Author: A.K.H.

The best thing about free to play games is that you don’t really need to watch or read a review. You can go try it out yourself, because they are free. But even free to play games ask you to invest something far more valuable than money to play them, and that is your time. So it might still be worth it to look at the reception to a game before you decide to invest time in it, especially in a long-term title like the first descendant.

Initially, I was going to play this for a good 3-4 hours and then put up an early impressions video, but I barely made it past one hour before realising that this game isn’t really for me. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad game of course, it just means I’m not part of the game’s target audience.

If you’re not going to watch the video, here’s a summary: the game is technically a really good product, it looks great, all the systems work well with each other, and there is enough depth to keep you playing for a long time. But what may turn you off, like it did in my case, is the mediocre gameplay, heavy focus on monetisation, and most important of all, the mere thought of investing multiple years in a new live service title seems exhausting. If you’re someone who is eager to find a game to adopt as your main game for several years, then sure, this title may be worth a look. Even then, I would suggest to be a bit cautious, because free to play projects are more likely to be shut down if they don’t get a good reception in their first few months on the market.

I have been playing Warframe on and off again since 2017. Usually, I return whenever there is a major update and see what’s changed. This time, the update wasn’t really a major one, considering that the main quest associated with it was just 30 minutes long, but that quest involved playing as the Stalker, an interesting character tormenting us for a long time. So I was quite eager to check out Jade Shadows, which is the 36th mainline update for Warframe.

Another three months have rolled by, and we are already nearing the end of Q2-2024. Let’s have a look at what happened in the past three months in the gaming industry.

Netflix has games? Not a lot of people seem to know this, but the subscription service now has close to a hundred games to download and play on mobile and tablet devices. Even multiplatform games like GTA San Andreas and Hades are now included as part of this catalogue, further blurring the line between mobile and PC/Console games. Studios like Ubisoft are even developing games exclusively to be added as part of Netflix’s catalogue. So in this video, I try five games chosen randomly from the Netflix games catalogue, to see whether the service is actually worth the price of admission.

Recently, Destiny 2 wrapped up a major storyline that started with the release of Destiny 1 all the way back in 2014. The series doesn’t celebrate its tenth anniversary until September 2024, but for the sake of this video, let’s just say Destiny has been around for ten years. It’s a long time to remain invested in one franchise, and understandably, a lot of community members are feeling emotional about the last ten years. Whether it is the fond memories of playing the two games in the franchise, or just regret over the all the time wasted playing the games, emotions are running high right now.

That got me wondering – what other live service games are out there which have been around for such a long time, and are still receiving frequent updates today? So it’s time for another list.

Video games can be useful in various ways, and one of them is wish fulfillment. This is defined as the satisfying of unconscious desires in dreams or fantasies. Recently, I was very disappointed with the performance of a local cricket team – the Sunrisers Hyderabad, when they crashed to a terrible defeat against the Kolkata Knight Riders in the final of the Indian Premiere League. As a spectator, there was nothing I could do about that result. But as a gamer, I could do the next best thing and seek revenge using a video game. And that’s what I did.

We no longer have E3, but we still had a busy weekend in June where hundreds of game studios and publishers came together to throw a bunch of gaming news at the world. Sony avoided all the noise by holding their state of play event in late May, and Nintendo avoided the noise by not yet announcing their Direct showcase, which is still scheduled to be held in June on an unknown date. But everyone else opted to use the second week of June 7 to showcase their games, and there are literally hundreds of game trailers and teasers to go through.

In this video, I have handpicked 30 games that I felt were worth mentioning for various reasons. Highlighting only these 30 games means I have left behind hundreds of other games, and I had to do that simply because my brain couldn’t process any more news. I’m skipping some big titles like Indiana Jones, the Starfield DLC, the new World of Warcraft expansion, Metal Gear Solid Delta, the new Diablo IV Expansion and many interesting indie games, most of which certainly seem promising. But that’s the fun of curating your personal list – you get to make your own choices and let your head focus only on those few titles, because no one can keep up with all of the news.

Should you buy Wayfinder in June 2024? The short answer is: yes, it is a pretty good bargain for $25, but it may still be safer to wait for the full launch of the game. The long answer is a bit more complicated, which is what we’ll talk about in the video. Before we begin, a quick note on the visuals: I don’t have a modern PC, so I had to run the game on medium graphics settings. The game actually looks much better than what you’re seeing here. There will be a few spoilers in the video.

At the very last moment, Sony announced a State of Play, and we finally got to watch it a few hours ago at the time of recording. If you’re not familiar with these shows, State of Play is usually more of a smaller show focusing either on a mixture of games or on one single game. But it is different from a showcase, where Sony usually announces big games, and which runs for more than an hour.

So expectations were low from this State of Play, which ran for a little over 30 minutes. And it kind of met those expectations. It featured 14 titles, and while I think there was something for everyone, there didn’t seem to be anything that got a large portion of the player base excited. In fact, people were still confused and disappointed because they were expecting some big announcements that usually happen in a full showcase. They’re not wrong to be disappointed, because last year, Sony held a full showcase that featured thirty games, including a lot of AAA titles. But this year is different, because Sony has already announced that we can’t expect any blockbuster titles from their first-party studios until at least 2025.