Falling(Behind) Into Autumn

The summer months are now behind us. Daylight hours are getting steadily shorter and there’s a crispness in the air. Fall is finally here. My favorite season without a doubt was summer as a kid – I’m sure almost all of that had to do with the feeling of sweet freedom away from school over summer vacation. As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve started to embrace the fall months as my favorite time of year – walks in the cool mornings to take in the sights and smells of the season or spending cozy evenings inside with a warm cup of coffee while playing video games or watching a movie(let’s be honest, this is how most of my year is spent).

It’s been a while since my last post…again, but I wanted to at least write up a short update post on what I’ve been keeping busy(?) with lately. I have typically defaulted to writing these type of posts with “Weekend Gaming Review” as a placeholder title until I could come up with something…better(that’s been two years, it’s a work in progress). If 2021 has been anything, it’s been inconsistent. The year started off strong enough, but since April or so it seems like it’s been a lot more difficult to stick to any sort of consistent schedule, which led to me taking a short break from blogging and streaming. Since then, I’ve felt like I’m typically at one of two extremes – too many ideas to work on at the same time or I have nothing at all(nothing at all). Over the summer, my output has been rather streaky as I’ll manage to get something written a few weeks in a row, only to then go…what’s it been…5 weeks without writing anything? The same has applied to streaming as well, with any semblance of a schedule falling by the wayside and simply going by whether or not I felt up to it that particular morning.

A change in plans…

The past two years I’ve attempted to do something special for October and participate in a set of Blogtober posts throughout the month. I had a list of spooky, Halloween-themed games prepared well in advance this year as I had wanted to avoid finishing a particular game and quickly writing up a blog post about it the same night, which seemed to happen far too often. After going back and forth on it for some time, I ultimately decided not to force myself into some sort of blog project when I didn’t feel I was up to the task. I have a couple of the games from the list completed and do intend to write up something, but it won’t be on any specific schedule. As for streaming, I plan on doing so a couple mornings throughout the week, but don’t have anything set for which games I intend to play and will basically go with whatever I feel like playing next, scary game or not. So, uh…anyway. Video games.

What I’ve been playing…

I finally got ahold of a PS5 in August, so since then, the majority of the games I’ve been playing have been there. I played through Astro’s Playroom and Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart before I set my sights on Returnal…which proceeded to consume my life for the next few weeks. My most recent(I guess) post was attempting to explain what it was about Returnal that had me hooked and how it reminded me of what I love about the Metroid series. After that, I played through Spider-Man: Miles Morales, followed by a quick detour through Donut County – grabbing the platinum trophy for both games. I had concluded my time with Final Fantasy XV before getting the urge to play another in the series shortly after, so I re-started Final Fantasy IX on my Switch – which I finished last week(and loved).

I realized that I’ve probably spent more time playing RPGs this year than any other year. I was never really into them as a kid, with Pokémon Red being an exception to this, before moving playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Tales of Symphonia a few years later. This past year, I’ve finished up Dragon Quest XI, as well as played Fallout 4, Paper Mario, Final Fantasy IX & XV, and recently started catching up on some retro RPGs by playing Shining Force on stream the past couple weeks. Maybe it is just that I probably have more to catch up on with RPGs as a genre, or something about the way you can throw yourself into a story and world for hours at a time. The latter has definitely seemed true the past month and a half, where I’ve felt like doing nothing other than immersing myself into video games after getting done with work for the night and feeling capable of doing little else.

A couple months ago, I had signed up on the Halo Waypoint site to take part in the upcoming multiplayer beta(s) for Halo: Infinite. I got the email invite for the weekends of Sept. 24-26 and Oct. 1-3, so a sizable portion of my time those weekends was spent with Needlers and plasma grenades in hand. I didn’t have an Xbox One until this last year, so I feel like I missed out on Halo 5 for the most part. I finally played through the campaign earlier this summer and really enjoyed it, though I haven’t tried any of the multiplayer modes. It felt great to jump back into a Halo game and the recent multiplayer beta was a lot of fun and only made me more excited to see the full game when it releases on December 8. Halo has been a game series that’s provided a lot of memories and has meant a lot over the 20 years since it’s initial release.

Two days ago, after anxiously waiting for months, Metroid Dread was finally released. Metroid Dread and Halo: Infinite are the two releases I’m most excited about this year and it almost feels like 2004 all over again when Halo 2 and Metroid Prime 2 were released a mere six days apart in November. As I may have mentioned my love of Metroid games a…couple times, it should come to no one’s surprise that my Friday morning consisted of running out to pick up my copy of the game and having to wait until I was done with work that night to begin playing. The majority of my weekend has been spent playing Metroid Dread and as of writing this, have only the final section of the game left to finish. I’ve also begun making a few notes here and there of my experience with the game as I fully intend to do a follow-up post after I’m done with the game(yes, I know I’ve said that before). It’s definitely been worth the wait…

So…yeah, that’s pretty much it. What’s everyone else been up to lately? Any game releases you’re looking forward to in the next few months? 2022 is already looking completely stacked for big releases with Elden Ring, Pokémon Legend: Arceus, and Horizon: Forbidden West in just the first two months. It should be an interesting time…

Thanks for reading!