The Backlog Check-In Vol. 455: 9/21/26: Control Resonant Edition

[canedaddy]

New games this week...

Sept. 21
Dressmaker (PC)
Undusted: Letters From The Past (Mac)

Sept. 22
Dune: Awakening (PS5, Xbox)
Graveyard Keeper 2 (PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC)
Well Dweller (PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC)

Sept. 23
Lawn Mowing Simulator 2 (PS5, Xbox, PC)
Otterly Lost (PC)
Qliphah in Providence's Shadow (PS5, Switch, PC)
Stick It To The Stickman (PC)
Wind Runners (PC)

Sept. 24
Control Resonant (PS5, Xbox, PC, Mac)
EA Sports FC 27 (PS5/PS4, Xbox, Switch, PC)
Garfield – Escape from Monday (PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC)
Kingdom Rush 6: Genesis (PC, iOS, Android)
Silent Hill: Townfall (PS5, PC)
Sin: Reloaded (PS5/PS4, Xbox, Switch, PC)

Sept. 25
The Relic: First Guardian (Xbox)




Played recently: Dragon Quest Builders

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

I had a very busy week... didn't get in much gaming. Maybe none? Can't remember, haha.

[jfissel]

Finished: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (platinum)

Now Playing: Wolverine

Added to Backlog: Wolverine

Current Backlog: 35 games

Got the platinum in Expedition 33, will have to write up my full thoughts a little later. Bought Wolverine and will start that this week.

[isthatallyougot]

Played an hour or so of Onimusha 3. I'm interested, but it hasn't gripped me early on.

I'm also really spending a lot of time with Slay the Spire. Really fun, deep and challenging. (And of course OOTP. Please send halp.)

Brief argyle's movie review (TM) via izzy:

Prisoners (2013, Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano):



A couple of young neighborhood kids of two families that are friends are abducted at the same time. The police (and the families) have a strong suspect (Dano) in custody, but he denies any involvement under examination, and cannot be held due to lack of evidence. The father of one of the girls is convinced he's guilty (Jackman). He's a real A-type and action oriented, even when discretion and patience may be warranted. He confronts the suspect as he's leaving the police station to be released, and Alex (Dano's character) says something cryptic suggesting his involvement when Keller (Jackman's character) tries to rough him up a bit in his sadness, rage and belief that this is the man. These few words by Alex sets Keller OFF, and he is determined to take things into his own hands, believing the police to be incompetent and/or too slow. Detective Loki (Gyllenhall's character) is, however, an honorable and driven cop that seems to have some deep wounds of his own that motivate him with equal fervor to Keller. Ultimately it's all a search for the girls and an attempt to extract the truth from Alex. The families and the cops are approaching the same goal but with decidedly different methods as things unfold and there is a great deal of tension as the families and the detective Loki are breaking under the stress. It also has an interesting twist of an ending.

Anyway, it was a very good movie overall. Another one that I had never even heard of. It's funny because when you are a parent raising your kid(s), it's so easy for so much of pop-culture to slip through the cracks, and I missed so much (not in a bad way - I love my child more than anything) during the period of active parenthood. So, often I go back and realize there are many things I have the opportunity to catch up on from that period of life, and this movie was one such thing. Surely worth a watch, although if you are sensitive to violence, there are some parts that may be a little tough to endure.

[argyle]

Another movie to add to my list - I've never heard of it either, but I like both Jackman and Gyllenhaal, and the premise sounds really good.

Games added: The Adventures of Elliot: The Millenium Tales (xbox)

Last week: Finished nothing, played TAoE and Balatro

This week: Same

The demo for TAoE is the first 4 hours or so of the game (the clock read 3:57 when I finished it), and your save carries over to the full game. I ordered the first game Friday before I had wrapped up the demo, finished the demo that night & the game came in the mail on Sat. I love it, it's good STRONG old-school action JRPG vibes and is just plain fun. Some very pretty pixel graphics don't hurt either.

Not a movie, but I watched the first 2 episodes of the new animated series based on Golden Axe, and it's great. They went the comedy route, and I think that was a wise choice - I mean, really, how can you take an extremely basic 80's arcade game plot seriously? There are tons of references to the games, mainly the characters poking fun at it, so for any fans of the game, it's just that much better. I'm looking forward to finishing this one up this week or next.

[crimson_tide]

Hey all!

Played: DQB2 (at a good stopping point. Just finished the second main mining island), LAD Ishin (...I dunno. I still don't really care for this but I still want to give it an old college try), FF16 (wait for it...), Puzzle Fighter and Bust a Move (the wife has a hankering to play that got us to start here...It Takes Two is next...).

Bought: Nothing

Beat: Nothing

FF16. It's mostly brown and gray and bloody and boring. But the combat is fun. Really fun. But those long boring cutscenes sadly inspired by game of thrones...oh but also Clive is cool. Too goddamn pretty but still cool. And the side quests are literally 'take this across the street and warp back to the quest giver to collect the miniscule nothing reward but isn't all the high English writing and voice acting a hoot?'

...but the goddamn SPECTACLE! ACCEPTING THE TRUTH WAS EVERYTHING AND I ALREADY KNEW THE TRUTH BECAUSE IT'S NOT HARD TO FIGURE OUT AT ALL! Seriously, I just can't with this game. Why isn't it just Asura's Wrath? As much grief a that game got, it's one of the best experiences I have ever had in gaming. Parts of this are that. And then the vast majority is gray and brown and bloody and needlessly sweary. I want more of the Eioon battles and to see what nuttiness Clive gets up to in combat but I now get the lukewarm response. I don't hate it and I'm not going to not call it Final Fantasy because they ****ing named it Final Fantasy so that's what the **** it is. It should have been a tighter 15-20 hour action experience instead of this sprawling jrpg clearly. I want to ditch it but like that kid on the big wheel in The Incredibles, I feel like I will miss something amazing if I just flat leave it. At least FF7 Rebirth is on deck next and if that doesn't hit my FF spectacle button, I might have to reevaluate my relationship with this franchise.

Oh and Cid-mon Cowell sucks. I really want him to die violently. Try hard loser... seriously, I hate this guy so much.

j, did you not play this? I went to see how many hours it took you and was taken back it wasn't in your trophy list (I don't stalk you, just know we share similar gaming tastes, promise ).

[jfissel]

j, did you not play this? I went to see how many hours it took you and was taken back it wasn't in your trophy list (I don't stalk you, just know we share similar gaming tastes, promise ).

FF16? I still have 15 in my backlog (and XIII-3 tbh). Don't even own 16...maybe one day, I'll get to some of these.

[argyle]

I played a bit of FF16 a few years back, probably 15-20 hours I'd guess? It was fine, but I lost interest. Yeah, it's FF, just like this is Transformers:

transformers-devastator.gif (2.44 MiB) Viewed 26 times

In other news, I was playing some Adventures of Elliot the night before last, and at the same time, I was thinking about what Izzy said last week about this feeling like the actual PS2 Backlog again, with him playing PS2 games, etc. In all honesty, this year has felt a lot like a renaissance of the PS1/PS2 days. The thought started with the game I was playing, which feels 100% like a game from that era. Then you have this run that Capcom has been on, the likes of which we haven't seen since the PS2 - not even mentioning the fact that 2 of those games were sequels to RE & Onimusha. Square-Enix has another old-school inspired game coming next month with Final Fantasy Resonance, which, from my understanding, uses the ATB battle system - and I think that will be the first time they've used it in a FF game since X & X-2? And we can't forget Konami, which is releasing the first 2D Castlevania game on a console since Symphony of the Night (Mirror of Fate doesn't count, as it was a port of a 3DS game). Then we've got Silent Hill enjoying a nice comeback, a new Crazy Taxi on the way, and Capcom talking about bringing back MORE old franchises (c'mon Maximo and Breath of Fire!).

There's a lot crappy going on in gaming, as usual - but there's still some good stuff too.

[isthatallyougot]

There's a lot crappy going on in gaming, as usual - but there's still some good stuff too.

Yeah, for me, gaming is such a broad and expansive medium, I don't know how anyone with varied interests could possibly complain. And as with so much of life, it's a matter of where you direct your attention. I do understand people's resistance to change with the loss of physical media and so much of the shenanigans perpetrated by the big players, but there's always stuff like that in the realm of commerce. For *ME*, gaming is an experience and not a product/thing in the tangible sense, however. But yeah, plenty of positives within the format, although of course, ymmv depending on what you value and prioritize. My biggest "problem" is simply deciding WHAT to play and trying to include as much variety while still giving games I really want to play significant attention. Other than that, I'm as pleased as a pig in slop.