The Backlog Check-In Vol. 442: 6/22/26: Star Fox Edition

[canedaddy]

New games this week:

June 22
Dark Scrolls (PC, Switch)

June 23
Deer & Boy (PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch)
Wanderstop (Switch)

June 24
Omen Exitio: Hunger (PC)

June 25
Dead or Alive 6 Last Round (PC, PS5, Xbox)
Star Fox (Switch 2)
Catto's Post Office (Switch)

June 26
Bullets & Brains (Xbox)



Played recently: Hot Wheels Unleashed 2

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: Persona 5 Royal


I had Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 from PS+ and decided to fire it up to get ready to play with my grandson, who loves Hot Wheels (of course). It's a pretty cool arcade racing game... enough so that I have played a lot more than I intended, and I'm not sure that I'm done. It reminds me of Mod Nation Racers, with crazy track building and customization (only paint/liveries for the vehicles, but it's insane what people have come up with for those). I'd like to unlock the dang fire engine monster truck before I move on, but it looks like that's only available in the game's "spin the wheel" gambleholic creator.

I bought Persona 5 Royal as my possible next game. I really enjoyed 3 and 4 but haven't played this one for whatever reason (I didn't vibe with the masked cast and lack of Teddie). However, I keep hearing it's a lot better than the others, so I will see for myself.

[argyle]

Games added: Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree (switch)

Last week: Finished nothing, played Crimson Desert

This week: Crimson Desert

355 hours in - I'm finally pushing towards the ending now. Still large areas of the map I haven't even uncovered. The ludicrous size of the map is only nuts because of how extremely detailed and full of stuff to find it is. But I think I'm finally getting the itch to move on, so I'm going to try to wrap it up this week or next. I'm in chapter 11 now (out of 12 + an epilogue).

[isthatallyougot]

I've nearly finished all of the official and some unofficial content for Quake and man has it been fun. (dudes! ) Already played about 25 hours, and I'll probably look at some of the community mods at some point, as they are entire games all their own.

I also have been replaying GTA Vice City from the PS2 era. I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I'll just say that Rockstar obviously learned quite a bit in their post-PS2 work, ha. Some of the mission design - whoo boy! It was clunky back then and I knew it and still loved the game, but with the lens of today, it's something else. I've put in about 15 hours so far and have tons still to do. I'll at least wrap up the primary narrative path and tool around until I'm tired of doing so while jamming to that sweet soundtrack.

[canedaddy]

I also have been replaying GTA Vice City from the PS2 era. I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I'll just say that Rockstar obviously learned quite a bit in their post-PS2 work, ha. Some of the mission design - whoo boy! It was clunky back then and I knew it and still loved the game, but with the lens of today, it's something else. I've put in about 15 hours so far and have tons still to do. I'll at least wrap up the primary narrative path and tool around until I'm tired of doing so while jamming to that sweet soundtrack.

Yeah. I still consider that one of my top 5 games of all time, but it is very difficult to play right now. I've tried a few times and couldn't deal with the controls.

[jfissel]

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: 007 First Light

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 36 games

Currently on like mission 5 or 6 for First Light. Enjoying it immensely though there are a few issues bugging me - the common disconnecting/reconnecting to the IOI server account and sometimes the action indicators don't stay up long (like to hang or climb or whatever).

I bought Persona 5 Royal as my possible next game. I really enjoyed 3 and 4 but haven't played this one for whatever reason (I didn't vibe with the masked cast and lack of Teddie). However, I keep hearing it's a lot better than the others, so I will see for myself.

I have Persona 5 as well in my backlog, but just the regular edition. Hope to get to it at some point as I also enjoyed 3 and 4.

[isthatallyougot]

I also have been replaying GTA Vice City from the PS2 era. I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I'll just say that Rockstar obviously learned quite a bit in their post-PS2 work, ha. Some of the mission design - whoo boy! It was clunky back then and I knew it and still loved the game, but with the lens of today, it's something else. I've put in about 15 hours so far and have tons still to do. I'll at least wrap up the primary narrative path and tool around until I'm tired of doing so while jamming to that sweet soundtrack.

Yeah. I still consider that one of my top 5 games of all time, but it is very difficult to play right now. I've tried a few times and couldn't deal with the controls.

Yeah, games we consider great are so for a reason, but time marches on and context matters. Some games withstand that passage of time with more grace than others, but even for those that don't have those timeless qualities, you can't really discount the time and place in terms of the way things landed in your own experience. I get that. There are games in my personal all-time greats list that will remain because of that fact, although if I were to play them for the first time today, they'd not sniff such respect. I mean, there are games on the Atari VCS and the era in general that have such a warm place within and for which I still harbor great esteem, but obviously they aren't equipped for a world that has built on both technology and creative abilities.

But in terms of Vice City, it still has its charms for me today, but I openly acknowledge that there was a bit of an acclimation period where I had to attune my mindset, and the clunkiness and mission design can be infuriating at times, but that was also true back in the day. At least I have the benefit of save states now, which I am happily taking advantage of. I must have had extraordinary patience back then, lol.

[canedaddy]

This talk is making me want to return to Vice City once again. I own the janky PS2 version (had the remake set but got rid of it because of the AI and censorship crap) so we will see what happens the next time I sit down to play a game.

Speaking of Vice City, I'm bummed to see that GTA VI won't have a physical version at launch and will have a lot of cosmetic stuff locked behind the $100 version. Double-dipping on a $100 game would be insane, but I hate having a game like that digital only.

[jfissel]

This talk is making me want to return to Vice City once again. I own the janky PS2 version (had the remake set but got rid of it because of the AI and censorship crap) so we will see what happens the next time I sit down to play a game.

Speaking of Vice City, I'm bummed to see that GTA VI won't have a physical version at launch and will have a lot of cosmetic stuff locked behind the $100 version. Double-dipping on a $100 game would be insane, but I hate having a game like that digital only.

Yeah, bummed about no disc also. Unsure which edition I'll get, need to check out the differences.

[argyle]

Was wondering how you guys felt about the GTA pricing news. I have no dog in this hunt, really, since I was never going to get it anyway, but I will say that it's upsetting to see publishers pushing game prices higher & higher. If there's no significant knock-back against this (and there probably won't be), then I'm afraid we'll see others releasing at the same price point. Oh well, I'm not getting nearly as many day-1 games anyway these days, and it seems like when I do play something at release 9 times outta 10 it's because it went up on Gamepass day-1.

I've been looking for a $20 Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess for the past few months, and there are other Capcom bangers I'm waiting on price drops for (Pragmata & RE Requium, mainly). Then there's other stuff I still want to play that's been out a while, some of which I already have - Silent Hill 2 remake (started this, just wasn't in the mood at the time), Silent Hill f, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Astro Bot, Forza Horizons 6, etc... Oh, and have you heard of these things called "indies"???? I have a few of those in my backlog too - Plucky Squire, 9 Years of Shadows, Terra Memoria, Planet of Lana II, Neva...

One last point, and not to grind this dead horse into a pulp here, but it's very hard for me to hear about a studio asking $80 base for a game & then saying you have to pay another $20 to get the customization options when I'm playing a game that's absolutely gargantuan in size and they still continue to add free stuff to it WEEKLY.

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[canedaddy]

Was wondering how you guys felt about the GTA pricing news. I have no dog in this hunt, really, since I was never going to get it anyway, but I will say that it's upsetting to see publishers pushing game prices higher & higher. If there's no significant knock-back against this (and there probably won't be), then I'm afraid we'll see others releasing at the same price point.

There's some pushback over the pricing and the lack of physical, but you're right, most people will cave in the end, no doubt.

The circumstances here are extremely unusual, though. It's the next game in the biggest franchise ever (in sales per game), and it's coming after a 15-year wait. It's going to be the most massive entertainment release of all time. Anyone who thinks they can get away with the same thing for their game is going to learn a hard lesson.