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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: January 05, 2026, 07:54:09 pm »

2 - Cassette Beasts (PC 2023) - BEAT - As someone that's fallen off Pokemon hard with the state of their games from the Switch era, it was nice to have a monster collecting game that calls back to the old sprite era, but doing it with a 3D world, and introducing some cool unique mechanics.  It very much follows what you expect of a Pokemon-like game, but does it in a way that doesn't feel so hand holdy like Pokemon usually is.  I know those are made for kids, but they just don't really take into account at all that a huge audience of the games is adults.  Not that this is super mature or anything, but it feels less like a childrens game while still being family friendly.

Good art, good music, some light voice work to add character, it's all a real nice package, highly recommend it if i you want a more old school feeling Pokemon experience.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: December 31, 2025, 08:14:13 pm »

3 - ENA: Dream BBQ (PC 2025) - BEAT - I don't know if I could explain this, I found it because I had seen the player character, Ena, in different things, but it's from this game which is a mixture of video game and someones insane art project as it was apparently just gonna be animation, before turning into a game.  It's very much a nod to 90's PC games, a nod to low poly 3D platformers, with characters in so many different visual art styles and mediums, from anim-like characters, to crazy 3D models that feel like they are out of Reboot, to just very weird and abstract things.  No character feels like they are done the same way visually, it's kinda crazy.  It's a free game, it'll have chapters added over time, but there are multiple things to accomplish and different endings to find and this is one of the types of games I want to do more of everything, because I want to see new characters or what new animation they'll do next, it's a pretty ridiculous experience in the best way.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: December 28, 2025, 10:09:09 am »

1 - Peak (PC 2025) - PLAYING
2 - Cassette Beasts (PC 2023) - BEAT
3 - ENA: Dream BBQ (PC 2025) - BEAT

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: December 21, 2025, 03:26:46 am »

Ended up picking up a couple smaller games just as something more casual as I was feeling a little burnt out with multiplayer games like Arc Raider and Battlefield 6 for the moment...

Peak is a part of this big indie, co-op, friend game boom alongside others such as Lethal Company and REPO, but built around surviving the climb up increasingly harder mountain sections.  I think it's procedurally generated, but handled on the devs end, as it only changes every few days or week (I don't know exactly), which I think is done so you have a chance of learning a section to get better at it again, and then if you've completed a climb, it'll change and be refreshed.  It's a cool way to do it.  There's multiple zone types, and these will be randomized as there's a checkpoint after peak of the mountain section, so after Shore, you have a chance to get Tropics or Roots, or after that you get a chance to do Mesa or Alpines, all with unique environmental threats and other unique things.  I still haven't completed a run yet after nearly 5 hours, but got close on my second run, but the Caldera is rough lol  It's fun even as a singleplayer, it has some good humor to it and it's kinda one of the perfect "just a quick run" or "one more run" sorta deal as you can get rewards for achievements that give you new clothing options.

The other game was Cassette Beasts, which is something I've been meaning to check out.  Pokemon games suck, they've sucked for years, I want to like them and I love the actual creatures, but they are very poor games and I also missed that oldschool aesthetic they got rid of after Black/White.  This is basically what I would have loved for them to do is to keep the sprite era, but do the Octopath Traveler method of 2d sprites and 3D backgrounds and it looks great.  Fun retro aesthetic, it's Pokemon while having it's own unique flair (You do collect and fight as the monsters, but you distinctly transform into them rather than being a trainer on the sidelines which is a fun gimmick).  I haven't been huge into turn based games in awhile, but this is fun so far, a lot of charm to it.

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General / Re: Your collection in 5-years from now

« on: December 20, 2025, 10:31:39 pm »

I had a lot more hope for a game collection 9 years ago, as it didn't turn out that way lol

I eventually stopped collecting old games, a thing here and there, I turned abit more into toy collecting, like my Godzilla collection and such, and then you take that and have a regular want for new games, the retro collection sorta never happened.  I do want to one day have a proper collection, particularly boxed N64 games, that's kinda the big one I want, but most I have for display are my Switch/PS5 games, of which I can't play the Switch games since I don't have a Switch right now and my Zelda collection which I ended up clearing out a lot of it and mostly just have my amiibo's (I own them all other than Smash Bros Link and a couple others I'm forgetting) and a handful of games like my original N64 Zelda games, and boxed Japanese versions of Majora's Mask and Link to the Past.

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General / Re: A Year in Review - 2025

« on: December 15, 2025, 05:29:37 pm »

Favorite 2025 Release: Death Stranding 2 - While it isn't perfect, I think it was still pretty fantastic and I was really eager to get back into that worl.d

Least Favorite 2025 Release: Monster Hunter Wilds - This, Death Stranding 2, and Battlefield 6 were my most anticipated games this year, but this turned out to be a disaster.  Poor performance, some not great changes to the game that made it feel really easy, it's definitely a big botch coming from World.

Favorite Game Played in 2025: Abiotic Factor - Hard to choose for this, but I think I'll say Abiotic Factor as it turned out to be kind of a surprise game for me that I put a ton of hours into and want to go back with a decent enough update to replay.  Throwback to oldschool Half-Life era games with a survival aspect, and while it's not perfect, I was pretty absorbed into the game.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2025: Five Nights at Freddy's 3 - I was trying to get through all the FNAF original games, but I dropped this one after like 10 minutes, because it's such an ugly, clunky, experience.  Obnoxious camera visuals and audio and coming off how snappy FNAF 2 and FNAF4 can feel, the sluggishness of the controls is so terrible.  Genuinely could not play it.

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Off Topic / Re: What TV/Netflix show are you currently watching? (Megathread)

« on: December 14, 2025, 04:54:44 am »

Binged through the final season of My Hero Academia and had a great time with it, they went all out with it.  The series had some ups and down, some soft spots in the middle, but I always enjoyed it.  It's just a good overall show I think.  I'm gonna get to Vigilantes, the prequel spinoff they did eventually.

Got back to Chainsaw Man, I for some reason stopped towards the last couple episodes when it was first out, but re-watched the first season and finished it up and it's definitely a good watch.  I know the movie is doing crazy right now and looking forward to that once it gets to rental.

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Modern Video Games / Re: The Game Awards (TGA) 2025 predictions, hype, and general discussion thread

« on: December 12, 2025, 12:05:38 am »

The biggest, best surprise was Star Wars Galactic Racer, especially knowing the NFS/Burnout people are making it. I wasn't terribly excited about the new KOTOR game, but it's a game I may find myself getting more excited about when it gets closer to release.

I didn't know it has those sort of people working on the game, that has me much more excited, more than I was before.  I use to love Episode 1 Racer and to get something that looks to combine multiple vehicles type is super fun.  I'm also just excited for this and possibly the new Old Republic game because it's outside the big companies now, no EA, no Ubisoft, to me, I feel like that's often a contributor to the Star Wars games we have gotten for awhile not really nailing it like they should.  We'll have to see, I want both of these to be good.

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Modern Video Games / Re: The Game Awards (TGA) 2025 predictions, hype, and general discussion thread

« on: December 11, 2025, 07:57:58 pm »

Bradley the Badger sorta seems like it could be fun, all the references remind me of it being Conker's Bad Fur Day, just not super crude lol I don't know, I want to be hyped but the gameplay they were showing I don't think was real gameplay, maybe I'm wrong, but could be fun.

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a brand new action rpg, I'm definitely curious, I use to like the original KOTOR, I honestly don't remember if I played KOTOR2, but a good new Star Wars games after some sloppy releases lately could be interesting.  We'll just have to see, didn't catch who was the studio for it. It's actually a new studio making it with Casey Hudson, the original KOTOR director.  That actually has me more interested in the game as it's not something attached to any major studio like EA or Ubisoft.

Very excited for Resident Evil 9, it seems like they are gonna mix the playable characters better than they did before, where it seems like they'll have Grace being more like RE7 and then Leon will be like RE4.  Can't wait.

Control Resonant, looks crazy, not the direction I expected them to take it for a sequel. 

The Street Fighter movie looks pretty ridiculous in kind of the best way, like it's gonna be goofy, but I'm fine with them embracing that.

Hell yeah, Star Wars Galactic Racer, I'm very on board with a brand new Star Wars racing game, I thought they were just gonna do Pod Racing again, but it looks like they are doing multiple types of vehicles from speeders, to swoop bikes, to pod racing, I'm kinda hyped and it's another Star Wars game that isn't being made by one of the big studios.

While I can't say I love classic Mega Man as much as I do something like X, a brand new classic Mega Man is cool to have.

Wait, we are at the end, is there no Sega announcement? I know Total War is by a Sega owned company, but that wasn't the reveal was it? Kind of a bummer.  Like it is Sega, but I don't know, I feel like most people don't equate Sega with stuff like that most of the time lol

Crazy sweep for Clair Obscur lol I think they won for every category.  Never played it myself, maybe one day I'll check it out, I don't know, my interest in turn based rpgs is really low these days.

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Modern Video Games / Re: The Game Awards (TGA) 2025 predictions, hype, and general discussion thread

« on: December 10, 2025, 11:04:28 pm »

Sega has an announcement for the show, so possibly the next big Sonic game for next year or 2027.  I don't have any big hope for that, most mainline Sonic games are more bad than good, and Sonic Frontiers had a lot of awful stuff going on with its art style and world design and just running horribly, but I think it had good ideas.  They just need to overhaul a lot of it, make sure the engine isn't garbage, and definitely make sure to not have lots of ugly stuff stuck in the air appearing in front of you 50 feet away lol

It's either Sonic or I guess it could be those games they teased abit ago where it was bringing back older franchises like Crazy Taxi and such so could have a bunch of new stuff to show for those games.

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Modern Video Games / Re: The Game Awards (TGA) 2025 predictions, hype, and general discussion thread

« on: December 05, 2025, 05:41:28 pm »

There's usually at least one or two good things announced here, so maybe something of note will be revealed, they had that weird statue in the desert tease for some sort of game, probably a big one, but no one is sure what it means.

Not even sure what I'm hoping for, I kinda always pull for Bloodborne anything, so I guess that'll be my prediction lol

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

« on: December 05, 2025, 04:45:46 am »

Five Night's at Freddy's 2 - I'll avoid spoilers for this since it's brand new, but I generally liked it.  Its technically a tad less faithful to the idea of a FNAF adaptation compared to the first one which had the nightly stay at the location, but they weren't going to execute things the same way for an ongoing story.  Get more animatronics, love seeing them, though could've used more deaths.  I think they tried to push the idea of this being like the limits of PG-13 in the leadup, but it's really not. 

My only real gripes is that there's some slop in the writing, not major stuff, just little bits here and there throughout that should've been cleaned up and that it ends on a cliffhanger to set up the third movie, which more often than not just hurts the movie on its own, which is unfortunate.  There's a lot setup for the third movie, but I'm not sure where they take it exactly, but we'll see.

I think overall, I might like this movie more than the first one, it's abit more creepy and tension filled throughout, it's just hampered by that ending.  It'll take another rewatch before I can say for sure.

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

« on: December 04, 2025, 12:14:40 am »

Five Nights at Freddy's - Haven't watched it since it came out on video, but I still like this film, it feels like a good throwback to 80's horror/kinda kids adventure films like a Monster Squad or something like that.  I've actually grown as more of a fan of the series since the movie came out, playing more as I just really enjoy all the practical elements of this sorta setup like it's about ghosts (Or in the Steelwool era, it's about AI), but it's still all about practical suits, robots, and I like that setup.  I know some folks had some issues with it being a little slow and not having a lot of kills and such, but I'm fine with what is here.

I'm actually going to see the sequel today, haven't been to the theater in forever, so figured I'd catch the earliest showing tomorrow in the afternoon so I can avoid the kids lol

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Modern Video Games / Re: Fortnite | The Simpsons

« on: November 28, 2025, 03:57:33 pm »

Apparently this did really well and shows that people want them to put real work into their crossover events.  The last one I had played before quitting was the last Star Wars event and it was so half-assed, it was just the usual thing where they change a couple locations, had a Star Destroyer power up, and had AI Darth Vader and it wasn't very interesting or engaging.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 28, 2025, 12:41:45 am »

38 - Bendy and the Dark Revival (PC 2022) - BEAT - Finally got around to finishing this as I put it off for a bit and I'm very mixed on this series.  The first game was kinda your early 2010's, walking sim, horror experience, Slenderman, Amnesia, that sorta stuff, but with bad combat.  It's saving grace was a cool art style and and decent characters with voice acting.  The sequel is just a bad Bioshock game.  The art style looks a lot better, big leap in quality, still some decently acted characters, and while the combat is technically better, it's still very bad and not well thought out.  Same for some of the boss fights.  The whole experience felt like they wanted to be Bioshock, but with none of the skill or budget required to do so.

So it's not terrible, it's just not that great, but fine at a really cheap price on a sale.  I am interested to see if the third and final game is them fully realizing the type of game they want to be, but we'll see have to see, I probably won't get it right away unless I hear some crazy good things about it.