m76

I've heard the exact same complaint regularly levied against gaming in the past 20 years or even earlier than that. And I don't think it's more valid now than it was before. There are only so many formulas for games, it's hard to do something that has never been done before. And I think originality is overrated. It's not originality that makes games great, it's using existing and well established formulas in the best way possible. I don't mind what brand they slap on a game, if it means they get the budget to make a good game. Call of Duty Infinite Warfare was one of the greatest single player campaigns I played, the COD branding didn't take anything away from it, it just meant they had the budget.

Spoiler tags? Although changing text color to match the background might work

On the top of the list is XCOM2 with 1100 hours. I usually don't spend more time on games than it takes to beat them. I'm not a fan of hunting for collectibles or achievements, so after finishing the campaign I'm usually done with them. Not with this one though. Of course there are games where there is no keeping track of how much time I spent on. One honorary mention has to go to Transport Tycoon, which was released in 1995, and I still actively played it 20 years later. Haven't done so recently, but there is always a chance with that. I must have spent at least 1000 hours on it, neglecting studies in all levels of education. The second game is BeamNG with 420 hours. Quite a feat for a completely aimless game, with no goals just mindless fun. The third most time I've spent on is Train Simulator with 350 hours, but at least some of that was contributed by my late father as we used to share a steam library.

Any and all games, that have no solo play option. I can't be bothered to play with random weirdos from around the world (no offence) I want the game world to be all mine, with nobody breaking my immersion at every corner.

For single player games most recently I've finished The Last of Us 2 in less than 72 hours. On release weekend I played about 10 hours on Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday, only stopping to eat. But my all time record is with Half Life, the original. Yes I'm that old, but not "THAT" old. I only realized on Sunday at 04:00AM that maybe I should go to sleep after having been playing it since Saturday morning. In multiplayer we used to have LAN parties that lasted non-stop from Friday evening till Sunday noon. Maybe getting in one or two hours of sleep between sessions.

I've had a few unopened games, until recently when I decided to open them. No I wasn't hoping that they would go up in value I just bought them possibly in a supermarket discount basket and never got around to playing them. Or I have acquired them digitally so I never needed the physical media. But about a year ago I opened the packaging on all of them.

And I hope I'll fit in. Why struggle? Because I registered two weeks ago and my account was only now activated. I was actually ready to move on and call this place a bust. But it was worked out by the admin, thanks for that. First off, why am I here? Because the original forum I was frequenting since 2001 has shut down permanently in 2018. I've been struggling ever since to find a proper gaming related forum. I'll not bore you with the details of my endeavours on other sites, but if anyone wants to ask I have plenty of stories. I've been a member of at least 5 gaming related forum since my OG home started struggling long before it's inevitable closure. Of course all have been failures in some sense. But enough about that. How do I wish to contribute? First off I hope I can take part in some lively conversations about videogames, and perhaps other topics? What I drag with myself is a 15 year old history of reviewing games. In that time I've written reviews for more than 80 games, with admittedly varying depth and quality. But I hope my unique and brutally honest takes can at least be entertaining even if you don't agree with some of them. They are all collected on my personal website: MadBlog Of course I'll be adding more reviews of games as I play them. m76

I have found this site through this article. I don't think it is a particularly great article, but it listed some sites I didn't know of. And this was the most promising so I joined.