Focusing
I'm finding it really hard to focus on playing games these days.
In fact, I'm having trouble focusing on anything these days, and I'm not talking about the floaters in my eyes either. YouTube, Spotify, Pocket Cast, all these great apps for listening to music and podcasts I struggle with - complete attention deficit, can't focus. After three minutes I get trigger finger and feel I need to move on to the next thing. This constant need for something else.
Know what I'm talking about?
Same with the games I have. I have lots of games bought on Steam, but I only keep about ten to twelve on my computer at any one time. Storage is an issue, obviously, but so is time. I don't really get much time to play anything for any great length of time, so any games I do play I only play in short burts. And if you look at the games I have, most of those require a lot of something I don't really have.
Focus.
Let's go through them
Football Manager 24. Great game, a bit too much micro-management for me, but it's fun, sorta, watching your Scottish Second Division side (in this current game that's Peterhead, the Blue Toon) struggle against Forfar on a rainy Tuesday night.
EU5, the motherlode of micromanagement games. This one requires a lot of time, and I mean a lot of time to get into as for the most part nothing much happens for a very long time. Or, not that I can see anyway. The historical depth is incredible and as a sandbox game the possibilities are endless, unlike my focus, so this game gets short bursts now and then. My son plays it too, he has more time being a student and he's already in the 1700s. I am still on week 2 of the 1337.
Margin Call and Wall Street Raider are two - you guessed it - trading games that require knowledge I don't have. No idea why I bought them but I figured these are slow burners, ones I can keep running in the background while I do other things and watch my virtual in-game Portfolio grow. Except most of the time I can't be arsed. I've no idea what I am doing. I've read all those online articles about stock trading and investment and so on, but it's all very confusing, and when it comes to trading stocks you might as well read the cats innards for wisdom. I've yet to make money in these games. When you read the Discord there are players raking in billions on a daily basis, but I'm happy with $100. A win's a win, am I right?
Airport Control and Vice ATC are two ATC sims. I wanted to be an Air Traffic Controller when I was younger, but my lack of focus would have resulted in many deaths and a short career. Which is why I play them here instead. For about five minutes when I get overwhelmed and go and put the kettle on instead.
Nimby Rails and Simsig are to railway enthusiasts what those two ATC sims I have are to ATC enthusiasts. Build a railyway network (Nimby) or manage a railway network (Simsig), it requires time and focus. Time I have, the other not so much. I also own Train Sim World 6 but uninstalled it the other day to make room for Manor Lords. Driving a train from Brighton to Gatwick wasn't quite the thrill I thought it was going to be. Also, it takes too long. The amount of stations I blasted through and where I was supposed to stop, urgh. At least people made their flights on time, but that's not how the scoring system worked, apparently.
The remainder are all action shooters (Watch Dogs 2, Wolfenstein) or builders (Manor Lords), hacking games (HackHub), or vast open world sandboxes, like Red Dead Redemption 2. Watch Dogs 2 was on sale and is actually quite good, but I've not played it for a while and now I've forgotten not only the key combos but also the point of the game. I could start again, but ain't noone got time for that. So I just wander about, aimlessly.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was always the game I really wanted to play. In fact, I bought the laptop I am now typing this out on just for this game.
And great is it too - it's one of those games you can come back to time and time again just to enjoy the scenery. I had the same with GTA5 on the Playstation - I don't play the missions, I can't be arsed they're too hard. I just wonder about, aimlessly, seeing what the games throws at me. Me, on my horse, carrying some serious weaponry. Huntin'. Fishin'. Occasionally shooting up a saloon or shooting a random stranger. It's glorious, it's detailed, it's beautiful, but it's a game without any real focus.
Maybe that's why I like it.
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