MetalCaveman

Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere (US) Felt like a step backwards in some respects, no more voiced briefings, mission end messages were super short and dry, bare bones story, the titular Electrosphere mission hurt my eyes, not a lot of positives lol. I did like the more sci-fi look of the planes though, that was neat. I had more to say, but then I got the JP version running with a translation patch... That one's a whole new game! So for this one, I'll just leave it with: Grade: C Palworld 1.0 1.0 Adds a ton of stuff, new areas, new pals, story stuff, more technology, etc. Many of the new pals made it to my list of favorites, including a main story one that is really cool, though kinda useless when assigned to a base lol. The end game grind was pretty bad but the devs released an update that improved things, increasing drop rates for some stuff as well as changing crafting requirements for some tech. I really liked this game before, like it even more now, my biggest issue, outside of some minor bugs and glitches, is the expedition station, that thing is huge, ugly and doesn't fit anywhere, wish there was an ancient tech version of it or something. Grade: A+

Ghost Recon Wildlands: Last Rites I guess Breakpoint didn't do too well? Otherwise it's kind of odd that Wildlands gets the anniversary update along with a new mission that seems to set up the next entry in the series. It was a fun mission, somewhat short but pretty cool, during the day it felt like good old Wildlands, at night though, with the music and the whole cultist atmosphere, it felt almost like a horror game. Didn't know how to feel about the new CIA lady but the end improved my opinion. The rest of the story was interesting, if a bit short, the documents you find mostly set up the next game (or at least that's what it feels like) talking about a new criminal organization, the CIA investigating them, and requests to deploy the Ghosts there. Really like the Ghost Lead outfit you get for completing this mission, hoping that's the style they're going for. The biggest thing though, is that this came with an update that added improved graphics on current consoles, and a ton of difficulty settings, you can now change a bunch of stuff like enemy health, damage, alertness, and even stuff like Unidad max alert level. Best part though, is that now you can disable SAM sites! Grade: A

Season 5 already in production, meanwhile The Terminal List still working on World Cup schedule lol. This looks really cool too.

Ace Combat 2 Pretty big improvement over the first one, there's even branching paths and multiple endings! I do miss the Scarface colors from Air Combat though, that was a cool touch. Main issue I ran into where some bugged ground targets, didn't matter how many missiles I shot they would always "miss" pretty much had to crash into them to finally get them lol. Grade: A

August 20th, had a feeling it'd be out soon lol, "beta" feels pretty polished and complete, price is pretty good too. Side note regarding the price and everything going on with Sony going digital only, Mortal Shell 2 is 600 pesos on Steam and XBOX, on PS5 it's $58, or about 1000 pesos.

The description does mention that this is basically the calm before the storm, but I honestly wouldn't mind a full acoustic album.

Air Combat Trying to get through all (or at least the ones that I can get my hands on) of the Ace Combat games before 8 comes out lol. I'd say this holds up pretty well, big part of it is that whether you're playing this or Ace Combat 7, the basic combat controls (gun, missiles, map, change target) are the same. The flight through the ravine was a pain, but it's also a fairly short mission so it evens out. The alarm beep that keeps playing during briefings was really annoying though. Grade: A

Also coming to Steam! \m/ \m/ Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2 and 3 are also getting Switch 2 versions. Some people will be really happy about this one lol. Not much to say about this one, pretty hyped, can't wait to see more. Really wish this one wasn't Switch 2 only.

I was not expecting Wo Long to get a sequel lol.

Summer Games Fest time! It's happening! 2027! No release date beyond "Fall 2026" but we do get confirmation that it's coming to Steam. It lived it died it lives again! This one is different from the one shown at the SGF, it doesn't have a rather huge spoiler lol. I thought it'd be a while before we saw anything about this one lol. Prologue available now. Open beta available now. Spring 2027. Couple of other things: Palworld 1.0 coming out July 10, Gundam Rogue Orbit could be fun, hopefully it's not a multiplayer only title , Clutch could be that game for people who wish Forza Horizon had a darker story lol.

September 24. Some games moved to 2027, others moved to the same 2 week period.

October 2. Pre-orders/early physical versions come with Ace Combat Zero!! \m/ \m/

New mode added: Leon Must Die Forever, not quite Mercenaries but looks pretty fun.