Being an adult gamer

Sometimes it feels like games are just too long. Gone are the days where most of us can spend the entire summer exploring fantasy world, interacting with every NPC and completing every side quest.

The reality is that gaming is hard to fit into a normal working person’s schedule. How are you supposed to play dozens of hours of The Witcher 3 when there are people to see, things to do, music to hear, films to watch and books to read.

Every time you prioritise one thing, it comes at the cost of another. Want to see Deadpool? That’s a few hours you won’t be able to spend on that final Uncharted play.

This is especially bad when you factor in gaming, because they’re are so many worthwhile rooms to set.

There are months where I’d happily ignore the cinema entirely, but even the slightest glimpse at the PlayStation Store or Xbox marketplace offers dozens of unplayed rootless vying for my time.

And the least said about Steam, the better. I could disconnect my PC from the internet and still have enough worthwhile, unplayed titles to last me until the Christmas sale.

I don’t mean to complain. All of this is just a part of the depressingly necessary fact of being an adult. Boo hoo.

What matters is how you deal with this. As a film buff, I’ll carefully plan out my weekly cinema trips, I’ll listen to music as I drive and read before I go to sleep.

But gaming is a proactive thing, and the only answer to this part of the problem is to struggle on add best you can.

I usually aim to play shorter titles, things like Uncharted that can be played to 100% in 15 hours rather than 50.

On the odd occasion a longer game takes my fancy, it must be bought and played over a break or across several months. Some people finished Fallout 4 in a weekend, for Mr Worker Bee me it took until well into January. I still haven’t got the platinum trophy.

It’d be great to have some fun instant win games to look at, that don’t take up too much time and which offer the full experience workout taking up weeks of precious hobby time.

Something beyond simple, mindless mobile titles, but less involved than rich RPGs or action adventures. Half minute hero springs to mind, but the idea has yet to be successfully replicated, or at least not very often.