Gaming New Years Resolutions 2023

I like to make gaming resolutions every year. I don't have a great history of actually keeping them but they at least give me something to aspire to regarding gaming for the following year so I don't just aimlessly wander between games I don't really like. It's also fun to look back and see how I did and how my priorities held up.

This year I want to keep things pretty simple. Here are my goals.

1) Maintain the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club as long as there remains interest.

This one is simple. I am enjoying doing the game club so I want to keep it going if I can. It's been a great way for me to get use out of Game Pass and to play games I might not otherwise play.

2) Keep playing co-op with real life friends.

Playing co-op has been great this last year. I have a friend who has gotten more into gaming and we've had a lot of fun. We finished It Takes Two and just finished the base game of Human Fall Flat tonight. I want to keep this up. I often bemoaned the fact that I never played multi-player in the past because I was missing a lot of cool experiences. Now that I'm pretty regularly playing some I want to keep it going.

3) Don't spend so much.

I make this every year and never keep it but this year I'm going to try harder. It's important. No full price games unless I plan to play them IMMEDIATELY and try to avoid buying anything unless it's actually something I want to play, preferably soon. As few games as possible without at least a 50% discount.

4) This will be the year I get into VR

I have had a PSVR since launch. I have barely used it. I haven't not used it at all; I liked Moss Book 1 quite a bit and I played some other games like Hotel R'N'R and Psychonauts Rhombus of Ruin that I enjoyed but it has mostly been a dust collector since my initial purchase and all the fun I had with Eagle's Flight. Well now I've ordered a PSVR2 and this time I want to take it more seriously since it will be less of a proof of concept. I am also going to try to get through some of my PSVR1 backlog. I hope to blog about this.

5) Finish the half finished games in my library (at least the ones I actually want to play.)

Another one I make every year and break but I really wnat to finish some of these games.

6) Keep playing RPGs on the treadmill.

This has been one of my "white whales" of gaming for a while because it both opens up a lot more gaming time in the week and it makes the exercise go quicker. This year I got into a really good rhythm and I want to keep that up!

7) Play more new games and more AAA games.

2022 is a year marked in part by the games I really wanted to play but never got to. I like playing new games and I like playing big high production games. I just need to make it a priority and spend less time playing smaller games that I may like some but don't love nearly as much. Fewer random indies (though I definitely want to keep playing the best of those too because they are just as good as even good AAA stuff.)

Those are my resolutions for the year in gaming in 2023. Mock me if you want to or make your own. Here's to a great year of gaming!

I just have some specific games I feel like I should finally get around to playing this year:

• F.E.A.R
• Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
• Deus Ex
• Strife

Very awesome ideas! I would also like to share my resolutions for this year's video gaming:

• Continue playing Automobilista 2, iRacing, rFactor 2, Assetto Corsa Competizione & WRC Generations.
• I would play Gran Turismo 7 & Forza Motorsport Reboot sometimes.
• Planning to purchase more content for iRacing.
• Hype up for RENNSPORT (New driving game IP), WRC 23 (Codemasters), F1 23 (Codemasters) and Forza Motorsport Reboot.
• Planning to purchase a Fanatec CSL DD wheelbase and ClubSport V3 Load Cell Pedals to replace my Thrustmaster T300 wheelbase and T3PA pedals.
• Upgrade my gaming desktop computer.
• Change to a new Sim Racing cockpit.

In 2021, I kept a spreadsheet listing every game I finished, the date I finished it, a 1-5 rating of what I thought of it, and a "notes" section for any notes I wanted to write down (I didn't write many, but I did for some).

I finished 27 games that year, some of them pretty long, which is more games in one year than I've ever finished, even as a kid (that has more to do with kid me having far fewer games than I do now, but the point still stands). In 2022, I did not do this. I'm not sure how many games I finished in 2022, but I can guarantee you it was less than 27. It might be less than ten. I know that I spent far too much time on Youtube/Twitch and wasted a lot of time just kinda futzing about.

Keeping track of the games I've finished seemed to do me a lot of good in 2021, so in mid-December I made a spreadsheet specifically for keeping track of games, movies, TV shows, books, and music that I'd like to participate in and a tab for all of those things I've actually finished, or at least played a good chunk of. Just because I list it in the "to play/watch/read/etc." section doesn't mean I'm dedicated to it, just that it's there whenever I need something to do. Hopefully this will mean spending less time watching garbage on Youtube and browsing Reddit and more time focusing on things that really matter - entertainment and the consumption thereof!

(OK seriously I'm also trying to think of ways to better manage time, work, and personal projects in general, instead of flying by the seat of my pants like I've gotten away with for 31 years, but that's a different topic entirely and I don't want to get into it on a gaming board.)

To post something more specific, I want to actually finish Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal before 3 comes out. I've made it to the Underdark twice over the past two years (once on Switch and once on PC) and both times I've just stopped there. The Underdark kinda sucks, but I really want to get back to Athkatla and finish all those sidequests. If only every video game city could be half as interesting as Athkatla.

My 2023 Gaming Goals are:

Continue my journey to 100% all the soulsbourne games. Elden Ring started this last year and after 100% it, I also did Dark Souls 3 and Dark Souls in 2022.

Complete Pokemon Violet and work more on my complete Dex. Live Dex was complete as of Pokemon Arceaus and I'm sat on 500 shinies.

Start the Bayonetta series.

Get back into collecting Pokemon cards after the price hike of Covid.

Work my way through the Mario Sports titles starting from 64 era during my monthly game hangouts with friends.

Not really a resolutions but a couple goals:

1CC at least one Cave shooter. It'll probably be Deathsmiles, but I'm going to move on to Mushihimesama once I achieve that. I'm already pretty close (and I think there are easier routes). Since it's my first attempt at really learning the genre, I wanted to do it without too much help and I'm sticking to the default parth.

Play ranked in Apex, but don't quit as soon as I reach Diamond. I'm not sure that grinding out masters is something I can achieve, but I'd like to give it more of a go.

Other than that? I just wanna play games and have fun. 2023 is gonna be a helluva year for new games!

Edit: Thought of another one: FINISH my vpin cabinet conversion and all of my other undiminished joystick and controller projects! I swear I won't start another until the backlog is clear.

@drrobotnikx: In 2021, I built a full living pokedex in Pokemon home. Been a fan of the series since it came to the US. I realized I had so many pokemon just sitting on old cartridges and after trading some extras to round it out, I did it! I updated it after Arceus. However, Scarlet & Violet absolutely make me want to fall off doing this. I'm just not enjoying the game, and I don't think I have enough extras for people to trade me their version exclusive legends. I really don't want to buy the other game just to do this, but it may still happen. Haha.

I'm planning on playing the whole FEAR trilogy this year. I hear it gets progressively worse though.

My gaming New Years Resolution is simple: Keep both my game subscriptions PS Plus and Game Pass updated so I can play as many games as possible during the year, or at least have the option to. And also play more Game Pass good quality games before they get removed.

Time for me to check out how I did this year.

1) The UUGPGC lives, even if interest has waned. Resolution successful!

2) My real life friends lost interest in playing co-op and I haven't done so for many months now. This is an abject failure, though I don't know what I could have done differently.

3) A mixed result here. I definitely cut my spending in some ways, especially towards the end of the year but still spent too much.

4) It wasn't. I gave it several tries and played a bunch of VR games, but I never got a rhythm going. It's just so inconvenient!

5) Another mixed result! I polished off some big ones and some that had lingered for awhile but not as many as I wanted to and, of course, I added even more.

6) I did this intermittently, but recently I found a really good set up with my iPad as a second screen. I haven't really been doing RPGs, but other games like roguelites and Kingdom: New Lands.

7) I forgot I made this! I think I played a little more AAA than I did the year before, but fewer new games. Part of that is because of controlling spending and part of it is because I put more time into a lower number of games, which is fine.

Happy 2024!

Cool that you accomplished some of your goals. I see the effort you put into the Game Pass Club and I hope it gains interest/traction this year.

@chamurai: Thanks!

I don't think that the Game Club is ever going to be more than it is. This forum is small now and shrinking, and I don't see that reversing because forums in general are dying. It's not actually that much work and it can be fun when a few other people play the game, though admittedly it can be a bit frustrating when I'm the only one. Then again I don't play every game so I don't really have a right to complain.

@bigsocrates: It is what it is unfortunately. I would participate, Game Pass PC in Japan is 850 yen a month which is pretty cheap, but my main issue is time. With 3 kids(youngest 1 yrs. old), I may or may not have anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour of game time each night and I don't think I'd be able to fully commit to the club and that wouldn't be fair to you or anyone else doing it.

@bigsocrates: i really like the idea of the gamepass club thing , my issue is that if i'm knee deep in something already i'm just less likely to bounce off of it to play one of those games if i wasn't already planning to . alot of my backlog issues stem from me bouncing off something in favor of starting something else, which is something i tried to minimize this past year along with spending less .. both of which were mixed successes i'd say for me since with the exception of the past month or so and last jan i didn't pick up many things and not finish them unintentionally , tho i did flat out drop a good handful of games too.

@chamurai: I'm not trying to guilt anyone into playing club games or anything, because it's really not that serious, but I don't think that "commitment" is really the way people are intended to think about it.

The club is intentionally very drop in drop out People play what they want to, don't play what they don't, can comment whenever they feel like it etc... It's really not meant to be a chore.

You don't even need Game Pass to join a session if you happen to have the game some other way. I have played some of the games on PlayStation because I already had them there. It's really just a comment thread on a specific game at a specific time to participate in when people feel like it. I understand people have kids and responsibilities. I have no children but I do have responsibilities and there are also some games I just don't want to play at a given time.

It's meant to be a welcoming thing people can drop in to from time to time if they feel like it. Heck we welcome people who already played the game and just want to talk about it, or play it at a later date and want to go back and tell me why I'm wrong and why Planet of Lana is actually the best game ever made!