Exccept in a few cases, like Deus-Ex, I turn off the music.
I almost choose English even if Italian is available, as Italian localisation used to be terrible, and even if now it's often better than in the past, I got used to play games in English.
In RPGs I almost always choose a more magic-oriented character, and I almost always grind a lot to make it both very strong in magic and strong enough in melee and ranged weapons too, to save mana for the nastiest enemis. My Gothic II mage can kill most common enemies, even the strong ones, with one or two strokes of the strongest swords or one or two hits of the strongest bows and crossbows, but he must be quick, as he has less hit points and a weaker armour than fighters anyway, and more than two skeletons at a time can still kill him quickly, let alone timing badly the attacks against a troll, or letting a skeleton mage perform a successful freezing attack.

When possible, I play sneaky, so I need to better hear game sounds and noises and if my PC itself is too noisy. Anyway, if the music is amazing like in Deus-Ex, I keep it on.

Other than smell the case, because the smell of new games is wonderful, is to go to setting and see if all the necessary funcstions(such as substitles) are enabled.

I invert the vertical axis.

Explore. Unless I just can't, I will explore in every game I play. I have been playing Just Cause 3 and I have half the world liberated and have only done 7 story missions. XCX I put in 800 hours. Project Gotham Racing on OG Xbox..I loved to explore the city. 2D games I still explore. BotW I think I unlocked the full map and only completed one dungeon.

First check if it has missable silly trophies (depends on the game);
Then check it has subtitles (because i love to play games while watching netflix on my screen again depends on the game).

and I always play the game less than a hour the first time, not sure why but I always have a hard time getting into new games...

Set a higher difficulty, turn on subtitles.

I always name the character/save file after me.

Golden Age Routine (3rd & 4th gen): Read the manual front to back to front. (Screw you indie douchecanoes who think no instructions = fun design.) After Star Tropics I also made sure to store manuals safely in case another dev thought it'd be funny to put a password in them. Check the options for difficult (set to easy) and lives / continue amounts (set to max). Proceed to screw around with the game on single player to figure stuff out, then start playing for real. Always keep a pad of paper and pen handy for scribbling notes / passwords / mapping.

Silver Age Routine (5th & 6th gen): As above, but check memory cards first to ensure I have enough room for a game before starting. (And based on the genre, which color card I want to use.) After MGS I also started keeping jewel cases, just in case another dev thought putting passwords on the back would be funny.

Bronze Age (7th gen): As last gen, but no memory cards. Or manuals. =(

"CURRENT YEAR!": Check HDD space, watch the game install with lightning speed, and then check for updates that will take an hour to download. =( While waiting I look at the trophy list and make notes of "stunt" trophies, as well as how many playthroughs the plat requires. (Also note any online trophies, which will be ignored forever.) If I'm really amped up for the game, I might update my profile cover image accordingly. Once the game starts, try to set it to manual saves only if possible, set it to Hard, and play with an eye on those "stunt" trophies. If I see something pretty, I take a pic and share, if I do something I deem impressive, record a video & upload to YT. Once beaten / platted, uninstall that bitch and move on to the next!

Let it sit there on my hard drive for a while. Sometimes I do a little ritual before playing for some reason.