Time flies, right? I had been trying to post at least monthly but May and June just slipped through my fingers. During that time I finished playing Cyberpunk 2077 and really enjoyed it. I will eventually go back and play through different endings and will most likely pick up the upcoming DLC once it is released. I don’t really buy pre-releases anymore. Without physical discs or boxes, why bother? 

I do still buy a few early release games even though we’re essentially paying to beta test them. One of the games I’ve played after finishing Cyberpunk is Sons of the Forest. They added golf carts into the game, so my group of friends just had to take them for a spin. The physics are kind of silly with these, but are necessary to make them work with parts of the terrain. If I couldn’t swim and push the cart ahead of me, getting it back home would have been impossible. As you can see from the picture above, once we got our carts back to our base, we spent hours trying to figure out if we could jump them off cliffs. The answer is nope, they are very nose heavy but it was hilarious fun. 

No Man’s Sky released another expedition, so I played through it recently as well. Actually, I played through it twice so I could get both types of helmet customizations. It was a pretty quick and easy expedition to do, plus the Sentinel Interceptor ships they’ve added to the game are fun to hunt down and fly. I’m sad that I skipped the previous expedition where they were first added to the game. 

Steam had its Summer Sale and I’ve now added a few more games to the backlog. I finally picked up New World, although I haven’t installed it yet. I played through the free beta test and mostly enjoyed it. There are things that friends have promised me have changed for the better, so I decided to give it another try. I also picked up a cheap indie game called BlazeSky. I actually did install that one and started playing, but the movement mechanics in the game are pretty frustrating, so I set it aside for now. It looks like a pretty chill story driven game, so I will probably try to play it again when I don’t have better things to play.

Movement and traversal, as well as inventory management, often make me drop a game even if it has a great story. I didn’t finish Jedi Fallen Order or Horizon Forbidden West because of the traversal stuff and I won’t bother picking up Jedi Survivor after hearing that they doubled down on the wall running BS. I’m actually quite disappointed that Horizon Forbidden West has annoyed me so much. I really enjoyed the first game and didn’t find myself annoyed over the movement and fight mechanics, but this time around I’m just kind of done with the whole need to run and try to aim and shoot things at the same time, and don’t get me started on how many times I quit playing while trying to cross one of the rooms to get to the next objective. My advice is to make sure you lower EVERY single ladder that you possibly can. I don’t know if it would have been better on PC and easier on my hands, but I seriously doubt I’ll finish the game on our PS5, which is a pity since the PS5 and the game were a Christmas gift. 

Speaking of Steam sales, Tiny Tina’s Wonderland is less than $20 right now and it is such a fun game and story. If you haven’t picked it up yet, now is the perfect time. 

I’m currently playing Solasta: Crown of the Magister and enjoying it. I’m kinda surprised about that. I’d held off playing it for this long because it is a top down game. I generally don’t like having to scroll my view around a map, then click on terrain to move people around. I really prefer to drive with WASD or my mouse, and I prefer to be able to look around at my surroundings. Being able to select waypoints from the game map for rapid travel has helped a lot. The 5th edition DnD rules have also helped me stick with the game since I enjoy the TTRPG. I have the Divinity games and haven’t finished them, mainly because of inventory management and movement… I’m likely to finish Solasta and even play some of the DLC content, so they must do things differently enough to make it more fun for me. 

I haven’t decided what to “dust” off from the game library next. I’m probably going to add several new games to the library and play them first, mainly Stray Gods the Musical that I backed on Fig (coming out August 10th), and Starfield (coming out Sept. 6th). Baldur’s Gate 3 also moves from early release to full release (Aug. 3rd). I’ve hesitated over BG3 because it is made by the same folks who did Divinity, and I haven’t finished the Divinity games. But in the early days of my starting to game, Baldur’s Gate was one of the games that got me hooked to online games. I wish I’d had a chance to try BG3 in a free beta test just to see if I’d be okay with movement and inventory mechanics, but I’ll probably buy the game regardless. I’m also signed up to beta test Palia in August, which is a really chill looking exploration MMO. I’m glad I get a chance to beta test it so I can see what the balance is between grind and progression. If you want to sign up for the beta, click here for my referral link and get a fruit basket to decorate your house with. 

There is a lot of new stuff coming out in the next few weeks! Sorry New World, Portal/Portal2 and It Takes Two, you just got bumped down the list again.