Well friends, I find myself in the odd position of having way more things right now that I want to play than I can possibly find hours in the day to play them. To be fair I am notorious for trying to juggle two or three games at a time, but I find myself in truly anxiety ridden territory right now. With the blog in theory behaving properly and me getting back in the swing of daily posting, lets delve into what happens when everything gets pushed off to the end of the year.
Destiny 2
This is the game that has been getting the majority of my attention since the launch of Beyond Light. I wrote the other day about the frustrations that came with the weapon sunset and the removal of content, and those frustrations still exist but have lessened a bit. Firstly with the beginning of the Season of the Hunt we have a new method to target specific drops, which helps to fill out that weapon vault once again. Additionally the content seems to have a longer tail than a traditional D2 expansion and I am still seemingly unlocking content long after finishing the story. Lastly I have found out that I can just kill roaming rares on Europa to get a shot at the entire weapon pool from that destination and as such have picked up several options including a new functional legendary Machinegun.
Now the thing that makes ZERO sense to me… and I wish someone could explain is that each time I have run a strike and a legendary has dropped… it has been this legendary. I have looted so many copies of this weapon, but the original roll that I have been holding onto seems to still be the best. Not saying this isn’t a solid weapon, but I would love to see more of the loot pool than just this one shotgun.
Genshin Impact
Genshin Impact is the game that is suffering the most right now due to my many distractions. There are a few events happening and I am failing to participate in them. The challenge with Genshin Impact is that it feels like this game really wants it to be your ONLY game right now. We went from the challenge of not having enough to do in a day to having WAY MORE to do than you can possibly get done. This is awesome for those who are still mainlining this experience, but for me who has pushed it to the back burner I feel like I am getting further and further behind. Grace and I are now no longer on the same world level which limits what we can do together… which is frustrating.
Diablo 3
Diablo 3 Season 22 starts on Friday, and originally I had contemplated just giving this one a skip. The conquests are not super enjoyable looking, but the book pet is sorta adorable. Grace was planning on doing this one solo even if I decided to skip, and as a result I have decided I am going to do the thing as well. More than anything I think I could just use the chill hang time that a Diablo seasonal grind always represents. In truth it doesn’t really take all that much time, and I plan on going easymode demon hunter in order to complete things quickly. May the luck be in my favor that I get a primal ancient yangs or something like that to help push this along faster. The 4th cube slot is going to provide some really odd builds.
Godfall
I feel like in another world and another time this game and me might have had something. However given its relatively lifeless state and the fact that I have so many other things on my plate right now… I am mostly okay watching it whiz by. To be honest I think the only reason why this game is getting any notice is the fact that it is one of the next gen experiences available for the PlayStation 5 right now. I have it on the PC and it has some significant performance issues on my 1080 ti, which admittedly is part of the reason why I am fine not playing it. I hope it gets some tuning passes, but the bigger problem is that the game as a whole feels like it doesn’t really have a soul to bind you to it. It reminds me of all of the story problems that Destiny 1 had of making you feel like you are dropped in the middle of something that was already happening and giving you zero explanation of what the hell is going on. The problem there however is that Destiny 1 had compelling enough gameplay to make me overlook that but Godfall does not.
World of Warcraft Shadowlands
I was more than happy to largely ignore that World of Warcraft existed for the last few weeks. I spent some time doing the Icecrown rares with my guild and managed to gear up my Paladin and even got the much coveted 34 slot bag. However without realizing it… we are now on the cusp of a new expansion launch. Monday night at 5pm my time I will be venturing forth into the Shadowlands and as a result I am preparing for this to suddenly take all of my focus. I’m even contemplating cooking up something in the crock pot during the day so we have a hot and ready meal waiting on us that I can just fix a plate of whenever I get hungry. That way I can focus all of my attention on being frustrated as the servers burn down around me. Given the state of this year I am expecting anything but a smooth launch, but have a glimmer of hope that I will be pleasantly surprised. Regardless it is leveling in a new expansion time and that is a rare and precious thing that I am going to cherish.
Demon’s Souls
I have no idea why I suddenly find this game so damned compelling. It might be that I Just bought a $500 console and I feel like I need to justify that purchase and this is the only truly next generation game available for it. It might also be that I have always been intrigued by the Souls game genre but never really allow myself to get into it, and there is something oddly compelling about the gameplay. I rerolled last night as a Temple Knight, so that I could start out with a decent twohanded option or at least one that can switch hit between one and two. The two handed no block style is definitely more of my jam, and as a result I made it quite a bit further last night before dinner arrived and I got distracted by the comfy sofa. I realize I live in opposite land where my consoles are all hooked up in my office and my sofa is where I do chill laptop gaming. I still have no clue what I am doing but I am enjoying myself so I guess that is the first step?
Ghost of Tsushima
I finally have my PS5 and you are so damned gorgeous and play so incredibly smoothly. Now I just need to figure out a way to duplicate myself so I can enjoy all of these experiences at once without feeling like I am leaving anything on the table. Hold tight my sweet… we will have our time eventually once I stop being so damned distracted.
Bugsnax
In another time and another place we could have been friends weird muppet pokemon skyrim. You just aren’t compelling enough when compared against all of the other things on my plate. I am glad you were given to me freely by the good folks that set up the PlayStation Now games, because I would have felt awkward ignoring you. I know Tam is your friend, and I am sure I am going to feel pangs of regret this weekend as he tells me how wonderful you are. Seriously though… just can’t right now.
Watch Dogs Legion
Legion is a really interesting game, but there is just something about it that never really grabbed me. I love how rich the world is… but it also feels like there isn’t a lot to do in it other than walk around. I feel like this is a game that Grand Theft Auto players would really be into, given that it is mostly a cycle of steal a car, drive to the mission, do the mission and then try and escape and lay low until the heat has dissipated. That has never really been a super enjoyable format for me, because firstly I don’t love driving cars in these sort of games. Secondly I found myself wanting something to do in the points in between the missions. At least in a game like Division where society has fallen… there are random combat encounters as I wind my way across a painfully detailed landscape. Here you just have a bunch of civilians and occasionally one of them might be interesting enough to want to recruit, but mostly you are traversing large spaces to get to small bits of micro content. I want to return to it someday but I am very glad that I chose to go the Ubisoft subscription route rather than plunk down a large wad of cash on this given how distracted I am right now.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
This one I feel real sad about because I have it installed… but have not even booted it up. Too many other things pulling my attention in too many other directions. I also know that since the way I play this game is in a purely single player fashion, that I will get just as much enjoyment from playing it in 2022 as I will in 2020. Someday I will visit it and roam around in its Norse goodness. This is also another situation where I am real glad I opted for the monthly sub rather than buying it outright.
There we have it friends… my very first world problem that I am lucky to have. On the other side of the coin I am still regularly playing caretaker for my parents, and more of my family has contracted covid so there are stressors there as well. I am thankful that I am so lucky as to be constantly distracted by my hobbies, because this is a year where I am clung to them like a safety blanket. They have been what has allowed me to stay sane through all of this, and while I am in sort of overload mode right now it will give me plenty to focus on as we go into 2021 and realize that things are not going to be magically better. I fully expect that 2021 will feel an awful lot like 2020, minus one major factor… that we will have a change in the oval office. The plague will still be out there and even though vaccines are on the cusp of release it is going to take a significant amount of time to distribute them far and wide enough to make a dent in the numbers. I am very thankful to have many other worlds that I can escape into when this one is just too much to handle.