It’s already the last week of October. Can you believe it? We can because review season is officially here, and we straight up can’t keep up with every game releasing over the last couple weeks — and it’s really not going to slow down until like April of next year. I had just cleared most of my backlog too, darn it.
What I Played / Watched / Read This Week
This was another busy week for me, so I didn’t really get a lot of the gaming done that I wanted to. I still need to finish A Plague Tale: Requiem, and then I had copies of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Gotham Knights, and Bayonetta 3 all show up, so my backlog is already pretty much full for the rest of the year.
What I did play a bunch of this week though was Marvel Snap. Along with everyone else, I’m already helplessly addicted to it. Matches are quick, you’re constantly unlocking new stuff, and the mechanics of the game are simple enough that, even if you’re not into CCGs, it’s a fun time. I heartily recommend it as the first game I’ve played on my cell phone in years.
Oh, and I’m still playing Rocket League. I just cannot put that game down; it’s become a nightly routine for me at this point to get a couple games in on the Steam Deck before I go to bed.
I’ve also been watching Mike Flanagan’s new show, The Midnight Club, and I’m about to wrap it up. I can’t say I really loved it though. It’s nothing like The Haunting of Hill House or Bly Manor, which was to be expected as it’s based on a young adult novel of the same name from author Christopher Pike. While I like the characters and setting for the most part, the structure of the show just being a collection of weird short stories hasn’t really done a whole lot for me, with the tone of the show kinda going all over the place.
Thankfully The Fall of the House of Usher is on the way, and I’m very excited for that one.
Overwhelmed by MMOs
Over the last year I’ve probably installed and uninstalled both The Elder Scrolls Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic a half-dozen times. This past week, I finally downloaded and loaded up Guild Wars 2 for the first time after watching JM8 stream it a couple weeks ago. I’ve always been interested in the genre of MMOs and have wanted to find one that I could just jump into a couple times a week to get lost in for a bit when I wasn’t feeling like playing anything else.
The genre fascinates me and I love the worlds a lot of these games are built on, but every time I seem to try an MMO, I make it past the tutorial and get to a screen that’s just loaded with a million different things. Daily tasks, a ton of different questlines, locations, different gear systems… I mean the list goes on and on. Every time I’ve tried an MMO, I just feel immediately overwhelmed or play with a friend that knows the game too well and just runs me through all the “boring” stuff to get to the meat of the game.
I have never stuck with an MMO beyond a few missions because, once you get past the opening moments / area, they typically open up and just overload you with things to do. And at least for me, I consistently can’t seem to find the “loop” that will hook me and keep me interested.
Star Wars: The Old Republic has probably been the closest as the game is structured a lot like a traditional BioWare RPG, but the missions just don’t seem to evolve much beyond fetch quests or killing X number of enemies. At least from my time playing that one, the dialogue is well-written, and for what I’ve played of the Sith storyline, it’s pretty interesting.
Are you an MMO player? Have you found one that you were able to just really sink into and stick with? I’ve been looking around at other MMOs to potentially try like Crowfall or maybe even World of Warcraft, but I fear I’ll end up in the same situation as the rest of the ones I’ve tried. Maybe the genre just isn’t for me, and that’s OK too.
What’s Happening on The Escapist?
A bit of a quiet week here, but still lots of planning going on behind the scenes! We’ve been recruiting a bunch of new freelance talent for the website, and articles from new names have already begun appearing. Our plan is to have one-to-two original pieces of written content per day, with plans to bring back more original named columns in 2023.
This week we also promoted Marty Sliva to Editor of Original Content on the website, so please make sure to leave him a congrats in the comments, as its well deserved. I very much look forward to working with him in breathing new life into the website side of things again.
Next week will also be a big week for our streaming content with the premiere of our Pulsar: Lost Colony livestream series with Yahtzee, Jack Packard, and Marty, starting at 4:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. CT on Monday and will air for five weeks. This limited series was funded by our generous Patreon subscribers.
We will also be starting up Willow Week on Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET / 12:00 p.m. CT with Jack, Marty, and JM8. They’ll be streaming the Willow NES game, which they’re all very excited about, so make sure to tune into that.
We’ve got some new original video content in the works as well that you’ll be hearing and seeing very soon!
