TheMightyEthan

And a few more... I would have bought Syndicate too but for some reason that one's not on sale.

I also just bought Immortals Fenyx Rising.

The back paddles on my Xbox Elite controller have started going gummy, and I've heard other people complain about the build quality so I didn't want to buy another one. Enter the Scuf Envision Pro. It's PC-only, but way more customizable than other "pro" type controllers, and also cheaper. I'm a little nervous about the different positioning of the back paddles compared to what I'm used to, but we're gonna give it a shot. I bought it on Amazon so I can always return it if I don't like it.

Zenless Zone Zero is neat.

Hell yeah OLED life!

I just didn't enjoy the encounter design, and thought every encounter went on way way too long.

For me it's mainly because I think the pacing is awful, the gameplay is not fun, and every section is approximately 3x longer than it should be, which just exacerbates the fact that it's not fun. Also the story is trite but that's just video games, I don't hold it against this one specifically.

Severed Steel This game is basically Superhot x Mirror's Edge x Hotline Miami. You're blazing through levels, wall running and sliding and leaping through the air, going into bullet time and blasting the shit out of guys. It's completely frenetic and crazy and so so good. Grade: A+

Platform 8 This is a sequel to Exit 8, a Japanese game where you're caught in a purgatory of a repeating train station, except this time it's on a train instead of a station. Weird/creepy shit happens, and your goal is to get all the way through 8 iterations. It's a neat little game, but Exit 8 was better. Grade: C+ Fort Solis This is one of those "investigate a deserted sci-fi installation" games, but it's really well executed. I can't really talk much about the gameplay without spoilers, but it's tense and interesting throughout. I had a lot of fun with it, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes that kind of thing. And it's short, only 4 hours! Grade: A

I mean... Granblue should have a "New To Library" label too, not sure why it doesn't.

27" 360hz 1440p OLED monitor, because my 19" 60hz 1080p LCD from 15 years ago just looks too much like shit to me now. I was actually gonna buy the 240hz version from Newegg cause it was on sale, but then I did a quick Google check and found that Walmart had the 360hz version for the same as Newegg's 240hz sale price. So that's sweet. *Edit - Though I actually plan just to use it in 120hz mode cause I don't want to make my 120hz LG TV start looking juddery to my eyes the way that TV made 60hz look juddery... XD

It is pinned, idk what you're talking about. <.< >.>

Metaphor ReFantazio 117 hours later and man, great game. I don't have a lot specific to say, if you're familiar with the last few Persona games it mostly follows a similar structure, though in an industrial fantasy land instead of modern Japan. There are a few changes, like the "Personas" work differently, and everyone can switch now instead of just the MC, but for the most part if you like Persona I would definitely recommend checking this out. Grade: A+

It's fine, but I would have preferred Super Nintendo Switch.

I'm still plugging away at Metaphor ReFantazio, near the end of September.

Oh hey that's the same keyboard I have, I really like it.

My cheap ones had a lot of sound leakage too, the Shokz seem better, the material they're made of is less rigid so I think it that helps because the body of the headphones isn't vibrating as much.

Until Then is officially the first addition to my backlog in 2025!

TIL there was DLC for Origins. *Edit - Wait, never mind, I was thinking of Mirage, I knew about Origins.

Goddamn, you started the year off with some bangers. I love P5 so so much but I bounced off Strikers at like the second world.

Game of the Year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth What can I say? It's the next epic installment in the FF7R series. It's got a little bit of open world busy-work, but overall it's a lot of fun, the characters are great, the adaptation is fantastic, it's everything I could have wanted. Runner-Up: Astro Bot Asobi did it again, with a full-sized 3D platformer good enough to challenge Mario. This game is such a delight, I'm sure I had a stupid grin on my face like 90% of the time I was playing it. Everything about it, from the way movement feels, to the visual style, to the love of Playstation's history, it's just such a delight. Honorable Mention: Helldivers II Like Sea of Stars last year, this game was totally not on my radar, and I don't generally go into multiplayer games, but this one is fun enough that it actually pulled me away from Persona 3 Reload, and I spent basically the entire month of February playing it. The only thing that broke its spell was the release of Rebirth.

End of the year wrap-up time! I beat 31 games this year, down from 54 last year. As always I only count games I beat for the first time this year. PC was far and away my most-played platform last year, with a whopping 87% of my games and 78% of my playtime. For the first time at least since the Switch released, I had no Nintendo games whatsoever. Xbox barely got in, because I was replaying the old Splinter Cell games and discovered I'd never played the Kola Cell DLC. Playstation won for longest average game because of the 3 games I played on the platform, one was FF7 Rebirth. All in all I'd say 2024 was a pretty decent year for games for me. Bring on 2025!

Gothic surf rock has a name, gothabilly, and it is my favorite genre name of all time.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is $1.50 on Steam right now.