Tag: microsoft

2025 in video games

On By Luther M. SilerIn video gamesLeave a comment

Ghost of Yotei was Game of the Year. It wasn’t close. I played a fair number of really good games this year, but the sequel to the best game of 2020 and one of my favorite games of all time was the best game of 2025, and I feel like that’s probably not something that’s going to surprise anyone.

The big story for me this year was how much more use my Xbox got compared to every previous year; I leaned into Game Pass a lot more than I have in the past, and anything that I could get for free on Xbox ended up being played on that console. I’m still pretty agnostic as far as the virtues of the two consoles go; how well a game runs really seems to be more dependent on the game itself than the system I’m running it on, and I’m well beyond the point where gigaflorps and raytraces and whatever the graphical buzzword of the day might be is particularly impressive. The biggest graphical moments of the year for me were a character moment in Clair Obscur and realizing that the light coming through a stained glass window in a church was actually reflecting off my character in the right colors in whichever Sniper Elite I played this year. 6, maybe? Let’s say 6.

For the second year in a row, I did not touch the Switch, and my son showed no interest at all in picking up a Switch 2, so we haven’t. I am strongly considering a Steam Machine when it comes out in 2026, though.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was probably Yotei’s closest competition, and was definitely the most unique game I played this year, as damn near everything else was either a Soulslike or a Metroidvania or a combination of both– I am nothing if not consistent with my preferred genres. It had the best turn-based gameplay I’ve ever encountered and combined it with a stunningly good story and hauntingly beautiful graphics and if it wasn’t for the bit where it used up all of its goodwill in the amazingly misconceived grindfest that is Act III, I’d probably still be playing it.

Khazan: The First Berserker does not involve any berserking but hooooooooly shit was it a lot of fun and I put more hours into it than anything else I played this year, including Yotei. I played through it completely twice before moving on to the next game. That doesn’t happen very often. What kept this one from GOTY? The lack of depth to the story, mostly. The combat was exceptionally good but the story didn’t hold a candle to the emotional resonance of Yotei or Clair Obscur, leaving the game just a touch below both of them.

I also played the shit out of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and loved 95% of it, and for the other 5% I was staring at a blurry mess of pixels as the game struggled to keep up with itself. There was also a bug in the platinum trophy, which meant that after doing absolutely everything in the game and getting all of the other trophies, I didn’t get the trophy that you get for getting all the trophies. Look, game, they’re right there. They did finally push through an update months later that gave me credit for everything, and I keep hearing there might be a big story DLC that will absolutely pull me back into the game, but a bug stopping me from getting the final trophy in this one stuck in my craw a bit. The game itself was great, though.

This is the entire map for Crypt Custodian, a game where you play a ghost cat that beats up enemies with a broom. I assume that you can tell how much I loved the game just from looking at how huge and complicated this map is. I love exploration-heavy games. This one was amazing.

And finally …

This is a screenshot from Crime Scene Cleaner, a ridiculous little game where you are tossed into the role of a guy whose job it is to clean up after heinous mob crimes. This includes getting rid of all the bodies, picking up anything broken, restoring anything that isn’t, and cleaning up every tiny little spot of blood. Upgrading your abilities includes things like getting better mops and bags that can hold larger volumes of garbage.

It was, and this is a great way to find out if you and I are people or not, one of the most relaxing games I played this year. Walk into utter fucking nightmare chaos and restore order? Sign me up. I want a sequel. They can do a new version of this game every year if they want to, I’ll keep playing it.

And, for the second day in a row, I’ve written “I want more of this” in a post, then gone and looked, and found out there was more! They apparently released a big DLC back in June and it never crossed my radar. Hooray!

What did you play this year?

2024 in video games

On By Luther M. SilerIn video gamesLeave a comment

I was all ready to write a big long post about the best video games of 2024. Then I thought about it for a while.

Turns out … there weren’t that many, really? At least by my standards? And that’s really surprising, to be honest. I spend a fair amount of time playing video games, as all of you know, although my rabid devotion to reading certainly stole a lot of time this year that might have been spent on playing games in previous years. This year has been a lot of either mediocrity or “Oh, that was fun, I guess” types of games without much staying power.

One way or another Shadow of the Erdtree is Game of the Year.

But … man.

I basically went through all of 2024 and didn’t touch my Xbox. Check this out:

Unpacking is a cute little thing but is entertaining for a couple of hours. Palworld is a Pokemon ripoff that I played with my son for a little while, and that’s already a year ago. Of the four games left, the only one I liked (and, frankly, the only one I played for more than a couple of hours was Lies of P, and I’m pretty sure that was in 2023.

I played zero Switch games in 2024.

My PS5 game list is a little more robust, but still, it’s really nothing to write home about. I’m having fun with Cult of the Lamb right now, and I downloaded Carrion earlier today because I was curious and it was five bucks. Neither are 2024 games. Baldur’s Gate III left me cold and I never finished it, quitting after Act II. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever go back. Lords of the Fallen was fun and kept stepping on its dick. There have been tons of updates since I beat it, so I might go back at some point, but I spent at least 20% of the time I was playing it absolutely hating it. I played through The Surge; the sequel was a vast improvement. I still haven’t finished Rise of the Ronin because Shadow of the Erdtree got in the way. Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Black Myth: Wukong were the only challengers to Shadow for my personal GOTY, and really, neither of them were very close. BM:W is definitely the best full game of the year, but Erdtree is a better game.

I know there was a recent expansion for BM:W, and there’s supposedly big DLC coming, so I’ll probably go back to it at some point. I need to play through at least part of Veilguard again if I want the platinum. I’ll probably do it eventually.

As far as the rest of the actual GOTY candidates … well, I’ve played the ones I’m going to play. Deckbuilders hold no attraction for me, so Balatro is out. I want nothing to do with the Final Fantasy series, much less the remakes. Metaphor: ReFantazio has too stupid of a name for me to even look into it, and I refuse to admit that Astro Bot is even a real game. The whole series is a marketing gimmick. It might be a good game; I just don’t care. And it takes a lot to get me into a platformer anyway. I definitely enjoy one once in a while but they’re rare.

I wasn’t expecting this post to end with “Blech,” but … blech.

In which I might have something, or maybe not, I dunno

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, video gamesLeave a comment

I think I’ve ordered an Xbox Series X, to be picked up Friday from my local Best Buy. I’m not sure I actually believe it, though; I’m fully expecting to get to Friday afternoon with no notification that my Xbox is ready to be picked up, and the craziest bit is that I still haven’t completely convinced myself that I want one. The thing is, the new consoles have all been insanely hard to find– I literally camped at my computer and hit Reload over and over on Walmart.com to get my PS5, and for this Xbox I think I just had some phenomenally lucky timing. Assuming, again, that it’s not a hoax.

And here’s the thing: I’m going to get a Series X eventually, because of Bethesda. Microsoft bought them, and word is they’ll be exclusive to the Series X for a while, and I want to play their games. And I’m sure there’s a ton of indie stuff out there that’s Xbox-only, because I keep hearing about how good Microsoft is for indie developers. But, like, right now? Hell if I know what my first game for this thing is going to be, and it’s entirely possible that I’m going to bring it home without any plans to buy any particular games for it. There was a reason I was able to skip the entire Xbox One generation: there was never a single game that made it feel worth it to try and buy the console. Which, given that my Xbox 360 and my OG Xbox were both beloved consoles, never really made any sense to me. But, like, everything I want to play right now is on PS5. I can play Halo Infinite, I suppose, but skipping every Halo game since Halo 3 didn’t bother me any, so I think I can probably do without this one?

(Don’t come at me about which console is “better.” The better console is the one that has games I want to play. I don’t even know what a teraflop is and I don’t care which console has more of them.)

I recognize that this is the most First World Problem ever– waah waah I have the opportunity to spend hundreds of dollars of discretionary income on an expensive electronic device and I don’t know if I wannnnnnaaaaaaaaaa!!!11!11!one!!!! but it’s, like, genuinely bugging me. Right now I’m leaning more toward cancelling the thing than picking it up, which will mean that I’m not spending a ton of money right now but will still ensure that I’m spending the money later, because again, I’m going to want one of these eventually, I just don’t necessarily want it now. Like, if I come home with an Xbox Series X on Friday it’s going to have dust on it by March, I think. But … like, okay? Is that really that big of a deal? I’m taking up some extra desktop space for something that’s going to future-proof me for a while. It’s not like I don’t have the money; if anything, I’m in a better financial place right now than I’ve ever been in my life, and that’s only going to improve over the next few months unless something catastrophic happens.

At which point if they’re still hard to find I can try and flip the damn thing on eBay for $1000 or some shit like that, I suppose.

Bah.