Checking In – Ten Titles to Tackle in 2020

For all intents and purposes, we’re currently about one-third of the way through the year. If I were on track, I’d probably have a couple of these games finished, and be somewhere near the midway point of a third. In actuality, I have played enough of Far Cry: Primal that I’m content saying I’m done with it, and very little else.

But it’s not that I haven’t tried. I have, in fact, loaded up almost half the titles on the list at least once, but none of them drew me in. I’m not tossing them out, mind you, but I’m also not forcing myself to play things I’m not enjoying.

So which games haven’t grabbed me?

Borderlands: GOTY – Grim Dawn – Slay the Spire – Starbound

Out of the four, I’ve tried to get into Starbound the most. It might be time to acknowledge that I just don’t get it. I like to explore, I like to build, and mining and tunneling are usually big draws. But I really have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing.

What I am actually doing is dying over and over to the equivalent of RPG rats. I’m not good at this game, and as a result, I’m not enjoying it. It’s similar to the issues I had with Terraria, and while it’s not entirely unexpected, I’m still a bit disappointed.

I’m also expecting that Grim Dawn is going to end up in the “not for me” pile – I’ve started this one up many times, but an hour or two in, I’m bored. I do usually like the ARPG format, so it’s not that, and the setting, while not incredibly captivating for me, is fine. I think the problem is that none of the classes appeal to me, so no matter what I pick, it feels drab.

I don’t expect I’ll be going back to either of these anytime soon.

But I’m going to chalk up my failure to engage with both Borderlands and Slay the Spire as “not the right game at the time” – that’s actually been a huge problem for me for about the last six weeks, and I frequently install and sample half a dozen or more games before finding something that feels right for me.

Although I’m still working on my World of Warcraft Pathfinder, I’m between main games at the moment. I keep thinking I want to play something where I’m building and managing things, but the games I find myself actually getting sucked into are full of ridiculous and wanton destruction. It’s strange having no idea what I actually want.