somnambulance

I’ve got a busy weekend, but if I do play games I’d like to get back to Requiem. If not that one, I’ve got Rubato ready to play too. Operation: Complete Everything I’ve Purchased This Year Before Pragmata Releases is going according to plan at the moment.

@TDHorizon personally, Baldur’s Gate 3 launched in poor state on PS5, so that’ll always sour my opinion of the game. I tried playing the game co-op with my wife when it launched and we experienced several crashes and bugs. The game was borderline unplayable. In single player, it ran fine, just a bit buggy with some stuttering. I’m not usually someone to criticize a game for jank, but given the overwhelming praise BG3 got, I can’t NOT bring it up. Even after the game was patched up, I regretted purchasing the game and couldn’t have fun with it. I’m aware I didn’t have the standard experience with it, and I get where others could love it, but that’s how I feel about the game. Could be the most frustrating experience I’d had with a game this generation.

Even so, I feel like Elden Ring had a bigger cultural impact too. That’s the only game this generation that literally everyone I knew was playing the game when it launched. Death Stranding, Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil launches come pretty close in my group, but literally everyone was on Elden Ring, and most of my group would be considered a not-Souls group. Elden Ring united gamers in a way that only Rockstar, Halo, and Bethesda did in generations past with my group, so after a long while without that, Elden Ring felt truly unique and special. Plus, everyone loved the game on top of that. I don’t know anyone in my gaming circle that wasn’t absolutely immersed in it.

Even after the reviews, I have no idea if I want to pick this one up. I’m trying to catch up with all the games I’m currently playing before Pragmata comes out and I’m on the trajectory to do that, but I’d have changed plans if this one was the 90+ on Meta some were saying. I can wait to see what friends say about it.

With the influencers being so happy with this one, I know people that are buying it. They’ll let me know if it’s for me. The last five to six years or so, I’ve been firmly out of sync with the big influencer hits (outside Elden Ring, which may just be game of the generation), so I’m finally avoiding taking a flyer on another one that I have no idea if I’ll like. It took me six or seven years to break the habit of buying every hype game, but I’m doing it!

And I have to echo everyone giving props to @FraserG. Honestly, reading the reviews for this one has to have been the most partisan playing field I’d seen in a game release. It doesn’t feel like there’s much fair and honest reporting about the game. It’s either a disappointment or the light in the darkness by so many perspectives. It seems the truth is more or less in the middle and I appreciate that perspective.

Romeo is a Dead Man deserved better reviews. I’m thoroughly loving it.

My top 10 right now is (and yes there’s some non-Xbox games, but I can’t quite make a top 10 list I’m comfortable enough sharing right now without them):
1. Requiem
2. Pokopia
3. Romeo is a Dead Man
4. Mario Tennis Fever
5. Monster Hunter Stories 3
6. Forgotlings
7. Battle of Asciion
8. Planet of Lana 2
9. God of War: Sons of Sparta
10. Marathon

For it being March, a top 10 this strong is honestly an indication that this year is going to land for me above 2025 and 2024. I’ve not finished every game in my top 10, so it may change, but I’m happy with this list. I’m expecting Rubato and Life is Strange to push two games out of my top 10 at the end of the month, maybe even a new Legacy of Kain game to do it too! And then there’s Crimson Desert, of course, which is a total unknown.

Romeo is a Dead Man and Pokopia for sure. Due to the winter storm in my neck of the woods, I’m getting an extra day to my weekend. Hopefully I get the chance to get back to Requiem too. Honestly, 2026 has had a fantastic start with games.

@FraserG @space_g0blin @Fiendish-Beaver I’d honestly expect that Phil’s probably pushing out MORE of his vision out now than anyone would realize. It’s too soon for any of Asha’s visions to be materializing. With him being out the door, he’s probably being more open about his ideas and I’m sure a thing the team is pushing out now would’ve been developed before Asha was announced. Optically, Phil and the rest of the leadership team, as execs, knows the layman will see any changes coming at this point to be from a place of fresh perspective, even if they were being planned in advance. I’ve said it elsewhere, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Phil’s retirement is more a strategy piece to resuscitate the Xbox brand image and to allow changes to happen with more positive criticism rather than judgement based on the previous team’s record. Watch him remain an executive consultant at Microsoft.

With the way things have been lately, it really does make one wonder if Sarah Bond’s leadership and vision was a big part of the problem.

Preordered Life is Strange a while ago, but this was a bit better than your typical show from this team, honestly. Future Games Show seems to be getting bigger. Dave the Diver and Mr Coo looked really interesting to me and I know we have no confirmation that Project Shadowglass will be on consoles, but I hope it is.

@TrollOfWar No idea they had such a short period of time with dev kits! With how long development takes, you’d think they’d need them for a few years. Clearly I don’t know how the technical process works in gaming.

This sort of debunks the idea that this console will release in 2027 doesn’t it?

Honestly, I don’t think Phil is being forced to resign. I see this as more of a strategic executive move from him, perhaps one of his best ones too. By retiring now and advising Sharma, he can finish prepping a new Xbox to launch from behind the scenes, which, let’s be real, if it does launch next year, that would’ve been created almost entirely by Phil and his team’s ideas. If the console and the software line-up are strong for a launch next year, his retirement is 4D chess for the brand. He can see the brand have a resurgence due to the soft reboot with new management. That’s a feather in his cap if it works out. He has the ability to maybe see a console release under his guidance that hits in the way he dreamed it would.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he retires and remains a consultant for Microsoft. I can see him remaining a vocal piece in the industry too and continuing to be present and have more freedom to speak his mind. Executive world retirement works differently from common folk retirement a lot of the time.

Gamepass is just too expensive for me to sub anymore. I was only playing Day 1 releases and was subbed on and off since the service launched. I rarely replay games, so $15 to play through a $70 title was a steal for a while, even when you have months where there’s nothing of interest, but since the price hikes, Microsoft hasn’t really done anything to me to justify the additional cost. If we were getting a wellspring of new titles, I’d be there, but sad to say it’s just cheaper to buy the games I would play if I was subbed.

Like when Silksong launched, yeah it’s a 10/10 game, but why pay $30 to sub that month when you could’ve bought the game for $15? It makes no sense to me. I buy a lot of games though (I’m at 10 2026 titles purchased thus far this year [12 if you count Pokemon LeafGreen and FireRed]), so I’d rather have that money free for that.

I’m concerned with price inflation on next gen consoles, honestly. I’ve always been ad close to a day 1 adopter of generational consoles as possible, but I think this will be the first time I wait… and that includes both Xbox and PlayStation. Wages just aren’t keeping up with the cost of goods anymore and I am concerned that Xbox and PlayStation won’t read the room on pricing.

I was talking to my sister over the weekend about Pokopia, for instance, and she was genuinely excited about the game until I told her that it was a Switch 2 game. Her response was, “Oh, well I guess I’m not going to buy that then. I don’t know why Nintendo would cut out so many people that are interested in the game by doing that.” I suggested she buy a Switch 2 and she said, “Why would I buy a Switch 2 if I have a Switch 1?” I tried to talk to her about how she has a Switch even though she had a Wii, but she wasn’t hearing it. This is the casual mindset now. It feels that the cost to value ratio is the most displaced it’s been in gaming for consumers since the 80’s,

@PushButtons Nope, literally I switched over to playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and took two weeks off Warzone. When I got back, my account wasn’t linked to my PSN or Xbox account anymore and was in Arabic. All my friends were removed and there were new accounts in the friends list. I was able to access the account by resetting the password because they were dumb enough to not change my phone number or email. I never played on PC.

Found out that my info got compromised in an Activision data leak and a Chinese hacker snatched my account and sold it to someone in Saudi Arabia. I had to lock my credit card because of a suspicious charge too. The Arabic player did cheat though and linked the account to their PC stuff. It was really frustrating dealing with Activision because they refuse to answer emails. They eventually reset the account, but I lost all my progress and micros in Overwatch, CoD, and whatever other ActiBlizz games I had played. It took months to get things taken care of with them and they eventually admitted that it was their fault my data and credit card was compromised, but then refused to reinstate any purchases I made previously because they told me they couldn’t. It was potentially the worst customer service situation I’ve ever experienced.

I didn’t play an Activision or Blizzard game again until I reluctantly did after Xbox purchased them and Kotick was ousted and even so, I still feel weird about playing their games when I do play them.

@Kezelpaso I never thought I’d say this, but with current trends in fps games with convoluted variations of BRs and extraction shooters, man, do I miss the days when we had plain, simple BRs like Blackout. I know Black Ops 4 got a lot of flack for being a full price multiplayer suite, but honestly, I felt like the game gave good bang for its buck and felt like it had value as perhaps a more well structured and professional BR in comparison to the F2P contemporaries it had at the time. I mean, honestly, I still prefer Blackout to the majority of BRs out there too… It might’ve been my favorite multiplayer shooter outside the very different glory days of Halo and Goldeneye.

Blackout was better than Warzone…

But, man, I gotta say… last year, some friends begged me to play some Warzone after being away for a few years (Activision banned me in 2021 after my account got hacked and stolen and it took some effort to get my account back, long story), and the menus were… wow. I was glad someone else was driving the party. Lol.

Honestly, I love Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but it’s about time for a new game in the series. The fact that they haven’t capitalized on the new series is bizarre to me. They should’ve at least Forgotten City-ed Fallout London if they didn’t have anything in the pipeline or something…

I think it’s sort of too late to do that, and I also think the release will damage the Xbox brand regardless of how good it is. No idea how Xbox will course correct or if they’ll be able to.

But honestly, after playing Marathon last week, I’m ready for a new Halo multiplayer experience. It’s all I could think about while playing Marathon, how much better Halo felt. Maybe that’s me being old, but it’s how I felt!

I haven’t had a chance to play Requiem yet (busy weekend), but I can’t wait. I have a feeling I’ll like this one far more than CO, personally. Everything I’ve seen and read makes this one look like an all-timer and definite early GotY contender. When Johnny Millenium says it’s about as good as RE2 and 4, I know I’m about to love it.

Hopefully Requiem.

Outside that, Pokémon’s a distinct possibility. Contemplating getting LeafGreen or FireRed for myself and the other one for my son and we can play the game together.

Honestly, I played a handful of matches yesterday and I didn’t really like it.

To be clear, the atmosphere and art direction is impeccable. The level design and gunplay is top tier. The sound design is phenomenal. However, the ui is awful. I may just dislike extraction shooters at this point, but I never felt like I truly understood what I was supposed to be doing in the game. It felt aimless in all of its verticality and density of design. Now, granted, I’m no fan of the genre. I didn’t click with Arc Raiders either, but after half a dozen matches, I was sort of bored with the game. It feels empty. I wanted to like it, but I’m not convinced it’s for me. It just wasn’t fun.

I honestly can’t believe this came from the same company that created Halo. Honestly, it seems like the game has the kernel of a fantastic campaign in its narrative DNA. I wish they would’ve watered that and/or made more game modes that were focused on a more fun gameplay loop. The game just made me miss how fun Halo was years ago.

I think part of my initial disappointment is that I was hoping this would be “the one.” See, I miss playing multiplayer shooters with my friends, but I don’t enjoy most of them anymore. This one had the best shot and I’m not convinced in it.

Nice! Thanks for the release date! I’ve been looking forward to this one and so has my wife!

I’m undecided. It’s all been lip service so far. Until there’s any sign of action, how else can you feel?

Xbox has had a rough last few years. Things have dropped off a lot from that feeling l had while playing Halo Infinite, where I just dropped everything and bought a Series S right away just to see how it played. My Series S hasn’t been used since May. It’s not even plugged into my TV anymore. I was going to sell it, but I couldn’t find someone that would buy it for a fair price, so I just held onto it and use the controller to play my Steamdeck docked. This generation has been constant disappointment from Xbox. But honestly, PlayStation’s disappointed me a lot this generation too. I’d be happy if Xbox got its act together.

Reads like a GotY candidate this year.

Honestly, Xbox is sort of stuck in a place where they can use the urgency for a new console as a brand restart and opt against competing head to head with a PlayStation 6. The strategy to get ahead of the chip shortage instead of hoping manufacturing will ramp up may work out if they can sell at enough of a loss to get buy in with a strong line-up of games.

Realistically, if a new Xbox released next year with a new Halo, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, etc. Maybe a launch line up of five strong titles that would be exclusive because they require more processing power than a PS5, sell the console at an affordable price, and maybe even bundle GP with the console for a limited time, it might renew interest. That’d require a generous Microsoft, but pro-consumer moves and clear vision are the only things that could save Xbox… if Xbox wants to be saved.

I wonder what things would’ve looked like without the Activision merger. The spirit of Xbox felt like it shifted big time with that and changed the trajectory of Xbox in a major way that I think will remain the most divisive aspect of Phil’s tenure.

Outside that, I do believe Phil did a lot for gaming in broad strokes. I mean, maybe he still will do more for gaming. We don’t know what his next step is.

At the very least, he seemed to be relatively genuine for being a corpo and he had a clear vision for the direction he believed in. Even when I disagreed with it, I can acknowledge that he had strong ideas. I’m hoping that, with his tenure ending, he does a Reggie and starts talking about his experience a little more. It’s a shame the last few years, he stopped doing the interview circuit so much, as he was pretty good at it.

I honestly believe Satya was pushing for this direction, but seeing it fail, he’s going to frame Sarah Bond as the fall person as Xbox pivots again.

Phil’s seemed burnt out for a while now. The Xbox One Phil wasn’t the Redfall response Phil wasn’t the post-Activision Phil. If I were to guess, the goals established by the merger combined with weak support staff made him ready to go. I know I got burnt out personally co-managing an office with someone that didn’t have a vision that synced up with mine. Even after the other person was cut and I fixed things, I was still ready for a change.

Mario Tennis Fever, maybe Forgotlings. I might get a chance to catch up on all those demos I’ve got downloaded andwaiting for me too.

I won’t claim that Spencer is a good guy or that Sarah Bond would’ve done good things for the brand in that position, but having someone with AI experience rather than gaming experience tells it all. That’s a step toward a negative future for Xbox. Glad I didn’t preorder Halo or Fable. My interest for both games just declined significantly.

It’s awesome to see Zork on modern hardware.

Hopefully we see it by the end of the decade

There’s more than enough to play in February and March, so I don’t mind this at all. I’ve yet to have the chance to play the demo! Take your time!

@Elbow Oh, I totally agree. Those of us in the know know these things, but the rest of the public sort of sees “Oh, it’s another Apex Legends.” For what it’s worth, being another Apex Legends means it was awful to begin with but I digress! 😂

@Elbow I think they literally expected the names Apex Legends and Titanfall to hold more weight with more gamers

@Sakai It’s a good idea if consumers aren’t interested in purchasing. Better to have hungry customers than to have an empty restaurant. Even if the consoles are more “dated,” by technical standards, if the price lines up better for people that want to purchase and creates a better sales forecast, that’s what truly matters. Ask Nintendo if “dated hardware” has hurts their sales.

@themightyant is it weird that my brain rewires controller mappings as soon as I touch a Nintendo controller too? 😂 I just know the buttons are in a different spot by feeling. Maybe it’s because I was a Nintendo gamer first and then transitioned to PlayStation and Xbox. I know most people think I’m crazy but the joycons are my favorite controller.

Weirdly enough, I tried to map my Steamdeck to a Nintendo layout because I thought it would be more simple, but that drove me nuts. I had to undo it. Maybe it’s because I use an Xbox controller when it’s docked.

Looking forward to playing both games!

Downloading them both!

Subnautica is more popular than RE or Forza? That’s a surprise to me!

This sounds like it was tailor made for me. Can’t wait to see if that turns out to be the case!

@SMJ You can search, but there shouldn’t be so much junk that the eshop is basically eslop. Like I said, you basically have to know what you’re looking for to find something decent. It’d be better for quality if there were stringent rules again.

@SMJ I dunno. I’ve played around 200-ish NES games and the bar of quality was a little higher in those days than currently and there were some clunkers back then too.

I feel very tempted to get this one. If only Saturn Bomberman was on there… it’d require no thinking if that was the case. It’s so cheap and I love the games, but I’m trying to save my eshop credit for things later… I am trying to be strong, but the lack of compelling games so far this year is making me weak. Lol

@Fiendish-Beaver This is 100% it. I was browsing the eshop with my son the other day on Switch and it was embarrassing. All the AI slop and hentai games are ridiculous on there. It’s impossible to find quality games on there if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Last night, I browsed the upcoming games on PS5 with my wife and it was the same thing. I suspect I’m not the only one that feels that way when I’m searching games with my family. I get that not all gamers are family-based, but is there really that huge an audience for those types of games? I feel like PlayStation and Nintendo may be LOSING sales for indie games due to their lack of quality control. Steam has all the same junk on it, but I dunno, it feels like Steam has the courtesy to filter it at least.

Xbox is honestly probably getting an advantage with games like this due to their lack of slop and hentai games. 15 years ago when I was poorer and younger (and when Xbox was a larger platform and my preferred platform), I know if I had $5 in my wallet, I’d usually check around on a random night when I wasn’t playing anything and take a chance on a random cheap game, so I totally get the strategy for this developer. It’s smart and I’m glad that people still do what I used to do!

I do miss that Nintendo seal of quality approach to games sometimes though.

I bought Battle of Asciion on the Steamdeck and that’s a neat little curio. I’m mostly playing “waiting for Mario Tennis to come out next week.” I’m feeling ready to play my “first big game of the year.”

I have eshop credit on the Switch and Bomberman is looking more appealing than it probably should because I’m ready to buy something good. I might do it. I started watching my son play Monster Hunter Stories 3 yesterday too and I suspect we’ll continue.

I fully expect to never resub to GP. When they announced the price hikes, they only announced things I wouldn’t want and asked me to pay more. Create good games and I’ll play them on PlayStation, Switch, or Steam.

I wonder how successful this strategy will be at large, as I am curious how casuals will feel. I can see having multiple stores on a console as something alienating to a segment of gamers that just want the console experience to be as simple as possible. We’re a bunch of enthusiasts on here, so, to me, it sounds intriguing, but I can’t help but think about accessibility for people that aren’t as dedicated as we all are.

I love my Steamdeck, for instance, but I know my family can’t use it without me setting things up for them, which makes them usually opt for easier platforms to use and make remarks on how they’d play it more if it was easier.

Also, if the next Xbox is basically a PC with a PC price with an Xbox UI as is rumored, what market exactly are they targeting? That would pivot Microsoft from competing with Nintendo and Sony to Steam, which seems sort of like an odd, less profitable pivot. Odd Microsoft does, but less profitable? I can’t see Nadella wanting that…

@shiningpikablu252 I think Rockstar will do things on their own if recent history is any gauge. Xbox definitely won’t grab them, given how the Xbox brand is performing. Nintendo would be an odd choice, given how little Rockstar has pared with Nintendo historically. Rockstar seems most comfortable with Sony and we have some awareness that Sony is basing their release schedule around GTA6 this year, but I could see Rockstar feeling like they’re bigger than relying on Sony for marketing now. They even snubbed Geoff Keighley for that initial reveal.

I could honestly see Rockstar putting out an announcement the same day as Geoff’s summer showcase to undermine his relevance and the relevance of the rest of the industry at large. And they’d announce it the day before it happens.

Honestly, if you’re a casual that hasn’t kept up with games, that’s an A tier month. Death Stranding, Resident Evil Village, and The Sims 1 and 2 are all absolutely essential gaming. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a strong retro style title and The Talos Principle 2 is an exceptional puzzle title. With Star Wars Outlaws, you’ve got a decent mainstream title. Mio is a day 1 artistically sound metroidvania, if flawed in its difficulty balance. Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 is just far past its peak to have a second life with Gamepass too. I could go on, but I think that’s enough. There’s nothing for me here to push me to sub, but if you’re a Gamepass only gamer, as many are, the last month had variety, diversity, quality, and quantity.

Indika’s honestly a perfect fit for Gamepass to get more exposure. It was a bit janky at launch, but there’s genuinely no other game that is exactly like it. It plays like the dreams of vintage art cinema if influenced by retro video games. Highly memorable, but certainly not for everyone.

My Little Puppy is my game of the weekend. I started playing it with the wife and kids last night and it seems to be a short one. I imagine there’s a possibility I’ll complete the game and have yet more gaming time this weekend as the wife is sick and I expect she may want to rest rather than do our weekend plans, but I’m not sure what else I may play just yet.