2020 video gaming - maybe a year of catch-up

So, first off, sorry to any of you that were expecting useful data from me for Stadia streaming over the month of January.  Not long after my last post, I hit a point in Destiny 2 where anything resembling advancement there would have involved grinding through a limited set of activities, and I've had quite enough of that in this sort of game, thank you very much.  However, I'm also not feeling the need to yoke myself back up to grind away in Warframe either, and, looking at the schedule of upcoming games, I'm just not seeing anything there to demand my attention any time soon (likely due to the near-future release of the next generation of gaming systems).  It's looking a lot like I will actually have the time to play some of those games in my backlog that I've "really wanted to play", but never been able to stick with long-term.

Problem being, of course, that I have a lot of games.  I forget who said what exact words, but there's a saying something like "the more options you have, the less likely you are to use any of them."  So, the first step is just eliminating large swaths of games outright.  In my case, I decided that anything involving a system I would have to go to the trouble of setting up is right out.  That leaves me with Stadia, my XBox One, and my PC (well, technically, that also includes my Wii, but that's mainly because it doesn't take up an HDMI port on my TV... and I can't think of anything I've got there that's calling to me).  None of the "free" stuff on Stadia currently appeals to me, so that's out.  PC, I've got literal hundreds of games to sift through there, so save that for later.  XBox, I don't have near as many games for... and those games are split out into current-generation and backwards-compatible games, mostly originally for the XBox 360.  With a new generation coming, maybe it's high time to concentrate on those games, play the ones I care about to either completion or no longer caring, then leave them be thereafter.

With that in mind, I started through the collection alphabetically (simplest way to keep track of what I've played/not played, after all), and the first game I came across that I cared remotely about playing was Bioshock Infinite.  I bounced off of this game originally (and honestly, pretty much all of the BioShock games) for one main reason - the controls.  Each game in this series includes a selection of special powers, activation of which is tied to the left trigger on the controller... which, in proper modern shooters is your zoom/look-down-the-sights button, but here that's mapped to pushing in the right analog stick, of all things.  That sort of design choice is all over the controls, making some controls work as expected, others totally foreign, and that design (and the unintended flubs they caused) has made me bounce off this game more than once.  However, I've heard good things about all these games, which always brought me back for another go.

So, this time, I committed to enduring and adapting to the controls... and so far, I've been pleasantly surprised.  Maybe it's the years in between I've spent playing various shooters, but the pacing and number of enemies is much more manageable now, even with the wacky controls.  And now, I've gotten far enough in to get something resembling a reasonable storyline going, for all it includes multiple alternate histories.  I think I may be able to play it all the way through this time... and if not, I can at least say I gave it the old college try, and move on without regrets.