General gaming discussion

Bit of both. Generally just do some side missions as they pop up, but don't focus too hard on them. It can depend on a lot of things; if side missions have XP or weapon/gear rewards that I might need, do they feel worthwhile story-wise, do they sound quick and easy enough or are right beside me that I may as well just do it...

It's usually a mix, but if they just feel too much like busywork or little-to-no rewards or point to them, I might just skip. Do whatever ones I might need to do to keep my XP or gear up to scratch.

Depends if I'm enjoying the gameplay. I used to try and get as much side stuff out of the way before focusing on the main story. If there were weapon or XP rewards from the side stuff I'd enjoy being OP for the main.

Now I try and avoid being a completionist and ignore the box-ticking needless padding. It's lousy when the only reward is +0.3% to your overall completion score.

It depends on the game, Far Cry 3, i did almost everything that game had to offer, main story, side missions, collectibles, it was all just great fun.

Far cry 4, main story and maybe 30% of the side stuff

Far Cry 5, I only got throught 25% of the story before ditching it.

They just kept going back to the well, doing the same old tripe, which is ironic given the origin of the whole 'definition of insanity' meme.

I was thinking, where are these Netflix games I keep hearing about. Are they only on mobile? Because I don't use Netflix on mobile so maybe that's why I haven't seen them.

Horizon dialogue? Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought Horizon played it completely straight in the plot/dialogue department. As bad as Horizon's dialogue might have been (it was a game about cave people fighting metal dinosaurs so it was hardly going to inspire Bergmanesque ruminations on life), it's nothing compared to how toe-curlingly cringe that trailer was.

For the record, in an ocean of games with woeful dialogue, HZD never struck me as a particularly egregious example of the videogame sheissenspeil.

Aside from Aloy never shutting the f*ck up during gameplay, I never found too much wrong in the dialogue during cutscenes or conversations with NPCs, no more than most other similar games. I think in general Aloy just came off and needlessly dismissive, snarky and antagonistic to everyone from the off, and the lack of dialogue options where you could respond in different ways meant her character was always like that (whereas the likes of Geralt or other RPG games, your character can be a dick at some points without your input, but you can still form your own version of the character and be less of a dick when you want to be).