khalfroyo games

336 games. 336?! That’s about how many pounds of noodles were used in the Guinness Book of World Records’ “Largest Serving of Noodle Soup” in 2018. And in many ways, this feels like a huge bowl of phở…seemed like a good idea at the time, delicious fresh, and full of salt.

Right before Christmas 2020 I finished God of War (2018), capping off the first column of my absurdly long game list. The list was set up so each column had around the same amount of hours total to complete, and column 2 had the greatest progress, so I started there. The games included titles between Dark Souls and Heavy Rain, 59 games in total.

Dark Souls and the Beginning of the Rules

I had heard so many great things about Demon’s Souls and now the Dark Souls series – how they were incredibly difficult and brought a huge sense of accomplishment and frustration trying to reach conclusion. I thought I was prepared. I was not. I had the game on Playstation 3 but it was put it on the backburner. I had since sold the physical game and picked up the Prepare to Die Edition on Steam. And like many, many people before me, I did die. Lots of times.

I’m usually up for a challenge, and most of the time am the optimist of the group. This game was frustrating not because of the difficulty of the bosses, but because of the way you had to replay long sections if you did inevitably fail. It felt very tedious, and took the enjoyment out of the experience. “Be better” is not something I really wanted to deal with or force for a hobby I was looking to for stress relief. I definitely didn’t want to fall into this trap in the future, so in the spirit of keeping happiness and general sanity in the process, I created ground rules.

I decided that if a game became truly unenjoyable I would stop but not until after giving it a fair shake, and I’d be alright with that. And so far, I have been. There have been just a handful of titles in which I had to abandon, and I haven’t looked back (Alien: Isolation is one exception…I may still revisit that one).

Other rules were created as necessary (some games were too buggy to play that it didn’t allow for progression. Looking at you, original Hitman port), and they’ve allowed me to find a good balance between sticking it out and moving on. In many situations, I’m very glad that I pushed through because often there’s redemption to be found, even in the stinkiest of poop piles.

What do?

I’m currently working on the first column of the list and am about 20% through Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. There are a handful of titles left in this column, and the plan is to go back and forth between solo titles and the next Assassin’s Creed game. I’ve played all of them since the first one, and own all except Rogue and Valhalla. As great as Black Flag has been, getting sick of the franchise can be easy to do with so many games left to play, so I’m definitely looking forward to playing other titles in between (Crysis 2 and Bully particularly).

If you’d like to tune in, check me out on Twitch, or my Instagram for highlight videos (coming soon)! Thanks for checking this out!