#oneaday Day 559: Event horizon

I've been thinking recently: with all the annoyance and frustration over CEO after CEO saying that their game development studios are using generative AI in their work, are we finally at a point where one could actually completely stop buying new stuff, and subsist entirely on titles developed and released prior to this AI bullshit getting everywhere?

I'm pretty sure we are. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've been there for a while. I still buy a fair few new games, but right now, given the size of my physical and digital libraries, I'm pretty sure I could just flat-out stop buying games altogether and still have enough to keep me occupied until my dying day.

I mean, hell, just on Evercade there is somewhere in the region of 700 games. There are over a thousand games in my Steam library. Another 540 in my GOG.com library. In my physical collection, I have 422 Nintendo Switch games, 169 PlayStation 4 games, 147 Xbox 360 games, 92 PlayStation 3 games, 282 PlayStation 2 games and plenty more besides. On the MiSTer Multisystem 2 I have every game from pretty much every platform I care about from the Atari 2600 up until the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. I really could stop buying games today and I would still be entertained until the end of time. Hell, I think I could probably get by on Doom and Final Fantasy VII replays.

Part of me wants to try doing this, but a certain degree of FOMO prevents me from committing to it entirely, because I know there are games in the pipeline that I definitely want: the third Final Fantasy VII reboot; Ace Combat 8; the Trails in the Sky: 2nd Chapter remake. The limited print publishing companies — which, honestly, is where I buy the majority of my games from these days anyway — have been doing a great run of physical versions of otherwise digital-only games that I want to play, and new versions of games I enjoyed back in the day, but which are a pain to get up and running on modern PCs.

I think we have reached a sort of "event horizon" similar to that found in other media, where enthusiasts of the medium can comfortably drift away from the mainstream, popular, current side of things and subsist entirely on niche interest material from the past that they find personally resonant. This absolutely happens in other forms of creative media — there are people who enjoy listening to music who never touch chart hits; there are people who love movies who have never seen a "blockbuster"; there are people who love reading who read nothing but classic literature.

So I think what I'm going to do is not necessarily commit to a complete purchasing blackout, for the reasons I've already outlined. I am still going to buy whatever the third Final Fantasy VII remake project game is; I am still going to buy Ace Combat 8; I am still going to buy any limited-print games that come up which I have been eagerly awaiting a physical copy of.

But what I am going to do is curtail impulse purchases. A significant portion of the physical library I own I picked up because I knew I wanted to play the games in question someday, and when that day rolled around I didn't want to find myself in a situation where it would cost three figures (or more) to be able to do so. I already feel a great sense of regret from the day I traded in my copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on PlayStation, and I have no desire to feel that way again.

What I do find myself feeling to an increasing degree from modern video game publishers and developers, though, is… nothing. Honestly, I just looked through the list of everything announced at the recent The Game Awards, and the only thing that registered even a slight twinge of excitement for me was Ace Combat 8. Everything else just sort of drifted past me and I had no particularly strong feelings about it. And the recent behaviour of Larian Studios' head honcho has put me right off wanting to get caught up on the Divinity series.

So here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to finish all the "finishable" games I have on the go right now, which includes Yakuza 5, Death end re;Quest Code Z, an Ace Combat 7 replay, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Cyberpunk 2077. I'm already giving myself anxiety by having so many half-finished games on the go, some of which I haven't touched for months, so I want to check all these off my list because I've been enjoying all of them and want to see them all through to their respective conclusions.
Throughout the year, I'm going to buy anything that I already know I want without guilt. That includes the stuff I've already mentioned, plus any surprise announcements in series that I follow and appreciate, or from companies that I consistently enjoy the work of.
Throughout the year, I'm also going to buy any limited-print stuff that I already know I want. This primarily includes previously digital-only stuff that has been out for a while, and modern rereleases of titles I loved in the past like Heretic, Hexen and the System Shock games.
I am not going to buy games just because I see them while browsing a shopping site and think "ooh, that looks interesting", because these are the things that end up on the shelf and don't get played for literally years at at a time.
I am not going to buy games for previous-generation platforms unless I know they are games that I have already played and want to revisit, or games that I never got the chance to try back in the day.

I say all the above with the caveat that if something like this year's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 comes along and surprises everyone, I reserve the right to jump in and explore it for myself. While I was initially cynical about that game when it first appeared, it ended up being one of my top games of the year. (Conversely, I really didn't like Blue Prince at all.)

This might all sound a bit half-arsed and I freely admit that it is. But I wanted to acknowledge the feelings of… discontent that I have with the current direction of video games while still allowing myself the opportunity to enjoy the things that I am looking forward to.

I love video games, you see. Love them. And I always will.

I'm just not sure I love Video Games That Were Made In 2025 And Beyond, going by some of the recent happenings.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 523: A deluge

There is a veritable deluge of good games that have come out recently, and this statement applies pretty much regardless of the specific types of game you are into. From my own personal perspective, I've been having a great time with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Absolum, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles and Lumines Arise from recent releases, and a copy of Full Metal Schoolgirl arrived today, begging me to "just give it a quick try" this evening. Then alongside that, from varying degrees of "the past", I have Death end re;Quest: Code Z and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the go. And I'm playing Space Rogue and The Granstream Saga for video series.

Honestly, it's easy to get overwhelmed at times like this and get struck down with the dreaded analysis paralysis. But I've been trying hard to fight through that any time I feel it of late — and that, in part, is how I've ended up with quite this many games "on the go" at the same time.

You see, the way I figure it is that if you have just one "big game" on the go at a time, sometimes you're just not in the mood to play that one game, and thus it pays to have other things you can turn to. It's easy to start feeling "worried" that you won't get around to finishing any of the things you've started, though, but realistically, with the way today's games are designed, you can devote an evening to one thing, play something else another evening, play something else another evening, and so on.

It doesn't matter how long it takes you to get through something — and to some people, whether or not you get through it at all, though I don't fall into that category, as I do like to finish what I start. The important thing is just that you feel like you're spending your time in a way that is enjoyable and beneficial to you. So if you're in the mood to fest on a single game for multiple days straight, do that. If you're not in the mood for that one "big game" one evening, don't spend hours agonising over whether or not you're "allowed" to play something else — just go play something else. And, heaven forbid, if you're not in the mood to play anything at all of an evening? Stick the telly on and watch a few episodes of a favourite show. Yes, it can even be something you've watched myriad times previously if you really want.

Part of the "I must stick to one thing" mentality that I have been doing my best to shake off is down to my time working in the games press, when it was important to get reviews done in time for embargoes so you could have competitive coverage. And I even self-inflicted this somewhat with MoeGamer, too, in the name of being able to give single games or series more in-depth coverage. But none of that needs to happen. It's nice to be able to write stuff for MoeGamer or script videos, but it's not an absolute requirement of everything I play.

Honestly, I think part of the reason I worry over such things is because I want to feel like I have made a contribution to the world of video games through writing about stuff — particularly stuff that doesn't get a lot of love or attention from mainstream outlets. And I do still feel like I want to do that — but also I have to remember that I am also making a contribution to this world through my day job, and my work in that regard is probably getting seen by a lot more people than articles on my own personal websites. Probably, anyway.

All this is a long way to say that I think I'm going to play Full Metal Schoolgirl this evening, and I'm not going to feel the slightest bit bad about it.

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#oneaday Day 316: Mario Kart World looks like fun!

You will doubtless be aware of the impending release of the Nintendo Switch 2, and its launch title Mario Kart World. You may also be aware of the fact that people are complaining about the price (not unjustifiably). And you may even have sat down and watched the Mario Kart World-centric presentation the other day.

Some people seem to be a bit down on Mario Kart World. I had to banish a video from my YouTube recommendations earlier for it claiming to offer "the unfortunate truth" about the new game, when said "truth" was just that the video maker, who hadn't played the game, didn't think it going open world was a good idea.

I'm not going to get into whether he's right or wrong (he's definitely wrong, though), but instead I want to talk about my own personal response to what I've seen of Mario Kart World so far, with the caveats that I haven't played it, I haven't been to any of the "Nintendo Switch 2 Experience" events, and that have preordered the Switch 2 bundle that comes with a digital copy of Mario Kart World, so I am perhaps predisposed to like the thing I've spent money on.

Basically, I'm well up for what Mario Kart World has to offer. I like common-or-garden Mario Kart to a decent degree, and it usually comes off the shelf any time friends are over. But despite the improving tech, visuals and course design with each new installment, the overall structure of the game hasn't really changed all that much since the SNES original. Mario Kart has always had a bit of a problem with its single-player modes being a bit bare-bones, and this is something that has never really been fixed over the course of 8 mainline installments. It was particularly apparent in the Nintendo 64 era, where Rare's Diddy Kong Racing offered an impressively substantial single-player "Adventure" mode that really made Mario Kart 64's paltry grand prix offerings look a tad weedy.

Granted, today the enduring appeal of modern Mario Kart games is in playing online, where you get the performance and visuals of single-player but the thrill of competing against real opponents. But that's not something that everyone enjoys — particularly since, as a popular game, it's filled with people who have no-lifed their way into mastering the most important "skills" (and/or exploits) in order to win every time. Playing Mario Kart online as a casual player is a great way of testing whether or not you really believe that "it's not the winning that counts, it's the taking part". Because after myriad sessions of seeing the frontrunners scream off over the horizon, never to be seen again, and not really knowing why or how they did that, it gets a bit old.

Mario Kart World, now, though, that's different. Online is still going to be an important part of the experience, and with the Nintendo Switch 2's GameChat feature, it looks like a potential return to the early days of Xbox Live, when it's easy to get folks together to shoot the shit while you're playing games — and not necessarily the same games. The key difference, this being Nintendo, is that GameChat is restricted to your friends, so no jumping into public lobbies and immediately being screamed at or called a racial epithet, unless that's what your friends are like. In which case you should find new friends.

But perhaps more importantly, judging by what we've seen so far, is that Mario Kart World offers a substantial single-player experience, and it's all down to that open world. Driving games are one type of game where it makes perfect sense to have an open-world map, and theming the game around rough-and-ready vehicles such as go-karts and motorcycles makes it feel less weird to go off-road exploring. One of my favourite games in this regard is Codemasters and Asobo Studio's Fuel, which has an absolutely vast open world filled with events to participate in and things to find. Plus it's just plain fun to drive around and see how a variety of different vehicles handle the various terrains.

Fuel is a semi-realistic game, though; Mario Kart World, meanwhile, is not beholden to the laws of reality, being a game set in a cartoonish fantasy world. That means we can have a map with incredible geographic diversity, weird and wonderful things to discover and a real sense that you might find anything around the corner. For all I love Fuel, its overriding colours are dull green, grey and brown, and any changes in the map you encounter as you pass from region to region are gradual rather than drastic. Not so in Mario Kart World, and I think that's going to be a lot of fun.

One of the things I really like the sound of is how the races link together, with circuit races leading to point-to-point races that take you to the next course in the sequence. I absolutely love point-to-point races — a side-effect of growing up with games like OutRun and Lotus Turbo Challenge — and Mario Kart World sounds like it's going to implement them not only as interstitial races in the main Grand Prix events, but also as non-stop "knockout" rally competitions that unfold as one long race taking you between multiple areas, with the bottom [x] participants being knocked out at every checkpoint.

But then the open world is filled with collectibles to find — the exact function of which we don't know just yet — and "P-switch challenges", which task you with completing various missions that test your driving skills. It's this exploration aspect that I think I find most exciting, particularly as you can not only play it solo, but you can bring friends along, too. Burnout Paradise was excellent fun in its multiplayer free-roam mode — sadly, I only ever really got to play it with friends once — and I can see this being very enjoyable; a great way to virtually hang out with friends over GameChat while having a meaningful, but relaxing and not-too-demanding, gaming experience.

Whether or not all this is really "worth" £75 for its physical RRP remains to be seen, and "game worth" is a completely subjective thing anyway. But I know that after seeing the announcement and the subsequent Direct, I'm very much on board with Mario Kart World, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it when June finally rolls around.

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#oneaday Day 71: Want Not

I haven't bought anything "new" for some time now, be it a book, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray or game. (Actually, that's a lie, I picked up Deathsmiles recently but only because if I didn't grab a copy now I doubt I'd ever see it on store shelves ever again, but that's beside the point. I probably shouldn't have started on this aside as it is taking away from my original point somewhat. Forget I said anything and let's start again.)

I haven't bought anything "new" for some time now, be it a book, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray or game. (Actually… (No! Stop it!) What? (You know what.) Oh all right.) And you know what? I don't miss it. (I'm going to focus on games here.) I don't feel like I've missed out on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and I don't feel like I'm missing out on Dragon Age II. There are many other things I could list but I won't because it would be terribly boring.

There are many reasons I haven't missed buying these things. Firstly and most obviously, it's saving money, something I'm woefully short of at the minute. Secondly, though, there's really no need to constantly have the latest and greatest the second it comes out. What does it achieve, really? You pay full price, have to enter six bajillion redemption codes to download all the DLC that should be on the game disc (don't get me started!) and know that there's going to be more of it in the future. Wait a few months and you could likely have a better edition for less money and more Stuff. You also get to avoid all the "pre-order bonus" bullshit that big publishers are starting to pull these days, because the content in question is often then included in that newer edition.

The third and probably most important reason, though, is that not rushing out to buy something awesome the second it comes out is the fact that you can then just enjoy what you've already got. I'm currently playing through Final Fantasy XIII, a game which I picked up months ago, played approximately 20 hours of, stopped due to something else coming out, and never went back to until recently. Now, those who dislike FFXIII will undoubtedly say that I shouldn't have bothered, but I'm having a blast, and the fact I'm not feeling "pressured" to beat it as quickly as possible means that I can savour the beautiful world that makes up that game, take my time to explore and enjoy the extra content it has on offer, and move on to beat it when I'm good and ready. When I've beaten that, I have Demon's Souls, Disgaea 3, Darksiders, Resident Evil 4, killer7 and a whole host of other things to play through—a backlog of games that literally covers years. Eventually I'll get through them all—hopefully in time for a Dragon Age II game of the year edition or even Mass Effect 3.

Of course, this will all go out the window once Catherine comes out in the States and I immediately import it but hey. That's another one that might end up being hard to find, so it's an investment, hey?