Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (PC) – Finished it, thought it was pretty good. Much better than Episode 1, at the very least. Now that I’ve played all of the (non-VR) Half-Life 2 games, I can more clearly see why the wait for Half-Life 3 has been such a big deal for so many people.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (PS5) – Chapter 9
Continue reading Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: March 2024I’ve been slowly plugging away at Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth lately, and -no surprise to anyone- the soundtrack is hecking incredible. But that’s not why I’m here today!
Nope, I’m just here to post a mashup of music from the original Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Remake. This compilation is awesome and I’ve been listening to it pretty much daily over the last few weeks. The energy just gets me so fired up! It’s a great to put on repeat for a while to help push through a long work day.
You know what’s a great feeling? Picking up a random video game that you’ve never heard of and proceeding to have an absolute blast with it. That is the one-sentence story of my experience with Steelrising, a 2022 action RPG that takes a lot of cues from From Software’s Dark Souls family of games. But there’s so much more that needs to be said about this game!
Right from the get-go, Steelrising establishes a very unique tone, being set in Paris during the French Revolution. Yeah, not a lot of video games have used that particular period of history as a backdrop. But it’s not all aristocrats and baguettes. Steelrising adds a little zazz (and video gamey-ness) to this setting by adding robots. So many robots. The clockwork contraptions make up all the enemies in the game, as well as your main character, Aegis.
Aegis is a lady-like robot that has the unusual ability to think and act of her own volition, unlike the mindless automats that have overrun Paris under the command of King Louis XVI. You’re given a handful of options to customize Aegis’s look (7 each of “skin” colours, hairstyles, and faces) and then get to pick from four starting classes. Which class you pick isn’t really important, it just defines your starting weapon and stat distribution. I picked the “bodyguard” class, which is built for defense and begins the game with a slow-ass hammer weapon.
Continue reading SteelrisingPlease validate me by liking and subscribing and keeping it on repeat for a few hours because that watch time goes a long way.
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 2024I linked to this in the last post, but here’s a full-on embedded version for you. This video was published nearly two weeks ago; I don’t know why it took me so long to cross-post it here. General ineptitude, I suppose.
Hey, 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 2023