I have been plagued with the inability to make even the most simple decisions all my life. I’m unsure where it stems from, but it’s something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember. If I’m asked for a weakness during a job interview, and I’m feeling honest, I’ll point to my lack of decision-making prowess. It has even become a joke among friends, many of them trying to stifle a groan or a sigh when they’re in any situation where I’m forced to make a decision. Being handed a book of 10,000 baby names six months before my son’s birth may well be the most stressed I have ever been.
Whether it’s staring at five shelves of chocolate bars, always thinking I picked the wrong thing on the menu, or scrolling throughNetflixuntil I run out of time to watch anything other than another episode of It’s Always Sunny, not making decisions affects my life every single day. Last summer, an entirely new way for it to haunt me entered the fray. I signed up toPS Plus Premium, unlocking a vast library of games for me to play at my leisure.
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That first evening marveling at everything the service has to offer felt pretty great. Then reality set in. I made note of some of the games I wanted to play (there were a lot) ready to return the next day and actually start one. Except I didn’t. Just like Netflix, I found myself scrolling endlessly through what PS Plus Premium has to offer, unable to decide where to begin my new journey. Seven months later, that problem persists. Do I finally startYakuza? Oh wait,Forbidden Westis on there now? Hang on, I haven’t got around to playing Prey yet. Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that last one, it’s kind of a deal breaker at TheGamer.
The joy I get from being able to randomize anything just goes to show how long this decision-making problem has been hanging over me. When the iPod Shuffle launched, I had to have it. I was no longer interested in owning the more expensive version with a screen that could hold 10,000 songs. I wanted a non-descript piece of plastic that would play my songs in a random order. I wish there was photographic evidence of the day I saw the shuffle button pop up on Netflix for the first time. No more scrolling, just press the button and let the algorithm choose for me. The smile on my face would have lit up the room.
Now I have PS Plus, I need that for my games. When I want to start a new game, and I don’t feel like forking out £70 for the privilege, I need those intertwined arrows to be waiting for me after I hit the big yellow plus. I’m also going to need the screen to fade to black after I hit it and the game to just start right up. Don’t show me what’s coming or take me to its store page. That gives me the chance to think “what if I hit shuffle again? I might like the next game more”. Just start the game, let me play, and I’ll either like it enough to stick with it or play it for a while before hitting shuffle again.
At this point, not only is a PS Plus shuffle button the only way I’m going to play certain games, but it’s also the only way I’m going to make a dent in what has quickly become an unmanageable backlog. Every time a new game I want to play is released,The Witcher 3moves another notch down on my “I’ll get to it eventually” list. WhenFinal Fantasytakes over my life this week, it will become even less likely that I play a singleKingdom Heartsgame, let alone all of them. Not knowing where to start and if I need to play Kingdom Hearts Chapter 3.4 Remixed Prologue is a big part of that too, in fairness.
Give me a shuffle button please PlayStation. I’m assuming it won’t take up much of your time but will give me one less thing to constantly think about and bring an end to me making endless lists in my Notes app of games I eventually need to play but probably never will. Or if anyone from Xbox is reading this, I’d take the same thing on Game Pass. The simple feature might well be enough to make me defect mid-gen.Starfielddoes sound pretty appealing too,even if it doesn’t have any sex in it.
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