Odium

I’m still slowly making my way through Death Stranding Director’s Cut, I’m 20+ hours in and only on chapter 3. I’ve also started up Kingdom Hearts 1 again for the first time in a VERY long time.

My favorite backwards compatible game is the underrated Advent Rising. It’s not a perfect game, but I absolutely love it. It pains me knowing we’ll never get a sequel.

I’m still holding out that Metal Arms Glitch In the System, both X-Men Legends games, and The Chronicles of Riddick Escape From Butcher Bay will eventually be added to backwards compatible too.

Not a chance but I also hated the original

I’ve been taking my time with Death Stranding Director’s Cut. It’s such a fantastic game, but I never finished it. I won’t be getting 2 anytime soon because I’m not the type to play games back to back like that because I’ll burn out, but at least I’ll be ready when I want to.

I’m on a Disney vacation with the family but I’ve been squeezing in a bit of Undertale when we are back at the hotel letting everyone rest. I also started Shadow Warrior on which is the perfect amount of stupid and fun.

This and Judas are my most anticipated games now that Expedition 33 is out.

@Kaloudz I’ve been stuck playing Peppa as well, it’s a nightmare. If it’s worse than that I may have to remove it before my daughter sees it.

@Kaloudz hopefully I’m as lucky as you!

@Kaloudz we can be miserable together and play co-op 🤣

I’ll probably grab Barbie for my daughter, then she’ll inevitably make me play it for her.

@Kilamanjaro not gonna lie, that’s hilarious! It’ll run as long as the Game Gear used to. 😂

I can’t justify paying those prices, when I already own a Series X and S for far cheaper. I’d love to have my library on the go, but I’ll just stick with my Steam Deck.

Hi-Fi Rush is easily one of my favorite games this generation, I’d love to see more of it.

I ended up going against myself and grabbing Elden Ring Nightreign. I’m almost strictly a solo gamer, so this isn’t normally a game I’d play, but after several hours with it last night, it was a ton of fun. Solo was brutally hard, some of the randoms I played with weren’t great, but others were great to play with and we made it pretty far together. Overall, I’ve had a great time with it.

I had no interest in this whatsoever and no plans to buy it, but for some reason I decided to preorder it today. I almost never play multiplayer games, I prefer solo games, so this is taking a leap for me.

I don’t think I’ll get to watch it live but I’ll try. Usually I have to catch up later.

@Kaloudz glad it’s not just here that’s gone to hell.

Will it get rid of the absurd stick drift the Elite 2 has?

I was absolutely never meant to be the target audience for this game, multiplayer isn’t my jam.

@Kaloudz 80’s Redux will henceforth be the new name for the 90’s! It really was just 80’s version of NG+.
Ha ha sorry to add that to your lexicon. I guess you can easily recognize the Americans in here when they make a reference like that.

I’m up in Maine for the weekend, but it’s a bit of a cold rainy weekend, so I have my Steam Deck to play a bit of Fantasy Life i here and there.

Terminator 2D No Fate is quite possibly my most anticipated game now that Expedition 33 is out.

@Kaloudz I had a lot of bullies in my neighborhood, so I get it. My wit wouldn’t help me with them. Looking like I was the only kid that would pull a Columbine kept everyone from messing with me in school. (Probably not a good thing. 😂)
Man, there’s so many wonderful things from the ‘90s. I love that people our age are the ones creating content so they’re making it for us. X-Men ‘97 was a dream come true. It was the show I knew and loved but so much darker!

I have to spend more time with it. I started it last night right after beating Expedition 33 and I wasn’t into it at all, so I swapped back to Expedition. Listening to the latest Sacred Symbols, Chris mentioned a couple of changes he made to it that improved the game quite a bit for him, I tried that and I’m enjoying it much more.
In case anyone is interested lowering the parry window and increasing the gameplay speed were the settings that made it feel much closer to Eternal.

@Kaloudz I’m such a smart ass that I would have embraced that and then done far worse to them. Most of my coworkers don’t bother trying to mess with me because I’m too quick with the comebacks for them. I never really had a nickname in school, but I was also the only goth kid in school so a lot of people were scared of me. All 5’6” and 135lbs of me. 🤣
I feel the woes of being vertically challenged, neither my wife, nor me were gifted in such regards. Our kids are screwed, but luckily, they’ll have both of our wit.
Screw we’ll put our kids in a room together like it’s a Hunger Games arena, while we kick back and do some gaming and have a drink or two!

@Kaloudz that sounds about right. My kids are always fighting about the most random things. My 4.5 year old is the one you’ll have to look out for, she’s nuts. I’m not sure if you’re familiar I with Brandon Sanderson or not, but I always joke that she is the future Lord Ruler. She will absolutely enslave humanity, whether she’s malevolent or benevolent has yet to be seen, it’ll likely depend on the day.
I love that movie. I’m compelled to ask, what was the nickname?
One of the worst things to ever happen is ID covering the songs from Bastion, one of the greatest sound tracks ever created. They’re also the first band to have music translated through space, an act of war to aliens if I’ve ever heard one. I’m with you on Eminem, he’s got a few songs I love, but overall he’s not my cup of tea. Granted, I’m a metal head but there is plenty of rap I listen to quite a bit.

Honestly, I play my Xbox a lot more than my PS5. I love the offset analog sticks.

@Kaloudz can’t say I’m a Nickleback fan either but I reserve my hatred for Imagine Dragons. My favorite bands are Voices From the Fuselage and Rise Against, my kids rock out to both pretty hard.
We’ve had some great luck getting the kids into 80’s and 90’s movies. They both absolutely loved The Princess Bride. Seven and The Fountain are my all time favorites, not sure what that says about me, but I’ll take it. Luckily, my wife appreciates Seven quite a bit.
My son keeps asking me to play Grounded, I said he could I just keep forgetting to redownload it for him. He’s seen me play it thought it was awesome, that was before watching HIStK.
I rather live my kids, so how about we swap, one week on, one week off? I might be able to convince my wife of that one instead of just trading.

@Kaloudz my wife and I have a list going of campy movies to watch after we’ve had a few drinks. 🤣
We’ve gotten our 8 year old hooked on a few 90’s movies. He loved Honey I Shrunk the Kid and my 4.5 year old loved Home Alone, though that might be the sadist in her. Seven is one of my all time favorite movies so I’ll die inside if my kids don’t like it when they can finally watch it.
We have a 90’s alternative playlist that we listen to on road trips. My kids have even started requesting some of those songs on their own playlists. Hell, my daughter used to ask me to sing Nutshell by Alice In Chains to her as a bed time song. I feel like we are parenting right!😂

@Kaloudz so many of those old movies were awful but great. I still say “Your soul is mine!” far more than I probably should, especially because I say it like he does and I’m very white. 🫢
That clip is glorious. I don’t remember if I saw that movie or not but that clip made me want to.
The newest MK was far better than I expected it to be, which was both a good thing and bad thing. I really missed the campiness of it.

@Kaloudz “naughty firestick” 😂

It’s amazing how bad some of those versions can be and that people still post them. Video game movies sure have come a long way since the original Mario and Street Fighter movies. There was a special charming awfulness to those movies though.
Jack Black is a strange one for me. I think he’s a genuinely great voice actor and he seems like a really great guy. Then he has roles like Shallow Hal that are horrendous.

@Kaloudz hard not to hear about the lava chicken and a couple of other scenes, I’ll avoid those in case you have managed to avoid spoilers. Jack Black can be hit or miss for me, but he killed it in this. Natalie was easily my favorite character though, she did awesome in that role. I definitely think you’ll enjoy it, especially if you’re a fan of the game and understand more of the references.
I hear you. My son just turned eight and he’ll obsess over something for a bit and then drop it. I’m sure he’ll do the same with these books. I watched some tutorial videos before getting into the game just to understand the basics, that was enough to give me the ground work to better understand the game and actually enjoy it.

@Kaloudz my son has been loving these books. If nothing else, it’s a really cool looking set.
We saw the movie. I went into it expecting to hate it, I didn’t like the game at the time and the trailer looked awful, I just went for my son. We had such a fun time seeing it! It was far better than I expected. I even have it pre ordered digitally because it comes out Tuesday or Wednesday.
I feel like we need our own private comment thread, we always take them over with our back and forth. 🤣

I’m nearing the end of Act II in Expedition 33. I truly can’t get enough of this game.

@Kaloudz they’re black and gold and each book has a symbol for what it teaches and that’s a different color. It’s a four book set, Minecraft: Guide Collection. It was put out by Mojang. I probably couldn’t do anything with them either. Luckily, he gets his intelligence from his mother. 😂

@Kaloudz luckily, I haven’t had that happen yet, but I also haven’t gotten crazy with my builds yet.
It’s so much fun playing it with my son. I bought him a set of books for his birthday that goes into details on how to build tons of different things, he’s been loving exploring that and trying it out.
I can definitely see them doing a spin-off like that. It would make sense having a low-key, relaxing spin-off that would pull more people in.

@themightyant I just looked up Minecraft RTX screenshots, that’s insane. Those graphics are gorgeous. With that said, I actually prefer the charm of the not so great graphics of Bedrock/Java. The game is ugly as hell, but that weirdly works for it.

@Kaloudz I played this when it first came to Xbox and hated it. My son recently got into it and kept asking me to play with him, I would on occasion but always dreaded it. I finally decided to give it a shot in solo Survival Mode… I’m hooked. Him and I created our own world together and showed him a bunch of stuff I learned. I even went through the hoops to get it on Steam Deck. This is the most wrong I’ve been about a game outside of Death Stranding. 😂

I can’t wait for flat earthers to try to justify the Earth being flat because it’s an option in Minecraft

@Sol4ris I hear you, I’m right there with you. Flying Waters was such a stunning area, I could have spent the majority of the game in there and been fine with it, and yet, they give us so many other incredible areas too!

@Sol4ris you’re not alone. I got so turned around in the area I was in last night that I started running towards a large gate thinking it was a new area, it was the start of the area I had just explored the hell out of.
A lot of people’s biggest complaints is no mini map, I can go either way on it. It would certainly be helpful, but I understand the devs reasoning for not including it.

Expedition 33 has consumed my gaming life…

@themightyant I just got to Act II… words currently escape me

Runs beautifully on the X, haven’t played it on the S. It’s not pretty on the Steam Deck, but I don’t care it’s more Expedition 33!

This has easily been one of the best months ever for Game Pass. There should be an S so I can cast my vote on that!

@themightyant I completely agree. Lost Odyssey is a fantastic game but this is an evolution of that. This is the first game I’ve played that I feel may dethrone Nier Automata as my all time favorite game.

The masterpiece that is Expedition 33!

Easy 10 for me. This is the best turn based combat system I’ve ever played. The story, characters, voice acting, music, and animation are also absolutely fantastic as well. If this game keeps on this trajectory it might beat out Nier Automata as my favorite game of all time.

I’m five hours into this and I can already confidently say they have redefined turn based combat. If it stays on this path, it won’t only be my game of the year, it’ll be one of my top games of all time.

After five hours of playing, a very rare occurrence for me these days, if this doesn’t end up being my GotY I’ll be shocked. I’m loving every second of it.