Toomanywires

I'm writing a retrospective series about  the end of the 8th Generation  , which includes a Top Twenty Countdown of my favourite games. Back in the day, the only things we had to worry about when we bought a new game were getting the shrink wrap off without cracking the case, familiarizing ourselves with the controls by skim reading the manual on the car ride home, and maybe having to delete our NBA Live `99 season to free up slots on our solitary memory card.  Not anymore though. Not now that we've got got increasingly massive compulsory installs and day-one patches to contend with. Lengthy installs and patches are nothing new, of course. We've been doing them since the PS3/360 days, but we didn't used to have to plan around them. I didn't need to think ahead and insert the disc hours before I wanted to play it. Red Dead Redemption 2 might have been a sixty-hour game, but at least seven of those were the install. Games do seem to install far faster on our new conso

I'm writing a retrospective series about  the end of the 8th Generation  , which includes a Top Twenty Countdown of my favourite games. The Countdown  Rules. 20. Forza Horizon 4 19. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 18. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 17. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life 16. Mafia III 15. Undertale 14. What Remains of Edith Finch 13.  Ghost of Tsushima 12.  Assassin's Creed Odyssey 11. Death Stranding 10. Fire Emblem Awakening 9. Monster Hunter: World 8. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain 7. Red Dead Redemption 2 6. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End This 8G countdown is in large part a reflection of how games have faired in my head, how they've lingered on in my mind long since they went back on the shelf. This ability to stay with me is almost as important as my initial impressions.  Red Dead Redemption 2  (2018) is a supreme lingerer, a slow-burn in-game and out. The reason why it has retained head space, while several hundred other games are vying for attention, is t