Another quiet month as far as games played. Still focused a bunch on Mahjong Soul, slowly getting closer to Jade Room. I did play a few games, and went back to Balatro a bit because it’s so fucking good. And I tried a fun little thing that I’ll quickly comment on.

Big focus this month will be on all the presentations that happened… I’ll just talk about 3 of them because nothing else was worth talking about. In fact one of the 3 is also not worth talking about, but dunking on Lizardman is worth.

So let’s go!

Summer time! There’s maybe games I dunno! I won’t have much to talk about in the June post but I have played a few games, and have some commentary on the Xbox and Nintendo thing (and absolutely nothing to say about “Lizardman Geoff Keighley’s Stupid Show Made By A Hack” because holy shit was that a bad show).

So for July 2024 I’m highlighting: 7 multiplats, 7 Switch games, and 4 PC releases. It’s kind of a month without  highlights, there’s just a few mid-level releases. I’m buying like 2 of these games, with a few maybes.

Let’s go!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. This is not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. Of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

It’s time for the only Games of the Year awards that matter!
… Just kidding, no GotY awards matter. But I like doing them (which does, in fact, make this more relevant than the VGAs), so here we go.

I am choosing 5 winners, and then one TOP GAME OF THE YEAR winner, just to attempt at variety, and then posting all my honorable mentions which are games I liked but that weren’t GotY material. This is obviously going to be based on games I played myself (which is still over 50 games, even though I reviewed very few of those). So if there’s a game you liked and it doesn’t appear as one of my winners or honorable mentions… it’s because I didn’t play it. And I probably didn’t play it because it was obviously bad.

As far as notable games I skipped one that aren’t bad (or probably aren’t bad), there’s still a few of those. I skipped on both Like a Dragon games, Baldur’s Gate 3 (I will get it at some point), Persona 5 Tactica, Remnant 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Lies of P, Dave the Diver and probably a bunch of other games that were pretty popular and probably-good. Also didn’t play FF16 which… I’ve not been convinced it’s good, but I’m waiting for the PC version so I will review it when I do play it.

And there’s a few obviously bad games I didn’t touch, like Alan Wake 2, Starfield, Redfall and Diablo 4 (I played the beta, it was not good, so I skipped on the full game). And of course there’s some bad games I did play, like Forspoken and Sonic Superstars… or that were fairly subpar like Spongebob Cosmic Shake.

As a general rule, remakes and remasters will not make the list unless they’re substantially different from the original, but some might make it into the honorable mentions.

Anyways, time to rant quickly, then go through the winners and stuff. LET’S GO!

Every year, the VGAs remind us that they’re awful, boring and stupid. Why do people keep watching? I make sure to watch someone that is “reacting” to it just to be sure they don’t get my view. Fuck Geoff the Lizardman’s shitty show. It’s been a shitshow since when it started in 2003 on Spike TV, and it’s still shit despite the (barely) rebrand.

The nominees are decided by people who legitimately do not play games (Evidence: Alan Wake 2 was nominated in many categories… And Dave the Diver was nominated in the indie category even though it’s literally not indie), the winners are decided by people who legitimately do not play games (Evidence: Pizza Tower wasn’t in the indie category, and lost the one category it was nominated in… Also Alan Wake 2 won in multiple categories), and gamers have very little say on what goes on there. Not a single award given in any of these categories is worth taking seriously, because it’s all decided by people who have no idea what’s going on. Even if there’s audience voting, it actually doesn’t matter because the weight of the audience in the decision is minimal… and, as the Player’s Voice category showed, the people who vote in this stupid show are clearly not qualified to do so when a game from 2 years ago almost fucking wins.

Some people say they watch it for the World Premieres… Okay, watch the World Premieres when they’re uploaded on youtube a few minutes later. Not like they’re ever any good, of course. Or worth suffering through the VGAs to watch them. This year had the Visions of Mana trailer, and Monster Hunter Wilds being announced a year too early which is a waste of time, and that REALLY fucking weird Sega trailer where new games for Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Shinobi and Crazy Taxi (cool announcements, but why announce 5 games in the span of 40 seconds? Stupid trailer). You could’ve just seen these on youtube or twitter. No need for the VGAs to exist.

Fuck the VGAs.

…There’s automatically a Read More button but there’s nothing more to read.

Really didn’t have much to talk about this month. Didn’t really have a good reason to do reviews other than Mario RPG. Like, I finished Ghostrunner 2, that was okay. Almost finished Hardhat Wombat (newest game by some people who worked on Plants vs Zombies), that’s pretty fun. Played a whole lot of Mahjong Soul because I decided to be good at Mahjong and rank up (and I did). But there’s not much I really felt like posting about… Oh and I picked up Cyberpunk, maybe that’ll be okay, I’m not super sure about it yet.

So here I’m highlighting: 3 multiplats, 2 Switch releases and 1 PC release. There’s very little. One of the most hype games of the year… and that’s about it. There’s a few things I decided on purpose not to highlight, and a lot of stuff that didn’t manage to catch even a little bit of my attention…  Like, am I really supposed to highlight a shitty VR FNAF game? Fuck that, just watch the 50 videos MatPat will make out of it. Several other games I say that I don’t feel warrant the highlighting. Also Apple Arcade is not a real platform… Just a reminder.

Oh and Xbox is getting BG3, but I didn’t find a precise date so it’s not in here.

Let’s go and wonder why I bothered posting this!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

I think I need to be the singular voice of dissent towards this game. Not because it’s bad, far from it, but it’s a major symptom of a malady that has been turning the entire gaming industry to shit for many years.

While there was excitement for this game when it was announced, and it’s seemingly doing amazing (consistently staying above Super Mario Wonder on the eshop), it’s also something of a “why would you do this” kind of game.

So let’s talk about it!

I put out reviews this month! And didn’t put out other stuff I wanted to! Yay! Currently playing Ghostrunner 2 and Hardhat Wombat, not sure if I’ll fully review either yet, but they’re good.

So here I’m highlighting: 20 multiplats, 3 Switch games and 1 PC game. As far as anything I’m actually buying… There’s 2 I’m getting for sure, and, like, 1 or 2 maybes. No much there. Lots of interesting stuff that I just happen to not care about.

Let’s go I guess!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

Awawa?

Awawawawawawawawa!

Anyways, yeah, October games. September had a few posts because… stuff happened. But still haven’t gotten really any reviews out. I’ve been playing stuff, but I don’t feel like I have much to say about them. Maybe I’ll make a post of micro-reviews or something, I dunno.

So here I’m highlighting: 18 multiplats, 4 Switch games and 1 PS5 game that will come out to PC later. There’s just 1 “for sure” game for me this time, a few maybes though. I actually skipped on including a bunch of stuff because it was so obviously shitty (like that awful VR Ghostbusters game).

Let’s go I guess!

Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, some more niche stuff I may notice, and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course, I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.

Well I am actually writing this intro before a Direct was even announced (today is September 10). Because it’s pretty clear we’ll get a Direct this month at the same kind of time as every September in the last 8 years, and I assume 13 or 14 for the date of the Direct (*Edit: okay it was 14, let me update the title*).

There are rumors going for this one from Pyoro, one of the only “leakers” that has actually been somewhat trustworthy so far. Namely a DK game that SEEMS to be Mario vs DK-related… hopefully it’s not one of the Minis games and actually a return to the original MvD, which was a take on Donkey Kong 94. Then one for an F-Zero game, which he is heavily hinting at being F-Zero 99 (please no). And one that seems to be hinting at a remaster of the 2 Trace Memory games (the Wii one never came out in America), or at least a Wii game and a DS game that are linked somehow. And there’s no other leaker saying anything credible. Would be funny if this Direct was the one where Pyoro lost his credibility.

My true expectation is, of course, that even a bad Direct has one or two cool things, so in the end I’ll probably have some thing to be happy about here.

Well, let’s go and watch this Direct! These are live reactions as I’m watching the Direct.

So I’ve been a One Piece fan for the better part of 20 years. I started watching it in late high school/early college, as the anime was going through the Skypeia arc. I kept following the anime since, though at some point (maybe Impel Down? I don’t exactly remember) I switched from anime to manga. So yeah, I’ve been in this shit for a while.

When this was announced, I figured it was probably one of the worst candidates for a live action reimagining. And, having seen previous Netflix attempts (namely Death Note and Cowboy Bebop), it was clear they were very competent at completely fucking up anime adaptations. But I love One Piece, and figured I’d go against my better judgement and give it a chance anyways, even as trailers came out and it didn’t look good (legitimately the trailers were not solid).

So let’s go and see if I was right, or if, for once, an american live action adaptation that’s actually good actually happened.