Blog Archives
Wishlist – August 2024
A non-exhaustive list of game wishes at this time interval:
- SCUM ($15.99, 60% off)
- Terminus: Zombie Survivors ($15.99, 20% off)
- ASKA ($19.99, 20% off)
- Enshrouded ($29.99, MSRP)
- Sons of the Forest ($29.99, MSRP)
- Bellwright ($29.99, MSRP)
- Nightingale ($29.99, MSRP)
- Soulmask ($29.99 , MSRP)
SCUM would certainly seem to be the sort of survival crafting game within my strike zone, but there is just something… off-putting about it in the videos I have watched. I’m not opposed to super-realistic/detailed survival games (e.g. Green Hell), but they have a tight fun-rope to walk. Need to balance your macronutrient intake with a literal stomach size constriction? OK. Need to remember to remove dirty pants if you get a laceration on your leg lest you get an infection? Cool.
But what is this all in service towards? “Prevent the player from just eating berries all day in the woods, forcing them into dangerous zones.” I can get behind that. Of course, the actual gameplay looks kinda janky, zombies are all of the same type but a few are randomly screamers that spawn in dozens of new ones to immediately chase you down, etc, etc, etc. All of sudden, it seems a bit less “realistic” and more nakedly game-y. That sort of thing works in 7 Days to Die, but not here.
On the other end, watching videos of Terminus makes it seem like something I’d be interested in. Mostly. It’s a kind of top-down survival roguelike with action points, different builds, meta-progression, and so on. Part of my hesitation though is that it doesn’t feel like the sort of game where you would, you know, actually build a base and stay put. If you’re just going node-to-node, you may as well be playing a more traditional roguelike instead. Also… not to be that guy, but $16 on sale still feels like a lot for an indie game within this visual league. There are amazing 100+ hours experiences with worse graphics, of course, it’s just that this definitely feels like a Game Pass and/or Humble Bundle title. Literally hit 1.0 last week so that’s kinda shitty of me to say, but I said it.
Finally, I must admit it difficult to remember what ASKA is all about off-hand. It arrived in Early Access around the same time as Enshrouded, Nightingale, Bellwright, and Soulmask, all of which are survival crafting games with various shticks. In reviewing the literature, it appears ASKA is the one with “skill based combat” and the recruitment of NPC villagers. Err… the one without masks involved. Or medieval plots against the crown. That one. But, hey, it’s on sale!
The other games aren’t on sale, so I’m not going to talk about them. We don’t MSRP around here.
The Wishlist
With a monitor and the PC acquired, it is time for Phase 2: reasons to have upgraded my PC at all.
- Final Fantasy 7: Remake Intergrade
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- God of War
- Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
- Elden Ring
- Dying Light 2
- Satisfactory
- NeiR: Replicant
- Wildermyth
- Risk of Rain 2
The ones near the bottom did not need an RTX 3080, of course. Arguably, none of these do. But I have it now, so… Capitalism, Ho!
The plan here is to wait for the next Epic Store sale where they offer 50% off + $10 coupon, which could push many of these into the $15-$20 territory. Indeed, Cyberpunk and RDR2 were both $20 this past Winter, so I’m expecting the same thing this Summer. The big question mark will be FF7R with its MSRP of $70. I doubt it hits 50% off, but maybe something like 25%? With the coupon that would bring it “down” to $42ish which… ehh, maybe. There’s a part of me that wants to wait even more out of principle. At the same time, I have already waited so long for something I’ve wanted so much that it becomes a bit ridiculous. I could just, you know, not buy NeiR Replicant or whatever and use that cash.
Or just have bought a RTX 3070 prebuilt and all the games Nope, nah, I make GREAT decisions.
In other news, I’m looking forward to max settings on games where that matters.
Summer Epic Sale
Are we still mad at Epic? Probably not, right? Back in the day, my ire was from Epic throwing Fortnite cash around to buy exclusivity contracts, which bypasses normally consumer-friendly competition. For the most part, that all seems to have died down. Instead, we have the equivalent of Steam sales with a bonus $10 off coupon for games $14.99 and up. Which makes for some rather exceptional deals.
Oh, and apparently they added the Wishlist feature at some point.
Here is what I am currently looking at (post-coupon):
- Hades – $9.99
- Death Stranding – $13.99
- Griftlands – $5.99
- Cardpocalypse – $4.99
- Disco Elysium: Final Cut – $19.99
- Borderlands 3 – $9.79
This is the second time some of those games have appeared on my list, but I know for sure that Hades is getting bought, at a minimum. Griftlands keeps being described as Slay the Spire 2.0/knock-off, which is a bonus in my book, and what sets it over the edge is that it’s made by Klei (Don’t Starve, Oxygen Not Included). I keep thinking that some of these will wind up on the Game Pass eventually, especially in the more-likely-than-not scenario in which I purchase the game but don’t play it right away. It’s hard to tell though, what big names will make it and which ones will not.
[Fake Edit:] I ended up buying Hades, Griftlands, and Death Stranding. Borderlands 3 is just as likely to be given away for free by Epic at some point, and I put in 18 hours into the Pre-Sequel before dropping it from boredom. Heard great things about Disco Elysium, but everything I’ve read puts it so out there gameplay-wise that I doubt it’s a game that would develop enough of an itch to play it right now. For example, if I’m in the mood for a new roguelike, Hades is basically it, as I’ve played most of the others.
Anyway, back to playing.
Wishlist
Black Friday and the frenzied consumerism of the holidays is close upon us. It’s probably a bit silly to be thinking about buying more things considering I have more Steam games to last two lifetimes, but… Capitalism, ho! Here’s what I will be keeping my eye out for:
- Playstation 4 ($199 + $60 Kohls Cash)
- Final Fantasy XV
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- The Last Guardian
- Huawei Honor 6X Phone (< $150)
- Steam Games
- Far Cry 4
- Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
- Divinity: Original Sin 2
- Oxygen Not Included
- NeiR: Automata
- Dead Cells
- Salt & Sanctuary
- No Man’s Sky
- MMOs
- GW2: Heart of Thorns & Path of Flame
The PS4 purchase is probably the most excessive of the bunch, considering how infrequently I have used the PS3 since purchasing it five years ago. Of course, I didn’t really have a good setup at the time – projectors are cool, but sitting down and pressing a button is easier – and things have changed since then. There is a certain symmetry in how I basically bought the PS3 for The Last of Us, and The Last of Us 2 is one of the driving factors for a PS4 purchase (albeit a few years from now). If/When I end up getting Destiny 2, it will be on PC though.
Phone-wise, I’m in the stereotypical “my phone works, but there’s a better one out there” pinch. My SO’s phone died a couple months ago, so I of course created a Google doc comparing all the different phones available to map out the best bang for the buck. That’s when I realized the upgrade potential between my 5X and the 6X: +600MHz processor, +1GB RAM, +16GB storage, and +340mAh battery. Is that worth $180? Ehh. Is it worth $150 or less? That’s much closer, especially considering how much gaming I do on my phone.
The Steam list is a bit eclectic, but they are all games that weren’t on sale, not on sale far enough, and/or not out of Early Access yet. No Man’s Sky is a bit odd on there considering how much negative press it has received over the last year, but the last sale had it at $24. If it hits $15, I feel like it’d be an easy decision for a kinda-sorta temporary Minecraft experience. I have certainly made worse purchasing decisions.
Finally, the MMO section is just GW2. There have been a few Heart of Thorns sales for $15 that I have missed, but I feel like we might see a combo deal better than the original $50 set. I’m sure there will be yet another sale for the FFXIV expansion too, although every day I become less and less interested in the supposed great plot in the game. If your call to fame is a great story, but the only way to get to said story is to spam dungeons… yeah. No thanks.
In An Age 
The Wishlist, part Welp
May 20
Posted by Azuriel
I was expecting the Epic Sale to be weeks away still, but apparently it started today. Also, apparently inflation (or lawsuit fees?) come for us all:
Instead of getting a flat $10 off any game at $14.99 and above, you get 25% extra off.
This is technically a better deal when the baseline game you are buying is more than $40. Everything else is a worse deal. For example, Rogue Lords is on sale for $16.24. With the historical coupon scheme, it would be $6.24, but this new scheme means it is $12.18. The one extra nuance though is apparently the new scheme will allow you to get the 25% discount as long as your entire cart is above $14.99 rather than individual items. Risk of Rain 2 is discounted to $12.49, for example, which normally would not receive any extra discount. In the same cart as Rogue Lords, you save… $3.12.
Hey, I’ve done dumber shit for, well, not less but not much more than that.
In any case, it’s extremely disappointing that basically every game on my wishlist is $2.49 more expensive than it was six months ago during the Winter version of this sale. Two-fiddy many not seem like a lot, and perhaps it isn’t in the grand scheme of things, but in my head I turn those numbers into other games I could have bought.
Anyway, this is how my wishlist breaks down in this sale:
The prices with an asterisk are games not on sale aside from the bonus 25% (Dying Light 2 is 10% off, I guess). I’m actually rather surprised about the bottom three games simply not existing on Epic. I’m not aware of any exclusivity agreements with Steam, and part of Epic’s whole deal was supposed to be a better dev cut of the action, so… what? How is something like Elden Ring not on here?
After some sticker shock at the “buy all the things” total, I pared it down to the four horsemen:
So, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Horizon: Zero Dawn.
I had things like Risk of Rain 2 and Satisfactory in there and some other off-wishlist games like Days Gone and Far Cry 6, but I had to face reality a bit. Given those main four games (and nevermind my existing library), when would I have the time to be playing anything else? I suppose it’s possible that Epic’s next sale is an even worse deal than this one, but that is a risk I am just going to take. This way, I can see where things stand by the end of quad-AAA production experiences, not feel guilty for occasionally tooling around in random indie games, and see what ends up popping up in Game Pass.
And that’s it. See you in six months.
Posted in Commentary
Comments Off on The Wishlist, part Welp
Tags: Battlestation, Epic Sale, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Parsimonious, Wishlist