The Backlog Check-in Vol. 426: 2/28/26: Marathon & Pokemon Pokopia Edition

[jfissel]

World of Warcraft: Midnight (PC, Mac) – March 2
Esoteric Ebb (PC) - March 3
Gnaughty Gnomes (PC) - March 3
Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC) - March 3
Scott Pilgrim EX (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PC) - March 3
Homura Hime (PC) - March 4
Marathon (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) - March 5
Never Grace: The Witch and the Curse (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC) - March 5
Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch 2, Switch, PC) - March 5
Pokemon Pokopia (Switch 2) - March 5
Poker Night at the Inventory (Remaster) (PlayStation 4, Switch, PC) – March 5
Portrait of a Torn (PlayStation 5) – March 5
Slay the Spire 2 (PC early access) - March 5
Timberborn (PC) – March 5
Heart of the Machine (PC) - March 6
Lost and Found Co. (PC) - March 6
Mirage 7 (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC) - March 6
Over The Top: WW1 (PC) - March 6
Sumerian Six (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S) – March 6


Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 38 games

Beat the YK3 story and currently working through the rest of the trophies for that part of the game. Then comes the Dark Ties spinoff game with Mine.

[isthatallyougot]

Have any of you guys got anything special a'brewin' for the rest of the year?!? RE9 just came out, the DQ VII remake (j/cane?), whatever? I've got lots of things I'd like to try if I could ever tear myself away from my true love!!!! Not bloody likely!

Man, OOTP just sucks me in and won't let go, ha! Well if you can't live for your bliss, life ain't worth too much, I reckon. So, in the honor of the coming spring, baseball, optimism, happy vibes and the ever-recurring and natural renewal of seasons and cycles (and argyle's presumably sweet new set-up!), I offer a couple tracks in that spirit for the virtual spinner:

(I could easily have thrown out Here Comes the Sun here, and it's surely a deserving classic, but it gets/has gotten an abundance of play over the years.)

[canedaddy]

Have any of you guys got anything special a'brewin' for the rest of the year?!? RE9 just came out, the DQ VII remake (j/cane?), whatever? I've got lots of things I'd like to try if I could ever tear myself away from my true love!!!! Not bloody likely!

Good question. I'm rarely buying games on day 1 these days, but there are a handful slated to come out this year that might change that (GTA VI, Marvel's Wolverine, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Blood of the Dawnwalker). We will see!


Played recently: Horizon: Forbidden West

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

I wasn't super excited to start Forbidden West, maybe because I heard so much negativity online, but I finally fired it up and I'm really enjoying it so far (even though some of the criticism is undeniably true). Beautiful game, fun world to explore, robot dinosaurs, I cannot complain.

[argyle]

Games added: Halloween / Ash vs Evil Dead double-pack (Switch)

Last week: Finished F:NV - Old World Blues

This week: Playing Dead Island 2, Silent Hill 2 Remake


Played some Dead Ilsand 2 last night (it's been on Gamepass where I tried it out, but it was $7 for the game & all expansions on the MS store so I went ahead & bought it). It's dumb fun, so I think I'll stick with it for a bit. Trying to catch up at work this week so I have very little brain power left at night.


Oh, here's the pics I promised of my turntable setup!

[isthatallyougot]

Games added: Halloween / Ash vs Evil Dead double-pack (Switch)

Last week: Finished F:NV - Old World Blues

This week: Playing Dead Island 2, Silent Hill 2 Remake


Played some Dead Ilsand 2 last night (it's been on Gamepass where I tried it out, but it was $7 for the game & all expansions on the MS store so I went ahead & bought it). It's dumb fun, so I think I'll stick with it for a bit. Trying to catch up at work this week so I have very little brain power left at night.


Oh, here's the pics I promised of my turntable setup!


PXL_20260303_032722222.jpgPXL_20260303_032741489.jpgPXL_20260303_032758167.jpgPXL_20260303_032812344.jpg

VERY cool! Thanks for sharing. I see your homage to Roxette (I remember how much you love them) on your wall. It's a shame that Marie's life ended so relatively young. Well, since you've been so busy, maybe you can just listen to music rather than gaming for some chill time.

I definitely want to hear your SH2 remake impressions. It's HIGH on the list of my all-time favorites - the original, and I was very skeptical of a treatment doing it justice, but despite my reservations, it seems to have hit the mark.

I just recently re-watched an older classic in Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time in many years. What a film!

[canedaddy]

That is a dope setup, argyle! What is the thing that looks like a controller on top of the Sharp machine at right?

[jfissel]

Have any of you guys got anything special a'brewin' for the rest of the year?!? RE9 just came out, the DQ VII remake (j/cane?), whatever? I've got lots of things I'd like to try if I could ever tear myself away from my true love!!!! Not bloody likely!

GTA VI for sure, 007 First Light most likely. Unsure about other new games yet to release, but Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Wolverine might get a spot. Other than that, DQ7R is a buy for me at some point for another 2026 release. I would like to play Indiana Jones and Clair Obscur this year as well.

I wasn't super excited to start Forbidden West, maybe because I heard so much negativity online, but I finally fired it up and I'm really enjoying it so far (even though some of the criticism is undeniably true). Beautiful game, fun world to explore, robot dinosaurs, I cannot complain.

what was the negativity? I don't even remember at this point, lol.

[canedaddy]

what was the negativity? I don't even remember at this point, lol.

One thing I recall is the gripe that NPCs gave you hints/suggestions before you even had a chance to look where to go or what to do, and that is 100% true.

[jfissel]

what was the negativity? I don't even remember at this point, lol.

One thing I recall is the gripe that NPCs gave you hints/suggestions before you even had a chance to look where to go or what to do, and that is 100% true.

Ah yes, I remember a few times where I just wanted to think for a second and a character said something. That wasn't patched out over the years?

[argyle]

VERY cool! Thanks for sharing. I see your homage to Roxette (I remember how much you love them) on your wall. It's a shame that Marie's life ended so relatively young. Well, since you've been so busy, maybe you can just listen to music rather than gaming for some chill time.

I have been doing that as well. It's very nice having my turntable back in operation - I enjoy putting on an album and listening to the whole thing as intended without skipping songs, etc.

I definitely want to hear your SH2 remake impressions. It's HIGH on the list of my all-time favorites - the original, and I was very skeptical of a treatment doing it justice, but despite my reservations, it seems to have hit the mark.

It's one of my favorites too. I really don't think anything can top the experience I had with that game when it first came out. I had a ritual of sorts with it, I would only play it very late at night with all of the lights out. Really set the mood. It made a lot of that game really stick with me. I haven't gotten very far in the remake - been more in the mood for hacking zombies to pieces after getting off work this week - but I'll probably play it some more this weekend. I'm trying to look at it as its own thing, because I just think comparing it to my memory of the original is going to hurt it. But that's hard to do.

I just recently re-watched an older classic in Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time in many years. What a film!

Tam put on one of the most recent Dracula remakes last weekend, I think it was called Dracula: A Love Tale. It was surprisingly good, and some of the design choices reminded me of Bram Stoker's. I actually enjoyed it a lot more than Nosferatu, which was the one everyone was ga-ga about a year or two ago.

That is a dope setup, argyle! What is the thing that looks like a controller on top of the Sharp machine at right?

Story time!

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So last week, the conference I was at was a technology conference that had the theme "Game On!". So all of their designs, decorations, etc. were game themed - lots of old-school stuff like Pac-Man. They had a thing going where if you participated in certain events, had a good converation with a vendor, (or almost any reason, really) they would give you these poker chips that you could "redeem" at their store for swag. T-shirts, water bottles, etc. I got a couple pretty early on the first day, so I swung by to get a t-shirt in case they ran out of my size later on. When I got there, I saw 2 of those controller things on top of the prize display shelves. They're infinity mirrors - they have a reflective metallic sheet over some LEDs, and when you turn it on the lights reflecting make it look like it just goes forever. Very cool. So I got my shirt, and then asked the lady how many coins I'd need for one of those. She didn't know - the other stuff was listed on a sign next to the shelves, but not those. So I just laughed & said "Maybe you guys will have figured it out by the time I have more coins" and she laughed as well, we moved on.

The last day of the conference I swung back by to cash in whatever I had left at that point, and I asked again about the infinity mirror things. Different lady was there this time, and she tells me that they aren't prizes, just decorations, but that she's had a LOT of people ask about them. Another lady working with them says she ordered them off of Amazon, and they were really cheap. I laugh & say OK, and say I'll just take a water bottle then. The first lady hands it to me then takes down one of the controllers and says "Here you go, since you've been such a great attendee." I thanked her very much, and...now it sits on my shelf.

BTW, that thing it's sitting on is a Blu-ray player that a friend gave me several years back - he botched a firmware update & now it only plays region 2 Blu-rays. But turns out it makes an excellent CD player. The silver stereo there I bought waaay back when I was still in college, so I'm still getting my money's worth out of that.