Peglin (PC) – ‘Nother run for the new patch.
Power Wash Simulator (PC) – Completed all the Midgar content.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) – Good follow-up. It’s not quite sequel-sized, but also is quite a lot more substantial than the average DLC expansion. While combat can get annoying and sometimes feels cheap, picking off guys one at a time in stealth mode is so very satisfying.
Continue reading Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2024Hey, so… blogging. It’s a thing I used to do. I know that nobody cares that I haven’t really been writing anything lately, but I have excuses, and they must be made!
First off, January and the first half of February were nuts at work. Things have calmed down now, but for the first 45 days or so of 2024, I was run pretty ragged. Most days left me mentally exhausted, and that really killed my drive to do much in my spare time besides watch other people play video games on YouTube.
Oh, and as an accidental segue, AGDQ happened a few weeks back. I didn’t catch a ton of it, but the Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong 64 runs were amazing. And we can’t forget the Super Mario 64 drum% run. That was mind-boggling.
Then there’s my own YouTube presence, which I’ve been grinding away at, spending huge chunks of my weekends recording and editing videos that nobody will ever watch. To what end? I don’t know, and I’ve been seriously pondering why I even continue to do it. Well, the let’s plays, at least. People seem to appreciate my fast food reviews for whatever reason.
Lastly, I have been hopelessly addicted to Steelrising for the last week. This is a video game you’ve likely never heard of -I know I hadn’t- which is free on PS+ as of this post. I added it to my library, not expecting to ever actually play it, but then I did. And then I couldn’t stop. Even when I’m not playing, I’m thinking about it. Pleasant thoughts, too, which is odd because it’s a soulslike and usually those go hand-in-hand with feelings more along the lines of… intense frustration. I would like to write a full thing about this game at some point, but given my total lack of writing lately, the outlook is not terribly optimistic.
Yeah, so that’s my short list of excuses. They’re not good, but that’s why I’m categorizing them as excuses, specifically. Please note that I have completed writing my 2023 Game of the Year feature, and it’s been done since mid-December. I just haven’t had the drive to put together fancy header images. That’s literally all that’s holding me back from publishing it. Kinda sad. Maybe I’ll get around to it by the time spring rolls around.
Mega Man X (SNES) – The traditional first game of the year.
Coffin Mall (PC) – Bite-sized indie horror about being chased around an empty mall by a demon car. A bit frustrating, but the climax was worth it.
Pokémon Scarlet (Switch) – Cleared the Mochi Mayhem epilogue and then… kept playing. There’s a lot of stuff to do in the DLC!
Continue reading Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: January 2024The Talos Principle 2 (PS5) – Yeah, I played it again. Had to get the platinum trophy on this one, you know?
Super Mario RPG (Switch) – Part of me wants to complain that not enough was changed and playing this remake just felt like going through the motions, but the other part of me says “Shut up, idiot! It’s still a 10/10 game! Just with better music now!” And also the new post-game content was very good, if a little too brief.
Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) – Out of the blue, a DLC expansion was released, so I purchased and played it. It was very cool (if a little short), and the new superboss was incredible! Also, finally finished my Final Fantasy (hard) mode playthrough.
Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2023So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XVI again.
Continue reading Final Verdict XVISuper Mario Bros Wonder (Switch) – Classic Mario, but with enough tweaks and new mechanics to make it feel completely fresh. Most stages have unique Wonder gimmicks, and just about all of them change the stage in a really fun way. My favourite by far are the musical stages, which have enemies singing and bouncing along to the music. Happily played this one to 100% completion.
Mega Man X DiVE Offline (PC) – It’s a lot of fun and I really like the fanservice (of course). However, the story is just so boring and there’s so much dialogue. I’ll keep playing it to 100% because of that “a lot of fun” part.
Mega Man Battle Network (GBA) – There’s something to be said about the simplicity of the first entry in a series. Yes, it lacks the quality of life improvements from the sequels, but it also doesn’t have nearly as many gimmicks layered on top of the core gameplay. I had a great time revisiting it!
Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: November 2023I’ve been hard at work on my Top 10 Video Games of 2023 article already, in hopes of having it posted before March 2024. I’m never going to forgive myself for that one…
Anyway, I had the whole list decided on, had a couple of entries written out completely, and then The Talos Principle 2 dropped. I finished it last weekend and knew that it would absolutely need a place in my Top 10, possibly even in the top spot. So I had to make a cut. And it was difficult! Very, very difficult! Alas, it had to be done. I can’t have a Top 11 Games of 2023, now can I?
Unfortunately, the decision I made was to cut a game I’d already done a write-up for, and it seemed like a shame to just throw out all of that “hard work.” So I’m posting it here, now. It’s not going to get a fancy banner image, but it will retain a special place in my heart.
Continue reading GOTY 2023: A Startling UpsetSuper Mario Bros Wonder is -as anyone could have predicted- a very good video game. Will it stand the test of time? Who knows! But my knee-jerk reaction now that I’ve 100% cleared it is that it’s the best 2D Mario since… Super Mario World, I suppose. It’s almost definitely one that I’ll be replaying on a semi-regular basis.
One of the new gimmicks in SMBWonder are badges. You’ll collect these over the course of the game and equipping them will grant your character some kind of special ability. You can only use one at a time, but you’re free to swap it out at any time on the world map, or if you lose a life in a stage. The abilities that badges grant range from allowing you to hold R to deploy a parachute, to hinting at secrets, to giving you a Super Mario Galaxy-esque spin-jump, to giving you a free super mushroom at the start of every course.
Most of the badges have some kind of practical use, but one stuck out to me as totally weird: the invisibility badge. All that this badge does is make your character invisible. Which makes the game way harder to play, being a platformer that requires a certain amount of precision. I guess maybe it also makes you immune to enemy attacks? I honestly don’t know; I never used the thing outside the two short challenge stages that force you to equip it.
Continue reading A Wonderful RantWay back in 2020 I played a video game called The Talos Principle. I’ve written about it many times! I also tend to think about it quite often, as I don’t think that any other video game has ever affected me intellectually quite as much -or at least not in the same way- as The Talos Principle did. Also, it was just a whole lot of fun to play.
The Talos Principle, when observed at a gameplay level, is a first-person puzzle game akin to Portal. It doesn’t have portals, but it does have half a dozen other tools that you use to solve puzzles and progress through test chambers or sorts. From a narrative perspective, through, it couldn’t be more unlike Portal. Portal is mostly silly and has a little existential dread for flavour, but The Talos Principle is an intensely serious discussion of philosophy. Which sounds boring, yes, but it hooked me good and actually got me interested in studying philosophy further. For fun.
So imagine how I must have felt when I learned that Croteam was just a week away from releasing The Talos Principle 2.
Continue reading Of Puzzles and Prometheus