It’s so close yet so very far away, you know what I’m talking about. The Switch 2 launch. Time is really passing at a crawl for me, probably because I’m writing something new every day about the Switch 2. So I have a little daily reminder that I’m X days away. It’s like being in school again and watching the clock waiting for the bell to ring, each second getting progressively longer than the last. So what am I doing while I wait for the Switch 2 to launch, gaming of course. I nearly literally do nothing else. Let’s chill for a minute and talk about something positive while I wade through the waist high water of negativity from the haters. Here’s the great games I’m playing while I wait for my Switch 2 to arrive.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet but I’m trying to beat 100 games this year. So a lot of these games are being played to fill out that list. If you want to check out what I’ve played and my reviews of the games check out my Backloggd list here. I’m currently at 44/100 so I’m doing pretty good!
Bioshock Remastered
You might be surprised to hear that I’m not actually doing much gaming on the Switch while I wait. The majority of the games I want to play on the Switch are being justified by the Switch 2 making them run better. It’s not news that Switch 1 games tended to run slow. So I’m staying away from Switch 1 stuff while I wait because I don’t want to be constantly thinking “This is probably better on the Switch 2”. That and I don’t want to turn on my Switch 2 and realize I beat all my other games weeks ago. So I’ve been playing Bioshock Remastered and I’ll likely end up playing the rest of the series. I’m currently on Bioshock 1 and I’m having a great time with it. I remember being so excited for this game when I saw the E3 trailer and the guy got drilled from behind by a Big Daddy. That’s sounds really homoerotic. Anyway, the character looked down and saw the drill going through his stomach and it was just so hardcore. Up until that point I had avoided horror and grown up games.
For those that haven’t played, Bioshock is a spiritual successor to System Shock. It’s a game where you play a guy who through mysterious circumstances (a plane crash) ends up on a weird lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. Even though this is a great and ominous building you decide to go in anyway. It’s not like the sharks would be anymore hospitable than an abandoned lighthouse. Inside you find a bathysphere and hop in. Upon reaching the bottom you’re contacted over a nearby radio, a man named Atlas is wondering how you got here. But questioning can come later, right now you’re the only hope he has for finding his wife and daughter. While you’re down here you’ll explore a massive submerged city, a veritable Atlantis. While exploring you learn about the politics of the city’s creator Andrew Ryan, horrible science experiments, and get attacked by people crazed and addicted to a substance called Adam.
You soon encounter a little girl who is harvesting Adam from a dead body and drinking it from her syringe. One of the crazed Adam addicted Splicer tries to kill her but Daddy won’t let harm to come to his daughter. A massive creature clad in a diving suit with a big drill for an arm annihilates the splicer in front of you. Great news, an enemy of my enemy is a friend. But that’s not the case. Down here, you need Adam to survive and those little sisters are the only way to get it. The lore is fantastic, there is so much story for those who like it and the combat is great. It’s a first person Survival Horror game with guns and magic called plasmids. If you get the collection you should be able to beat all 3 games in under 50 hours making for a great distraction.
The Outer Worlds
Made by Obsidian, former Fallout game devs, The Outer Worlds is a first person RPG shooter where you play someone who just woke up from cryogenic sleep. You’re one of many from a forgotten colony and you’re from the best of the best. Scientists, Doctors, and Heroes, people who were put to sleep to be woken up when the galaxy and humanity would need them most. But upon awaking the world is much different than you remember. It’s a capitalist hellscape. As you play you’ll make lots of decisions that will effect the entire solar system. Freeing workers from an oppressive tuna cannery who won’t even allow their workers to take medicine to treat the currently rampant plague or busting a union for deserting the factory and trying to seek a better life. Will you turn in the old man who woke you from your slumber or will you help him wake the sleeping colony and save man from starvation. This is an interesting with a real gravity to your choices. In many choices RPGs you’re punished heavily for making evil decisions but in this game it’s more punishing to be a good person.
Combat is light and snappy feeling much like Fallout 4’s combat. The perk system is a little more restrictive, and the skill system is pretty similar to New Vegas. I’m currently playing it on Supernova Difficulty which is essentially survival mode. You have hunger, thirst, and sleep meters, you can only sleep at your ship, you can only manually save at your ship, and fast traveling to anywhere but your ship is disabled. It’s a hard mode at first but about halfway through the game you’ll out level everything and breeze through. Due to the high density of consumables your baby sitting meters are rarely a problem and as long as you stick with one build combat will be a breeze. I got the Spacer’s Choice Edition for free from Epic Games but I also bought this at launch. Since it has a sequel coming I wanted to play it. I’m nearly done though as I’m on the last DLC, but in total this game should kill about 30-ish hours for you.
Monster Hunter World
If you’re a Nintendo fan you’re probably intimately familiar with the franchise. This one is getting on in the years now but I’m trying to get to the end before I move onto Rise. My group has a bad habit of picking up Monster Hunter, playing for a week, then never playing again. We are taking it a little more seriously now. The gist of the game is that you get big weapons and you hunt big monsters. The big monsters give you materials that you turn into armor and weapons themed from the slain monster. It’s definitely got a dress up side to it, but the combat itself is very hardcore. The monsters are no joke, each one is a real final boss in it’s own right. Also when you think you’ve finished the game you unlock higher difficulty hunts and your armor’s passives start to matter a lot more. This entry is one of the ones that has made a serious dedicated effort to make the game more playable and approachable for a larger audience. But playing this after having played Rise, well it’s painfully slow by comparison. Rise makes everything much faster by giving you a mount. There is DLC for World but it’s not needed early on, there is about 30 hours of game before you get to that point.
Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3
This is a weird one. The dev played Puzzle Quest and realized that a match 3 puzzle game could easily handle any situation you may encounter in a game. So they made a game where your main form of conflict resolution is through matching puzzles. The story is interesting too, it’s essentially Resident Evil but dinosaurs. The game constantly makes reference to prior entries that never existed. It’s a very off the wall and funny game, it’s heavy on the narrative and is a bit of a visual novel. It even features time travel mechanics like most modern multiple ending Visual Novels. It’s really hard to share much without spoiling it but the game is very Meta and there is a clown alley. It’s an Alley full of stock images of clowns. I think that gives you a good idea what kind of game it is.
Immortal Redneck
What are the chances that I’d be playing two games with Redneck in the name at the same time? Pretty high because CRDM3 reminded me that I never finished Immortal Redneck. In IR you play a redneck who crashes in a desert and becomes a mummy and is now immortal. You go through pyramid to collect coins and weapons and fight enemies, when you die you’re resurrected back outside. Outside the pyramid you can spend your coins to unlock stats, items, and loadouts. It’s one of those games that get better the more you play. It’s also a first person shooter and plays like Serious Sam. If you want something similar but magic try Ziggurat 2, you don’t need to play the first one. It’s a similar game but with a ton more to do. They’re both kind of like Rogue Legacy but without the inheritance mechanics. Don’t expect much out of them, they’re kind of turn your brain off and shoot games. Very much second screen friendly if you want to watch a video while playing. Speaking of videos, you can always watch my videos while you play.
That’s all I’ve been up to lately. It might seem weird to be playing so many things at once but they all fit a different vibe and half are being played exclusively on livestreams. I don’t play livestream games offline because I don’t want the audience to feel like they’re missing out.
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