What do you do if you donāt like a video game everyone else in the world seems to like? Are you too worried about getting in your gaming fix? Whatās your favorite pudding? These questions and more on this weekās Ask Kotaku.
Donāt forget to send me questions for next week! Get wild! Ask me anything! I work in the media-covering-games industry, there must be some insidery stuff you want to know about. Or whatever. Email them over.
Game-themed weeks on Kotaku (like Mass Effect week)
Back in april you did the Mass Effect week, which was pretty awesome. The 3 games are pretty huge, a lot of contents/topics and it was interesting you covered all these aspects, as well as having your [Kotaku team] opinions on the games.
Some people thought 1 week was too much but I found it suitable (and I think there was a tag like Kotaku Core).
So my question is if there will be another dedicated week for a given game?
Weāve definitely talked about it, and I think youāll see one eventually. Itās a matter of the timing being right. For Mass Effect the final DLC was releasing and so it was the perfect time to look back at the series. And youāre right, the games are huge, with a lot of different topics to cover as well as opinions across the board. It made it quite a good fit for that kind of week-long theme.
I think a week is the proper amount of time, but we definitely overdid it a little. We all got excited and we all wanted to contribute at least a couple of ideas. It was the first time weād done something like that so we might have gotten a little ahead of ourselves. Next time we do it, it will be more refined, rest assured.
Favorite type of pudding
For everyone, whatās your favorite type of pudding?
Really all pudding, because I have the biggest sweet tooth ever. But if I had to pick: chocolate. Or the swirl of vanilla and chocolate, if thatās not cheating.
Life and gaming guilty pleasures
Whatās your guilty pleasure? Both in gaming and in your daily life.
My current gaming guilty pleasure: Candy Crush Saga. I KNOW, I KNOW. Itās just that everyone keeps TALKING about it around me and I felt like I had to at least know what the hell this thing is all about. So I tried it and it is THE DEVIL. But I still play it. And then I close my eyes at night and I see candies. CANDIES EVERYWHERE.
As for my guilty pleasure in my daily lifeā¦Iām not sure. I have guilty pleasure TV shows I watch when Iām playing Animal Crossing and want something in the background.
Hating a game everyone else likes
How do you deal with a situation where āeveryoneā else seems to think so highly of a game and you just think itās utter garbage from an objective standpoint and even subjective? That has to be hard.
Well for one thing, chances are youāre not the only one. So it wouldnāt really ever feel like you were the odd one out. When BioShock Infinite came out everyone was raving about it. But when the excitement settled people started to think more critically over it and actually a lot of people started to come out and say it wasnāt as amazing as everyone else made it out to be. (For the record I still think itās an amazing game, despite some very valid points others have brought up.)
Itās ok to not like a game everyone else seems to like. In fact itās sort of nice to have dissenting opinions because it gives us something to talk about and to analyze critically. As long as it isnāt trolling or just downright stupid conversations, itās healthy to have conversations about things in an intelligent, analytical way.
Video games taking over my life
Are video games taking over my life? Playing video games has always been my primary hobby for the longest time and although Iāve been disappointed or lost interest with them at some point, I still always find myself getting back into it. I have a full-time (graveyard shift) job and have responsibilities at home so there are times when I could hardly play games at all for a few days or could only get like half an hour for a day. Some of my free time was also spent with my siblings when we go outside to watch movies or eat or do other stuff together. I enjoy doing these but I always get this āneedā of having to play video games at least a few hours a day and if I canāt do it, I seem to feel frustrated or feel my day wasnāt complete. There comes a time when I havenāt played games for 3 straight days, and I feel sort of agitated!
I know that family, duties and responsibilities should be prioritized over video games and thatās what I do, but I canāt shake this feeling of frustration when I canāt get my gaming fix. Most of the time, I end up sacrificing my sleep time just so I could play video games and I obviously end up feeling extremely tired while Iām at work. Iām aware that 3-4 hours of sleep a day isnāt enough but sometimes I just canāt help it! Why am I feeling this and what should I do about it?
I get what you mean. Sometimes Iāll let a few days go by without really playing anything and it feels weird. Iāll be busy with (non-gaming) work and catching up with friends and before I realize it itās already been a few days without playing whatever game I was in the middle of.
And I think itās ok to let that happen every once in a while. Youāll have to get used to it because, as you said, there are other priorities in life that youāll have to tend to before you can sit down for leisure time. We donāt always get leisure time every single day.
What I do is play on my 3DS about an hour a day on my commutes. And then Iāll make sure to give myself an āalone timeā day where Iāll spend the night reading and/or video gaming. Itās always good to get at least a day to yourself in the week. That way you have something to look forward to, too.
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