BACKLOG 5/21/20: Apocalyptic illness, synthetic freedom & magickal addiction.

BACKLOG is a “whenever the fuck I feel like it” casual video game blog feature focusing on how I’m progressing through games, old and new, that are stuck in my ‘to do’ bin. Here I’ll generally update my progress in any and all games I’ve touched in the past month. This includes updates on reviews I’m writing, full reviews, games I’m looking forward to, thoughts I’ve had, and things I’ve purchased.


No doubt putting off a BACKLOG entry for a full fourteen months has been with good reason: To focus on the music side of the site more exclusively and well, there persists the strong feeling that anything I have to say about video games in writing is not only self-serving but also doesn’t provide any real value to the average reader. So, this’ll be a one-off for now or, for the sake of kicking me back into finishing a few games and pulling myself out of a Magic the Gathering: Arena fun-rut. If you’d like to catch up with the last year of reviews and a Best of 2019 list for video games: Hit the Video Games tab and click around.

I don’t watch miserable Twitch streamers. I no longer subscribe to bland, forced, dried up, soul-voided, and self-involved YouTubers. I sure as Hell don’t listen to video game podcasts anymore. It is safe to say I don’t give a fuck near as much as I did a year ago and of course the bar was already drastically lowered the year prior. Without belaboring dispassionate thoughts too much, I have my reasons. 1.) The Playstation 4 Pro cooling fan is very loud when playing a demanding game in 4K/HDR mode, it is -almost- as loud as the Dreamcast was in the late 90’s and it becomes miserable without closed-ear headphones on. 2.) I’m a console idiot, still. The next generation of consoles is upcoming and the release schedule has been light for a couple years. Few things interest me. 3.) My significant other would rather hang out and doesn’t care for video games as entertainment. That has been the gig for these last three months, I’d been busy with a few games since early January namely Nioh 2, Resident Evil 2 (the remake), and a very detailed playthrough of Fallout 4 including all DLC. That is all I’ve got to talk about here for now. I’ve recently bought Final Fantasy VII Remake, Days Gone, Trials of Mana, A Plague Tale: Innocence, and Doom Eternal since ~February. On the pre-order list are The Last of Us Part II, The Ghost of Tsushima, Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Crysis Remastered, and Mortal Shell. So, there is yet (theoretical) hope for a top ten this year. Recommend other games if you’re inclined, just no more rogue-likes or team shooters. 


Fallout 4_20200204202431

Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition  (2017, PS4) REVIEW

Consider where you were way back when the fourth main entry in the Fallout series came out in 2015. If you don’t mind my sharing a personal anecdote, I’d been nearing the end of an insufferable era, a complete shatter and rebuild of the ‘self’ between a divorce and a failed entrepreneurship. It just wasn’t the best time to phase into the aftermath of a destroyed world despite how cathartic it might sound on paper. Beyond shirking my 5-6 hour investment in Fallout 4 that year that era left behind a lot of games I’d turn out to love when I re-purchased them ~2016 with Bloodborne and Wolfenstein: The New Order being major highlights. A great opportunity to redesign the self also found great bursts of productivity in terms of rediscovering all of the passions I’d left behind, hence beating (well, finishing) 26 games in 2017 and starting this website near the end of the year while riding that wave of renewed passion for all things. The point? Back in 2017 I was driven by the need to reclaim myself and thrive beyond the previous four years of Hell — In 2020 I am driven by the search for major paradigm shifts that might lead to a more solidified and benevolent ‘self’ and in the midst of this 141 hour long playthrough of Fallout 4 + all DLC I can say with some mind-voiding glee that I did not find goddamned anything.

There are two reasons I’d picked this game back up beyond nagging regret, the first is that the digital ‘Game of the Year’ Edition was on sale for $4.99 on the Playstation Store at some point and at less than four cents an hour it was a very good deal. The second and perhaps more important reason I’d bought the game stemmed from the unsatisfactory feeling of finishing The Outer Worlds (2019) and its lack of meaningful combat events, large scale battles, lax difficulty, and rushed endgame. So, recalling my first 4-5 hours with the intro and early areas of Fallout 4 I figured all of the shit I talked about the game was completely stupid bunk if I never actually finished it. So I did. I was wrong about it! Despite some still-standing issues with Bethesda Game Studios‘ expected fumbling, including countless ridiculous design flaws, still-standing bugs, and flawed quests the holistically considered Fallout 4 playthrough is a fine video game experience if you resign away from nihilism and convince yourself you can effect this world because this time around you’re provided the illusion of making a difference.

The ‘benevolent’ serial killer storyline is incredible if only for his paintings.

Back when the original X-Com games came to PC a good friend of mine and I would play through tactical RPG games together to increase our odds of advancing and I was always the strategist who’d plan the moves and consider the consequences. The original Fallout was brutal-yet-fair, a surprising thing to return to today considering how much the 3D first person tactical FPS/RPG hybrid reboot of the series (Fallout 3, 2008) defines the thought on the franchise today. Though it was a fun Elder Scrolls‘d rejiggering of the brand the combat never had a chance at recreating the tense turn-based battles of the original games and instead you’re going to have to make peace with the fact that you need to aim for the head and shoot it off if you want to win 99% of the combat encounters in modern Fallout games. If you are not familiar with these games and fear the storylines will be hard to follow, understand that the story is maybe one tenth of the overall experience and you’ll have to fight the urge to completely ignore it until you’ve run out of things to do and discover. Also, none of it really ties together in a meaningful way beyond glib obscure references. Every bump in the road, pile of cars, snarl from the sewer, buzzing from a nearby swamp, and seemingly innocent bystander has great potential to take you on a journey that could be anywhere from ten minutes to fifteen hours long; That endless stream of emergent events busies the playthrough incessantly and if you’re like me, prone to do everything on a task list as thoroughly as possible, it’ll be quite the goddamned time-sink.

Ha ha ha!

It’d be entirely fair to consider this game a re-imagining of Fallout 3 with base building mechanics ingrained into the core feedback loop as many of the same story beats, factions, and moral considerations are presented in Fallout 4 as well. The big thing with video games circa 2015 was undoubtedly the illusion of moralistic choice and that means the main story slowly encourages you to take after one of four factions as the main story progresses and at some point this drastically changes your interactions with other human beings (oh, and synths too). The core conflict between genocidal cop-warriors (The Brotherhood of Steel), haphazard freedom fighters (The Minutemen), the underground progressive inclusive gang of terrorists (The Railroad), and those so technologically advanced that they might play ‘God’ (The Institute) is altogether interesting but your choice of alliance and the overall ending gives few chances to see the changes you’ve made to what is left of Boston-area society as a whole. What is perhaps far more satisfying is seeing the many, many minutemen bases made safe and populated once again. Building housing, resources, training, healthcare, and security for the inhabitants of the game world might be a bit robotically achieved but the thrill of defending your turf and sustaining small villages spanning the entire game world -is- a remarkable element of tribal solidarity that one can tangibly experience. That’d be the main hook of the game for me, the ability to rebuild humanity and see widespread benefits from that networking in gameplay. If you don’t fuck with base building you are severely handicapping the intended experience.

Yes, I very intentionally had sex with a robot.

Also, holy shit you can get power armor like an hour into the game and better frames are available real fast if you go for it and start clearing out areas infested with fuckin’ goons. Bandit leaders inevitably show up during missions with makeshift power armor to start but key locations will have full suits of pro-grade power armor and plenty of batteries for them if you’re thorough and resourceful. I more or less played the entire game wearing a suit of power armor and to be sure keeping up with the batteries was difficult to start but once you’ve got some extra pockets to carry loot and a few decent guns you’ll be able to keep batteries on hand in perpetuity. What is power armor? A metal frame (a smaller scale mech suit) that can be customized with a potential seven pieces of shielding, each piece can be upgraded for a number of characteristics (carrying capacity, damage absorption, damage return, etc.) and since I’d done the Automatron DLC fairly early in the game I’d managed to kill a leader wearing a suit of electrified power armor that sustained me through the majority of the game. Not only was suit maintenance and upgrading a worthwhile feedback loop within the greater game experience but it provided an extra layer of interest when combat became a bit dry. Focusing on suit gear meant I could eject batteries as powerful nuclear grenades and improve the speed at which I could move when over-encumbered, which was often due to the suit parts breaking and losing the additional carrying capacity bonuses I tended to go for.

Beyond the power armor itself I’d taken it upon myself to seek out synth encampments and build up a high-quality well-upgraded suit of synth armor since it was lightweight and offered good returns on upgrades while also allowing for carrying capacity. Why the focus on weight load? Well, if I kill 25 enemies in a factory and I can only carry one tenth of their gear due to needing to be kitted out to kill ’em all then it’d always feel like I’d begin to fail within Fallout 4‘s emphasis on economy, looting and collecting materials is hugely important as you rebuild communities. If I have to choose between using my scrap aluminum to repair my suit after each adventure and building a set of turrets to keep super mutants out of my orchards, I’d rather find a way to do both and the solution was always to carry more shit. This also feeds into the mechanics of recycling guns, armor, and items into scrap and upgrade materials. So, if you want the best guns with the best upgrades to suit your character build and well, your suit, and keep the entire frickin’ Boston area from dying you’d better pick up fuckin’ every piece of stupid garbage you see.

With that attitude you can imagine how I spent 140+ hours with Fallout 4‘s expanded world but keep in mind most of the DLC is also fairly involved with my main path through it being Automatron > Vault-Tec Workshop > Far Harbor > Nuka World. Where I saved the last two for later game since they were each 5-10 hours with Nuka World being cut short because I chose to kill the leader the moment I met him and then hunt down each of the faction leaders and kill them too. There wasn’t a ton do really do beyond kill everyone and I was honestly fine with that portion of the DLC being shortened while the rest of it was more entertaining, such as the cult, the wildlife area, and the soda factory. Likewise I have to hand it to Far Harbor for being a truly remarkable addition to the game with its own complex web of three factions and a unique set of consequences that could play out dozens of ways depending on your actions. It was entirely memorable, basically a succinct remind of all the best elements of the base game.

Me?! I nuked the radiation cult and killed the synths. My moral compass is set to kill fucking everything when I play open world RPG games because it rarely breaks them any more or less than playing like a soft-hearted bard. I know it seems fucked up but, hey it was the path to the most experience points and most combat. Doing each factions quests and then ultimately killing them all after reaching diminishing returns is totally valid for how big the game is and I didn’t come close to finishing the perk chart at character level 74. This ethos should also indicate what I did when it came to the endgame for the main quests, as I sided with the Minutemen and Brotherhood of Steel early on to maintain order and gain power suit solidarity before doing some of the Railroad quests. I ultimately sided with the Institute and killed off the Brotherhood of Steel and the Railroad without alienating vital ties with the Minutemen because they are represented by all of the settlements and web of player-assigned trade routes in the game. There was no question about it, I was always aligned with science! Once I realized that my own mindset was becoming increasingly incompatible with the worldview of the god-warrior robot genocide-whacky Brotherhood. I was actually bummed that I’d basically have to murder them all, one by one, to achieve what I’d wanted. Nah man, I’m actually kidding I totally didn’t have to kill ’em all and enjoyed the hell out of it because it was a tough fight. Watching them burn and killing the commander who’d take me under his wing from the start was gloriously vile, an evil act that I reminisce about with joy. One day I’ll tattoo my entire palms red and rename my character “Blood Slap” to commemorate the infamous hellfire I’d brought in the name of science.

~141 hours.

I spent a lot of time playing this game, role-playing it as much as I min-maxed it and scoured it of all resources. Was this the healthiest thing to do early in the year, as our United States government leadership was trending World War III in headlines? It was, actually, and not only that but it’d become a weirdly cathartic mix of exploration, conquer of brutal rule, rehabilitation to health, ’til prosperity and repeat. Exploration is the main reason I stuck with it, the combat was not majorly difficult outside of a few very highly populated areas. The way to get through it? Hide, aim at the head, hide, shoot the head. The legs are the better option for some melee threats later on and mirelurks are still the most annoying shit ever but the limits of the combat system don’t outshine the pleasurable loop of exploration, loot, upkeep, upgrade, build, etc. In this sense the gameplay loop and my own immersion hadn’t really clicked with a Bethesda game since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a game I have probably put 250 hours into combined. Unusually high for me, at least.

So, you already flipped down to see the score. Why just barely above average? Repetitive encounters, broken quest-lines, freezing, crashing, and all of the usual glitches abound for this type of game are no less polished over on this GOTY Edition and this after 5 years of patching and updates. The main quest-line can’t easily break but a lot of the side-quests getting there can certainly forget to activate, and that’ll most often lead you down the alternate solution to that quest, forcing your hand down a path you might not like. At some point I was hunting down enemies of the Institute and hit a wall because I’d killed a mark but he wasn’t holding the necessary quest item, after a half hour of 3-5 year old forum post digging I’d found an off-hand solution to trigger the quest that’d taken a few poor saps a full year to work around and finish the quest. It just isn’t exactly The Witcher III: Wild Hunt level of quality, not sharp enough to make up for all of the lazy, broken shit that happens along the way. Would I play Fallout 5? Yes, a few years after it came out, was optimized, completed, patched and only if it was on sale in a package that included all of the downloadable content. 140+ hours for five frickin’ bucks is probably one of the better deals I’ve gotten out of a video game so I can’t be upset about glitches or whatever. Would I recommend Fallout 4 if you’ve never played anything in the series? Yes, this is the best one to pick up right now and although the base-building requires some extra research outside of the game to master you’ll fall into it naturally if you’re already a fan of RPG games. Do you need the DLC? Yes! Hell yes you do, especially the Vault-Tec stuff, Automatron, and the most essential one is Far Harbor.

Title: Fallout 4: GOTY Edition
Genre: First Person Shooter/Open World Action RPG
Released: September 26, 2017 | Bethesda
Platform(s) Reviewed: Playstation 4 [Digital Copy + DLC]
Score: 3.0/5.0

Resident Evil II (2019, PS4) REVIEW

Anticipating a chance to play Resident Evil III for the first time for its (then) upcoming remake, I went back and bought the digital version of Resident Evil II‘s celebrated remake that’d released early last year. The original Playstation version of the second Resident Evil game isn’t as familiar to me as the first game the tank controls and poor shooting of the original always bothered me and being chased down becomes an irksome experience when loading saves etc. tended to take quite some time. I’d really enjoyed playing the remastered HD version of Resident Evil, an HD remaster of a Gamecube game that was a remake of a Playstation game… last year so I’d been pretty keen on this game but I was not willing to pay more than $20 for it. A ~20-30 hour action/adventure game (including all replay value) isn’t a huge value proposition at $60. I’d say for the ~15 hours I’d gotten out of two ‘Easy Mode’ playthroughs with each character Resident Evil II was overall more than worthy. Graphics are sharp, voice acting is ace, game structure and atmosphere is classic, and the story never overstays its welcome.

I’ve been watching a lot of Brooklyn Nine-Nine lately.

Capcom have made (and uh, marred) their name with shameless sequels and remakes over the last twenty five or so years. They were arguably the ones who’d lead that particular charge in the console arena and I’d say it’d only really held up in the case of Resident Evil series because the games hold up as simple, charming and repeatable experiences that’d also translated well enough to daft blockbuster movies. Resident Evil II was a broken innovation, a game that’d taken the best parts of games like Alone in the Dark (1-3) and ingeniously applied their own stylish storytelling into a tense experience that’d been fairly attractive despite limited console hardware. Lets be real, though, that game was ‘scary’ because the controls sucked and you just straight up couldn’t turn around fast enough to run away. Plus it looked like shit back then if you’d played -any- PC game circa 1998. Building the game from the ground up meant recreating the atmosphere and strong sense of ‘place’ that the Raccoon City police station provides, this is where the remake of Resident Evil II shines most. It also kicks off a long list of every aspect of the original that is eclipsed by the remake.

Graphics, gameplay, quality of life improvements (such as an automatically updating map) are all ‘expected’ elements in a remake. It is not such a deep or involved story that you’ll be captivated by the non-specific vignettes and completely basic narrative no matter how well-acted it is. What truly is the reason to play this game is the successful adaptation of signature atmosphere, and this generally avoids the terrible cartoon villainy that you’ll get in sequels, such as Resident Evil 4 (perhaps the most overrated turd of the Playstation 2/Gamecube generation). There are a few old school stains on the game that could’ve been dumped, though. Saving at typewriters in small ‘safe’ zones is only really important if you are playing a more difficult mode where you’re going to want to ‘save scum’ if there is no healing item in sight or you’ll need ammo for the unavoidable late game encounters, of which there are 2-3 that I can think of. This leads into the question of difficulty and what you want out of this type of game. I have found the best way to play early survival horror games is to pick the easy difficulty option and become familiar with the game, locations, item demand, and story on the first playthrough. Since Resident Evil II has quite a bit of replayability it’d made sense to do deeper run-throughs with each character first. Leon’s playthrough was nearly 10 hours and Claire’s took just about 6.5 hours both on ‘Assisted Mode’ which generally leaves you to do puzzles and most enemies aren’t bullet sponges that require rocket launchers and flamethrowers until the end of the sewer area leading up to the final lab section. In this mode you can still easily run out of ammo and healing items but since the head-shots are assisted it really shouldn’t be difficult unless you don’t know where to go, or how to fully kill each enemy.

I was glad that Claire’s side didn’t have as many Tyrant encounters.

Not only is it essential to play through each character’s story but they link up in really fantastic ways with some areas being entirely unique to each perspective. When looking back on what I’d done in the course of finishing one play through with each character it’d struck me at how much care went into not only recreating a modern, glistening and bug-free remake of the original game but that it was actually still very fun and even more thrilling to go back and play on a harder difficulty where death is a major, major setback in most cases and running from enemies is easier said than done. All in all I finished those first two playthroughs and decided to go back and replay the game a month later, which I am still working through the second Claire campaign. Item locations and safe combinations change on New Game+ so it ends up being a new challenge in a familiar place. If I’d played Resident Evil II back in 2019, as many folks recommended, it would have been on my Top 10 for the year. That said, I decided not to play Resident Evil III remake after watching some of the gameplay, the least interesting part of Resident Evil II is being hunted and chased down by Tyrant and I hated the original Resident Evil III for featuring it so heavily.

The only reason I’d kinda jammed on this game was because it felt like I’d gotten it at the right price ($19.99) and the ability to zip through it on easy mode allowed me to see everything without frustration before I gave the more difficult (actual) gameplay a whirl. It wasn’t a major point of nostalgia for me as I was never a big Resident Evil fan but it would be fair to consider this one of the better remakes of a video game, ever. Or at least allow me to suggest that the value is there and there are no major flaws to the experience at all. I’ll likely never play another game from this franchise at this point since I know where the fourth game goes and I just don’t care beyond this classic. I’d recommend it, it was good fun.

Title: Resident Evil II
Genre: Third-person Action/Horror Adventure
Released:  January 25, 2019 | Capcom
Platform(s) Reviewed: Playstation 4 [Digital Copy]
Score: 3.5/5.0

Nioh 2 (2020, PS4) ~30%

When Nioh 2 finally arrived in the second week of March here in the Seattle area we had already been advised to go home and stay there for the next three months. I figured, “Hey, I’ll probably lose my job and we’ll barely make the mortgage but I’ll have plenty of time to jam out the sequel to my favorite game of 2017!” As it turns out this second game is massively different in some ways (tone, especially) and absolutely the same damn thing in others. This sequel is actually a prequel that eventually lines up with the story of the first game. Neat. So, the dog-poop eatin’ and shoe-flinging ape reaction on my end? This shit is fucking neon ugly, every environment is a dark shitty rock cave, and the game feels like Ninja Gaiden if it were made by the anime dorks that make Monster Hunter. The story is completely impossible to follow bunk that movies at a slugs pace, each level takes anywhere from one to four hours to master and get the necessary collectibles and man, the worst part is that I am loving it. I like the game, I definitely have fun every time I pick it up but I fell off of it this last month because it has none of the mystique or atmosphere of the previous game and it feels more grind-intensive this time around. You make a generic character, you pick a weapon specialty and one of three demon types (which lines up with a new counter attack system) and you run through the game exactly as in the previous game. The main difference comes with the narrative which your generic character never contributes to.

If I can’t swim don’t make the water so pretty.

What is better since the last game so far? Load times are more than 50% faster on average, I used to pick up my phone and dick around while the first Nioh loaded into levels now I can barely get past the lock screen before the level is ready. The different graphics vs framerate options all work for me this time around, though you will definitely want to emphasize framerate because the game is no more or less pretty in 4K with HDR. This time around you can not only summon ‘bloodstains’, or whatever the equivalent is, to spawn AI controlled enemies with gear sets matching what players were using at the time of death (a method of procuring specific loot + focused upgraded items w/perks) but you can also summon blue (White Summons if you need a Dark Souls equivalent, but these are AI controlled) ones that aid you. They’re pretty useful if you’re looking for an easier playthrough and using them provides the players who place them with currency for Hidden Teahouse extras. No doubt there is a huge emphasis on multiplayer modes and assistance in the game so, if you see anyone streaming it and not using the multiplayer additions let ’em know how fucking dumb they are for avoiding the game’s rich and useful collaborative ecosystem. Nobody gives a shit how good you are at the game, this one is meant to be played with others as much as possible and you are rewarded constantly when doing so.

This is the tone of the game in a nutshell. Anime goofy and gaudy as hell colorful.

There are ~85 missions in Nioh 2 with countless bosses and extras in each level and that doesn’t include the optional Twilight Missions and training missions. If you consider that each mission takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 2-3 hours to complete I figure I am at least 30% done with the game and perhaps closer to 25% since I am being as thorough as possible and have already hit some harsh difficulty spikes. So, is it going to be my 2020 Game of the Year pick? Almost certainly not, but I could be surprised. If Cyberpunk 2077 is delayed and Last of Us Part II is garbage, there is a chance Nioh 2 will be the big deal for my taste this year, but there is plenty of year left.


Magic the Gathering: Arena [Ikoria] (2019, PC)

When Magic the Gathering was a fairly nascent card game ~1993 I was lucky enough to be roughly ten years old and a high fantasy loving nerd who lived nearby a hobby shop named Trump’s Hobbies. There was no other choice from the moment I saw the starter packs and foil booster sets, at first my friends and I didn’t know how to play so we spent time trading them like baseball cards but it’d soon be a lunchtime event to actually play the game. I started when the Arabian Nights expansion released but ended up buying far more Antiquities before really falling into the competitive aspect of the game with (my favorite sets) The Dark and Fallen Empires. This is where the game became more clever and rule-bending with different types of cards and I believe they’d introduced dual-color cards by then to encourage multi-color deck building. Why did I stop playing the game?I’d been robbed during a tournament at my middle school and though there were 20 witnesses, none said anything. The first of many reminders that I’ll never ‘fit in’ anywhere, not even with harmless nerds, and all the more reason to stay independent of all herd-like allegiance be it fandom or whatever else.

Huh? Oh, right I was going to talk about Magic the Gathering: Arena, a PC game that is free to download and play which allows anyone to competitively play the game with an easy to learn and fairly automated interface. If you’ve played Hearthstone consider this its much wiser, much more accomplished wizard mentor. Although I’d tried to pick up the physical card game back in 2016 and played a few drafts at a game shop while I was living in Los Angeles a few things occurred to me: 1.) All of these guys have custom play mats with logos from their YouTube channels and they’re assholes. 2.) The game has become so complicated that it really is better designed for play on a computer interface rather than the excruciatingly slow physical card format. So Arena officially launched beyond beta versions around 2019 but Magic the Gathering: Online has been a thing for two decades and the reason I’m picking the game back up with Arena is that it is fast, easy, better looking, and cheap to have fun with. I’ve leaned towards learning the current set, Ikoria, based on the card set Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths and yes there are still MTG books if you need lore. The set focuses on cycling decks and continues to feature new Planeswalkers that heavily impact play style.

Like many others I’d found myself leaning into the more aggressive Red decks during drafting but more recently have leaned back to a mixture of White and Blue affinity where card draw, pumping, and going wide with a lot of human creatures with flying and/or mentor abilities has gotten me up to Platinum tier after about two weeks of unranked practice and a week of daily ranked play. It doesn’t work great against gimmick decks from folks who’ve paid their way to better cards but I figure I won’t start paying into the game until I have a better grasp of drafting and deck building on the fly. This is a game I could play every day forever and it has been perfect during the last month of quarantine. Not only is it satisfying as competitive light strategy but it allows me to listen to music without entirely focused analysis, a different angle to add to each experience as how well a record performs on loop for two hours of stratego can be moderately enlightening, though it isn’t a replacement for my usual modus.


That’ll do it, then. It isn’t likely that I’ll begin returning to my regular BACKLOG schedule of every 2-3 weeks unless I start to really dig back into games but I’ve got other hobbies (10+ new books to read, tons of paintings to finish, books to write etc.) and intend to wait and see which games inspire passion rather than rote completionist rushes.


BACKLOG: Unfinished titles, in order of importance. % progress noted.

  • Nioh 2 (2020, Playstation 4 Pro) ~30%
  • Trials of Mana (2020, Playstation 4 Pro) Tutorial/Intro
  • A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019, Playstation 4 Pro) [Unopened]
  • Final Fantasy VII: Remake (2020, Playstation 4 Pro) [Unopened]
  • Days Gone (2019, Playstation 4 Pro) [Unopened]
  • Dragon’s Crown Pro (2018, PS4) 0%
  • Darkest Dungeon: Ancestral Edition (2018, PS4)
  • Battle Chasers: Nightwar (PS4) 5%
  • Dishonored 2 (PS4) 5-10%
  • Thief (PS4) 5%
  • Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (2018, PS4) ~4-5 hours
  • Yoku’s Island Express (2018, PC) 5%
  • Persona 5 (2017, PS4) 10% [Will buy Royal Edition]
  • The Technomancer (PS4) ~5% finished introduction
  • Deus Ex: Invisible War (PC) 0% (restarting)

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