Strange gaming rituals you have

[hudson]

Well, when I play a new game, I always sit and leave the title screen on, waiting patiently for any chance of a demo mode (almost a thing of the past, I'm sure).

Do you have any strange gaming rituals?

[fishbowlhead]

Brand new big release games, stuff like TloU2, like the real crème that gaming has to offer, I get it all installed and ready. I get 2 small kebab meat & chips, eat that, then start the game. It’s not really the same without my mate around to share with, but old habits die hard and I carry on anyway.

[Yakumo]

Well, when I play a new game, I always sit and leave the title screen on, waiting patiently for any chance of a demo mode (almost a thing of the past, I'm sure).

Do you have any strange gaming rituals?

I have to say I do that.
For Retro games the first thing I do and have always done is go straight to the options for a sound test. PC Engine games often disappoint in this area 🙄. Mega Drive seems to be the best for soundtests with the SFC coming in second.

[hudson]

Same with the Mega drive games. Great times!
Even today, anybody who doesn't venture into the OPTIONS menu before playing for the first time is just savage!

[Neon Ignition]

I go into the options menu and invert vertical aiming

Not strange per se, but close enough that it's 2024 and I still have to do the superior setting myself rather than it be the default!

[wakka]

Haha yes I absolutely have to go to the Options menu and peruse it before I start a game. Switching to inverted is a must (thank goodness the option hasn’t disappeared, although I do miss the global system setting the 360 had which every game respected - hardly any games respect the PS5’s one).

Sorry to hear about your friend FBH. That’s touching.

[QualityChimp]

If I'm wearing a headset, I always toggle the mic on and off to ensure people don't hear my ramblings.

[dataDave]

Very basic and boring for me. Whenever I buy a new Nintendo game I go to McDonalds afterwards. This started during 1998 when there was quite a bit coming out in the latter part of the year. It was the first time I was buying so many games in rapid succession, down to me finally earning a wage.

I used to wash my hands thoroughly afterwards and the study the manual before going home. Obviously I can't do that bit anymore.

[nonny]

Most of the time I wear clothes...

[cutmymilk]

Inverted talk is real! How it has become non default is crazy, especially Nintendo not including it in the Sunshine remaster when that's the game that trained our brains!

Luigis Mansion 3 still doesn't have the option!

[wakka]

Nintendo are the worst offenders for it unfortunately. There was also no option to invert in Wind Waker HD on WiiU.

[importaku]

This one isn’t always done but if there’s a nice looking sticker on the outer plastic wrapping of the game. I peel it carefully and try to get it off undamaged and place it on the plastic interior of the case.

Started doing it during the DS era there’s alsorts of neat stickers that would usually be lost as the games are opened.

one thing I always do without fail though is if the game is in a cardboard box I cut a couple of pieces of tape to put over the slits on the inside of the flap so they can’t be seen but stop the box flap locking in place and needing to be trashed just to get into your game box. This ritual has saved all my fragile card boxes so they look the same as they did new.

[Lebowski]

I always think yeah i got half an hour to check this out before Tea I pop in the disk to find the disk may as well not contain anything bar a digital keycode as the build on disk is so out of date its may as well be Pong, the disk whirs to fool me into believing its doing something while it redownloads the entire game off PSN. When the game's done I get called to do something else switch the game off and then never boot it up again, adding the game to the mountain of games i want to play but now can't because "I'm an adult" with teenagers who always want something or are taking over the TV.

on the rare occasion i do get a quick install and get into my game it's at these points that you get the "our servers are busy you have been placed in a queue"

FUUUCKCKKCKC

[fuse]

Brand new big release games, stuff like TloU2, like the real crème that gaming has to offer, I get it all installed and ready. I get 2 small kebab meat & chips, eat that, then start the game. It’s not really the same without my mate around to share with, but old habits die hard and I carry on anyway.

This is an excellent tribute to your friend. You even got me liking a post heaping praise on TLoU2 as a byproduct!

This one isn’t always done but if there’s a nice looking sticker on the outer plastic wrapping of the game. I peel it carefully and try to get it off undamaged and place it on the plastic interior of the case.

Started doing it during the DS era there’s alsorts of neat stickers that would usually be lost as the games are opened.

one thing I always do without fail though is if the game is in a cardboard box I cut a couple of pieces of tape to put over the slits on the inside of the flap so they can’t be seen but stop the box flap locking in place and needing to be trashed just to get into your game box. This ritual has saved all my fragile card boxes so they look the same as they did new.

I'm less of a peeler (mainly as it never ends well for me) but I have been known to try and either preserve the shrinkwrap entirely above the tear line, or to cut out stickers and stash them inside the box before then sticking the box in a plastic sheath thing. I'm not even sure I'm fully grasping your tip with plastic boxes but I am certainly intrigued!

Also love a poke about the options menu before I start, even if I rarely change anything. Maybe fiddle with the brightness, or to move audio to whatever language it was originally made in, but that's about it.

Sound test likers, are you flicking through every sound, or just a couple? Do you do it when playing for the first time, or is it more of just appreciating the option when you want to go listen to specific sounds / tracks?

[QualityChimp]

Just talking about Mega Drive sound tests makes me hear in my head "CHING. WoooOOP. Kershaaah. Ting. BuRBLE. Woweraaaah."