it's focusing on how trying to rush through a game is somewhat unique to a game compared to that of film and TV. Yes, you can fast forward, but really, when we engage normally with that type of medium, we press play, watch, and then stop at the end. It's slightly different with a TV series as it is segmented but this just provides an ideal point to stop before picking it up again next time.

With videogames, and to help with the argument the focus is on single player games, there is also an ending, how this ending functions will vary between games, but there is something that the player is working towards. Yes, we can rush towards that ending, it is our goal afterall. But, what about everything else the game has to offer. Unlike a film, we can decide how long we would like to smell the digital roses.

The argument here though is not that we should pause and try and view every single little detail in a game, or complete every single side quest. Obviously, with the latter you are free to do so, but for most players a balance can be reached.

This is what I try and aim for. I do like finding secrets and going off the beaten track, but I'm also fine with knowing I haven't found everything. For me, yes the main path is ultimately my focus, a means to reorient what I'm doing if it's an open world game, but I do also enjoy seeing what else exists in that world, to take in the environmental storytelling that is on offer.

One key balancing aspect that has helped me get through games without rushing them is with carefully selecting the difficulty level. For example, the Silent Hill 2 Remake has two separate difficulty settings to choose. The first is for combat, which I set to easy/low (can't remember the exact name for it) whereas for the puzzles I ended up leaving it on standard/default/medium (thankfully my partner convinced me to do so). This balance was perfect for me in this instance. When it comes to combat in survival horror games, for some reason I am mediocre at best. So, if I had left it on normal I would likely have become frustrated and inclined to stop playing (I can't remember if the remake allows you to change difficulty after starting). Whereas with the puzzles, sure they can be a bit frustrating, but you are not under the same kind of pressure. For me, time pressure is something that has always got to me the most. GTA Vice City and The Simpsons Hit & Run stand out in my mind as offenders of this.

Because I had the overall difficulty set at a level that worked well for me I was able to finish a play through (I'm not doing another play through anytime soon just to see a different end scene), plus not only was this without rushing but also I would explore a little bit as well. Enjoying my time just that little bit longer in Silent Hill.

There are so many (too many) videogames out there to play, many I already own and have downloaded, let alone all the games from the past two decades that I would like to play but didn't get round to getting. So I get the desire to rush so you can at least experience all these games, except then you are only getting a taste, I want to spend my time with them, plus I don't have to finish it straight away as I can always come back and often achieve this eventually.

I just enjoy playing all sorts of videogames, I'm here for this meandering and fascinating journey.