Does anyone ever look at the LIBRARY tab of their Steam client and wonder what is all hiding under it? If it is anything like mine it is a long list of games you've bought and never played (or barely played). I've been contemplating working through this backlog.
It is actually a bit crazy when I look and see the size is 150+! Some of this is sprawl from games I've tried over time, but the majority are games I've bought and quite a few that haven't gotten much attention (some not at all!).
A quick shuffle through the list and by my count I have not played approximately 40 of the titles! That is 25% of games I've bought that I've never played. There is a much longer list of games that have been installed and played but not for any length of time.
So I am considering reviewing this backlog with a few goals in mind:
Create a blog post for each game (which may include its expansions)
If I played the game already it will just be about memories from the game
If I haven't played the game or didn't play it enough to get a sense for it then I will play the game before posting. Goal will be at least 1 hour.
Create some videos along the way
This is also cheat mode for next week when I will be away from posting. I will queue up a few posts from the backlog.
Do you play your Steam backlog? If so; leave a comment!
I've been enjoying Season 4 of Battlefield 2042. The game is in a really good spot. I wanted to take a break from my normal "support" role and play the more aggressive play style with the Assault class and specialists. I've become a big fan of Zain and landed some great matches; either topping the scoreboard or landing in the top squads.
While I am more "aggressive" playing assault I am still "support" in my non-existent heart so I spend a lot of time watching flanks for the team. It is surprising how many kills you can get when you learn the spots where better players flank and just wait for them. They never expect someone to be waiting for them and I have been able to wipe entire squads.
Ghostcrawler, of World of Warcraft fame, was seen as one of the few lead voices in the MMORPG space. Similar to the "Yoshi P" of Final Fantasy 14 or Steven Sharif of Ashes of Creation: single people that the community puts on a pedestal above all other developers.
Also Ghostcrawler leading a new MMORPG project for a company that has the resources that Riot Games has was a promising combination. League of Legends (Riot's flagship) is massive and building an MMO from it's already established world is promising. Ghostcrawler was icing on the top of the cake. He made us all feel better about this massive undertaking and it being done right.
It will be sad to see him gone from Riot and will no doubt cast more doubt on the legitimacy of Riot's MMORPG. The game was confirmed as in development but never promised it would make it to the finish line. Ghostcrawler being gone is a strike against it.
Ashes of Creation's monthly update focused on the user interface (UI) and it featured screenshots! I used an exclamation point so I must be excited. Right? You may want to read on.
I know, I know! Ashes of Creation is a work in progress so if I don't want to follow a game in development then I shouldn't follow it. I shouldn't be here complaining about it either but if you know me then you know I can't help myself.
The reason I choose to dig into Ashes of Creation is twofold. One: it is the promised one; the savior of this MMORPG genre that I love so dearly. Two: it has no issue taking money from people all while saying it doesn't need our money. If a game developer can take the time to sell calendars for an unreleased game then it can stand up to some criticism about taking its damn sweet time to release a game.
Ashes is under a glacially slow pace of development. Years (yes, years) ago you could buy the "indie studio" but Interpid Studios is way past being a small indie game developer. Ashes makes a lot of promises and yet shows very, very little in their updates which is concerning for a game this long in the pipeline.
Which brings me to my main gripe: Ashes should be showing us more at this point. If they can't then this game is so far out in the future we shouldn't be talking about it and the team definitely shouldn't be wasting cycles on calendars or monthly live streams.
Look at Pax Dei coming out of left field and generating buzz and showing more in a short intro video than the entirety of six years of Ashes updates. Pax Dei seems much closer to an alpha than Ashes. This may seem a poor comparison. How long has Pax Dei been in development? This is a fair criticism, but Pax Dei isn't asking for my money and isn't clogging up my feeds with lackluster updates. If Pax Dei hits the 6 year mark of monthly updates without showing anything close to a finished game then we can revisit it.
Back to Ashes.
As with the recent class updates the UI update this month was a typical lackluster update. A developer was brought on and talked about their team and their approach. Then some screenshots were shown of different UI components which were followed by yet more screenshots of sample user interface windows which were followed by... more screenshots.
I don't think once during the UI update we saw an actual functioning UI overlaying a game being played. That is concerning. There is a place for showing the static components of a UI, but the magic of a UI is seeing it and how it interlaces with the underlying game. How a UI functions is as critical as how it looks. All we got from this update was how it may look because we didn't actually see it in the game.
There has been a lot of praise in the Ashes community around this update and how "good" the UI looks. I am not sure if these folks are playing ancient games or are that detached from current offerings, but the UI screenshots shown were as generic of a UI as I could imagine. There was nothing to write home about. If anything I'd of said the UI is a little too artsy; I prefer a utilitarian approach. The game can be beautiful and awe inspiring, but the UI needs to be functional.
If it's not clear; I was not impressed. This adds to the mounting concern I have about Ashes. Each update is lacking in substance on the promised topic. We had an entire UI update and didn't see the UI being used. We heard more about promises of the UI: customization, sizing, and accordions. Did we see these in action? No. It is like anything else with Ashes: promises. Promises that may or may not be delivered. This was not an update that screams to me that the game is approaching any state of release.
I don't need the podcast to break down this one. Congratulations to everyone that had cannibalism on your apocalyptic bingo cards! Game players knew we would get here but it was a shocking awakening for TV-only viewers. Episode 8 was an uncomfortable episode to watch, but don't worry Joel is back so we're good.
I will have to admit that the show got the pacing and tension-building right in this episode (a top critique of mine for past episodes). This episode had a solid reveal going from a "something's not right here" to "oh sh!t!" in a slow, dreadful series of events. It is unfortunate it had to feature a miraculous recovery by Joel that required viewers to suspend disbelief yet again in a show that does nothing but expect viewers to suspend disbelief.
Also I am not sure if this is what the show was going for, but in an episode starting out with bible reading isn't it cliche our savior Joel rises from the dead. Anyone that thought Joel was ever in any danger (or Ellie for that matter) has never played a video game with side quests.
I do want to harp on the "sense of danger". As uncomfortable as this episode was to watch it was more from the creep factor than it was from any sense that something bad would happen to our main characters Joel and Ellie. Like a video game its just a case of finishing the side quest to get on with the main story.
Can we dispense with the cannibalism as well please? It is uncomfortable to watch and detracted from an otherwise great tension builder of the creepy preacher targeting a young girl. We could have gotten all of the drama of this episode without taking the cannibalism.
Anyways, Joel is back to a full healthbar so on to new adventures.
