A Green Mushroom

Horizon Forbidden West is a pretty showcase for the PS5 and a really solid open world game.  But mostly, at it's core, it's a game that lets you fight giant robot animals and dinosaurs.  That alone pushes it up my list. I actually had a hit and miss relationship with the first game in this series, Horizon Zero Dawn.  I played it a little when it came out but stalled out on it and set it down.  I came back much later and found a lot of enjoyment once I set my expectations correctly. Horizon Forbidden West picks up right where that game left off, except it does a lot of things better.  There are quality of life improvements throughout and it's a gorgeous showcase of the PS5.  But my favorite improvements come down to the story and the characters. The sci-fi aspect of the story is what drew me in and hooked me.  In the first game that is buried much later in the game but in Horizon Forbidden West it is core to the story from the start.  This game als...

The latest episode of the Geek to Geek podcast is now out in the feed.  You can listen or find links to listen in your podcast player here . This week we discuss Kirby and the Forgotten Land as well as wrapping up some thoughts on Elden Ring.  Geekery includes match-3 games, Mario Tennis, The Emperor's New Groove, 1Q84, Iron Widow, Turning Red, and Book of Boba Fett. You can also listen to the latest episode right here:

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the most fun I've had in a Pokemon game since at least X and Y but maybe even further back than that.  It fundamentally rethinks the relationship between the player and catching Pokémon. In Legends: Arceus, it's all about building your Pokedex through the observation, fighting, and catching of Pokemon.  The awesome thing about it is that you can approach the Pokedex in whatever way you want.  If you like fighting, go for it.  Would you rather observe and catch?  That works too. The biggest change is the move to a more open world where you can catch Pokémon without needing to engage in battle.  You can just throw a Pokeball their way and try to catch them without ever fighting.  It makes the game move so much faster and the older Pokémon games feel glacially paced in comparison. I was enjoying this one so much that I found myself constantly ignoring the main quest just to spend more time in the open world building up my Pokede...

Vampire Survivors is an incredible game in its ability to have such a core focused simple game that manages to be super fun moment to moment. This is an indie game being developed as a side hobby by one lone developer.  It shows in the art assets but not in the gameplay.  The gameplay is a tight core loop where you control a character that is trying to survivor a bunch of enemies that are vaguely vampire adjacent. The moment to moment sees you dodging enemies while your character auto-attacks.  Defeating enemies causes them to drop experience that you need to swing back around to pick up.  Once you get enough experience, you level up and gain new abilities or more levels of your current abilities. And that's mostly all the game is.  Sure, there are characters to unlock, abilities to figure out combos for, and gold currency to pick up that will slowly increase your characters' meta-strength over time.  But the core run always takes 30 minutes or less (most o...

Nobody Saves the World asks the question, "Would you like to be a poison rat that can also turn into a necromancer, horse, soldier, snail, and so much more?"  Actually, the rat is just a starting place.  Maybe I should back up. Nobody Saves the World is a top down action game with some Zelda vibes that gives you a ton of options for how you want to play.  You unlock a large variety of different forms which all control differently and have individual attacks and abilities.  You unlock the functionality to combine and customize character abilities as you get later into the game and that opens up the door to even crazier character combos. In the end, you're a Nobody... but you're also kind of an everybody?  It's an interesting mix. My daughter and I both had fun in this game for a good 20 hours or so.  We saw a lot of dungeons and unlocked a large portion of the map before we both eventually fell off of the game.  We liked what was there but it became a l...

Halo Infinite is both a hard game to assess and an easy game to assess.  It's essentially just more Halo. But... it's a good Halo.  I've felt like the Halo games have been more "miss" than "hit" ever since Halo 3 and this is the first time I've latched onto one and truly enjoyed it since then.  I did play  and finish Halo 4 and Halo 5 but I didn't think they were very good.  Plus, they felt less and less like the classic Halo I enjoyed. Halo Infinite is a return to form.  It allows you to finally live out the fantasy that the box art from Halo 1 promised all those years ago.  "Here's an open world on a Halo ring.  Go nuts.  Have fun!"  Kind of.  The hedging here is because Halo Infinite also has more traditional Halo levels and they're just not that good. I enjoyed most of my time in the open world but I struggled to stay engaged through the scripted corridors of the more traditional level structure.  The worst part was that th...

  Unpacking is an interesting one to add to the list .  It made me consider the question "what games make it on this list at all?".  I thought about this for a long time and ultimately landed on an answer.  I'm going to add any game that I played long enough to get a true feel for and that I think is interesting.  Unpacking fits that bill. One thing to know about me if you only read the blog and don't listen to the podcast is that I have a tendency to try a lot of games to sample them.  I end up sampling a lot of games for only 10-30 minutes before bouncing off and mentally classifying them as "I get it, but I'm not interested".  Those games will not  get included in this running list. With all that out of the way... Unpacking is really interesting.  It's a game told through the act of moving into new locations.  Most people have moved multiple times in their lives so the act of moving is relatable.  This entire story is told throu...