any1th3r3

Obvious "this is what works for me and why I do it" disclaimer, but:

• I have a growing collection of games which spans multiple consoles and physical/digital media alike, so I need a way to track what games I have and where, so as to not buy them multiple times (I don't believe this to be a typical use case, but I could be wrong?).
• Aside from that practical element, I have a few lists on HLTB where I track what I (might) want to play next, but realistically it's pretty much always a case of checking out what I have and picking one based on my mood / gut feeling / whatever.
• Lastly, it's about actually finishing games - getting started with some form of tracking helped me tremendously get past the "pick up and drop after a few hours" mentality (?). I wouldn't have gotten to experience some of the best games I've played in recent memories, were it not for my backlog, because I probably would have forgotten I had them / wouldn't have stuck with them.

Cheers for that. I've cut the cord from Google Photos without a solid replacement and it's been... pretty miserable tbh.
I'll look into setting up a Synology NAS, as it seems to be a relatively inexpensive solution moving forward (Proton is nowhere near what I'm looking for feature-wise and other self-hosted foss solutions aren't really there yet afaict).

For most games, I'm like you - It's been a gradual shift for me, as I used to play very sandboxy type games before (although I could never get into Minecraft), but have been heavily focused on story-heavy / experience-based games for the last 3+ years.
I will say that I really liked BotW though, and am looking forward to playing TotK eventually (in the next 2/3 years or so) and Starfield has got me really intrigued, so we'll see.

Then there's the "intrinsic me", I guess, I don't mind playing some games for the sake of it, with no goals in mind - Forza Horizon just going from one end of the map to the other, or the same loop of various arcade games whenever I don't feel like doing anything else - sure there's some sort of objective, but ultimately when you've seen and done it that many times, it's not far off from it not being there at all imo, and I still enjoy it just as much.

Ah, that's pretty shitty if true, do you have any examples?
I've been using more of their apps recently, so I'd like to avoid being in that situation in the future :/

Story-heavy: Uncharted series (between 10 and 16 hours per game), Hellblade (around 8 hours) and - if you can spare another 10 hours or so and Action RPGs are your thing - Nier Automata is really worth it (around 30 hours).
Gris was impactful enough for me that I'll mention it here, since it was super short (4 hours at most).

I don't know that it really qualifies as a VN (because there's some RTS - and I guess Adventure - aspects to it), but 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Great list from @[email protected], just a few more:
Gris is an absolute gem.
The A Plague Tale duology is also up there (with Requiem being my favourite game of all time, so I'm extremely biased, sorry / not sorry :D).

I don't think I've ever cried so much during ending credits before...

Pixel 6 Pro running GrapheneOS, which I got a couple months ago. Pixel phones are the only ones compatible with GrapheneOS, otherwise I would've kept my Samsung phone tbh

Oh yeah... I was still very much into console wars at the time it released, rooting for the Vita against the 3DS, haha.
I ended up importing it from HK to get it a few months (perhaps mere weeks even) before launch and I even made unboxings, reviews and news "coverage" on YT at the time. I loved that handheld to bits.
I don't have my day one console anymore, but I do still have one (hacked 2000 model, I'd love to get a Hori grip for it but those are way too expensive nowadays...).

Nier Automata was a 10/10 game for me, I hope you enjoy it, should you give it a try! :)

Not the best, but so far from the worst.
Work-wise, it's slowly starting to fall apart, so I'm also slowly starting to look for something else - I don't want to jump on the first opportunity I find so I fear it'll be a long process... We'll see.

Friends-wise, I've made some real connections over the past few weeks/months and I'm really happy with where I'm at. With how socially anxious I am, it hasn't been been easy... but am I glad I got out of my comfort zone!

Otherwise, it's Final Fantasy XVI release week and I can't wait for thursday :)