I’m gonna preface this comment by saying none of the games I mention below are bad games, in fact I think they’re very good games… they just weren’t for me.

The Outer Wilds:

I’m probably gonna take some flack for this one! I was SO looking forward to this game, I’d heard such great things about it.

I played it for around 10-15 hours, all the while thinking to myself ‘any time now this game will open up and I’ll get to the main meat of the game.’ I slowly came to the realisation that this wasn’t going to happen and that the game wasn’t going to change gear or anything. Ultimately I found the game boring.

The game is about exploration and piecing together a story, unfortunately I found the story dull and consequently didn’t care about piecing it together. Im also one of those gamers that often quick clicks through dialogue, I just want the gist of what’s being said. I want to ‘play’ a game, I don’t want to ‘read’ a game. I have books for that.

I also didn’t enjoy the exploration, I found it tedious. Now that’s strange for me… I love exploration games. I’ve wondered about this and I think the reason I didn’t enjoy exploration in the out wilds is the art style. The ‘cutesy’ art style just left me cold. None of the locations filled me with awe or wonder. I never got that feeling of ‘I wonder what’s over there!’ like I do in other exploration games.

Red Dead Redemption:

I’ve tried to play this game 3 times now. Each time I get so far and just stop…. It just bores me!

On paper this should be exactly the type of game I love, but for some reason I just don’t. I’ve thought long and hard about this game, why does it fail to keep me engaged? I’ve come up with a couple of potential reasons.

Colours. This game can be very mono chromatic. It’s often all dull greys and browns and I genuinely think that does play a part in me finding my time in the game dull also.

Getting around. Travel is tedious in this game and there’s a lot of it. It’s walking or horses.

The map. The map is large, but a lot of it is empty and looks the same.

Missions. I often found them a chore and quite repetitive.

I’m kind of still on the fence about this game, I still wonder if there’s a hump to get over and then the game opens up…. But I fear there isn’t.

Control:

This one is my fault. I don’t like fps games and didn’t realise that’s what this game was. I thought it was more puzzle solving and exploration.

I like the story and I like the art style but ultimately it’s a ‘pew pew pew’ game, which isn’t fun for me.