Games to be Excited For...or Not

I'm curiously monitoring the status of several games that I feel optimistic about and also cautiously side-eyeing news about some others.  I'm not really playing anything new (sadly) and due to increased costs thanks to global inflation, I'm trying to limit my non-essential purchases.  It's the perfect storm for thinking about games...while not buying them (insert sad face here).

Feelin' Optimistic

Check out the cute slimes!

1.) Slime Rancher 2.  It recently released in Early Access on Steam and the reviews have been sitting in the "overwhelmingly positive" range since day 1.  Slime Rancher is by far my favorite game about collecting virtual poop to become a millionaire so when I heard there was going to be a follow up--I was pretty stoked.  Slime Rancher is one of my favorite laid back games--it's packed full of super cute slimes, chickadoos, and repetitive activities that are weirdly satisfying.  The newest entry has introduced new, even cuter slimes (umm bunny slimes!) and promises to feature more poop ranching fun times.  I'm going to continue watching the reviews and wait until full release to start the next chapter of my slime ranching journey.

2.) Cook, Serve, Forever.  I have a soft spot for the hectic cooking simulator series and so far, everything I've seen of the upcoming game looks to build on the formula and make it even better.  The food looks amazing (like always--you don't want to play it on an empty stomach because you will find yourself painfully aware of that state) and there looks to be more of a storyline in the next game.  I'm hoping it pulls some of the elements from the original game (building up your restaurant), the second game (working shifts at other restaurant chains), and the third game (having "to-go" orders and the talent point system).  The release date currently says "early 2023," so we'll see what happens.

The Cautious Side-Eye

1.) Just this morning I had a strange urge to take a return Viking journey to Dark Ages England in Assassin's Creed:  Valhalla.  I had to take a mental moment to remind myself that after my first epic playthrough (in which I did all the things--to the tune of a playthrough that was easily over 100 hours long) that I need an AC vacation.  Recently Ubisoft announced a new spate of AC games and they appear to be making some divergent choices for the series.  Some players have lamented that the newer, more RPG-oriented games have veered too far away from the stealth-action games of the past.  It appears that they're trying to keep everyone happy--the more action-y types and the RPG-esque fans by releasing two different games.  Assassin's Creed: Mirage looks to be the "classic" AC-style game while Assassin's Creed: Red seems to be the next entry in the RPG-oriented series.  For me, the AC formula has gotten a bit bland--there are things that I enjoy, but they get drowned out by the absolute overly-gargantuan size of the open-world.

2.) CD Projekt is buuuusssyyy!  It was already widely known that a Witcher sequel was in development, but they also announced several other games set in the Witcher universe as well as a full sequel to Cyberpunk 2077.  Oh, and there's the upcoming Cyberpunk expansion that is going to be released next year.  Look, I'm a big CD Projekt Red fan, so any news from them is exciting...with that said though, I think everyone has to be a bit cautious after the Cyberpunk release debacle.  I'm really hoping that they can redeem themselves (it's worth mentioning that Cyberpunk has been seeing a big bump in activity thanks to the release of the apparently good anime series on Netflix).  Some of the Witcher titles sound a bit odd to me--one supposedly will involve multiplayer, which is something I'm a bit skeptical of.

3.) The 40-series GPU's.  Didn't they just release the 30-series?  There's so much to side-eye--the price, the ginormous size, and the need for a healthily large PSU.  Hopefully this means the prices of the 30-series cards start dropping.  Or, if you're feeling adventurous you could always buy one of the "gently used" former crypto-mining cards (you should definitely check out the video of someone spraying a rack of them down with a hose to "clean" them).  The cost of building a PC just keeps going up--also, sad face.

Have a great week dreaming of cute slimes!