Several things have me re-thinking my approach to games. And my relationship with gaming overall. In general. One of those things is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I don’t want to go too far into that topic as I am still playing the game, and the slightest detail can be spoilerific. Maybe I’m halfway through or very close to it. But it is at least transformative in how it is making me think. This revisitation of how I game and manage my time in gaming. It may be time to start making some changes.
One of those changes first and foremost is that I may be returning to story-driven games. For a couple or decades now I have surmised that I do not stick with any one story for too long. I eventually get distracted by the sheer number of games but also the games that are more squarely in my wheelhouse. And by that I mean fist-person shooters and vehicle simulations. So many story-driven games are RPGs or action-adventure games and eventually I get bored. But there were times when those were in my wheelhouse. And it may be time to go back.
This also brings me to the current agonizing I’ve been doing over my hardware conundrum. Left and right I have things that I would have been interested in in the past that just have not lit a fire in my materialistic heart. GPUs and the Nintendo Switch 2 are primary examples of things that I might want one day.
Eventually. But the costs are too prohibitive and the hook just isn’t there. Or is it?
Tonight there was a bit of loosening of the rusty handle. As the very iPad I am typing this on, the iPad Air 13” M2, blipped an alert that in order to install the latest iPad OS update, I would need to clear out just under 12GB of storage. That’s a big no-no. I had been running an experiment since last year when I picked this up as only the 128GB model. The minimum storage SKU available. Since moving into the Apple ecosystem, I knew that my past proclivity had always been to buy Apple products with one of the top two storage SKUs available on the phone and the iPad. But on laptops and Mac minis, I’d decided to start low and see if I really need the extra space.
For the iPad this time, I’d decided to try that too. But I hate managing storage for OS updates and that is always an instant trigger for me to to bump to the next tier; in this case 256GB. But of course, the M2 is no longer available, supplanted by an M3 model this past March. And so here we are striking a thing off my list I’d said I could wait on. Oh well.
Yes, this is gaming adjacent; I do subscribe to Apple Arcade and game on my iPad too. So not directly gaming. But, my main point in this is that it has loosened up a bit of spring-time buyer constipation.
And that, in combination with my thought of returning to the general gaming landscape and not just dumping time into Call of Duty, World of Warships, Star Citizen, FIFA, and others, has me also considering that I am currently PC only. And there will inevitably be some of those games that are only on console.
Because, of course, as many people know, I have also been running an experiment to force myself to see if it is indeed true that I am just fine on PC only. And with these thoughts, I consider that I may not be. I have been watching and reading up on Donkey Kong Banaza. As well as Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. And it may be time to return to consoles after a brief time out in the desert. Maybe. We’ll see.
In the meantime, as I agonize yet again over these things, it’s time to go watch more of that DK Bananza Treehouse.
Rounding Off Infinity 