Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Highlights From The Game Awards 2023

 Video games  5 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,
Dec 082023
 

The Game Awards took place last night, and that meant we got plenty of new game announcements and trailers alongside the awards.

There wasn’t anything Earth-shattering for me (which is probably good, since 2024 already looks so stacked my backlog is shuddering in fear), but there were still some great announcements.

The following games were the highlights for me.

First, a really big surprise was Pony Island 2: Panda Circus. We talked about the first Pony Island a couple years ago, as part of 2021’s spooky games celebration. It was a puzzle game that was bizarre, funny, and creepy, with some fantastic tricks for the player. I enjoyed it a lot, so I’ll definitely play the sequel when it comes out.

The next big highlight for me was the new trailer for Metaphor: ReFantazio. It was announced ahead of time that it would be shown, so I wasn’t surprised, but I was excited to get another look!

Its fantasy setting comes across more clearly in this trailer, and it looks like it will be a great game to play. It’s now set for fall 2024 (fortunately distanced from the crush of games at the start of the year).

Now, what should have a been a huge, exciting surprise for me was the announcement that God of War: Ragnarok has DLC comeing out on December 12 for free, especially since it’s an epilogue to the story.

But my enthusiasm diminished when they said it will involve roguelike elements. Hearing the term “roguelike” doesn’t immediately turn me away anymore after I enjoyed Hades so much, but it did change my initial reaction from “I need to get back to Ragnarok and hurry up and finish it!” to “Sure, I’ll get back to Ragnarok eventually.”

How about another exciting surprise, then? The Mana series is getting a new mainline entry next year with Visions of Mana. It looks beautiful! I’m disappointed that there’s no Switch version, but maybe they’re assuming the Switch’s successor will be out by then.

(I probably should play some more Mana games before then, though.)

Getting back to DLC, another big announcement of the night was the reveal of two DLCs for Final Fantasy XVI, the first of which is already out while the second will be coming next spring. I’ll get around to playing Final Fantasy XVI one of these days, once I finally pick up a PS5.

The Game Awards was one big long reminder of games I want to play. Don’t forget the epic performance by Poets of the Fall as the Old Gods of Asgard, which I watched even though I haven’t played Alan Wake 2 yet. It just got me even more excited to finally play. Rise of the Ronin also looks pretty cool, and so does the new game from the developers of Ori and the Blind Forest, No Rest for the Wicked.

These are the announcements that stood out the most to me from this year’s Game Awards! What games are you most excited for?

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Pony Island

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 292021
 

Pony Island is not really a game about playing the endless runner called Pony Island. It’s a game about being trapped in limbo, forced to play the Devil’s badly-made games.

(This is not a spoiler. Pony Island makes no pretense of actually being a cheerful pony game and reveals Lucifer pretty quickly.)

In theory, you’ll be stuck playing Pony Island forever, possibly with the option of giving the Devil your soul. However, it’s a simple matter to exploit the game’s flaws and hack into it in search of a way to escape.

Pony Island is… bizarre. I’d call it a puzzle game first and foremost, since you’ll frequently search for clues of how to proceed and play “hacking” mini-games that involve rearranging tiles to redirect a key down the path you want. There are also some endless runner sections, though, and a few other parts that switch up the gameplay even further.

It’s an entertaining experience. The game is both creepy and funny, and it also has one of the best fourth wall breaking tricks I’ve seen in any game.

Click for Pony Island spoilers
One of the bosses requires you to keep your eyes on him, so you lose if you pause, minimize, open the Steam overlay, etc. At one point in this section, the game mimics you receiving Steam messages from one of your actual Steam friends.

I don’t know how the game chooses which friend to mimic, but for me it picked someone who had actually sent me a real message right ahead of the fight, which made the trick even more effective.

Now, the narrative falls a little short for me. I expected it to do more with its premise, and there are also some inconsistencies due to its different aspects – you’ve got an in-game desktop with multiple programs and games, but it’s also an arcade machine? Okay, maybe nitpicking the logistics of the Devil’s gaming machine isn’t important, but then there’s the fact that much of it is designed so that you, the player, are the main character, yet you can learn more about the main character’s identity and past.

Those are just a couple of minor things that made the game less effective than it could have been, but enough of the things it did were clever enough that I don’t mind.

So if you want a puzzle game that’s creepy, funny, and overall a bizarre experience, check out Pony Island.