Toomanywires

I've played some excellent games this year. And from what I can gather, I've missed a bunch too. I'm making good progress right now on Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. I'm committed to playing Assassin's Creed Mirage next, as I've already bought it. Then, time dependent, I'll play Jusant and Alan Wake 2, just in time to write my Best & Worst of the year, an annual tradition here since 2010. Even with those accounted for, there's still an absolute shit-tonne of games that I had hoped to play in 2023 but have failed to do so, due to a lack of time. The highest profile of these would be The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Everyone was raving about it earlier this year, though I have noticed that several friends and online acquaintances cooled on it slightly as the months passed. I'm sure it's excellent, but as someone who appreciated but didn't love Breath of the Wild, I think I can afford to put it off. What I may y

I poured fifty hours into Starfield. Enough to reach an ending, or a new beginning, anyway. In those fifty hours, my feelings towards it shifted countless times. I was bored for stretches, and engrossed for others. At times I found myself adrift, blindly searching for the joy in exploration and rarely finding it. At others, my interest was renewed by gripping Faction Missions. For the first half, the main story missions were among the least interesting, but in the second, they became its finest feature.  In some ways, Starfield might be the most dated AAA blockbuster I've ever played. I was astonished by how little things have changed since Skyrim, yet I found comfort in familiar treats. The universe is a largely empty playground, one which is desperate for your attention yet never quite earns it. However, I came to appreciate its vacuous qualities, where planets are sparsely populated and first contact with intelligent life is still but a fantasy for our space-faring, future-selve