One really nice thing about playing a long, involved game like Assassins Creed Valhalla is that I don’t have to think about what game I want to play when I’m done work and chores in the evening. For the past month, it’s been off to Valhalla for a few hours. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m seriously into an MMO and logging in and saying hello to the guild is just a great start to an evening.
Now, I’m between games and unready to put in the work at the moment of choosing an MMO, finding a guild (if it were EQ2; I am in an active Free Company in FFXIV), and making the commitment to log in every night. I will finish the Prismatic quest in EQ2 and the Shadowbringers content in FFXIV, but beyond that… I’m no longer a raider.
But that’s okay. There’s other things to play.
Wizard of Legend (Switch)
I played this on the PS4 when it came up as a Playstation Plus selection. It’s a hard game, but I learned the basics and was making a certain amount of progress, but I’d put it aside for other games. When Limited Run Games said they were doing a physical release of the game for the Nintendo Switch, I ordered it, and it just came yesterday.
This game is very different from the version I played on the PlayStation, and I’m having to learn the game all over again. I don’t know if you could get the developer commentary in the PS4 version, but it is an option in this version, and it was fun to read. This game is always going to be an option for a quick play, but can’t be my serious game.
Fitness Boxing 2 (Switch)
This looked fun, and I could use some exercise. Fitness Boxing 2 is what it says on the tin; you take a joycon in each hand and you box to a rhythm. Rocky meets Guitar Hero. The workouts in the demo actually got my heart rate up, and it said my Fitness Age was 31 years, so already it was making me happy. It was a little pricey, but I think I will find a way to fit it into my morning routine.
Persona 4 Golden (Steam)
This is likely the next RPG I’ll play. I didn’t care much for Persona 1 on the PlayStation, and I didn’t play another of that series until Persona 5, which I loved. My BF recently played Persona 3 — that’s the one with the suicide theme of kids shooting themselves in their heads in order to unleash their Personas. But we started watching the Persona 4 anime, and I think I could get into it. I bought it on sale and it’s waiting for me to start playing it.
Exapunks (Steam)
I love programming games, and Zachtronics makes the best. SpaceChem, Shenzen I/O, TIS-100 — loved them all. In Exapunks, you are a hacker who is skilled in making bespoke viruses to do your bidding in the world and even in your own body. There’s some plot to all this, but the plot is never the reason to play a Zachtronics game. TIS-100 taught parallel processing. Shenzhen I/O taught the basics of digital circuits. SpaceChem taught signal processing. I’m excited to see what I’ll learn in Exapunks.
I really feel I should first go back and finish TIS-100 — I was pretty much done — and Shenzhen I/O — I got stuck at a certain point and moved on to another game.
The Zeitgeist
Set against all these games are the games my Twitter friends are playing. It seems to be a rule that people I follow on Twitter in the games industry eventually end up working for Blizzard, so World of Warcraft is particularly exciting now with their new expansion. I haven’t played seriously since vanilla, but it’s fun to watch other people explore the new lands there.
Animal Crossing New Horizons was a game I missed because I was playing some other game. My daughter and one of my sisters are playing it, so it’s still a game I could see myself playing.
The big games on Twitter right now are Cyberpunk 2077 and Immortal Fenyx Rising. The first is a massive open world RPG. I just finished one of those — Valhalla — and am not ready to do another. Fenyx is the new entry in the Breath of the Wild “genre” that includes the earlier Genshin Impact, which made a splash this past summer. This is a game I would play, but — I have too many games in the queue.
By the time I’m done Persona, I’ll take another look. I really enjoy playing a game that lots of other people are playing, whether or not it’s multiplayer. I like sharing my discoveries and experiences with other people 🙂 I guess that’s why I blog.
