This Weekend // When To Give Up on a Game?

This weekend I didn’t really play a whole lot of new games. I continued my run-through of Army of Two 40th Day. I played a little bit of Marvel Rivals new arcade mode. Of course, I enjoyed diving in the ocean with Dave. So I originally wasn’t going to post any new updates. But I did stumble upon something I wanted to talk a little bit about. When you hit a wall in a game, does that mean you quit? What is that tipping point?

I was hoping I would wrap up the 40th Day by the end of this weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a ton of game time in the past week. So Last night I was trying to get through another chapter at least, but I hit a wall. For some reason I could not get past a section with an elite gunner. I’ve fought these guys before. There’s a process to it. Flanking and all that. But I just couldn’t get it down. I probably played through it 5 times before I turned the game off. Five times doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was absolutely frustrating where the save point was. It was back almost two sections in the game. I had to buy a new weapon each time I loaded in. Then I had to kit it out again because it didn’t save that bit for me. I probably would’ve kept going until I beat the chapter. However, the extra almost 15 minutes each time just to reach the mini boss was absolutely insane.

Here’s the thing: I will absolutely finish the 40th day. I am still really enjoying the game. I also know I’m so close to finishing it that I want to do it. There’s another game that I have been trying to finish though. It’s been my main Xbox Series X game. I also haven’t turned it on in probably three weeks now. That game is Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.

One of these assholes.

Banishers is a third person action adventure game. You play as a Banisher, someone who hunts down ghosts and sends them to the after life. It as a solid premise. The combat is decent enough, with some fun combos. The game is also ten times bigger than I ever expected it to be. I genuinely thought this game was a pretty straight forward, linear game. With some choices in the story of course, but not a game with a significant amount of side quests that are almost entirely mandatory to do.

I’ve had Banisher’s since the game released all the way back in February of this year. I played through the opening bit and then completely forgot about it. I think I had another game that I was playing at the time. I’m not sure. But fairly recently I jumped back into the game. Started fresh, and really put a good dent into the game. Or so I thought. I never zoomed out in the map until I hit the third area. That’s when I realized how big this game actually is. And how many side quests there were. It almost immediately made me exhausted.

I’ve had a really hard time with huge open world games lately. It’s why I really haven’t been looking at trying to get those ones out of my back log. The linear shooters like Gears and Army of Two have been a blessing for me. It’s easy to run through, enjoy the game play and story. And just feel accomplished when I finish it. Banishers I think has hit a wall for me. I’m not getting enough out of the game to continue it.

I hate getting what I think is a good amount of time into a game and shelving it. Red Dead Redemption 2 still haunts me to this day. I say I’m going to get back to it, and with RDR2 I genuinely believe I will. With Banishers, I think I’m about to delete it off my console. It was a good time for what I put into it, but I really can’t bring myself to boot it up anymore. Such a bummer, but I can’t waste my time playing a game that I am forcing myself to finish.

Do you try to complete every game that you buy? How many games have you hit this wall with and decided to just shelve forever?

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