Key Takeaways:
- Tunic rules
- Walkabout Golf is the best VR experience
- Halo is a huge disappointment
- Excited for Steam Deck
Tunic
I haven't beaten Tunic yet but its by far, my favorite game of the year. The design is a throwback to Zelda: A Link to the Past with a dash of Dark Souls. It was the first game I have played in quite a while that was capitvating and rewarding. As I unlocked pages of the manual to discover more secrets, I may have done a first pump or two.
As beautiful as this game is on my desktop, I can't wait to play this game on the Steam Deck!
Walkabout Golf
My Discord friends were all talking about VR and I finally caved and purchased an Oculus Quest 2. While I have zero desire to support Facebook (Meta 🤮), it is really the only option that makes sense for VR at the moment. I can't imagine spending the cost of a Valve Index to play "experiences" that are rarely full featured games and rarely enjoyable for more than a few minutes at a time. This is where Walkabout Golf comes in to play.
This game sold me on VR. It is engrossing, especially when playing with your friends. We already were having some good nights playing "Golf with Friends" on Xbox Game Pass and so pulling on the headset and being raucus with friends while someone is putting seemed a natural fit.
My favorite moments are when things like this happen:
PSA: if you get tired, don't lean on one of the in-game rails or try to sit on a ledge.
Halo Infinite
Let me get this out of the way: Halo Infinite Campaing is close to being good. Its a fun experience. Like every other game in my life, I have played it for 20+ hours but not finished the campaign. This section is about multiplayer. Also, yes I am complaining about a Free-to-Play (FTP) game. There was no reason to make this a FTP game.
I am a lifelong Halo player. It's crazy to realize that Halo:CE came out over 20 years ago. Halo was a game that cemented some of my life long friendships and was always a game I loved. As I got more in to PC gaming and got rid of my consoles, I dreamed of the day when I could play Halo on PC, and with all my friends.
We should have known better after all the terrible releases for the Master Chief Collection on PC. They were lifeless and buggy.
Fast forward to the delayed and then surprise released Halo Infinite Multiplayer and cue the displeased masses.
Short of getting into a longer rant, this game is plagued with:
- Netcode issues (have fun dying around that wall)
- Cheating
- Greed
- The store worked while everything else was broken
- Pricing is absurd (like in other FTP games)
- Boosts run even when you aren't gaming, which at times can last for the majority of the bonus
- Battlepass progression is SLOW
I don't even know what else I have to say. I've had a couple fun nights playing it but overall I have stopped playing. My friends stopped. Halo is dead. Enjoy making money on shitty cosmetics 343/Microsoft
Steam Deck
We get to end on a positive note. While I don't have mine yet, I am expecting to get it soon based on when I preordered and all that. The overall impression is that the Steam Deck is excellent. Solid device + reasonable entry price point = success.
I have used Xbox Game Pass on my iPad and iPhone. Its super cool it works. Its not the same as a dedicated device (I have not yet tried the Razer Kishi or the Backbone which might change my opinion.)
I cannot wait to have the Steam Deck to play Tunic, sitting in the back yard, around the fire pit, like a proper millenial.