Category: What I’m Playing

Omnivore Update – October 2022

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? It’s already midway through October and I’m still unable to process that, so here’s yet another blog/life update.

I had every intention of using Blaugust as a momentum-builder going into the autumn months with the hope of maintaining some semblance of consistency, not just with blogging, but with streaming and…life in general, I guess?

Spoiler Alert: that was clearly some wishful thinking didn’t quite work out like that. I published my half of the Elden Ring collab post with Meghan going over all the enemies(well, some of) we found most annoying while playing the game; I’m still really pleased with how the post turned out and it’s one of my blog highlights from this year. I wanted to keep the momentum rolling and had come up with a number of ideas for blog posts that I had in mind and had even gotten a few beyond the initial ‘That’s a decent idea…’ step and had *actual words written* and then suddenly just felt…like I couldn’t do it. I haven’t been able to write more than a handful of paragraphs in the last month and a half. At first I kinda shrugged it off as “meh, it’s fine. I’m not gonna force myself to sit at my computer and not leave until I have some arbitrary number of words written; this really isn’t the first time this has happened.” Fast forward to six weeks later and…

When this happens, I usually find myself caught somewhere between “I’m not gonna force myself to write up something just to say I accomplished something” and “Fuck, it’s hard to pick up where I left off after this long”. I realize this is compounded by the fact I possess the special ability to make EVERY.SINGLE.THING I attempt much harder than it needs to be – i.e. overthinking the shit out of everything. I’ll randomly think of something over the course of the day that I feel like I could wrestle into some sort of almost-coherent post, but it’s usually negated by stressing myself out over something that I…haven’t even attempted yet? I eventually arrived at the conclusion that writing, just WRITING anything is bound to be better than nothing and will make it easier to get back to where I had hoped to be by now. What’s the easiest way to get back into a rhythm of writing for me? Update posts or lists, usually. Anyways, here’s what I’ve been playing recently…

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

I first played Sekiro…well, attempted to, after picking it up back in 2019. I immediately loved the setting and overall art style of the game, but two things prevented me from ever getting very far in the game: possessing the attention span of a hamster and the fact the game was hard as hell. I played the game here and there over the next couple years and still appreciated everything the game offered, but felt like I had neither the skill or patience to make it very far in the game – in my original playthrough I made it TO, but not PAST the Genichiro fight in Ashina Castle. It wasn’t until 2022 that I fully entered my From Software Era. I obsessively played Elden Ring this past March/April, followed immediately by another playthrough of Bloodborne, which I documented with a series of blog posts. I then dabbled in some Persona 5 Royal, which I’m still currently chipping away at, before I began my next challenge – playing through Dark Souls. It was around the time I made it to the New Londo Ruins that I felt like I had hit a bit of a brick wall and decided to shake things up, so in typical deranged fashion, I started playing Sekiro again.

I’m not sure what it was this time around, but everything about the game started to make greater sense to me. Make no mistake, the game is still among one of the more difficult modern games I’ve played, but I felt like I had a better understanding of the way the game encourages(demands?) you to approach enemy encounters as well as combat mechanics than my previous attempts. The boss battles – which are quite fucking spectacular, became more about rhythm than using brute force and aggression, which is how most of my hours are spent in other FromSoft games. There’s something so satisfying as well as intoxicating the way a boss fight can go from feeling completely insurmountable to being merely another obstacle that you’ve overcome on your journey…if only that translated as easily to real life, right? I’m still finishing up some endgame areas but can confidently say Sekiro has 1000% become a favorite From Software experience(alongside Bloodborne, of course).

Hoa

This past week I had been feeling a little drained by the end of the day and wanted to play a shorter, more relaxing game. I’d still been playing a fair amout of Sekiro & Persona 5 Royal, so something concise sounded like a good idea. I eventually decided to play Hoa, which was highly recommended by my wife, and quite the pleasant surprise as it’s an excellent indie game. Hoa is a pretty straightforward platformer, but still very much worth playing as it manages to highlight how sometimes complexity in game mechanics or story aren’t required for a game to be memorable. Gameplay-wise it’s very similar to Gris in the way you progress from one area to the next, acquiring several new abilities along the way. It incorporates some wonderfully charming animation that looks like a Studio Ghibli movie, and there’s also a whimsical, yet spirited soundtrack similar to games like Ori and the Blind Forest and Death’s Door. It only took me a couple hours to complete Hoa, but it was a perfect change-of-pace game that I greatly enjoyed.

October Plans

It’s that time of year again – Blogtober! Here’s what I have planned for this year…

Nah, I’m just kidding…you’d think I’d have learned my lesson about setting goals I have no earthly possibility of achieving by now, right?

Since I began blogging over three and a half years ago now, I’ve usually dedicated the month of October to writing about a range of different spooky and/or scary games, some of which I’ve played before, and others for the first time. The past couple years I’ve incorporated this into my Twitch schedule(using this very loosely) as I’d stream some of the games from my ‘Blogtober’ list. This past year I wasn’t able to do as much blogging/streaming as I’d intended, so I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again this year. Well…I *haven’t* been as productive as I wanted to be – whether because of rarely feeling in an adequate headspace to get anything written or pure laziness(50/50 maybe?). I am, however, going to get a few things crossed off my list and not just concede defeat halfway through the month. I’ve played a little bit of Resident Evil 0 and Little Nightmares on stream so far and there’s a few blog posts in the works that I WILL get posted before the month is over. So, this is essentially me saying I’m *not* making (too many)plans and just taking things one at a time.

Thanks for reading!

Omnivore Update – May 2022

It was during this time last year that I was in a bit of a rut when it came to any of my creative outlets, blogging in particular. I still had plenty of ideas that I would come up with during the day, but I’d usually get little more than a few notes scribbled in front of me as I was working during the day. I would later sit down in front of my computer and…nothing would happen. This continued throughout most of the year with the exception of being able to write something down about Returnal or Metroid Dread. This year has seemed noticeably better, for whatever reason, and I actually have felt pretty good(cautiously so) about everything here on WordPress and have been able to take advantage of the inexplicable outburst of inspiration(energy?). In continuing this momentum I wrote up a quick update post about what games I’ve managed to find in stores, as well as what I’ve been playing lately.

Bloodborne

Coming off the 100+ hours I’d spent playing Elden Ring, I wasn’t quite sure what I was gonna play next. However, as I spent hours playing the most recent From Software game, I had really begun wanting to replay the game that got properly got me to appreciate Souls-like games – Bloodborne. I just finished up the game and unlocked the platinum trophy again…yes, again(the first time was on my PSN profile I use for streaming). I also played through the Old Hunters DLC for the first time. After six years and a collective 200 or so hours of playing, I can still wholeheartedly say Bloodborne is among my absolute favorite gaming experiences on of the PS4 era and would likely be right up there will my all-time favorites. I began a series of blog posts detailing my playthrough of the game and am pretty satisfied that I was able to stick with an idea like that for…y’know, an entire three weeks. In the last couple days I’ve begun my first playthrough of a much more concise Alan Wake Remastered, which I’ve been pretty thoroughly enjoying as well…

In addition to binging my way through a few FromSoft games, I also happened to pick up a few backlog additions in the past couple months. I’ve been on the lookout for complete copies of a lot of GameCube and PlayStation 1 games in particular, starting with…

Pickups

Final Fantasy IX – While stopping at the used game store in town the other morning, I noticed there was a copy of FFIX in seemingly near-mint condition. I assume this was one of the many, many copies of the game(as well as Chrono Cross) that Square Enix produced in such quantities they are still routinely available brand new on their website. Either way, it was a pretty good price for a nice copy of my favorite Final Fantasy game.

Metal Gear Solid – I remember seeing commercials on tv for a new PlayStation game called Metal Gear Solid. I never played the game back in 1998 as my introduction to the series wasn’t until playing a rental copy of MGS 2 a few years later and I didn’t fully become a fan of the series until 2004 when I played the remake – Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on the GameCube. Another PS1 game that isn’t very rare, but don’t find in this nice of condition often nowadays. Still love the old double-decker PS1 cases…

Demon’s Souls(Remake) – Demon’s Souls was the very first From Software game I ever played. I remember my brother telling me about a new PS3 game that was getting a lot of word-of-mouth attention and he had ordered a copy of the collector’s edition from PlayAsia. I ended up getting a digital copy of my own as a PS Plus freebie a year or two later and would say I liked what I played, but the game didn’t immediately grab my attention the way that something like…say, Bloodborne did years later. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Blue Point Games’ remake of the very first “Souls” game. The fact I got it for free as part of a weekend sale at my local place is an added bonus.

Shadows of the Empire – I’ve played Shadows of the Empire many times in the past; it was one of my favorite games at one point. I had been looking for a decent copy for a little while after realizing I didn’t have a copy of my own – one of the many aspects of having siblings who played games. I spent a fair amount of time playing the game after I picked this up and….I wish I could say I still feel the same way about the game as I did in the past. I still enjoy the game, but it’s aged pretty poorly and would be very difficult to recommend to anyone who DIDN’T play this as a kid…

Golden Sun – There’s always more RPGs to add to the backlog, right? Camelot’s beloved GBA title Golden Sun is a game I’ve only played for a handful of minutes, but have always been interested in returning to. The demand…and prices of GameBoy Advance games have been steadily rising alongside the GameCube(though still not quite as sharply), so I decided to finally pull the trigger and get a copy while I could still find one.

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike – I love the Rogue Squadron games. They’re my favorite Star Wars games, alongside Knights of the Old Republic. There’s usually one exception to this – Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. I played this years ago and while the flying missions felt every bit as good as the previous games, the inclusion of on-foot missions seemed to drag it down considerably. I’ve been on a pretty big GameCube nostalgia kick lately, so I decided to give the game another shot…

The Conduit – Despite first-person shooters being the biggest genre in gaming back in 2009, there wasn’t very many of them available on the Wii. The Conduit had some decent hype around it before it was released, and was successful enough to get a sequel the next year, but seemingly faded into obscurity shortly thereafter. I’m still not the biggest fan of using motion controls, but I played a little bit of it back then and remember The Conduit playing pretty well. It was actually a solid FPS option on the Wii. It’s pretty interesting looking back at some of the decent Wii-exclusives published by Sega like The Conduit, Nights: Journey of Dreams, or the underrated Mad World.

WarioWare: Touched! – This was a launch window game for the Nintendo DS back in 2004 and I remember seeing it often. I had always meant to pick this up, but haven’t come across too many complete copies like this in the wild the past few years. WarioWare titles are always a joy to play and a change of pace from other games requiring a bigger investment of time and energy.

Wario World – I actually owned this one years ago and remember enjoying it well enough from what I played. If I recall correctly, I bought Wario World along with 2 or 3 other GameCube/PS2/Xbox in the some shopping trip, so I may have just been more invested in something else at the time. I ended up selling the game(along with a few others) as I honestly didn’t think that a first-party Nintendo game like this would end up being as rare(or just expensive?) as it currently is. I had been wanting to pick the game up and play again, so I finally decided to splurge a bit when I found a decent complete copy in town. I’ve been playing Wario World on stream the past week and realized pretty quickly that I didn’t play it nearly enough back then as it’s a really solid 3D platformer and I’ve been having a lot of fun playing it.

That’s all for now! What have you been playing lately? Are there any games you’re planning on picking up, old or new?

Thanks for reading!