Tag Archives: Animal Crossing New Horizons

E3 2021: What’s Looking Good, Nintendo?

Even though it’s been a few days since E3 2021 actually wrapped up and our collective consciousness is rapidly moving away from the event itself, there’s still a lot to say about what we saw on display. Today’s subject is none other than the purveyors of the plumber, the masters of the mustache, Nintendo.

It sure feels like every year people have their long lists of Nintendo “dream announcements” that never actually get fulfilled, and this year didn’t do much to allay that perception. Notably Nintendo didn’t talk about their long rumored new Switch model, nor did they talk about long awaited games like Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, or even games they announced last year such as Splatoon 3. Nintendo remains an enigma to me, but there was still some stuff they touched on that I’d love to highlight.

One thing I want to mention upfront is how weird it was to see literally nothing in the way of Animal Crossing: New Horizons content. I feel like the player base of that game, myself included, have been clamoring for something new or interesting to come along so that we can have a reason to return to our, undoubtedly overgrown islands. But it’s starting to feel more and more like Nintendo had no real plan in place for supporting Animal Crossing beyond its first year, so I hope y’all like Bunny Day, cause that’s all we’re gonna get apparently.

SUPER MONKEY BALL BANANA MANIA

It has been way too long since we’ve gotten a proper Monkey Ball game, and while we’re not actually getting a new one, we are getting this pack of the first three console games in the series: Super Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball 2, and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe. Now I have very little experience with the series because I never actually owned a Gamecube, but Super Monkey Ball was definitely one of the few games I saw on that console that made me really want that little purple lunchbox with the terrible controller.

I’m glad to see Monkey Ball return in some fashion though. Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania comes out this year on October 5th and according to some retailers, the package is listed at $39.99 which is probably the most I’d consider paying for this collection if we’re being honest. I’m actually surprised it isn’t more, but considering it is a SEGA property maybe that’s why the price is more palatable. We literally saw Nintendo do this not too long ago with the Super Mario 3D All-Stars bundle, where they charged full price for a collection of ports of “classic” 3D Mario titles. Speaking of Nintendo severely overvaluing their products…

MARIO PARTY SUPERSTARS

I really don’t actually give a damn about Mario Party or any of its many iterations, but Mario Party Superstars is probably the smartest move they could make with this miserable series. With remastered “classic” maps and mini-games, along with online play right out of the box, I think this is the way to properly capitalize on the misguided nostalgia people have for this series. Curiously however, there’s also online matchmaking which sounds like a good idea in theory, but man, I already don’t want to play Mario Party to begin with, but doing it with random strangers seems even worse somehow.

Incredibly, Nintendo is going to be charging the full sixty bucks for this one when it drops on October 29th of this year.

METROID DREAD

I’ve never been the biggest Metroid fan, but I’ve enjoyed a couple of the iterations that have come out over the years. I’ve never messed with the Prime trilogy, but I’ve dabbled with the original Metroid, Super Metroid and I think maybe I played a bit of Metroid Fusion, but I might just be imagining that last one. My point is that I’m way more onboard for a new 2D Metroid game than I am for Metroid Prime 4, a game that might never come out.

I suppose my biggest question is what genre of game we attribute Metroid Dread to, because it seems silly to classify a Metroid game as a Metroidvania, but like, it’s right there in the title. See these are the big questions I’m willing to waste a paragraph on as well as your precious attention span.

It has been a while though since I’ve actually strapped on my Varia suit and rolled up into a little bomb-dropping ball, but I think I can get my sea legs back in time for Metroid Dread‘s release later this year on October 8th. Damn Nintendo, you’re really stacking releases in October, huh?

WARIOWARE GET IT TOGETHER

Hell yes, now we’re talking. The last time I played a WarioWare game was when I was still in high school when the Wii was out there conquering the world, and WarioWare Smooth Moves had just come out. I don’t know if it was a good WarioWare game or not, but I do remember enjoying it quite thoroughly. It’s unfortunate though because the series mostly lived on handhelds, which is just not how I play video games. So the series mostly passed me by, but that dry spell ends this year.

I don’t know how I feel about the main conceit of controlling a little avatar that goes on screen and interacts with the micro-games using their unique abilities, but WarioWare was a series that always had a new hook from game to game, so I’m not surprised they went with a new gimmick this time around. It’s not surprising they went this angle however, considering they wanted to make a cooperative focused game that utilizes the unique aspects of the Nintendo Switch, namely, two people controlling the game simultaneously with a Joy-Con apiece. Hopefully it lives up to the legacy of the series, but we won’t know for sure until it drops later this year on September 9th.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD 2

I’ll admit that when Nintendo went to conclude their Direct by showing off Hyrule Warriors DLC, I turned the thing off entirely and moved on with my life. Little did I know, Link and his cool new hair were gonna be on display shortly after that deflating announcement. Now look, I loved the first Breath of the Wild, it was one of my favorite games of 2017 after all. I just hope that this sequel builds on the right aspects of its predecessor while ditching the shittier parts of the original. Namely, if they could maybe get rid of weapon degradation, that would just be so cool.

I know that weapon degradation is kind of a low-hanging fruit when it comes to criticism about Breath of the Wild, but in what I might consider the best Zelda game of all time, it really stuck out as an unnecessary pressure point. I’m not here to backseat develop, but that part of the game is what genuinely keeps me from wanting to revisit it.

While the trailer showed off some new powers, weapons and Link’s cool new hairdo, it was only a tease of what we might see later in the year or whenever they decide to show off more of the game. I personally would like to see a little more life out of the world this time around, like cities and such, along with some actual dungeons as opposed to the lackluster ones we saw in Breath of the Wild. Who knows what the final product will actually be like, but the fact that they’re building off of Breath of the Wild fills me with a lot of confidence that at the very least, I’ll get another game that’s at least as good as the original. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 will get a real name at some point that we’ll learn before it releases sometime in 2022.

I feel like every year the same conversation happens around the Nintendo Switch and its lineup. At the beginning of the year we lament the lack of confirmed releases for the holiday season, and then E3 happens and we all get put in our collective places. I’m pretty relieved that there wasn’t a new Switch model announced as well because Nintendo is terrible when it comes to utilizing their new hardware iterations, like that 3DS that came with the little nubbin’ second analog stick that I think like 2 games utilized. I also just don’t trust Nintendo to properly support two consoles at the same time, considering that even in 2021 we’re still out here using friend codes and trying to do voice chat in the most convoluted way possible.

But yeah, that’s what I saw from the Nintendo Direct that resonated with me in some fashion. I usually don’t have to worry too much about the quality of Nintendo games, but there’s always the chance that these games could turn out to be real stinkers. Here’s hoping that isn’t the case though.

Blog: Down on the Town – 05/19/21

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I initially planned on doing this two months ago, but time is an illusion at best these days and I just kind of missed it, but now seems as good as a time as any to talk about Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Like I said, this would’ve been more apt had it been the 1-year anniversary of its release, but I feel like the things I wanted to say then are still applicable a few months on. So with that said, I’d like to go over my brief love affair with the game and where our relationship stands today.

Like many people, I found that Animal Crossing: New Horizons hit right when I needed it to, providing a pleasant escape from the misery of the newly imposed lock-downs that swept across the globe. Despite how I feel about it today, I still maintain that Animal Crossing: New Horizons was one of the most important games I played during 2020, solely based on how it helped prop up my relationships with others. Yet here in 2021, I might be able to give the game a half hour of my time every two weeks or so, at best. Where did it all go wrong between me and Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Well it probably has to do with the fact that nothing substantial has happened over the course of the year. Every seasonal event that was rolled out was underwhelming and immediately forgettable, leaving me yearning for the bigger content updates that would never actually come. The events for the most part, all followed a similar formula of “collect this thing so you can craft a different thing,” and that’s pretty underwhelming if you ask me. Sure it follows in the motif of the game itself, where crafting and building are kind of the cornerstones of the entire experience, but sometimes you want to do something that grants you a reward that isn’t a crafting recipe. I just find the Animal Crossing: New Horizons failed to ever do anything with the momentum it built up, as if no one at Nintendo had a plan for if the game actually sold well or something.

The core issue isn’t that the events are underwhelming however, the real issue is that nothing has changed in a meaningful way whatsoever. Sure new items have been injected into the game here and there, but outside of that and the terrible seasonal events, there hasn’t been any real reason for me to spend time on my little island paradise. There aren’t any new buildings or NPCs to interact with, nor have there been any new shops to spend my dragon’s hoard of money in. No new functionality has been added to the game outside of being able to go swimming and diving for clams or whatever, so I’ve just been in this, “why bother?” mentality with the it all. Hell, none of my townsfolk ever have anything interesting to say anymore either. Just like real life, in Animal Crossing: New Horizons I’m just kind of going through the motions.

It’s an absolute shame too considering that a lot of the good will and praise that people heaped onto Animal Crossing: New Horizons when the pandemic started has almost entirely evaporated into thin air. Everything I hear about the game itself these days falls into one of two buckets: Either it’s an event from last year coming back much to the chagrin of the people still actively playing it, or how Nintendo patched out a glitch that people found because they wouldn’t want the game to be too fun.

I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to list things I’d like to see added to the game, but at this point I’d take anything. The game has gotten so stagnant and dull that even just a new store or mechanic could entice me to check in on my animals who refuse to do any manual labor, instead opting to let the town get overrun by weeds before actual getting their hands dirty. I remember rumors of cooking systems and more in-depth interactable objects like in past entries of the series, none of which have actually come to pass. Honestly I was kind of hoping that Animal Crossing would inject more Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley elements into it for the people who really wanted to stick with the game. Give players more things to do on a mechanical level and stop being so punitive when it comes to doing simple shit like rearranging the layout of your town.

It just sucks to think about because Animal Crossing: New Horizons helped me transition from a relatively normal life to the one I’m currently living without falling too deep into a pit of despair. Its positive, bright and cheery atmosphere was truly the pick-me-up I needed during some of the rougher parts of the lockdown. It was a way for me to keep in touch with my partner who lived far away at the time, as well as friends and co-workers. It was a lifeline during an incredibly bleak period of time, and to see it just be ignored after being so influential and beloved in the gaming space is incredibly disheartening. I hope something new comes into play soon, but I’m really not holding my breath.

Valentine’s Play

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Even though our 2020 Game of the Year coverage is dead and buried with the rest of 2020, there’s still one list that I felt needed to be published in regards to the games I played last year. See, my partner and I started dating towards the end of 2019 and like most people, were put into a really challenging position when it came to maintaining our relationship while we were both quarantined. Luckily we both had Nintendo Switches and were able to have “date nights” where we’d just play games and talk for hours, something we still do only now in person thanks to them moving closer to my place. So in celebration of Valentine’s Day, here are some of the games we played and continue to play together that they have specifically called out as their most memorable games that we’ve played together in no particular order.

Trine 1&2

I don’t recall exactly when it happened, but at some point there was a really good deal on all 4 of the Trine games that were bundled into one package that we took advantage of. Both Trine 1 and 2 were big hits around these parts as we’d both been craving some sort of cooperative game with some light progression elements (my words, not theirs). I’d dabbled in the Trine games before, but never really dove into one like we did last year.

The amount of laughter and joy that would come out of our Trine gaming sessions is something that I’ll always treasure. Despite the game being overtly cooperative, my partner found a way to make it competitive by having to be the first one across any gaps or even just the first one to collect the various pickups and collectibles scattered around the levels. It was a really fun pair of games that we were quite simply hooked on for a few months last year.

While we both had a chaotically good time with the wacky physics-based mayhem and puzzle solving of the first two games, we only made it a few levels into the third entry of the series before we hit a wall. Trine 3 ditches the solely side-scrolling nature of the first two games in the series in favor of this 2.5D kind of approach where characters have to travel along the Z-axis to progress through the levels. While I was used to games that either dabbled in or lived completely in the third dimension, they weren’t as comfortable with it and bounced off of the game pretty quickly. It also didn’t help that Trine 3 is buggy as hell and that third dimension makes a lot of the mechanics they had come to know and understand be a lot more fiddly and unresponsive. But none of that can take away from the fact that the first two titles were great fun for the both of us.

Overcooked!

I have this terrible habit of accidentally introducing my partner to games that I kind of like, only to have them turn around and demand they be the only games we end up playing. Overcooked might just be the epitome of this unwelcome trend, but it’s something my partner truly enjoys to the point where it’s the only thing they want to play lately. I wasn’t exactly sure what specific things they enjoy about the game itself, so I just went ahead and asked them.

“I like that we have to work as a team for a common goal. And it is fast paced so we really have to focus on communicating (well) and figuring out a strategy to complete the objective.” While they enjoy the fast-paced, communication heavy gameplay loop that Overcooked is all about, I just find myself unable to work that fast while focusing on several different objectives at once. Luckily, their brain seems to be significantly more capable of keeping track of multiple concurrent objectives without entering a fugue state, which is basically what happens to me whenever we play.

But the point is that Overcooked is a game that’s been wildly popular among the two of us, and while it might not be my favorite game, they sure do enjoy the hell out of it. One thing we can both agree on however, is that the game itself is overwhelmingly charming, from the character designs to the music, Overcooked is a delightful game to experience with another person.

Dr. Mario

I did not anticipate launching the NES or SNES virtual console thing that’s on the Switch as often as I had last year, but we both did because that’s where Dr. Mario lives. The classic puzzle game not only boasts two of the best music tracks in video games ever, but it was fun enough to become a long time favorite for my partner and I. Now, I really liked Dr. Mario as a kid, but I don’t know that I’d consider it one of my absolute favorite games of all time. But my partner, well they were and still are pretty obsessed with the good doctor’s particular brand of hurling pills at their patients until a cure happens.

It was seriously the only game that we’d play for a while, offering a good distraction as we made conversation. However, there’s only so much Dr. Mario I can personally endure before the siren song of the “Fever” track becomes an unwelcome ear-worm that won’t leave no matter what I do. Like I said, I enjoy Dr. Mario, but my partner fucking loves it.

Heave Ho

Heave Ho is the kind of game that is so absolutely hilarious to play that a person might have to sprint to the bathroom mid-game in order to avoid pissing their pants. That to me is the surest sign of a game being great fun. Both my partner and I absolutely loved Heave Ho so much that even now we still boot it up and bash our heads against some of the super challenging levels that you unlock after beating the game. There’s just something so delightfully stupid about what you’re doing at any given moment in the game, whether it’s locking arms with one another and trying to swing across the level or just plummeting to our death and watching the blood splatter fly up and coat the other person.

If you haven’t played Heave Ho with at least one other person, you’re truly missing out. It’s easily been one of our favorite games to play together and is probably my favorite game on this entire list.

Nidhogg II

Nidhogg II is a lot like Overcooked for me in the sense that I like it well enough, but not nearly in the same way that my partner does. I don’t know what it is about Nidhogg II that they enjoy so much, but whatever it is has led to me playing way more Nidhogg II than I ever intended to. They’re crazy about this game in a way that I personally didn’t expect, although it’s pretty hilarious to both of us whenever I unsuccessfully try to outrun a sword that’s spiraling through the air in my direction. Or maybe it’s when I accidentally roll off the side of the stage like a goober. Or maybe it’s when I slam my head into a doorway. Or maybe it’s when I hit the jump button too many times and just bounce around waiting for something pointy to pierce my flesh.

When asked, my partner said, “I like how competitive it gets, and that it is just us against each other. One slip up an you can gain a lot of ground, so you have to be focused and make sure you keep pushing in your direction.” While I agree with that sentiment, I think my ever growing ambivalence towards competitive games keeps me from enjoying it as much as they do. But hey, it’s still a good time when we do end up playing Nidhogg II.

NES Pro Wrestling

*Image credit: u/mastablasta26 on reddit*

Let me be clear when I say that neither of us have any sort of affinity for wrestling at all, but something about this game makes us lose our minds and breakdown into fits of laughter. I personally love the ridiculous characters like Star Man and King Corn Karn, but I’m pretty sure my partner is more into how their button-mashing ability out performs my haphazard attempts at learning the controls. I think I’ve only managed to land one spinning back kick on my partner, whereas they’ll transform their character into a whirling dervish of limbs that has a natural ability to connect with my face.

Whatever it might be, all I know is that against all odds we found great joy in a game that neither of us would have gone out of our way to try had we not been bored during our distanced quarantine. There’s also one on the SNES virtual console analog that’s also very good, but nothing beats the classics I suppose.

There were plenty of other games that we played together that I really enjoyed that I wanted to call out specifically. Things like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Castle Crashers jump out to me as games that defined our time in quarantine. But this is just a slice of the games that we’ve tried together. I’m still trying to get them to try out Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game with me, as it’s easily one of my favorite beat-em-ups of all time with a crazy good soundtrack to boot, but we’ll see how that goes.

But just today, February 12th, the Nintendo Switch port of one of the greatest Mario games of all time is being released. Of course I’m talking about the incredible and easily overlooked Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, a title that just rolls off the tongue. That ranks incredibly high up on my list of Mario games and I can’t wait to share with my partner how delightfully chaotic that game can be in multiplayer. I predict many instances of getting hurled off of the side of a level that will be immediately followed by a barely stifled giggle on their end and a sigh of resignation on mine, a constant theme that exists throughout most of the games we play together.

And that’s kind of it really. Video games are a big part of our relationship, and I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting experiences for us to try out. I’m still trying to figure out what games will be a hit and which ones won’t, but I’ll get there. One day I’m going to get them into something more dense and complex, but I have no idea when or what that will be. Anyway, enjoy your Valentine’s Day if you’re celebrating it, and for the love of God, don’t go out to eat at a restaurant. Just stay home, hang out with your partner, and play some dang video games.

Game of the Year 2020

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Welcome to 2021, a year that I will set no expectations for because we all saw how well things turned out in 2020. But before we leave 2020 to rot in it’s rightful place in the universe’s dumpster, let’s bid one last farewell to the worst year I’ve ever experienced by celebrating the games that got me through it.

It took a long time and a lot of effort to get to a place where I could even list ten games I truly enjoyed this year, partly because nothing really stood out to me for most of 2020, and partly because the year itself was a debilitating nightmare that not even video games could distract me from.

HONORABLE MENTION: NBA 2K21

Every year I find myself dipping into the latest entry in the NBA 2K series and pour hundreds of hours into it, and NBA 2K21 is no exception. It’s like this nice bit of comfort food that I can just dip into and have a decent time with my favorite sport as I live out my wildest fantasy of making the New York Knicks a good team. I never participate in the more exploitative modes that try to milk you for money in order to boost your stats or wear a cool hat, but I still have a bunch of fun just running through a couple of years of the franchise mode, adjusting rotations and negotiating contracts and whatnot. There isn’t much else to say about the game otherwise. It’s a solid basketball simulation that manages to consume a lot of my free gaming time throughout the year, which is enough to make it onto this list in some capacity.

10 – RISK OF RAIN 2

Risk of Rain 2 opens up this list not just because I think it’s a good game worth sinking a couple dozen hours into, but because it was one of my favorite multiplayer experiences from this year. It’s one of those games that if I had played it on my own I’d be completely lost thanks to its large levels of inscrutability and ultimately back away from, but when I had some friends acting as my Risk of Rain 2 navigators, I found it to be an overwhelmingly good time.

The game itself is a tough as hell rogue-like shooter that is relentless in how much it throws at you. Eventually you reach a point where you’re inundated by items and abilities that don’t exactly explain themselves well, but thankfully I had people around me to help fill in the gaps. Aside from Risk of Rain 2 just being a really well made game that really shines when you play with friends, the soundtrack is amazing. It’s this incredible progressive-rock soundscape that washes over you while you play it and is quite well done. If nothing else, you should listen to the soundtrack.

9 – SPIRITFARER

When I think about the absolute misery that was 2020, it’s important to try and counteract the constant stream of negativity with the few moments of pleasantness I was able to find. Spiritfarer is a game that granted me some reprieve from the horrible world outside, by making me the shepherd of departed souls that’s been tasked with ferrying them to the other side. While that pitch sounds grim as hell, I assure you that the game itself is a heartwarming experience that provided an incredible story despite dragging in a couple of places.

The real thing that won me over in Spiritfarer was just how it looked. Everything about the presentation is warm and inviting, masking the reality of the task you have to take on as the titular Spiritfarer. You learn about the people you’re ferrying along and who they once were through talking to them and doing side missions on their behalf, most of which were really touching. It’s also got some farming simulation and management stuff in there to help break up the monotony with a different kind of monotony. But aside from some of the slower and less story relevant bits of the game, I think it is just a tremendous title that was well worth the time I put into it.

8 – HARDSPACE: SHIPBREAKER

As an unapologetic lover of games that “simulate” relatively mundane professions, Hardspace: Shipbreaker was a particularly exciting blend of that concept and my love of science fiction. In Hardspace: Shipbreaker, you’re just a person whose job it is to break down and salvage derelict spaceships. Armed with some cool laser beams and a recently added explosive charge, you can really destroy your frame rate with how granular you can get when dissecting these floating behemoths. But it isn’t without some challenge, because one wayward cut could result in a catastrophic explosion that will obliterate much of ship along with any salvageable materials.

What I really enjoy about Hardspace: Shipbreaker is how it takes this fantastical world of accessible space travel and decides to focus on this mundane concept of just being a scrapper rather than some fighter pilot. It reminds me of all of those Star Wars side stories that focused on like a Death Star janitor or something. It’s also just an intensely satisfying and meditative experience to just get in there and slice a ship apart piece by piece while listening to a podcast or something.

7- FUSER

If it wasn’t for Fuser, I don’t think I would ever have discovered my secret ability to create true auditory hell-scapes, and that’s a newfound talent that I’m incredibly proud of. But Fuser isn’t just about making nightmarish song combinations, it turns out you can actually make unlikely mashups of classic and contemporary songs that sound really good. That’s the power of Fuser.

I’ve always been really keen on making music but never really had the understanding nor the desire to dip my toes into the world of being a live DJ. I don’t foresee myself ever buying turntables or any of the other required pieces of equipment to live out that particular fantasy, but Fuser allows me to dip into that world without much prior knowledge needed. It’s an incredibly accessible and instantly fun, albeit a fairly thin experience.

Fuser more of a game I can dip into a couple times a year and have a blast with as opposed to a game I’d spend consecutive days playing, but that’s honestly fine by me. It’s also just a really fun thing to pop on and show friends, although that particular party trick will have to wait until I can once again entertain people. But till that happens, I’m perfectly fine being a DJ for an audience of one.

6 – I AM DEAD

I don’t think many folks actually know about I Am Dead and its particular style of puzzle solving, but I would implore anyone who wants a fairly light and breezy puzzle game to check it out. Despite the overly morose title, I Am Dead is actually a really pleasant game with a heartwarming story. It isn’t overly difficult and doesn’t soak up too much time, clocking in at around 6 hours or so. I found the main puzzle mechanic of peeling back layers of the world to reveal hidden objects to be pretty satisfying without ever wearing out it’s welcome.

It’s also just a really pretty game to behold, with an overall aesthetic that can simply be described as colorful and endearing. It’s a delightful little game that I feel didn’t get its due when it released, something that I’d describe as criminal. I fear that going into more detail about the game would teeter on the edge of spoiler territory, so all I’ll say is that you should absolutely check out I Am Dead if you’re in dire need of a puzzle-based palette cleanser from this miserable year.

5- BALDUR’S GATE III

Baldur’s Gate III is still in early access and will probably remain that way for most of, if not the remainder of 2021, but it still deserves a spot on this list. The game itself launched in a pretty rocky state, but has only been improving as time has gone on. Many of the issues I had with Baldur’s Gate III when it launched into early access have been addressed or are at least on the list for tweaking, which is a great sign for someone like me who has no love for traditional CRPGs.

But therein lies the real reason why Baldur’s Gate III is on my list. See, up until it released towards the end of 2020, I very much wasn’t a fan of CRPGs and would even go as far as to say I had an aversion to them. But Baldur’s Gate III managed to capture my love for Dungeons & Dragons in a way that made me willing to give the genre one last shot. It turns out that all I needed to connect with this genre was a good entry point and Baldur’s Gate III gave me that. Now I’ve got like 4 other CRPGs in the backlog that I’m eager to dig into which might have been a little ambitious if I’m being honest, but it is what it is.

Aside from how Baldur’s Gate III basically opened up a world of new games to me, it’s just really fun even if it plays a little fast and loose with the rules of D&D. They recently patched in an update that fixed a lot of the graphical weirdness and camera issues that I had, but it also invalidated all save files from before the patch, so I’ve been putting off playing through the intro for a fourth time. But I truly think that when Baldur’s Gate III enters a 1.0 release, it will be a titan of a game. Even as is, the game shows so much potential both mechanically and in terms of it’s story. I just wonder how much time I want to put into it between now and then.

4 – CALL OF THE SEA

You awake in the middle of the night to the sound of your old timey telephone ringing. Since it’s like the 1930’s and there’s only one phone in your home, you throw on your nightgown and head into the room with the phone in it. You pick up the receiver and say “Hello?” That’s when you realize that on the other end of the call is no person, but the sea itself, calling to check in on you. Because the sea is in a different time zone they called you thinking it would be okay, but the sea realizes now that they’ve made a poor decision and are terribly sorry for disrupting your sleep.

So Call of the Sea is a really cool puzzle and adventure game that didn’t seem to get too much press, probably because it came out like two days before Cyberpunk 2077 did. But instead of playing that game, you should all play Call of the Sea instead. Call of the Sea is a narrative driven adventure game with some pretty challenging puzzles to solve, as well as a really intriguing mystery that unfolds and only gets wilder as you progress.

When I first launched the game I didn’t think I would end up spending too much time with it, but the story that kept unfolding around me was enough to keep me going to see it through to the end. I don’t really want to go in depth on where the story goes, but the setup is that you’re this woman who is heading to this mysterious island to find your husband and his expedition crew. They went in search of a cure for the mysterious disease that your character is afflicted with, but too much time has passed and your character is worried and decided to just find her partner on her own. Aside from the really captivating mystery of your missing husband and his crew, there’s a very touching love story that’s unfolding around you as your character recalls all the reasons why this man is so precious to her. It’s a very sweet subplot in a game that has a very haunting story, and I think it all comes together pretty flawlessly.

3 – ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS

By the time June rolled around I was pretty sure I hated Animal Crossing: New Horizons, something that came as a surprise to me considering that like the rest of the world, it dominated every free moment I had when it launched. I feel bad for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, because I think a lot of people had that same trajectory with it. The truth of the matter is that it released as one of the darkest moments in human history was unfurling around us, thus thrusting it into this position of being everyone’s go-to game for both escapism and social gatherings. The problem is that Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn’t meant to provide you with long gaming sessions, rather, it’s a thing that’s designed for you to check in with once every few days.

But the pandemic just started an the world entered lock down, leaving us with nothing but the newest and cutest game out there to keep our minds off of the misery outside as well as keeping us all connected. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was a lifeline for so many people, myself included. My partner and had a lot of date nights on our islands in lieu of being able to actually see each other in person, and I’m thankful as hell for that. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a really good Animal Crossing game, but might actually be better described as the most important game of 2020, similar to how Pokemon GO! was the biggest cultural event of 2016.

Around November I eventually found my way back to my island much to the delight of my little virtual animal neighbors, and I started playing it the way it was intended. Once I got into that rhythm with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I started remembering why I was so taken with this series in the first place. It’s pleasant and charming and never aims to stress you out. It truly is the best foil to 2020 that we could have asked for, and for that alone it deserves a spot on this list. But because of how well made it is, minus some quality of life improvements that Nintendo just refuses to make for some reason (doing anything that involves the internet), it would have been on this list regardless of a pandemic or not.

2 – TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER 1+2

What isn’t to like about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2? It’s a fantastic remaster of two of the most beloved games of all time that was able to make good on how I remember those titles looking and feeling. From the soundtrack to the levels and challenges, everything was pretty much just how I remembered it, although I did appreciate how they went ahead and aged up the skaters to reflect what they look like now. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is really just a celebration of two classic titles that despite the efforts of some later and more mediocre entries in the series, never were overshadowed or forgotten.

It only took an hour or so for my muscle memory to kick in, allowing me to pull off some insane lines and combos that I would inevitably fuck up because I tried to do one too many rotations in mid air. You wouldn’t believe it, but I miss that particular brand of frustration. I remember being a younger man and bashing my head against so many of these challenges while listening to the first two minutes of every song on the soundtrack. I usually try to catch myself when something is trying to play off of my nostalgia in such an explicit way, but I fully embraced what Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 did to me and I’m much happier for it.

1 – MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES

And here we are, at the number one spot chilling with Spider-Man himself. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the refined version of its 2018 predecessor, Marvel’s Spider-Man. That game was fantastic, but Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is even better. It’s story is emotional and moves along at fast enough pace that you don’t feel like you’re ever losing the plot. It also cuts out a lot of the bloated side content that existed in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but isn’t completely without some truly lame side missions. That just seems to be a pitfall of most open world games though.

But Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales wastes no time in letting you bounce around the city as a much more competent Spider-Man, circumventing the need to spend upgrade points on essential traversal abilities. From the jump you’ve got way more combat, stealth and traversal options at your disposal, and Miles has his own unique set of upgrades to work with that make him feel very different from 2018’s Peter Parker. The game as a whole manages to skirt the line of being a “Spider-Man living in the shadow of Spider-Man story”, by making it obvious that Miles is his own character and his struggles both as Miles and Spider-Man are just as important and impactful as anyone else’s.

I truly loved the time I spent with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and basically devoured it within the first few days of its release. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a truly fantastic game that tells its story incredibly well and efficiently, is mechanically rewarding and engaging, and it doesn’t even cost as much as a full priced title. It’s a truly exquisite game that every Spider-Man fan should play. For all of those reasons and more, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is my game of the year for 2020.

Well that’s it I suppose, another year in the books. Thank goodness. I’d like to personally thank you all for sticking with me this year and reading the things I write, it truly means more to me than you could ever know. But that’s it y’all. I hope your 2021 is demonstrably better than 2020, although that can’t be too high of a bar to clear. Thanks again everyone.

Blog: Look at This Stupid Thing – 05/13/20

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We’ve entered the part of quarantine where the packages I ordered at the beginning of April are finally showing up, and it’s been a really fun experience honestly. A few days back I finally got my Hori Split Pad Pro in the mail, and while I think it’s perfectly fine and functional, golly does it look stupid as hell.

Back in April, my Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers started to fall victim to the infamous “drift” problem, specifically on the left stick. Maybe it was happening earlier than that, but I hadn’t really been playing much of my Switch before Animal Crossing: New Horizons released.

At first I’d notice my little villager would start taking very slow walks towards the bottom of the screen, something that was annoying but not game breaking. Then I found myself running from a tarantula, when my villager decided to stop running and just stand still and accept his fate.

This was unacceptable.

So I ordered the Hori Split Pad Pro because it was on sale, and I finally got it. It’s doing the trick despite missing features like HD Rumble and the ability to work wirelessly, but it’s infinitely better than the budget “pro” controller I bought off Amazon months ago. The face buttons feel good, while the analog sticks have a weirdly grainy texture to them which is strange. Other than that, it’s got back paddles that I’ll never use, but I’m satisfied with my purchase overall.

It’s going to be a while before I can actually pick up real, official Nintendo Joy-Con remotes, but I’m okay with waiting because I’m not playing anything that requires the Joy-Con specific functionalities. And while I appreciate the size of the Hori Split Pad Pro and how it feels better in my bearlike paws, it just looks so fucking stupid on the Switch.

I Hate Bunny Day

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UPDATE: Since writing this article, a patch was released for Animal Crossing: New Horizons that turned down the spawn rate on all Bunny Day eggs. This article is representative of the six days of the event before the patch was rolled out.

Like most of the world, I’m dedicating a lot of time to the recently released Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a game which I absolutely adore. The simple pleasure of just building and maintaining my own island has been, among other things, therapeutic. That is until April 1st rolled around and every Animal Crossing: New Horizons player got pranked at the same time by a giant asshole dressed up like a bunny, making it the worst April Fools joke of all time.

If you don’t know, Animal Crossing: New Horizons introduced their first seasonal event that is some vague celebration of Easter, focusing more on the eggs and less on the whole Jesus thing. It’s supposed to be a light and happy event to shake up the routines of a standard day in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, tasking players with collecting various eggs to make Bunny Day themed furniture.

It was supposed to be cute and happy, but it very quickly went from charming to annoying and then to frustrating. So how could something designed to be so lighthearted become so despised by many Animal Crossing: New Horizons players? Well there are a few reasons.

Firstly, the entire event runs from April 1st to April 12th. That’s twelve whole days of the bullshit that I’m going to explain a little later in this article. Twelve days of having to deal with this event whether you want to participate or not. It’s maddening.

The second and possibly biggest reason has to do with one of the core mechanical changes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, crafting. In New Horizons a focus has been put on crafting furniture and tools through the use of raw materials that you find throughout the world. Chop a tree for would, hit a rock for iron and so on and so forth. The problem is that while you could whack a tree reliably for three pieces of wood, now there’s a high chance that at least one of them will actually be an egg. How an egg was hidden inside the bark of a tree, I’ll never know.

But it isn’t just some minor inconvenience, as everything that you would do in Animal Crossing: New Horizons now has a fucking egg attached to it. Mining for iron? Egg. Chopping wood? Egg. Going fishing? Oh that wasn’t actually a fish, somehow you caught yet another fucking egg. These little bastards are everywhere, and even though you can just sell them or give them to villagers, they still waste your time and resources.

This leads to my third issue with Bunny Day. Even though I’m actively not participating, I’m still wasting my time getting bamboozled by what looks like fish in the water, but are actually sentient, swimming eggs. I’ll go to dig up what should be a fossil, and instead it’ll be a special subterranean egg. Not only does it waste my time, but it wears on my tools. My fishing rod will break because I wasted it’s good fishing energy on a stupid egg, which leads to me having to march over to a tree to get wood (and more eggs), head to a crafting table to make another fishing rod, and then head back to do this stupid cycle over again.

You can’t even escape from this shit because the being behind this holiday, Zipper, who is most definitely a man in a bunny suit and not a bunny, is a criminal. Single-handedly, this monster managed to not only pollute my oceans, ground and skies with his shitty eggs, but did it on every island I might visit. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons there’s a mechanic that allows you to fly to a procedurally generated island to mine for resources and possibly catch exotic bugs or fish. But somehow this fugitive of the law in a bunny costume, filthed up every island I might find a temporary escape in.

For those keeping score at home, this holiday was forced upon me, even if I don’t participate in it I have to suffer through its dumb mechanics, and it’s a colossal waste of time and resources that I cannot escape from and must endure. Bunny Day sucks shit and it goes on too long. I don’t want your heinous egg-themed furniture, I don’t care about any of it, I just want it to go away.

Lastly, it’s wild to me that only 11 days into Animal Crossing: New Horizons being out publicly, with people still settling into their rhythms and routines in the game, this event has basically thrown a wrench into any plans they had. I’m still actively developing my island, and when I get 7 eggs that are worth a few pennies each versus 7 fish that would fetch a far better price, I’m being actively thwarted in my attempts to make a kick-ass island.

I really love Animal Crossing: New Horizons and check in on it several times a day. It’s been the bright spot in what’s been a pretty dreary time in all of our lives, which is why it sucks even more that a stupid event that was made to be fun and happy is actively draining my enjoyment and desire to pop in from time to time. I can’t wait until this event is over and I can go back to not seeing 8 balloons with eggs in them floating around my island like a bunch of derelict satellites and space trash. Till then, fuck Bunny Day.

Blog: Perpetual Motion – 03/25/20

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There’s this particular cadence and pace of game releases that’s only increased over the years that’s made covering games a more selective and less complete experience. Covering everything is a fruitless endeavor that only leads to a jaded outlook on games along with a healthy does of burnout. I bring this up only because I noticed a handful of the games I missed out on last year were on sale, but I had no desire to dip into them now.

It’s weird, right? For one reason or another (usually price), I ended up skipping out on a lot of games that I probably would’ve enjoyed from last year, but I genuinely have no desire to even try them out now. I think the reasons for this are twofold.

My first impulse is to blame my apathy for older games on the fact that I run this website. That isn’t to say that I see this site as some sort of news aggregate like a lot of the bigger gaming sites out there, but I’d like to be able to talk about more recent releases as opposed to older stuff. I gotta think about SEO just a little bit from time to time, but also I just kind of want to always try the newest thing.

This leads me to my second and probably more accurate reason for not looking back at games, and it’s because I really want to try the newest and shiniest thing out. Sure I could go back and finish The Outer Wilds, but I’d rather play the newest Animal Crossing instead.

It’s incredibly rare for me to find a game I stick with for a long time in general. These days my gaming comfort food are the NBA 2K games, and once upon a time it was Overwatch and so on and so forth. But those games only come around every so often, and I’m okay with that.

Some people become intimately familiar with a game and stick with it as it grows and develops over time. That’s great for those players and the developers as well, but it just isn’t something that I’ve ever really done. I like to sample as many games as I can, like some sort of gaming tapas, and move on to the next thing.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is Doing its Best

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You probably already know if Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the kind of game you would be into, but for me it’s been a crucial part of my social distancing coping mechanism. I absolutely adore the game and could write an entire piece gushing about it. However, I feel kind of bad for Animal Crossing: New Horizons because it’s been thrust into a position I can’t imagine it was ever intended to be in.

For context, Animal Crossing as a series has always been about playing in increments and slowly developing your town over time. It’s consistently positioned itself as something you check in with maybe once or twice a day before moving onto whatever else you had going on in your life. Obviously the world has been a bit different recently, granting people an excess of time to spend with a game that cannot sustain that.

Consider articles like this one, where people are stuck between completing objectives that would normally take an hour or two without much of an issue. Were this a normal world we lived in, people might not be able to simply obliterate all their goals in one sitting, more akin the way Animal Crossing: New Horizons probably planned for.

Now we have people, myself included, blitzing through every goal that would usually take a few days under normal circumstances, left without much else to do in the game. Sure you can catch fish and bugs, collect materials, craft stuff and sell things, but when you’re desperate for anything to do, these objectives might seem a little more thin than they normally would.

This is in no way the fault of Animal Crossing: New Horizons though. The world went and flipped upside down and now we’re all here just struggling to hang on, often escaping into video games to pass the time. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was not built to deal with these kinds of sustained, long-term game sessions, but it’s doing its best despite that. There’s just enough to do and check in with in the game that I can check in with it for an hour or two, several times a day without feeling too bored.

I ultimately love Animal Crossing: New Horizons and will continue to play it for the foreseeable future, but I can easily see a scenario in which people burn out on it because they’re playing it ad nauseam. I’ve already seen people complaining about the lack of storage options, or the long wait times for certain amenities to be built, or even with the pace of unlocking new items and crafting recipes, which are all valid concerns if this were a game that you were meant to play in long sessions. But that isn’t Animal Crossing, and while it’s still holding up for me, it’s important to realize that you should pace yourself with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and not expect the same things you would from another game.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is Still Kinda Lame

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Counter to the excitement and positivity surrounding the upcoming Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the latest publicly available game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp launched as, and still remains a letdown. That isn’t to say there aren’t good aspects or fun to be had in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, but as a game, it lacks a lot.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp launched for mobile devices in late 2017 to a pretty positive reception, albeit with a lot of folks taking umbrage with some of the monetization decisions, a criticism Nintendo apparently heard, but I guess they ultimately ignored. It’s a shame too considering an Animal Crossing game on your cellphone sounds like an awesome idea.

Look at this powerful mustache!

From a conceptual standpoint, I was initially let down by the idea of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp not being a more faithful Animal Crossing game. That initial reaction eventually gave way to apathy after I actually was able to play the game itself. When you look at Animal Crossing as a series, the games were doing things that a lot of early free-to-play mobile games were doing, in a time where smartphones weren’t really a thing. They basically did everything Farmville did, way before that was even a thing. It was essentially one of the earliest idle or incremental games that I can think of.

As time wore on and sequels came out, more and more was added to each iteration that allowed for longer play sessions, and reasons to come back multiple times a day. This all seemed perfect and primed for a smartphone adaptation, something I welcomed. Then I actually got to play the game.

When Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp was initially released, I devoured it. From decorating my campsite, to shaking trees and catching fish, I was all about the Animal Crossing life. But that initial spark of excitement eventually started to fade once I realized that despite Animal Crossing as a series heavily relies on repetition, it felt a lot grosser and less interesting in Pocket Camp.

Somehow it’s all both over and underwhelming.

The Animal Crossing games were nice because even after you shook all of your trees, participated in the fishing contest, and stabbed all of the rocks with a shovel, you could still wander around the town and see what your villagers were up to. To call it dynamic would be generous, but it was infinitely more engaging than the loop of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp quadruples down on the checklist nature of the series by literally making you do the same things over and over again, with almost no variation. There are a handful of locations you can go to, some have fruit to pick, one has bugs to net, and two have fish to catch. Each of these locations has one animal, and one random villager that may or not be an actual friend of yours. You’d have to tap on the region and traipse your way over to these animals and talk to them three times, because they want 3 things. Every day, you can have about 4 interactions with these animals, 3 by giving them stuff that could literally be right next to them, and one by just spouting nonsense at each other.

“I’ll use my telekinesis to play this guitar!”

I get that the DNA of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is inherently derived from Animal Crossing proper, but Pocket Camp just boils it all down in the most checklist-y way possible. They even have a pelican who will just deliver all of the crap people want directly to them so you can avoid having to actually go to them. I use this feature all the time, because I’m at a point where I just want to be finished.

There’s also the abundance of crap and garbage that fills up your inventory that seems to all be crafting materials, but sometimes it’s just a coat that people keep giving you. Preserves, lumber, ore, cotton and more, are all materials villagers might give you in reward for bringing them a seashell. It’s nice, because you get to build stuff, but the stuff you build is so lifeless and boring in most cases.

Don’t get me wrong, I like having a bunch of musical instruments, pizza boxes and convertibles strewn about my campsite as if I was having a garage sale, but you can’t do anything with them. You can poke them, rearrange them, and watch villagers stand near them. Sometimes, specifically in the case of a halfpipe you can build, you might be lucky enough to see a skateboarding eagle, but that’s kind of it.

Wow… thanks…

Now, that lack of interaction complaint isn’t exclusive to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. All of the Animal Crossing games have struggled with interactivity, but with something like Animal Crossing: New Leaf, they did flesh that out a bit. I specifically recall being able to play mini-games on the Nintendo consoles I could build which was shallow, but a nice diversion nonetheless.

Look, it may sound like I’m just frustrated and lashing out at Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, but the honest truth is that I’m still playing it regardless. Yes it’s boring and shallow, yes it’s repetitive as hell, and yes the economics of the game are absolutely fucked, but it’s still got that Animal Crossing charm I love. The artwork is delightful and fun, the characters are (mostly) adorable, and core Animal Crossing loop is still intact, but it just ends up feeling like an imitation of itself in some regards.

I don’t hate Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp at all, but I do think it’s deeply flawed and should have been way better. I took a long break from the game, but came back very recently thanks to the upcoming sequel. Pocket Camp scratches that itch, but in that way where you itch your arm, and then another part of your arm starts to itch and so on and so forth. My only hope is that Animal Crossing: New Horizons doesn’t have some hook into Pocket Camp that makes me have to play both simultaneously… dammit.

Blog: Big Delay Energy – 01/29/20

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Less than a month into 2020, several high profile games have already been pushed back and delayed. More time to work on a game is generally a good thing, but the finish line for the current generation of consoles is in sight. Not only do these games have to compete with other titles, but new hardware, which makes their delays a little more worrisome.

Before we talk about the games in question, it is important to know that Microsoft has already committed to Xbox One games working with the Xbox Series X, mitigating some of my reservations about migrating player bases. We don’t know what Sony has in store on that front, but I’m willing to bet this is all a moot point because every game on this list is going to get a next generation re-release.

So with all of those caveats, here are the big delays in question along with the effect it will have on the product as a whole… I assume.

FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE

First on the list is a game that I honestly could not care less about, but the gaming audience at large loves, Final Fantasy VII. It got bumped from a March 3rd release date, to April 10th.

In the grand scheme of things, this one isn’t so bad. People have waited a hilariously long time for this game to come out that I don’t think another month is too much to ask. It doesn’t matter anyway consider no matter what happens, people are still going to complain about the changes that were made.

This delay is far enough away from the launch of the next consoles that sales won’t be impacted at all.

MARVEL’S AVENGERS

So here is where we get into the more concerning delays. Marvel’s Avengers is an already strange product, marrying single player and cooperative third-person action with a live service model. I’m not saying it can’t work, but it’s a weird fit for a long awaited Avengers game.

Regardless, the game was pushed from May to September 4th of this year. We can assume that the next consoles will come out around November meaning that this live service game has roughly 2 months or less of capturing an audience.

Now yes, I understand that not everyone is going to buy a console the second it’s released, and yes I understand that Xbox is doing their “all games work on both consoles” thing, but with it releasing so close to a new console launch, there’s no way that Marvel’s Avengers doesn’t either get re-released on the new consoles, or just get delayed and released as a launch title.

I’m so curious about this game, and every time I hear more about it I get more and more concerned. Hopefully someone who gets paid to make these decisions has a plan, but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t look great for Marvel’s Avengers.

CYBERPUNK 2077

There’s no possible way that Cyberpunk 2077 can possibly live up to the hype, but I’m still hopeful. Originally slated for April 16th, Cyberpunk 2077 is listed for a September 17th release date.

While it isn’t a live service game like Marvel’s Avengers is, Cyberpunk 2077 is a massive, open-world action-RPG that’s going to take some time to get through if The Witcher 3 is any indication. This one isn’t so much as me being worried that the new consoles are going to eat Cyberpunk‘s lunch, but more me just wanting it to be a next generation title at this point.

In fact, I kind of wish Cyberpunk was planned as a next generation title in the first place. Everything that they’ve shown looks beautiful and ambitious, and I worry that the hardware it’ll be running on won’t hold up its end of the bargain. Maybe an Xbox One X or PS4 Pro will handle it better, but for those of us with launch hardware, I’m not convinced that we’re going to get a technically solid experience.

With all that said though, I’m sure that this game is going to get some sort of “game of the year” version with all the DLC or whatever after a year or so into the next console cycle. Cyberpunk 2077 is gonna be just fine.

DYING LIGHT 2

Now this one is concerning because it went from having an ambiguous “spring 2020,” release date, to not having one at all. Dying Light 2 was pitched as a highly ambitious game, particularly in the storytelling department, promising players vastly branching paths with difficult decisions that have actual impact on the story and world. It sounds great, but it also sounds like something that could be oversold very easily.

More to the point, without a window of time to expect Dying Light 2, it’s easy to assume the worst for the game, but I don’t think it’s on the verge on complete cancellation or anything like that. What I do think is that the pitch and scope of the game vastly overshadowed what the team at Techland can actually deliver. That isn’t an indictment of them as a studio, it’s just me pointing out that the initial pitch was lofty to begin with.

Do I think this game is doomed? No. Do I think that it’s going to be scaled back? Yes. Do I think it’ll be a next generation game? 100 percent. Am I any less excited to play it? Nope.

Full disclosure; this was written over a week ago, so I’m sure 15 other games got delayed since then. I welcome all delays, but if Nintendo bumps Animal Crossing back once more, I will riot.