Hehe, classic. “This should be quick…”
In other news I finished TOEM just before it leaves Game Pass. +0
Nice little game, very good as a podcast game! Had the strangest bug though where I just couldn’t play it installed on my Series X. Got a corrupted screen at the startup, every time, reinstalled it 20 times but the same thing. Finally tried to stream it instead and that went perfectly, weirdest bug I’ve had. Saved by the cloud!
I am glad you finished it in time and enjoyed it!
I very much enjoyed Cold Steel IV. It is a very worthy successor to Cold Steel III, with tons of epic moments and an absurdly huge cast of characters from the entire series.
My only real gripe (other than the gripes I have for the series as a whole) is that this is yet another game with a “true ending” that I did not achieve on my first playthrough. I think that’s the third time this year this has happened - you would think I would learn my lesson by now about checking a guide before I start playing. Luckily, I think I can back up and get the true ending with just a few hours of playtime, so I will probably do that at some point.
I did everything I could to speed up my playthrough (compared to Cold Steel III) - including turning up the “turbo” mode to ridiculous levels. So, I managed to complete it in 65 hours or so.
One note for anyone considering playing this series. I had always thought that Trails from Reverie - the immediate successor to Cold Steel IV - was sort of an optional epilogue to IV. But after playing IV I now don’t think that is the case. Cold Steel IV ends within minutes of the final boss fight. So, if you want to see ANY real resolution to the continent-wide war/political conflict going on in the game then Reverie is mandatory.
As for NCAA Football - I have played that series collectively for thousands of hours. There were years (many years ago) when I had far less free time and money than I do now, where that was practically the only game I would play in a year. So, I am looking forward to the release this week with anticipation, nostalgia, and some apprehension. I hope they have done a good job with it and all of EA’s gross monetization schemes are easy to avoid.
Just to keep expectations realistic. College Football is good. I played it all afternoon yesterday. But it is still an EA Football game. There are all the things you have come to expect. Players just standing not doing anything, DBs lining up on top of eachother, etc. But it is still super enjoyable.
I absolutely hate some games having a “true” ending that is clearly the best and the one you want for your characters, but unless it’s called out to you by someone else or a review you often don’t find out about until you’re over halfway through and start to think about the endgame.
I’ve generally had to start reading reviews to avoid that in large games (as you’ve suggested doing) - the downside for me then is the decisions / descriptions often then end up giving away spoilers.
I also dislike it when games make the ending a matter of luck or something you’re not allowed to retry - for example games with no load/save feature where you lose a battle / dice roll and aren’t allowed to redo it (or you can’t be bothered after 20 rolls!).
It really winds me up as I can’t be bothered to go back and redo tons of stuff to fix things but I also don’t want a bad ending for characters I’ve grown attached to!
+1 Journey Down
A short afroCarribeanpunk point and click adventure. It’s the first in a trilogy following the misadventures of your character and their plane charter company. As this is the first, you are trying to get your company started, mostly by fixing up your plane.
Oh, I forgot to say that they took a lot of inspiration from The Thing without ever feeling derivative or trite, and the elements they pay homage to pay off so well. The Chinese Room and everyone involved deserve countless kudos. I’ll definitely be buying this down the road.
I’m still playing through it at the moment (in between clearing up the map on Banishers before the final battle, solving mysteries on Golden Idol to get my daily GP achievement, chilling out on Rolling Hills and starting out on Tchia and RoboCop - you can kinda guess I have AuDHD 
) and love it although can only play it in bursts.
Got to restart one level as I was spotted and am hiding in a corner area with the thing I’m avoiding jumping all around me but I’ve nothing to throw to get rid of it - so I’m pinned down and can’t get out.
Think once I’m past that bit though that I’ve only a few levels left - just got to hope my heart can put up with the tension!
I completely relate to ‘playing in doses’; I grew up on horror games (I was the kid stoked beyond words about REmake when it was announced on GameCube - it and the Xbox were my primary systems at the time), but nowadays I can barely play more than an hour before needing to take a break. Could be the high BP and other medical issues that have cropped up (fuck getting older), but it’s definitely a stark contrast to my younger days of having friends crash over to play through the newest horror game de jour.
Also like the rig series on Amazon in a way.
I’ve finished off 2 games in the last week:
Far Cry 4 +1 Still Wakes the Deep +0
New total +11.5
Far Cry 4 - Really enjoyed this one and surprised it’s a 10 year old game as still looked great - guess that’s the way things are now with no massive leaps in tech each generation. Anyway that’s now 3, 4 and 5 completed not sure if I’ll go back 2 which was kind of where I was put off by them initially until playing 5 and not sure if to get 6 further down the line when on sale and bit more of the backlog dusted off. For now happy I’ve encountered Vaas and Pagin Min.
Still wakes the deep - I loved this. The atmosphere and feeling of just being on a rig and all that was amazing. I loved the dialogue as well from the neighbours just up the road. Might get few who agree but as similar game to Hellblade 2 i.e. “walking” a lot I had way more fun playing this.
I’m now falling into another habit of multiple games which are:
AI: The Somnium Files - started Feb last year then moved on.
Scarlett Nexus - bought in last years summer sale.
Judgment - bought in some sale as physical copy.
Xenoblade 2 on switch played last year and about half through but was dropped probably as played Robocop and Terminator games that came out.
Maybe a while for next completion.
I loved FC 3 & 4 and just couldn’t stand 5. Nothing about the setting, I just didn’t like the way encounters happened. I tried it a couple times and after playing 4 tried it again and just couldn’t (I think maybe because I try to play stealth as much as possible and none of the areas really worked well for me). I hope I like 6 better.
-1 Akinofa
Another random sale on a game from my wishlist. It’s a Rogue like shoot 'em up, and you’ll notice that I play a lot of those type games. I am not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because my dad would play them at the arcade as a kid, so it’s in my genes? Or that because my vision is bad, I prefer to play games where I can rely on memory and not sight?
Far Cry 6 is better than Far Cry 5 and New Dawn in my opinion but Far Cry 3/4 remain the cream of the crop in my opinion.
-1 Last Campfire
It’s yall’s fault, hyping it up so much! It’s only $1.50 in the Ultimate Sale right now, so I went ahead and got it.
Haha nice, I saw it showed up insanely cheap in the sale and was going to mention something about it here 
Enjoy!
Ha, hope you like it, it’s short though so don’t think you’ll have the negative that long. 
Some of these prices are super tempting though so don’t be surprised if more of us go for a few titles.
Yeah… I have 50+ titles from my wish list show up in the sale. Trying really hard to resist, lol.
You can do it!
…some of these sales were too good to resist…
Total = 12.5