Do you work on your gaming blind spots?

If so, what'd you play, what's your hot take?

I'm thinking from the PS2 era or older but I guess last gen works too. I try to fill some of my blind spots every year, which has the added benefit of most likely chipping away at the backlog but also just a fun thing to do for me. A game can be considered "essential" or stay in the collective consciousness for many reasons, good or bad. There are some games or series that just get brought up no matter how far passed we are from them and I hate when I chime in by just repeating what I heard or read about them. It feels much better when you've played it and can speak about it from 1st hand experience. But again, it's also just fun to get to something that flew by you or you just couldn't afford at the time. Every year I tackle about 2-3 of these but this year has been especially productive.

I'm currently making my way through Kingdom Hearts though I'm not sure where I stand on it yet. For now, I think the game is a title with big swings, giant, massive swings. I literally go from hating it to really liking it to hating it again and that seems to happen every session.

I won't list them all but some of the highlights for this year include:

God Hand - I guess it doesn't get brought up that often but when it gets mentioned, it's always in a hushed tone and yup, it's very good. I wish people would stop calling games hard if it's good 'cause it drives more people away than brings in. This game is a fun challenge and all the levels are so short, the amount of progress you lose when you die is minuscule. It's one of those games that sets out to do just a couple things very well and it does it in a very unique fashion. Definitely recommend it!

Alpha Protocol - I doubt it's essential in many circles but I happen to be in one of those circles, Giant Bomb. lol This game is fun as hell. I had such a good time with this game but it is jacked. Whenever someone here mentioned Alpha Protocol, I always thought they were clowning and I still think they kinda are but they're also kinda not. At the end of the day, a fun game is a fun game.

Out of this World - Didn't know about this game until I saw it once on a UPF and it fucking blew my mind. Playing through it this year, it was kinda like Kingdom Hearts, big swings. Overall, it's an amazing game, just real frustrating in spots. But wow, can't believe they made this that long ago.

I've played some other big ones but I wanna hear what you've played and how you felt about them.

Last year I played a bunch of revered games from years past, though I didn't specifically "make a point" to do so. I played Persona 4, Last of us, the Shantae games, the Borderlands games...LOVED all of them. With the exception of tlou they also were my first real exposure to their respective genres (jrpg/metroidvania/loot shooter) and I'm glad I could expand my horizon in that regard.

I haven't been quite as "productive" this year. While I have yet to play a 2017 game, the games I did play were mostly just 2016 games I didn't get to last year. I do have Persona 3 ready to play on my ps3, so maybe that'll be "the one" this year.

As someone who praises Alpha Protocol whenever possible: that is a weird one. It doesn't have great graphics, tight gameplay, a memorable soundtrack, good level design or even an inspired story. Yet I played through it like 7 or 8 times by now, including once this year, and it's one of my all time favorite games. Because it's doing some really special things with its interlocking systems that permeate all parts of the game, the dialogues, the character relationships, the reputation mechanics etc. ... really special stuff no other game has done yet in such an accomplished way.

I try to play any of the best game of the year nominees, but sometimes there's a reason I missed a game. Hated Doom, dishonored, and shadow of mordor. Went back to give Firewatch a go, and ended up lovnig it. Took a cue from that and downloaded undertale....my god that game is NOT my thing. Thought the writing was abysmal, the 16-bit graphics are fine, but the colors were very muted and the environments very bland. Saw what it was going for but it was such a chore to play that I decided to stop. I'd be interested to see what kind of lists people have for their missed games, could be a great source of new games to play.

@liquiddragon: Yeah I do this a lot, honestly most of what I play is oldish. Although the majority is 2-5 years old -ish. Most of those probably don't qualify using your criteria. But as an enthusiast I love seeing all the crazy unique games out there and understanding firsthand why they are loved

Never played God Hand but yeah that is the exact kinda game I like to see for myself.

That's kinda the point of this list I made recently

https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/slag/lists/holes-in-the-gaming-resume/359931/

a good ole kick in the pants to myself prioritize to fill some of the knowledge gaps.

Usually Try to knock a handful out each year.

Some of the highlights from this year

• Super Metroid- An embarassing hole in my gaming resume. I've certainly had ample opportunities to play SM, just never actually did it till now. The Metroid Prime 4 announcement got me off my butt to do it. Absolutely incredible how well this game holds up. I'm not sure if it's a function of how little the relatively dormant Metroidvania subgenre has been until recently or a function of its impeccable design or both, but this game feels like it would be incredibly well received today too. Not sure I've played any game that has aged as well as SM. Definitely deservedly one of the greatest games of all time.
• Spec Ops: The Line- A lot of games could learn some storytelling tricks from this one. Eventhough it's heavily inspired by Heart of Darkness, it's impressive that sort of blatant borrowing is a vast improvement over most traditional game story telling. Not to mention the cutscene cinematography. Not enough people mention that, but the cutscenes are Hollywood level of quality in their direction. Makes me sad how many series have gone Open World, stories this powerful are only possible through Linear design imo. Not everything has to be GTA.
• 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. - Definitely one of the best Visual Novels I've played. Has the right mix of gameplay to story and the mystery is compelling enough that I wanted to see it through to the real end.
• Burnout: Paradise - Not sure who thought to make Crashing fun, but it's a brilliant solution to Racing games biggest problem imo. Don't know how much I'll play, since Racing games don't hold my attention for long anymore, but I had a lot of fun with the multiplayer.

And Last year

• Mega Man X -Totally get why people love those games so much, honestly they hold much better mechanically than OG Mega Man.
• Mass Effect 1- I'd absolutely love to play a remaster of this game. Easily can why for a time Mass Effect seemed like the perfect fusion of RPG and Action.
• Advance Wars: Dual Strike: I've played a bunch of AW games but never the one considered the best. Unsurprisingly it's good, real good.
• Uncharted 1- killed my PS3 in the process but wasn't off to a good start with me. Combat was bad and it was hard to parse stuff out of the environment.
• Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - I didn't think it was that good. But for an oldschool Gameboy game it has to be one of the best. Most of those seem horrible by today's standards and didn't seem that great back then.
• Metroid II: Return of Samus - I've tried a number of times to get into Metroid over the years, but my stubborness to play the first one first keeps getting in the way. Got this for free from Nintendo and then AM2R also came out, and loved them both. Now I'm in love with the franchise like I always thought i would be, and it got me to get off my butt and play Super Metroid this year. I'll get around to Metroid 1 or Zero Mission before too long.
• Day of the Tentacle- Was not impressed by this one. Maybe I've just played too many Tim Schafer adventure games, but it seemed like another one of those. Which is good, great even, but not as amazing as its hyped up to be (to me at least). Probably felt a lot better at the time, just a victim of high expectations from me.
• Maniac Mansion- Now Maniac Mansion otoh has an incredibly unique gameplay system. It's almost like an adventure game roguelike. It's so old that many things don't hold very well, but the core conceit is so good I'd love to see someone try to revive this kind of game.

@slag: That's a pretty nice spread man. Out of those, I've only played Spec Ops, Burnout, Mass Effect, and Uncharted. I better play Super Metroid sooner rather than later before I get exposed as a complete fraud. lol The only Metroid I've played is Prime 1 a few years ago and I freaking love that game so I am looking forward to playing Super. The only excuse I have is that I didn't grow up with a SNES so I'm actually putting together a SNES games list to plow through, which the only problem is trying to condense it down to a manageable size.

Sorry about your PS3. Drake's Fortune I played a little before U2 came out so I have some fondest for it and can get some pleasure out of going back to it but yeah, I can't really see anyone getting that much out of it playing it for the 1st time nowadays. Did your PS3's disc drive die or did you get the yellow light?

Looking at your Resume Hole, it's funny how some "essential" games I would tell most people, without hesitation, to avoid but at the same time, someone like yourself kinda should find out and decide on your own. The one that really sticks out to me personally is Halo 2 'cause it was one of those games that taught me my taste just doesn't line up with others sometimes, even if I bought it based on a reviewer I trusted. Do you find making a list like this helps you? Ever since I started working on my blind spots, one of the 1st thing I realized was that my blind spots' much bigger than my pool of knowledge. Making a list like this would kinda paralyze me and I wouldn't know where to start. I got rid of my backlog list for the same reason. Now, I just gut check what I'm feeling next after I knock one down.

Playing more recent games past their release window, away from the hype and conversation is great 'cause 1, you can probably get it for cheaper and 2, allows one to assist them with a bit more clarity but I find it a bit different from playing games that are a bit older. While I try to get away from the talk surrounding the game for the ones more recent, for older games, I actually try to put them in context, remember what people were saying, what was happening around the game's release, and what other games were it's contemporaries 'cause this far away, those things don't have that much impact on my enjoyment or judgement of the game, they almost just serve as fun trivia.

But I think maybe the reason I try to draw an arbitrary line is 'cause we actually don't know what will become an "essential game". I think the super big ones like Witcher 3 seems like it'll be able to stay in the conversation for a long time to come but it's rather hard to say what will be God Hand or Spec Ops: The Line. I played Spec Ops, I think, a year into its release and I would've never guessed it'd get mentioned in 2017. There were just so many 3rd person cover shooters during that time and yeah, people were talking up how it did story but people talk up things all the time, the question is will they talk it up 5, 10 years from now? Who knows.

@kingbonesaw: Nice, that's cool too. I try to replay couple games a year as well. I feel kinda bad when it's something not that old 'cause I could totally be playing something else but it's great to go back to something I hadn't touch in forever and rediscover moments you had completely forgotten. Went back to Max Payne 1 & 2 this year and I didn't remember so much of 1 and gained a new appreciation for 2.

And you know what, I'm not ready to give Matt the privilege of attaching his name on that game, he didn't even manage to get one cute puppy in it anywhere! Boo...

This year and next year I'm dedicating 90% of my gaming time to classics I never finished or started. Top of the list are:

• Eternal Darkness
• Final Fantasy VI
• Wind Waker
• Mario 64
• Super Metroid
• Pokemon Leaf Green/Fire Red - just finished this. I found a Nintendo Power review of the first Pokemon game. They gave it 7.2. My god.

Not on purpose, but in the case of the SNES Classic I guess I'm mostly buying it to go through all those games for the first time in the hopes the novelty system will make me appreciate them more. Y'know, instead of playing FFVI on a PS3 controller/keyboard.

Otherwise no, it's not something I make a point of doing.

hey man, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I had a lengthy reply written up and accidentally erased it. :(

Don't feel bad about Super Metroid man, It's a great game that deserves all the praise it gets. However unless you are an old timer like me I think it's impossible to have hit all the high watermarks from every given era just due to opportunity. So don't hold yourself to an impossible standard. As for me I have no excuse, I could have and should have played SM decades ago as I did grow up with a SNES (and a NES before that)... My own stubbornness got in my way. I wanted to beat the original Metroid first so I could do the series in order and never did. Last year I allowed myself to play Metroid II because of AM2R and This year I just said eff it I'll play Super, when Metroid Prime 4 was announced I figured I better start catching up on this series now. But yeah it's a blast man, worthy of your time. If you feel the urge, just play it. Don't be like me and think yourself into a mental trap.

Besides you banged out 3 yourself I'd like to get to myself. Can't play them all you know?

Disc Drive bit it on my PS3. I think I might be able to fix it, but haven't been motivated to do it. It's an old Phat launch Ps3, so it's got my FF Xii and GTA: vice city PS2 saves on it, so I'm going to have to do some weird stuff to preserve those saves if things look bad.

I'll address the resume thing at the end since I have pretty lengthy answer there

Given the choice I'd probably prefer to play the games during when the hype is fresh, just because it is fun to be part of the conversation so to speak. Then you don't have to worry about ducking the talk either. I do miss some things of the pre-internet days where you could pick up tips and such from friends from school and whatnot. But the cost savings and practicality of playing games later just makes too much sense not to do it today. You save so much money, get to play so much more and what you do play is usually already been patched into its best state. Games like Hitman worry me a bit as I hope single player games dependent on online servers isn't out future. I don't replay games much but I still would really hate for my games to die.

As for what constitutes a special game, I think I generally know one when I see one. At least for me what I personally consider to be special games. I pay close enough attention to releases and whatnot about the only things that surprise me is occasionally an indie game that I wasn't previously aware of. While I try to avoid spoiler level details, surface level chatter often gives enough decent clues as to whether or not there's something there. Now I'm sure Spec Ops isn't a game that gets talked about a lot these days, but I could tell right away from the chatter when it released that it was going to be interesting. And if you bring it up to people, it definitely evokes a reaction. For a similar game from this year I bet will fit kinda the same bill, I think Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is probably of a similar ilk. Not going to raise a lot of attention in the mainstream Madden/CoD crowd, but in enthusiast circles I bet it ends up being considered a noteworthy game that makes you think about games a bit differently than you otherwise might. That's my impression anyway, haven't played it yet so we'll see But it caught my attention the same way SpecOps did.

now for the very longwinded part and I'll put this behind a spoiler block so I don't hog the whole page here. To answer your question about whether not the Resume list helps me..

Well I got a PS4 this summer and mostly been PC gaming since 05 and haven't owned a Console since the PS2 but so far on PS4 this Summer I played.

Uncharted 4

Until Dawn

The last of us remastered

Heavy rain and Beyond two souls

and right now I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn

Still getting use to the gamepad again but damn this year really got alot better for gaming for me.

I felt like I had to at least check out Witcher 3, even though the setting and such absolutely could not be less my thing, so I'm picking at that every so often. I've gotta admit, it's pretty impressive right out of the gate. I'll be shocked if it keeps my attention for long enough to actually finish it or even come close to finishing it (again, the fantasy genre is suuuuper not for me), but I can totally see what the hubbub was about. Also, Gwent is fun.

But yeah, I do try to play a good chunk of "essential" games sooner or later, even if I don't think I'll like them. Except Zelda games. I tried, man... if Ocarina and LttP didn't do it for me, I think it's safe to say that I'll never like Zelda. Also, crafting/survival games and MMOs. Just not gonna happen.

@slag: haha that's brutal, sorry about that and thx for gettin' back.

I am always year behind, so yeah. This year I played Hitman and DOOM.

I'm old and set in my ways enough at this point that I've pretty much given up any pretence of trying to be "literate in video games", as I've often described it to people. Part of my issue is one of circumstance; I never had a SNES, PS1, or PS2 growing up, and I didn't really have many friends that were playing different games from me. I also missed a ton of stuff on PC that is considered iconic. Also, I was a high-functioning autistic child with ADHD who wouldn't sit still, so the number of games that I actually beat or played to completion was pretty modest, and a lot of the games I loved on my N64 or GameCube aren't considered classics. The N64 Zelda games are a massive exception for me, in that they were iconic games that I played at the time and absolutely adored, even though I often needed walkthroughs for the dungeons. They're also unique in that I have replayed them in the last few years, albeit the 3DS remasters.

I don't give a crap about any sort of "gamer cred"; if someone thinks less of me because I haven't ever played an MGS game, a Mega Man game, finished a Final Fantasy game, or whatever, then I couldn't care less. I like what I like, and I don't see why I should go out of my way to play games that have passed me by, especially since so much context would be missing - games are often a time-and-place thing. And I'm not going to judge anyone for having missed the games that I consider essential to my childhood, because who the hell am I to do that? So what if you didn't have a Game Boy in the late 90s and so didn't play Pokemon Red/Blue for hundreds of hours. Y'all have your experiences, and I have mine, and that should be good enough.

I've fallen into the trap of thinking I'll actually play through the classics before. A year or two after I played and loved Dragon Age: Origins, I went on GOG and bought all the old classic CRPGs. Never played them, apart from the first 30 or so minutes of Baldur's Gate II, not nearly enough time to form any sort of impression of such a long and complex game. A few months ago, I decided to try and get into PC emulation, so downloaded a bunch of ROMs of classic games, only to find that Super Mario World could only hold my interest for about 10 minutes at a time. I realised some time in my teens that I actually really don't like platformers, and I forget that every now and then until I try and play one, and then I remember. But I did end up playing quite a bit of Pokemon Pinball for Game Boy Colour, which is not a good game, but I remember playing a bootleg or demo version of it or something at the time and thinking it was rad. Dunno, guess I'm just weird.

So to summarise, nostalgia is overrated, old games are hard, I'm grumpy, and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is one of the greatest games of the late 90s.

Oh, definitely. 95% of the time I'm playing something from my never-ending backlog, with a new game thrown in every now and then for good measure. As an example, I've finally finished Persona 4 along with Kirby Planet Robobot, and have now jumped headfirst into Sonic Mania.

I'm thinking next year I'm going to JUST focus on the backlog to make a significant dent in it.

I love talking about games and the industry in general, so totally, I think there's value in being well-rounded and I do what I can to step outside my comfort zone. It's good advice for life in general, I think.

My present plan has been to gobble up interesting Wii U games I never played (which is a lot, considering I barely bothered playing any) before they all disappear off the face of the Earth, since I think it has a good library, total sales failure of the hardware aside.

I don't play nearly as much old stuff as I did a couple of years ago, but I'll still play a handful of older games here and there. To some extent, that's because I've already played most of the older games that caught my interest (seriously, I played through almost every single Infinity Engine game between 2009 and 2012) but that also has a lot to do with me having more disposable income to futz around with and keep up with current releases.

At some point I will get around to playing more than an hour of Super Metroid, and at some point I'd like to give Arcanum another honest shot, but it's going to take a certain amount of effort and concentration to make either of those (and plenty of other examples) happen.

System Shock 2

Half Life (I played 2 and loved it.)

Baldur's Gate I and II

Shadow of The Colossus

Resident Evil 2

Devil May Cry 3

Street Fighter II

The main one from last gen is the first Witcher game, so that's what I've been playing lately. I'm hooked.

Somewhat. I have huge backlog of older games I never finished or even tried, but there are certain genres of games that I'm bad at delving into. Like I've never been a big strategy game guy. Turn based or real time I've just never really gotten into any of them. But I'm well aware of all the strategy games that are considered some of the best games of all time. Like Command & Conquer, Civilization, FF Tactics, X-COM etc. I've always felt bad about never giving them a proper shot.

Blind spots? Are you just asking if I play older games?

@ezekiel: Any popular games or genres that you're not familiar with.

It's not necessarily for the purpose of covering a blind spot, but I do play older games I haven't played from time to time because they look interesting. I want to get into Yakuza at some point (the old ones), but I haven't really gotten around to it. There's also stuff like Vagrant Story I wanna check out based on it's word of mouth etc.

As far as covering actual blind spots. I have tried a ton of different genres and styles over time. I've tried my best to not think of anything as "not for me" and worked on finding out what's cool about it. For the longest time I thought shooters were boring as hell with a few exceptions. I used to only like overtly stylish ones or ones with more puzzely elements like Halo or Max Payne. But I've gotten much more into the actual point and click gameplay and it's intricacies, and enjoy them much more for what they are.

Done the same with other stuff like roguelikes, where I don't really like any of them. But through Dead Cells, Darkest Dungeon and Xcom I think I at least get it now. Playing these over many runs kinda blurs the lines of a messed up run with awful RNG and your more run of the mill progress, taking the sting out of it and also evening out the random elements to feel more fair.

Hmm. Maybe not in the sense you're talking about. I usually play older games because one, I have nothing else to play and I wanted to check out what may have been good, and two, a sequel could be coming. Right now, for instance, there isn't anything new I want to play, so I went back to Bully since I had never beat it. It's the 360 (Scholarship Edition) version, so not the original PS2 game, but it's, all the same, more or less. It's great aside from some control issues and visual/frame rate issues. I like Bullworth, and I like the mission variety; those things stand out to me. I can't say I particularly care for any of the characters, but some of the characters' satirical aspects are pretty funny. I have fun going through the story, but the story itself is super basic.

Now that I make a point of branching out and playing different types of games, I discovered that I have quite a few blind spots. Strategy, immersive-sims and computer role-playing games are chief among them. For the longest time, I just stuck to a very limited number of genres and franchises. I also stopped playing video games for years at a time several times.

Are you asking if I actively play games I don't like just fill in some metaphorical tick sheet?

Thanks for the tip man on the disc drive! I admit I'm just lazy about it. and no worries about the long replay. I always appreciate those, I just know some ppl get overwhelmed when I write one. That's the only reason I apologized in mine.

No, I don't even have enough time to play all the games I already want to play. On top of that, I replay games all the time. If I don't have an immediate interest in a game at first glance, I will likely never play it. I watch E3 press conferences because I have a very, very good eye for games I know I will like and I like to get that list filtered down asap.

@slag:

Ive never played the Might and Magic games so I have been thinking of getting them on GOG. But I don't know if they are too old school. I tried the free Ultima IV but I was completely lost.

I'm too far behind on what is directly in front of me.

I don't even have enough time or money to play all of the games that I actively want to play.

Not very often anymore unless I think I genuinely might enjoy it. When I was a teenager and had tons of free time i was all about playing every game from every genre to fully diversify my experiences. And if I didn't like what I tried I at least had an opinion on it. Now, quite frankly, I just don't really care as much about some genres or series. I have limited time so I tend to play what I know I enjoy (strategy games and rpgs) over things that I might possibly like If I take a chance. I replay the hell out of my favorites nowadays until something new or different catches my eye. I've dropped the whole notion of having a backlog or list of games that I need to go through to be educated. Maybe this will change again as time goes on, but for now I'd rather play what I like instead of pressuring myself to fill in blind spots. I've been gaming since I had a SNES as a kid, so most of my blind spots are blind spots for a reason, typically lack of interest rather than lack of availability. Trying to make myself do those just isn't very fun.

@liquiddragon:

Hah well the good news is those SNES games you mentioned won't take you very long whenever you decide to play them, especially given how fast you seem to be able to tear through stuff. I get where you are coming from about why you want to experience them, I feel the same way as you can tell I'm sure. Well not about that specific era since I was active then, but in general I like to see stuff for myself firsthand so I can understand. Fwiw as an oldtimer I think all those Gen 6 games you mentioned were great too. Not everything about games has to be a contest, you know? Gen 4,5 and 6 were all great.

Those timed events do seem wasteful and yet I know it works for them. If you think about it, the core problem single player games have long had economically is to create a sense of urgency to get gamers to pay full price and thus pay for the game at launch. Over the years devs have tried a lot of bad solutions (bolting superfluous multiplayer modes onto games, retailer preorder incentives, that weird download Catwoman DLC code thing that Arkham City did, etc etc), this seems like the latest one of those. Unfortunately it's one that I think works psychologically. That ole' Fear of Missing out.

Sure will do man!

A better balance in life is definitely important, hard to be truly happy without it. Plus it's never bad to take breaks and pace yourself. I always find it easier to appreciate games when I don't feel rushed.

Hope you find the balance man!