I I don’t often miss my teenage years, but I do miss the time I had to play video games. I used to get into games late into the night, but now that I’m a busy adult, I barely have the time to do that. Outside of covering games for work, I feel like I barely have time to play. So instead of the huge, engrossing role-playing games I once craved, I prefer games I can complete in a few nights. I’m pretty much used to this. The days of 100-hour epics and live service online games are long gone. They’ll come back eventually, when my kids are older.
But more than two years have passed since the release of Elden Ring, a game in my favorite genre by my favorite director, and I suddenly found myself tired of having barely played it. I’d been playing it bit by bit on my PS5, but I’d never been able to get past Rimgrave’s (admittedly vast) starting area. I kept hoping that my partner would take the kids for the weekend, or that I’d have a week off during term time so I could revert to my teenage habits and play hours alone. But… 2 yearsIf I want to play this game, or any big game, I have to make sure I fit it into my real life, which includes work, two small kids, and all the other responsibilities.
Is that even possible? There’s one thing that definitely helps: Steam Deck. Since having kids, I’ve become a lot more reliant on portable consoles. Spending hours uninterrupted in front of the TV without being seen is nearly impossible, and I don’t want to traumatize my kids by blasting them the violent and grotesque scenes of Elden Ring. I’ve been able to play both Zelda games on my Switch because I can take them anywhere and play them occasionally. Plus, these games are huge. So a few weeks ago I bought Elden Ring again, installed it on my Steam Deck, rebooted it, and resolved to defeat the infamous opening boss, Godric the Grafted, and see what’s beyond Stormveil Castle.
At home, I spent all my free time on Steam Deck, to the point of ignoring my family. Kids watching 30 minutes of TV before dinner? Elden Ring. Partner watching Euros? Elden Ring with eyes fixed on the score. Microwaving lunch? Time for Elden Ring. I tried small, achievable adventures like running around looking for unexplored ruins and getting surprised by a dragon in the middle of a lake. I made it through Stormvale Castle and back only to be totally beaten by Godric. I got used to giving up mid-battle, retreating, and looking for something else to do. Progression felt painfully slow, and I hated every time I had to stop playing in the middle of something. At the end of the first week, I checked my playtime. It was 6 hours.
Six hours?! Is that all the free time I have available in a week? I was seriously depressed. It’s unnatural to play a game like this bit by bit, and when I add up all the stolen time, I’m left with a shockingly small amount of time. At this rate, it’ll take me six months to beat this game, and that’s without playing (or doing) anything else.
My problem was that I was only interested in finishing the game, rather than enjoying it. Six hours is better than zero. I couldn’t play the game the way I used to, so I had to think differently. Instead of reading guides to figure out the best way to progress through the game and trying to progress as quickly and efficiently as possible, I left Godric in the castle, warped to a safer area, and just… tried to have fun. I found a hidden boss and easily defeated it. I opened a treasure chest that teleported me to a terrifying underground mine full of insect-like wizards, then escaped and ended up in a ghostly city. I really liked the Wolverine-esque metal claws I found, but not because they were the best weapon, but because they were fun to use.
After a week of running around like this, I was relieved of the frustration I had felt before. Elden Ring is a terrible game if you try to complete it as quickly as possible in an extremely limited time frame, as most games are. It’s a great game if you focus on the adventure of the moment. I spent about 40 minutes in a smoldering little church trying to kill a red phantom warrior with a giant cleaver that could kill me in two hits, just to see if I could do it. When I managed two parries and killed her after a flurry of desperate sword strikes, I was beside myself. If I had insisted on getting through the game, I would have missed that moment entirely.
I beat Godric last night. With those funny claws that I love so much. I stopped watching the clock for how long I was playing. I stopped worrying about getting the most out of the least amount of effort. And now I’m really having fun. If you’re wondering how to play a huge game when you only have an hour, my advice is to use that hour. It’s the time you have. And an hour of enjoying a game is better than an hour spent wishing you could play longer.
What to Play
If you’re ready to tackle a FromSoftware/Hayao Miyazaki game for the first time and want something more manageable than Elden Ring, I’d recommend the PS5 remake. Demon’s SoulsOriginally released in 2009, this rebuild fixes many of the control and camera flaws, offering a horror-infused dark fantasy vision and great, stress-free combat. It’s hard, but well worth it, and it takes less time than other Souls games.
Available on: PS5
Estimated play time: 30+ hours
What to Read
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We did the cursed thing and ran a game simulating the first five years of each British party in power. Democracy 4Each party acted based on the policies set out in their manifestos, but it didn’t work at all.
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Elden Ring creator Hidetaka Miyazaki mentioned the possibility of an Elden Ring movie or TV show in an interview last week. George R.R. MartinCo-wrote the game’s story. The blog suggests Something may already be in the works: “You may have heard rumours about a feature film or a TV series… but I have nothing to say. Not a word, no, nothing. I don’t know anything and you haven’t heard a word from me.”
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There are several remakes of older works assassin’s creed Games in development, Ubisoft says This may also include the pirate-flavored Black Flag, but this is still the best in my opinion.
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Capcom Remake announced of Dead Risinga satirical cult hit about killing zombies using items found in shopping malls, is due for release in September.
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Question Block
Reader Matt asks:
“What would be the consequences if IGN bought the video game news site Gamer Network? If Eurogamer shuts down, we’d riot.“
This may seem like an insider question, but it’s an important one for readers of gaming news and reviews — which of you, the Pushing Buttons reader, is a reader of that. In late May, the very large gaming website IGN (I’ll be honest, I worked at IGN from 2010 to 2013) announced that Bought out UK gaming websites include VG247, Eurogamer and GamesIndustry.biz (and, more specifically, I worked for all of these sites from 2006-2010 or so). There are currently just two companies that own pretty much all of the specialist gaming media in the UK: Future Publishing has GamesRadar, PC Gamer and a selection of their magazines, and IGN has everything else.
IGN has previously acquired gaming sites. 1up and GameSpyand they ended up closing down, which doesn’t inspire confidence. But you have to ask: why buy a bunch of beloved brands that are still making a profit from what I’ve heard, and close them down? In 2024, any company in online media needs all the traffic it can get; buying a competitor only to close it down would be a terrible investment in a shrinking advertising economy. That’s why IGN is cautiously hopeful that it will be a good owner of these sites and that it won’t lose a huge chunk of UK games media with this acquisition.
Why is this important? Gaming is one of the few entertainment verticals where specialized media still thrives. Music media is in decline; just look at the fate of NME and Pitchfork. TV and film journalism is mostly newspapers like this one now. But when it comes to games, mainstream media is far behind reporters and critics at IGN,
Source: www.theguardian.com
