Existing in stark contrast to how I felt about games merely a few weeks ago, I’ve suddenly found myself with an overwhelming amount of games I want to play but haven’t made much time for just yet. Even worse is the fact that they didn’t miraculously appear on my various hard drives because I distinctly remember spending money on them, so I really should at least launch these games at some point. With that said, here are some of the games that are currently squatting on my hard drive, that I should probably address.
BIOMUTANT
I’ll just go ahead and just break the thesis of this blog immediately by saying that I’ve actually played some Biomutant already, a few hours worth if memory serves. I didn’t hate what I’ve played but I wasn’t necessarily blown away by it either. Although to be fair I did mostly just play through the terribly long and uninteresting tutorial, something that was apparently such a pain in the ass that the developers decided to address it, along with the overly mouthy narrator, in a patch.
I would hope that the patch also works on making the game look better when running on an Xbox Series S because at the time of writing this, it looks real rough. Honestly, if it wasn’t for how grimy the game looks on my particular console of choice, I’d probably be playing a lot more of Biomutant. Despite it not being a graphical powerhouse, Biomutant seems super interesting to me and is definitely something I’d like to spend more time with.
AN AIRPORT FOR ALIENS CURRENTLY RUN BY DOGS
Once again, I’ve already played a little bit of An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs so far and I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing necessarily, because I’m not eager to play it because of how “good” it is, but I feel as if I owe to myself to play the entirety of any game with a title like An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs.
From what I’ve played of it, it’s absolutely fucking bonkers and I love that about it. What I think I love most about the game is the fact that the airport is indeed run by dogs, but not in the way you’re thinking probably. Sure dogs are working the various information stalls, ticket booths and concession stands, but it’s literally just a bunch of high resolution JPEGs of dogs that stare at you constantly as if they were enemies out of the original Duke Nukem or something. It’s so good and so weird and I need to play more of it.
There’s a story going on, but to be completely honest, that trailer above does a much better job at telling a story than the game has thus far. So maybe I just need to play way more of it to get those good story beats.
THE MAGNIFICENT TRUFFLEPIGS
Described as a “first-person, romantic, metal-detecting game,” there was no reality in which The Magnificent Trufflepigs didn’t find its way into my Steam library somehow. I haven’t launched this game yet, but I’m so intrigued to find out what it’s all about. Are these pigs truly magnificent? Are they good at finding truffles or are they some sort of pig, truffle hybrid monstrosity that’s going to be hunting me down throughout the game? Can I pet a trufflepig? These are the questions I need to answer to maintain my journalistic integrity… probably.
But it heavily reminds me of one of my favorite narrative-focused games, Firewatch, which did a fantastic job of telling a compelling and gripping story with the backdrop of doing a mundane job. I guess I really like the concept of the ordinary being thrust into positions of the extraordinary, and hopefully this ridiculously titled game can deliver on that.
BACKBONE
Raccoon detective. RACCOON. DETECTIVE. What else do you want me to say about Backbone, the game about a raccoon detective? The trailer looks dope as hell, boasting a pretty spectacularly detailed pixel art style and a lot of other humanoid animals beating the shit out of the raccoon detective. I’m not crazy about that last detail because of my love for the colloquially titled, trash-pandas, but it probably makes sense in the context of the story. I bet it ends with the raccoon detective finding their utopia somewhere in a landfill or something though. Also, it’s on Gamepass, so I have no reason to not play it.
Yeah, so that’s pretty much what’s on the plate at this particular moment. I really wanna get through some of this stuff because I’m anticipating playing a lot of Dark Alliance when it comes out later this month, and I’d like to have less things to juggle by then. Maybe this time I’ll actually play these games instead of turn around in two months and wonder why they’re still on my hard drive, then delete them as unceremoniously as possible, just like I did with Outriders.
The Bonus World 