World of Warcraft

No one is more surprised than myself to find that I am still plugging along with PMIX in WoW. Seeing as how I remain interested in A Thing for as long as I feel I’m making visible progress, I think I know why. I have only been playing about a week now, and I’m already at level 37 or so which for me is amazing. Of course, in order to progress at this speed I have had to skip quest text, opting instead to check out the mini-map for the illustrated zones of interest. This has lead to some situations where I don’t actually know what I need to do in those zones, but I’m flying along quite nicely.

I had never spent time in Pandaria when I had played previously as I had never jived well with my initial steps in the zone, but the combo of not really caring about nuance of the story and having the ability to fly around has made me appreciate the island.

Star Citizen

I had forgotten that I have another Star Citizen account thanks to “invite a friend” shenanigans. My main account has all of my investments, while my second account has only a C.O. Mustang, a Drake Cutter, and the free “invite a friend” Argo MPUV. I realize I should have saved this gift opportunity for something more…useful than the tiny cargo mover, but what’s done is done.

Last week I met up with a friend in-game who was in the process of looting a distribution center, so I’ve broken from my original idea of “zero to hero” as I collected arms and armor from some corpses he was slinging over the fence. I had originally started out with this character intending to “make my own way” in the game without help, to see how onerous it might be for a new player who doesn’t have a garage full of multi-function ships or high-powered friends to help out and to be honest it’s not been too shabby, but it depends on which starter ship(s) a new player does have.

For instance, when starting out at microTech with the small transport Cutter, I have been repeatedly taking a singular mission under the “research” banner which requests that I pick up a small probe and release it somewhere in space. This requires me to fly to a station and pick up said probe from the Admin office; the probe is about as big as a standard hand-carried cargo box so if a ship can fit a hand-carried cargo box, this is a doable mission. I then need to fly to the designated location, EVA the probe to a rough estimate, and activate it. The mission description warns of a possible enemy presence, but I think this mission is so beneath everyone in the game that neither players nor NPCs deem it worthwhile to interfere because I have never run into any resistance. The job pays 12,000 aUEC which is nothing to sneeze at when getting started, and (so far) doesn’t require any kind of combat prowess or combat capable ship.

Summer Games

Right about now the games industry is trying to make us all forget about the horrible state its in via the only way it knows how: by throwing upcoming games at us. Interestingly, Steam has a “Summer Showcase of Summer Showcases” banner up right now (and my favorite event, the Next Fest, slated for later today) which collects a whole lot of announced or showcased games from several of the ongoing events. Of course, Playstation and possibly some Xbox games aren’t included in the Steam banner, nor are those “we wanna play too!” events that target platforms other than Windows, where Steam is not available, or indies who opt not to release their products via corporate channels, so Steam’s lists aren’t comprehensive.

Here’s a few which have caught my eye during various events, but I’ll only link trailers because there’s too many to embed.

Star Wars Outlaws

I’m generally cool on Star Wars, and Star Wars games, but I think I might give Outlaws a very uncomfortable state. I like what I’ve seen so far, and being “open world” is a nice buzzword to get my attention. The downside is that it’s being made by Ubisoft.

Once Human

I’ve joked about this game being an Eastern Control rip-off, but I’m still intrigued by it. I really can’t say if it’ll have staying power for me, because giving everyone the ability to build bases and putting them all in the same open world is a square peg in a round hole that offends my sensibilities of what makes for a smooth and streamlined game, but we’ll see how it flies at launch.

LEGO Horizon Adventures

Aloy returns, in LEGO form, so hell yes.

Unknown 9: Awakening

I hadn’t heard anything about this prior to the trailer, but it looks like an Indian Tomb Raider-slash-Uncharted in which the main character can eject her soul to possess NPCs to control them for a limited time, which sounds kind of bad-ass.

The First Descendant

This was already a foregone conclusion for me, because I really enjoyed the alpha and technical beta. I do worry that I’ve talked this one up in ways that might ultimately appeal to me and me alone, but considering I never really got on board the Destiny bus, I’ll take what I can get. Most importantly, this has a launch date of July 2nd.

Dune: Awakening

OK, now listen. I love Dune, both in moving and written forms, but the subject matter in game form makes me pause a lot because Dune is about war which means it’s been sampled for the RTS genre (not my thing) and now in a downplayed-but-not-ignored PvP version with Awakening. Still, I want to check it out, but I can’t say whether or not this is going to be a drive-by or a park-and-ride for me.

Alan Wake 2 – Night Springs

I am loathe to say that I fell off of Alan Wake 2, but not because it’s bad in any way; it dropped when I think I was in the middle of a lot of other things, and so this game became part of the sacrifice to whatever else was going on. Also, I still hate the flashlight mechanic, but I have renewed vigor for the game after seeing characters from the wider RemedyVerse (Quantum Break, Control) each getting their own mini-story in this expansion.

Perfect Dark (Xbox)

Man, I loved Perfect Dark for the O.G. Xbox and I believe that this is a franchise that has been dormant for too long, but I also think a lot of franchise revivals have tanked when they were resurrected at the wrong time or with the wrong technology or form. I think that now is a great time to bring back this action shooter, and the trailer looks absolutely bad-ass.

Fable

If there’s a winner for me this season, it’s the Fable trailer. Like Perfect Dark, Fable is a property that begged for the right tech at the right time, and once again, that time is now. Unlike a lot of other fantasy RPGs, the Fable franchise walked the line between slapstick silly and deadly serious which is undoubtedly easy to get wrong. The trailer, however, nails it, IMO: it’s amusing, but not try-hard, and the visuals are gorgeous. The “original at the time” choice-based alignment is baked into the cinematic presentation, and as a seminal calling-card of the franchise, it was a given that they’d focus on that aspect of the game. Sadly, we have to wait until a vague point in 2025 to get this one.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

If we’re doing action-adventure games, then we can’t say we’ve accomplished anything until Indiana Jones gets involved. As the recent movies have proved divisive and disappointing, Indy has an opportunity to live on in video game form which seems to be a natural fit as any situation can be modeled anywhere in the world at any time and this trailer looks fantastic (if not a little spoilery). My only gripe is that all gameplay is in first-person, and I’d personally prefer third-person but we’ll see how it feels.

What About…?

Playstation

The initial reveal, Concord, legit made me sit up straight until the talking heads announced it was a bland also-ran 5v5 shooter, and the comments on the YouTube video seem to echo this sentiment. If this dollar-store Guardians of the Galaxy team appeared in an actual adventure game, though, I’d be buying a PS5 right freakin’ now.

I looked through the time-stamps of the various presentation, and aside from noping out of the PSVR2 Alien Rogue Incursion, I didn’t see any game listed that piqued my interest in any way. Although I’m out of the console ecosystem, I feel that Sony is dropping balls all over the place. I am thinking of the Helldivers 2 on PC debacle, and I never get the feeling that Sony has a good handle on their technology or what they want to do with it, but I think the lack of what might be considered a wide-appealing tent-pole game for the platform is causing me to blank out when my vision crosses paths with Sony, despite the PS5 outselling the Xbox.

Fan Favorites Like…

• Monster Hunter Wilds: Godspeed to them, but not my thing.
• Civilization VII: My only interest is in seeing if they found a way to make this game new enough and relevant enough in today’s strategy game landscape which has grown by aping the Civ series in every way imaginable during its absence.
• New World Aeternum: Gratz to the consoles for getting New World, but the “ARPG” designation seems to have muddied the waters around this rebranding effort on the PC side of things. Considering what an uphill climb New World has had in its lifetime, this either either par for the course or AGS deciding that since they can’t please PC players they might as well focus on a new market.
• Gears of War: E-Day: In keeping with the entertainment industry’s trend of leaning into prequels, I applaud MS for going back to the relatively untapped vein of the origins of Gears, but I tapped out after…GoW2, I think?
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Same gameplay, new coat of paint.
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Another hearty slap on the back, this time for those who buy games to have sex with NPCs. I have zero interest in Dragon Age and it’s cousin Mass Effect as I consider them to be boring and filled with too much talking.