Who would have thought! This blog is over a month old!
This month was mostly a blur, but here’s the overview of what happened during this month (and some bit of Oct, as this launched in late Oct)
Reviews
We had the pleasure of having some great games this month. Things started late October with Himno – The Silent Melody demo reviewed, the standalone rogue-lite combat expansion of the peaceful game Himno. Enjoyed playing this one, and it’s an honor having this opening the blog!
A few days after, the review of Flynn: Son of Crimson popped up, a fast-paced pixel art 2D action platformer with Metroidvania elements. Still enjoying this and its distinct style hopefully it will stay for long on XBGP so more people will enjoy this.
The critically acclaimed Sable was reviewed later, an open-world adventure that will lure you with its great visuals and you will stay for the deep and engaging story! I’m still on this trying to 100% it and enjoying every minute of it!
Following this, Hyper Echelon was reviewed – a vertical scrolling shoot-’em-up from GangoGames. Increased difficulty of later levels will make it harder for you to get all mission goals, but such a rewarding experience when you manage to tick them off! Kudos to GangoGames for this, and hopefully the talented duo will bless us with more games in the future!
Then, we decided to create a gaming cult with Honey, I Joined a Cult review – a tycoon management game oozing with style and humor! Our “base” is shaping up nicely and more recruits are coming in, so hopefully “Lord Gabe” is pleased and will bless us with more years of gaming to come!
Guides
This month we have written a guide on how to Backup Steam games on a NAS if you’re running out of space and you do not have a speedy connection to re-download everything nice and fast. This already does the rounds and more people use this for their needs so I’m glad I helped them out with this.
Other games played this month
This month some gaming behemoths have launched.
Forza Horizon 5
First things first Forza Horizon 5 dropped on XBoxGamePass, and happily started grinding Mexico for cars, levels, and accolades! I was never a fan of open-world racers (I’m a Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport fanboy instead), but Forza Horizon and its constant rewards gives a nice sense of achievement and I can’t wait to build a nice fleet of cars for my boy to play with – he’s my test driver and I got to have him a nice selection! I got most of the racing achievements/accolades down and opened all the map up for exploration – already got all the Fast Travel boards out so moving around the map costs nil so that helps a lot to complete events and racers, even though that I missed most of the first week of Festival (as Premium version launched a few days before the normal XBGP version). I had my gripes with the profile not syncing reliably between my XBOX and my PC (already lost some progression once – wtf MS!) but I’m now more careful with it and won’t log in if I see any error messages of it fetching my progression – I hoped I had the Steam version instead of this, but since the progress is not transferrable I’m stuck with this till this is sorted – hopefully, it is widespread for them to notice.Also, some accolades are not completed even after you do the required steps, but this is a known bug and will be resolved too. All in all, it is a pleasant experience with all the dings and whistles you expect from a long-time favorite series.
Rocket League
The new space-themed season for Rocket League started on Nov 17, so the grind is up for that too – back to Dia1 after the placement matches, and even if my usual Duo mate is absent, I was lucky with competent randoms that did not forfeit after the first mistake – Season Pass items are not interesting to me, so I might as well put this on the slow burner after I get the matches for my rank.
Call of Duty: Vanguard
Another game that launched this month was Call of Duty: Vanguard – I must confess I was not a fan of first-person shooters, mainly they made me dizzy (but others like Doom 2016 and Destiny 2 was OK), and I couldn’t play for long even though I tried. First CoD that stuck with me though was CoD MW that intrigued me with its 2v2 Gunfight Mode but ended up liking its normal multiplayer instead. Now I’m quite a sloppy player since I did not have lots of experience with shooters, but I did manage to get some nice eliminations. Now, Vanguard is based in the WW2 era which is not my preferred era (liked Modern or Futurist more) but the game is a standard CoD affair – frenetic action blowing people and stuff around till you move to the next map and repeat. Already grinded to level 55 to get all gear unlocks, got an STG44 and MP-40 maxed to get some nice loadouts and class, and started learning the maps – I will try leveling some other weapons too, but I think its appeal is wearing off already.
Halo Infinite Multiplayer
Last, Halo Infinite MP launched surprisingly this month – now this is a much slower-paced game than CoD which feels more tactical, but now there are some progression problems plaguing this – everything (all cosmetic) are unlocked so slow (developers already on it and preparing changes after the user backlash) but despite that I like the gameplay, I do not have something to hook me in – give me some unlocks to work forward to that are not skins!
Gaming goals for December…
So, what about December? I’ve planned some reviews for this month which I think you will find interesting, and I will keep on playing with Forza Horizon 5 and CoD: Vanguard till Halo Infinite campaign comes our way, then I will probably move to that to see what this is all about! Additionally, I’m looking forward to Firegirl on Dec14 and Aeterna Noctis on Dec15 so probably will try those and even prepare a review if they tickle my interest! Also, I will keep an eye on The Gunk too and hope this is received well as it looks magnificent.
Well, that is all in this month’s overview and my plans for the next, and hopefully, I will see you around!
This post was first published on overage-gaming by static. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitter and YouTube as well.