Too Many Next-Gen Games?

Battlefield 4 just released, CoD Ghosts drops in a week (though I'm just waiting 3 weeks for the Xbox One release), and Titanfall hits in March. That's a lot of fantastic shooters vying for attention, and anyone with any concern for life outside of video games will only be able to pick one if they want to keep their sanity while remaining competitive. If you broaden the scope and throw in Destiny and The Division, that's 5 major online shooters that allows players to game for hours on end and still not fully unlock everything.

That leaves me with a few options.

• I figure out a way to play them all competitively and get the most out of each.
• I pick 2 or 3 and gaze longingly at gameplay videos of the others.
• I play my favorite until the price of the others drops.
• I try to play all of them and get the gist of each game until the next one releases, perhaps returning when I've grown bored of one.

Neither one really works for me and my schedule (although my recent inability to sleep could work in my favor right now). With more and more things taking precedence over gaming, I hate to admit that playing each one to the max isn't feasible.

Admitting defeat is all kinds of lame. I'm definitely not missing CoD or Titanfall, so that means that if I want to get a decent amount of play while the games still have an online community, I'd need to pick one other game to enjoy. Battlefield 4, although it looks fun, is low on my priority list. That leaves Destiny, a game that could be anywhere from mind blowing to a rehash of Borderlands; or The Division, a game that takes my favorite mechanics of Tom Clancy games, puts you in a post-apocalyptic setting, and lets you fight for survival with and against other players. How could I possibly pick between those, especially when I'll have friends playing all of them?

Playing one (maybe two) until pries drop to the $30-40 range is a bit more acceptable. Games like BF4, CoD, and Titanfall will likely have a community that will last for 1-2 years. If Destiny and The Division are as good as I hope then they could see a player base similar to any popular MMO. Although it's always a blast to get in on the ground floor of a game, playing the ones with a shorter lifespan first would allow for bugs and server issues to get worked out, balance to be adjusted, and the swell of rotten apples (i.e. immature gamers who play games for a month or two and find joy in ruining the experience of others before moving on) to be weeded out. But again, if I have friends playing these games I don't want there to be a huge disparity in terms of gear and skill.

And finally, enjoying the games while they're the new hotness. Logically there's nothing wrong with this. Other than BF4, the time from one game's release to the next will be about three months. If I average an hour a day on a game, that gives me 90 hours per game. And that's assuming that I never pick them back up. 90 hours tickles the length of a really good RPG like Skyrim. And that's just a healthy estimate - there will be days when I don't play and others where I play for several hours. I think 90 hours is more than enough time to learn the game, unlock some stuff, and be good at it for awhile before moving on. 

I'll be honest, when I first started writing this I was ready to rail against that last one. I figured there were just too many games and not enough time, and then I did the math. Three month windows seems about perfect, really. It gives enough time to play the game without it becoming like an MMO where you feel like you have to log on, despite having very little progress to make. With logic coming in to play, I think this is the best option. Rather than trying to force each game to last 9 months (which has been my habit since I've only really had CoD and Battlefield), I can enjoy them while they're exciting and fresh.

Of course things get tough when you factor in some good single player games. Although Watch Dogs is one of the few games I must play when it releases, there are a few others that will be good pickups whenever there's a lull in worthwhile games. But hey, even if I split my time between two games, 50 hours to enjoy Titanfall isn't too shabby.

What about you guys? Will you be feasting on everything the next generation of games has to offer, or will you pace yourself and get everything you can out of a few select games?

See you tomorrow!

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