Busy Gamer Nation

I've been a Halo: Combat Evolved fan since the beginning, though primarily the single player. And of course that whole I Love Bees thing is a bit of an obsession. I've been calling this "Campaign Evolved" remake The Final Ripoff in homage to the Monty Python compilation album of the same name. And in some ways it really is, as the third iteration of this game after the original and The Master Chief Collection remaster.

But it's not without improvements. You can sprint. You can aim down sights even if there's no scope. There are some new missions. And apparently if you find the right skull, you can play the full game in third person (I didn't get that far, yet).

The stream dropped after a few minutes, so I had to restart the first bonus mission. After a bit, I skipped to the main course: the re-remastered Halo with what are some new, very cheesy lines. Yeah, I'll be back:

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I wasn't sure what to expect from Beastro, but it's a cooking game that powers a card battle dynamic. It seems far too complicated for casual play. Take a look, and you'll see what I mean (or if it's maybe made for you).

I did enjoy some foraging, restaurant mini-games, and fishing before getting dunked into the card battles:

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I like a good anthropomorphic animal game, and I was thinking that Back to the Dawn would be like Blacksad: Under the Skin only in prison (less Zootopia, more Oz). Alas, this is more like Escapists: a top-down RPG where you need to charm your fellow prisoners, earn money, and talk to your lawyer to overcome a frame up.

The Twitch stream dropped out after 10 minutes, but you get the idea:

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Buckshot Roulette reminded me of CloverPit so, despite the dark subject matter, I decided to give it a try. After 10 minutes, I finally realized I could choose to aim at the dealer and not just myself, and I was finally able to win a round. Not only that, I beat the game. It's more strategy than anything else, with some powerups that appear after the first cycle to heal you and let you maximize your opponent's damage.

It's not easy, but it's not as hard as it looks. That said, I probably won't play it again because it's also disturbing as hell:

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We were big fans of Crackdown on Xbox, and later Infamous on PlayStation. Prototype seemed like a great hybrid of these two dynamics. The only problem is that your powers seem to be maxed at the start, so that takes a bit of the fun out of it. I don't think I ever finished this one (unlike those other two), and that might be why.

You can see from this stream that even taking out tanks is super easy, barely an inconvenience, right off the bat. The story isn't bad but not amazing either:

I don't recall Prototype 2, so I probably skipped it after abandoning the original. Big mistake. Huge. This game already feels a lot better and seems much more interesting than its predecessor. I get less of a Crackdown + Infamous vibe and the sense that it's becoming more of its own thing.

I did play the recap from the first game up front, so if you don't want to be spoiled you should skip the first few minutes. There are a lot of cutscenes but some decent gameplay too. And the story is intriguing me. I think I want to finish this one:

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We have been Borderlands fans since the beginning, but Borderlands 3 left us a little empty (though it had its moments) and Borderlands 4 looked terrible. That combined with the ripoff pricing kept us away. For my birthday this year, I decided to treat myself to the base game, which I managed to get down to $25. Playing the first 30 minutes, I think we'll get our money's worth - barely.

Of course, the first third is game patch download (really!), cut scenes, setting preferences, and choosing who to play (I went with my standby, Siren, though all of the classes looked fun). So far the action is smooth but generic. (Eight hours later, I still feel this way - solid gameplay, not much in the way of story.)

It all seemed to be going well until the glitch at the end. I wasn't sure how to progress the game after my ally started running into a wall, so realizing I was at time I just quit:

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Back in the day, we were big fans of The 7th Guest on Mac. Its campy story, bad acting, dark subject matter, and frequent taunts ("We'll all be dead by the time you solve this!") kept us coming back for more. So imagine my surprise to learn there is a full The 7th Guest Remake with improved acting and new puzzles. I dove right in.

There's nothing too spoiler-y here - I inverted look, figured out the lantern thing, and solved a couple very easy puzzles and one that required a few resets to crack:

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As I've no doubt mentioned before, the Re-Volt demo back in the Xbox Live online beta days was a bit of magic (and more fun than the Dreamcast game). So I'm always looking for a mini-car title that recaptures those thrills. So far, the closest one has been Mad Tracks back in 2007. So many games miss the mark, and that is clearly the case with Mini Madness. I'm not sure I even finished a race. I tried the tutorial but it wasn't clear what to do. I quit hoping for some in-race teaching or prompts but kept losing the path and didn't see how to reset.

Once I found out how to reset on the track, I thought I was golden - but far from it. Avoid this game:

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After Garfield Kart, I didn't have much optimism about Meow Motors. But it turned out to be a solid kart racer with smooth controls and fun powerups. I didn't always drive my best, but that's on me. I did have fun, both in regular races and "strike" mode where you try to take out as many competing racers as you can before time runs out.

The opening cinematic threw me: I thought I was going to take control and start a race (which would have been smooth) but instead it was all prologue, easily skipped but I captured it all in case you want to see - it is funny:

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Continuing my backlog of cat games, next up is Garfield Kart: Furious Racing. I picked this up on sale for a dollar or two at my son's suggestion - he had played it on Steam and said it was hilarious. It's not, at least not in single player. It's your basic kart racer with powerups, some puzzle pieces to collect if you're brave and/or lucky, and races to win. I easily led the pack on a single race but then took on an advanced grand prix and struggled. Did well in the end, but it was touch and go for a spell.

Take a look and see if Garfield Kart is right for you:

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Normally I download demos and never play them. Like pretty much every time. As part of a cat-themed games streamfest and thanks in no small part to a wealth of positive reviews, I decided to give Adventures of a Cat in Space a try.

This point-and-click adventure game is AMAZING. It's got a cat, a cat-chy theme song, and did I mention a cat? Also, customer support, a robot that looks like HAL, and a fish in space, too. The only bad thing is that it's been well over a year and there is no sign of the full game. I kept the stream short so there's still at least a bit left to explore.

But honestly, just watch the first three minutes with the amazing song performed by Arthur Darvill (best known for Doctor Who, Broadchurch, and Legends of Tomorrow). Then get the demo (via Xbox, Switch, PC/Mac/Linux on Steam, or iOS) and play it yourself:

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9 Lives to Defend is an autoshooter survival game that closely resembles Brotato (one of our faves) but instead of progressing levels you go as long as your nine lives hold out. The game is confusing at first, but also has tricks up its sleeve like the Matrix-esque time-slowing bullet time used to thin your swarming enemies.

I went for some of the more photogenic perks, which may not have done me many favors - but it was fun to watch. For some reason the game already had some things unlocked, which might be due to another user playing on the same console (occasionally we find a game that doesn't respect individual progress and settings boundaries).

One run seemed to be enough to give a taste of the game; also it was a bit exhausting:

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We're big fans of cat games as well as anything that reminds us of Pokemon Snap, so I had to give PhotoCat Cozy Adventure a try. It's... meh. The cats are like animatronics, so the only challenge is finding them and, if you care, lining up the ideal shot/pose. There is no camera inversion, which makes it tricky for people like me who find it hard to play when up is up and down is down.

I only played the first 15 minutes on this one because so many times I go over (not under) and I didn't want to give away too much since finding is most of what the game is about. Pretty much all of the tutorial is covered, such as it is, and you get a pretty good idea of what to expect (i.e., not too much):

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We're big fans of Balatro, and I've also gotten kind of hooked on the "escape captivity by playing roguelite slots" CloverPit. Black Jacket seemed like more of the same, but with blackjack as its core and a Slay the Spire-style progression.

It's OK. It's very difficult. The tutorial gives you a nice start and then fails to explain most of the rest of the game, leaving you to trial and error it. I did make it to the first boss battle twice. Did not pass. Maybe you can see what I'm doing wrong, beyond the obvious fumbles with the interface and core rules:

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Due to the recent attention to the Backrooms meme and creepypasta thanks to the hit movie based on this liminal space idea, and the addition of the Escape the Backrooms game hitting Xbox Game Pass and PS5, I decided to give this a quick run.

Since I tend to be a solo player, I cut off the multiplayer aspect (which as you can see is no easy task). I homed in on the first ladder and found a key, which eventually led me to a room I couldn't cross - but I still managed to clear Level 0 and start on the next.

I did die a few times, and eluded the monster a few other times. It's worth a look:

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After visiting a few konbinis in real-life during our recent trip to Tokyo, I decided to try InKonbini: One Store, Many Stories for a taste of a Japanese convenience store from the other side - behind the counter. The game straddles the line between existential tone poem and mundane tasks and customer service. You touch people's lives, pull bread mistakenly stored in a refrigerator case to the proper shelf, find the right brand of cat food for a customer who hasn't heard of reading glasses, and make change (possibly in more ways than one).

I was a little apprehensive but found the first shift charming; I might just continue this part-time job:

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I have no business playing Super Meatboy 3D. I'm not a twitch gamer (though I do stream on Twitch). My only real connection to this series is that I really liked their 2010 launch story in Indie Game: The Movie. Still, I gave it a try. I didn't get far.

Maybe you can learn from my many mistakes. I cut the feed about 16 minutes in because I realized I had progressed about as far as I could:

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I almost bought Mortal Kombat 1 awhile back but backed away when I learned that all of the really fun characters (like Omni-Man, Homelander, Peacemaker) were all extra. What I really wanted was a Definitive Edition, and for what it's worth Warner Bros. Games finally delivered. Not only that, I got it on sale.

I went a little long on this stream for a few reasons. One, the story has a lot of cut scenes and it's not super compelling (at least at the start). So after a surprisingly hard battle (I'm more of a DOA player, and also a bit of a button masher), I switched to Tower mode - which proved easier - and decided to see it through. Then the credits started and I was digging the jam, so I let most of that play out.

I do take a quick tour through all of the characters, and I'll go back soon to play through as some of my other faves:

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I really got into the original Subnautica and to a lesser extent its sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero. When I heard Subnautica 2 was being released on Xbox Game Pass in pre-release form, I was intrigued (mostly thinking I had already played it some). This one is a whole new world and story, and I briefly toyed with the idea of playing it in creative mode but decided to see how punishing the survival mode is.

And so I died. A few times. The new world is not designed for your lungs or digestive system, so you need to study and absorb adaptations to survive. The place is as beautiful as it is deadly.

It will take some time to get the hang of, for sure, though you can see where I'm just starting to find some useful materials here:

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I love the Forza Horizon series, so I had to get the Forza Horizon 6: Premium Edition for that sweet sweet early access. I actually just visited Japan recently IRL, though I didn't drive at all - and based on my performance here, that's probably for the best. The stream here goes long due to the extensive prologue (typical of the series) and my attempt to show off a number of race types and game elements. I logged more than 400 hours in Forza Horizon 5, and I expect I'll go beyond that here.

I just need to get my first wristband so I can start downloading some player-created tunings to dominate and keep my beloved Lotus Evija from spinning out every time I hit the gas:

For more like this, follow my Twitch channel and find archived streams in my YouTube channel.