Pixelated Sausage - Attack the Backlog

Things got a little rocky at the end. An annoying boss followed by another annoying boss almost soured the whole experience. Thankfully, the good of Kena greatly outweighs what little bad is there, so not much love was lost. There are things to nitpick and little ways they could have improved this or that, but what's there is a solid experience that doesn't overstay its welcome and leaves me excited to see what Ember Lab does next. If you want a fun adventure with a well-told story and beautiful art, you'll get that and more with Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Kena: Bridge if Spirits is a game I've been wanting to play ever since it was announced. I was so excited for it, I bought it on PlayStation 4. But as we all know, there is only so much time and we can only play one game at a time, so Kena ended up where 99% of my games end up: the backlog. Then, when I had the time and had the desire, a curveball appeared: Kena was announced for Xbox. "What?" I somehow got it into my head that Kena was a console exclusive. I was wrong. So with this news I waited, waited for the Xbox release to finally arrive and, well, here we are; was it worth the wait? Watch or listen to find out. (It's not like the title gives the answer away or anything...)

The title says it all. While Destiny 2 may have been a great game at launch and may still be great for those who went along for the ride these last seven years, it is not great for new players. If you're coming to Destiny 2 fresh--or in my case, after not playing for somewhere between six and seven years--you will be met with the same opening tutorial that was there from day one, but everything after that is a confusing mess of, "What should I do next? What's that thing there? What are all these menus?" and so on. There may be worse examples out there, but Destiny 2 is easily one of the worst games at onboarding new players I've played in years, maybe ever.

"Oh how I wish this was a 'regular' game," Marc said, enjoying their time in Disney Speedstorm. "Why did this have to be one of the most free-to-play games I've ever played?" 'Tis a tale as old as time. The tale of a game getting in its own way by forcing a bunch of nonsense down your throat when all you want to do is pay once--excluding future DLC, of course--and play forever (or until you get bored and want something new to play). If Disney Speedstorm was such a game, I'd wholeheartedly recommend it; however, as it is, I can only say give it a shot, I guess, since it's free (and actually really good when you're playing), but just know you won't be able to avoid the excessive free-to-play trappings that make up the skeleton, muscles, and skin of Disney Speedstorm.

This whole week has been a painful blur, starting with a scary injury I'm still recovering from--a scary injury that could have been much worse--and ending with this episode of Attack the Backlog about THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Remake. In some ways I feel lucky for picking this game before the injury happened because it was easy and short enough to still manage an episode in my compromised state, but, at the same time, that means I had to play THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Remake. You can probably already tell how I feel about the game, but if you really want to know, I guess you'll have to check out the show.

Well, I thought I had more time left than was actually the case. With only an hour and a half left to complete the story, I couldn't just stand and say that was enough for the final episode of this backlog attack. Being the considerate person I am, I went ahead and spent an additional hour and a half going after collectibles and completing every side race and side quest I found during my exploration. It was miserable. You're welcome.

Nothing like a random Seinfeld reference to start off a new Attack the Backlog series. As evident by the title, this new series is all about LEGO 2K Drive--aka LEGO Forza Horizon (even though there are LEGO expansions for Forza Horizon so it's kind of already been done, but also not, but also yes, and now I've gone cross-eyed, to make another random reference). I could keep fooling around, but I know you're all dying to find out what I think of LEGO 2K Drive, so without further ado...

I made a bit of a mistake committing to make this week's episode the last episode, "forcing" myself to play the game for almost 13 hours. This led to pushing through frustrating times when a break would have been welcome and a need of crunching when it came to recording, editing, and posting this here episode. Did this commitment completely ruin my experience? Not at all; however, I do think it soured it a bit more than it would have been normally. That said, in spite of some bloat, poor boss fights, a bad ending, and a few console-related issues, I still had a great time with System Shock; it just ended up as more of an 8 great than a 9 great.

You know that feeling when you push a button and accidentally kill millions of people on Earth, so you don't push the button until you know you won't accidentally kill millions of people on Earth and then you forget about the button you didn't push but can push now if only you remembered the button was there just waiting to be pushed? You know, a regular Saturday night... That's this week's episode in a nutshell. There's also a giant spider mech, super boots, and skulls in diving suit helmets, but who's counting, eh...

Unlike The Ascent, there were no 180s this week with System Shock; I'm still loving the game. Sure, it's not perfect--Cyberspace continues to frustrate and annoy, and combat in general hasn't changed all that much--but the story, world-building, and general sense of discovery and tension are all excellent, keeping me invested and engaged in this world I'm bummed to leave when I have to eat or sleep. You know it's a good sign when you want to keep playing when you call it a night.