From bd6ff36468ceee9b6e1c0edaa46e9a7a5c29c937 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Jo=C3=A3o=20Marques?= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2024 00:21:58 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] [post] Played this month mar 24 --- abxy-posts.html | 13 +++ abxy.html | 44 ++++----- abxy/feed.xml | 115 ++++++++++------------- abxy/played-this-month-mar-24.html | 144 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ feed.xml | 2 +- 5 files changed, 231 insertions(+), 87 deletions(-) create mode 100644 abxy/played-this-month-mar-24.html diff --git a/abxy-posts.html b/abxy-posts.html index d44f1e5..fe06ec1 100644 --- a/abxy-posts.html +++ b/abxy-posts.html @@ -67,6 +67,19 @@

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Played this month – March 2024 ↗

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Number 3

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update

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08/04/2024

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update

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Played this month – March 2024

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Number 3

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8th April 2024

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opinion

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7 years of Nintendo Switch

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7 years of Nintendo Switch

And counting

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Played this month – January 2024 - - - -
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review

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Persona 5 Royal

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Style and substance.

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25th January 2024

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It doesn't end here!

diff --git a/abxy/feed.xml b/abxy/feed.xml index cad9a3b..4151878 100644 --- a/abxy/feed.xml +++ b/abxy/feed.xml @@ -1,4 +1,53 @@ -Jekyll2024-03-18T23:26:48+00:00https://joaomarques.website/abxy/feed.xmlJoão Marques | AbxyUX/UI Designer & Frontend developer. Author of the gaming blog ABXY.7 years of Nintendo Switch2024-03-03T00:00:00+00:002024-03-03T00:00:00+00:00https://joaomarques.website/abxy/7-years-nintendo-switch<p>It’s hard to believe but 2017 was already 7 years ago. The world was different back then, as Nintendo itself. Nowadays it seems almost unthinkable, but the house of Mario was in serious trouble before the release of the hybrid system that revolutionised the gaming market and gave a whole new life to portable systems. +Jekyll2024-04-08T00:17:34+01:00https://joaomarques.website/abxy/feed.xmlJoão Marques | AbxyUX/UI Designer & Frontend developer. Author of the gaming blog ABXY.Played this month – March 20242024-04-08T00:00:00+01:002024-04-08T00:00:00+01:00https://joaomarques.website/abxy/played-this-month-mar-24<p>Can you believe March is already over? I can’t. For me at least it was a quite hectic month, reflected with the radio silence here in this last few weeks, since the release of the post celebrating the <a href="https://joaomarques.website/abxy/7-years-nintendo-switch">7 years of Nintendo Switch</a>. But enough of excuses. For this catch up, I bring a respectable amount of games, all things considered, but most of my time was invested in two japanese RPGs with a number 3 on their title. Quite fitting for the third month of the year, don’t you think? Without further ado, here’s what I played in March: +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3 class="u-mt-0 u-mb-1">Metal Gear Solid</h3> +<p>Action-adventure / PS1 +<br /><br /></p> + +<p>I finally understand all the cult status behind Hideo Kojima and the Metal Gear franchise, now that I finished Metal Gear Solid. For a PS1 game from 1998 it has aged very gracefully, due to its voice acting, cinematography and gameplay. I will keep it short for now, as I will eventually do a review for this game. I have too many things to say about it, I just don’t know yet how to phrase them. +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3 class="u-mt-0 u-mb-1">Persona 3 Reload</h3> +<p>RPG / PS4 +<br /><br /></p> + +<p>My <em>full-time job</em> of this month. With 40 hours clocked in so far, I don’t know exactly how many I still have left in this expansive RPG, but I’m enjoying it so far. One thing I have to mention though, is the social links, which are essentially the friendships we can have in the game. Many of them suck, with the interactions with those characters ranging from painfully cringe to just boring. This was an aspect that was <em>vastly</em> improved in Persona <a href="https://joaomarques.website/abxy/persona-4-golden">4</a> and <a href="https://joaomarques.website/abxy/persona-5-royal">5</a>. +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3 class="u-mt-0 u-mb-1">Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty</h3> +<p>Action-adventure / PS3 +<br /><br /></p> + +<p>Still fresh from Metal Gear Solid, it was only logical that I would want to play its sequel. With that in mind I got a PS3, as it is to this day the only platform where the series can be played in its entirety. Regarding this second game, I only watched the 15 minute long intro cutscene and did not much else, but it got me intrigued. +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3 class="u-mt-0 u-mb-1">Formula One Championship Edition</h3> +<p>Racing / PS3 +<br /><br /></p> + +<p>With the start of the F1 season, I went to search for a good classic F1 game. I ended up finding this Formula One Championship Edition, a game developed by the creators of Wipeout that served as a launch title for the PS3, with an accurate representation of 2006 F1 season. Many aspects of this game held up quite well to this day, such as the graphics, gameplay… and the presence of Fernando Alonso, already world champion by the time this game was released. +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3 class="u-mt-0 u-mb-1">Mother 3</h3> +<p>RPG / GBA +<br /><br /></p> + +<p>Few series have a stronger cult status as Mother. One of the major causes for it, beside its uniqueness, is the mystery behind its international localizations. During many years, Mother 2 was the only game of the series officially released outside Japan, as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOEMCG2Ll4">Earthbound</a>. Mother 1 was released out of the blue for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2015, 26 years after the japanese version, as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttKkiEKqwuk">Earthbound Beginnings</a>. As for Mother 3, arguably the best of the bunch, it suffered the worst fate, never receiving an international release to this day. Luckily, a group of talented fans did what <em>Nintendon’t</em> and created an incredible <a href="https://mother3.fobby.net/">english translation</a>. It’s thanks to them that I’m now playing this game. +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3 class="u-mt-0 u-mb-1">Star Fox Command</h3> +<p>Shoot’em up / Nintendo DS +<br /><br /></p> + +<p>After seeing a video from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@GVG">Good Vibes Gaming</a> (a great Youtube channel that I totally recommend) about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_d3H2bkZHM">improving Nintendo DS games on the 3DS</a>, I decided to try this Star Fox Command, as it was mentioned there. Unlike the other games in the series, this one combines the spaceship flying and shooting with some turn based tactics, which is totally my jam. So far it has been a pleasant surprise. +<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><br /> +And that’s all for March. For next month, I have no idea, but I’ll try to focus on what I already have in progress. I need some closure, and closure won’t come if I keep adding games to my backlog. +<br /><br /></p>Can you believe March is already over? I can’t. For me at least it was a quite hectic month, reflected with the radio silence here in this last few weeks, since the release of the post celebrating the 7 years of Nintendo Switch. But enough of excuses. For this catch up, I bring a respectable amount of games, all things considered, but most of my time was invested in two japanese RPGs with a number 3 on their title. Quite fitting for the third month of the year, don’t you think? Without further ado, here’s what I played in March:7 years of Nintendo Switch2024-03-03T00:00:00+00:002024-03-03T00:00:00+00:00https://joaomarques.website/abxy/7-years-nintendo-switch<p>It’s hard to believe but 2017 was already 7 years ago. The world was different back then, as Nintendo itself. Nowadays it seems almost unthinkable, but the house of Mario was in serious trouble before the release of the hybrid system that revolutionised the gaming market and gave a whole new life to portable systems. <br /><br /> Let’s look back at the inception of the Nintendo Switch, how it became so successful and what it still has left to give. <br /><br /></p> @@ -583,66 +632,4 @@ Without further ado, here are all the games I finished this year, listed by fini <p><br /> And that’s all! As I mentioned before, you can expect reviews of the three games I enjoyed the most in 2023, <strong>Persona 5 Royal</strong>, <strong>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kindgom</strong> and <strong>Persona 4 Golden</strong>, here at ABXY. See you next year! -<br /><br /></p>We now reach the end of 2023 and with that the end of the first month of activity of ABXY. I wasn’t expecting to have already five posts in such short time period, but here we are. Anyway, thank you for reading my stuff, regardless of if you read everything so far or if you just found this humble blog. Let’s now focus on today’s topic: What have I been playing during this year. Not a lot to be honest, comparing at least with previous ones, if we consider only game variety. It was a year where I invested a lot of time into western and japanese RPGs, genres notorious for their lengthy narratives and all kinds of griding activities. No wonder I didn’t have time for much else. In a year jam-packed with fantastic releases (some may argue it was one of the best years ever in that regard), very few ended in on my 2023 playthrough. Only three new titles, with two of them being remasters or remakes, had my attention during this last 12 months. However, there are still a few games released this year I want to play, like Pikmin 4 and Fire Emblem Engage. Hopefully, next year I will be talking about them right here. Without further ado, here are all the games I finished this year, listed by finishing date:The Winners and Losers of The Game Awards 20232023-12-09T00:00:00+00:002023-12-09T00:00:00+00:00https://joaomarques.website/abxy/the-game-awards-2023<p>Beside the usual festive season, the end of the year is now also marked by a more recent tradition, The Game Awards. This event was initially created in 2014 by the gaming journalist Geoff Keighley to award the best games released each year, but has steadily grown to be more of a showcase for announcements of the upcoming ones, mixed with a considerable amount of related advertisement, absorbing some of the mediatic space left by the now (probably) defunct E3. It’s safe to say that TGA is by now one of the most important events in this media, with a viewership of 103 millions in 2022, according to the organisation. As so, everyone is interested in having a small piece the three and half hours of the ceremony’s runtime, from the small indie studios to the big names. There’s a bit of everything in here. -<br /><br /> -But let’s focus on what happened during this year’s edition. Who came out on top and who or what were the biggest disappointments? Let’s find out by nominating the winners and losers of the The Game Awards 2023. -<br /><br /></p> - -<h3 id="winners">Winners</h3> - -<h4 id="baldurs-gate-3">Baldur’s Gate 3</h4> -<p>There’s no way to deny it, Baldur’s Gate 3 was the indisputable winner of this year, claiming 6 awards in 9 nominations, including Game Of The Year. This feat was even more impressive if we consider the quality of the other nominees in every category it claimed, being this one of the most competitive years ever. I personally didn’t played it as I’m not that invested in Dungeons &amp; Dragons (in which this game is based of), but I believe all the acclaim was deserved. After all, it was arguably the best-received game this year, being truly consensual among critics and fans. -<br /></p> - -<h4 id="alan-wake-2">Alan Wake 2</h4> -<p>Other game that collected a nice amount of little statues, with 3 awards in 8 nominations. Curiously, Alan Wake 2 was announced to the public precisely at The Game Awards, two years prior. Surely a must play for fans of survival horror. -<br /></p> - -<h4 id="sega">Sega</h4> -<p>Who would have thought that Sega would have the best announcement of this TGA? I didn’t, even thought they teased it a few days before. Sega has a precedent of overpromising and underdelivering, so I was cautious. Surprisingly this time the hype was justified. They announced FIVE new titles at once, from their repertoire of dormant franchises: Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Streets of Rage, Shinobi and Golden Axe. As a long time Sega fan, it’s impossible to not be excited with this. The only problem I saw was the fact they mentioned that this games were “now in development”, which means that we probably won’t see them anytime soon. One or two may come out later in 2024, but my hopes are low. To be fair, I don’t mind to wait. Kudos also to Atlus (which Sega owns), for showing new trailers for the two games I’m most eager to play next year: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4py4V5xwXWE">Persona 3 Reload</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4bGNzXnKak">Metaphor: ReFantazio</a>. -<br /><br /></p> -<figure class="c-post__img"> - <div class="c-post__video"> - <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0VHYLJR9pNg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen=""> - </iframe> - </div> - <figcaption>❖ The trailer was a bit cheesy, but the games revealed look promising.</figcaption> -</figure> - -<h4 id="hideo-kojima">Hideo Kojima</h4> -<p>It’s well known that the mastermind behind Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding has a good relationship with Geoff Keighley, which grants him a free pass to use TGA as its own marketing platform. At this point it would be a surprise to not see him on stage talking during several minutes about an upcoming project without showing anything substantial about it. This year we were presented with a game called “OD”, with the only thing shown being a tech demo of a few face animations. It was weird, in classic Kojima fashion. I don’t know if it was a win for the public in general, but for him it was for sure. See you next year Kojima-san. -<br /><br /></p> - -<h3 id="honorable-mention">Honorable Mention</h3> - -<h4 id="nintendo">Nintendo</h4> -<p>With little to no presence during the event, Nintendo managed to sneakily snag 3 awards: Best Action / Adventure Game (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom), Best Family Game (Super Mario Bros. Wonder) and Best Sim / Strategy Game (Pikmin 4), in a total of 15 nominations. A fair reward considering the great year they had in terms of releases. Regarding the future, Nintendo didn’t unveil the curtain, although their 2024 looks pretty slim so far. Probably not the right time for announcements, as they might have bigger fish to fry with their imminent upcoming system. -<br /><br /></p> - -<h3 id="losers">Losers</h3> - -<h4 id="marvels-spider-man-2">Marvel’s Spider Man 2</h4> -<p>Sony’s sole horse for the silverware race lost in a spectacular way, taking home a staggering amount of zero awards, in 7 nominations. It was unfortunate, as the game actually looks good and should be fun to play, taking in consideration my knowledge of its predecessor. However, it was outclassed in every category it was nominated for. As I said before, this was a very competitive year and Spider Man 2 ended up being the colateral damage. -<br /></p> - -<h4 id="starfield">Starfield</h4> -<p>It was already known that Starfield wouldn’t be in the discussion for a huge amount of awards, as it wasn’t even nominated for Game of the Year, but considering it was one of the most anticipated games of 2023, it’s disappointing to see Xbox and Bethesda’s newest crown jewel relegated to second plan, recieveing a single nomination for Best Role Playing Game. Even there it had the misfortue of encounter and lose to the inevitable Baldur’s Gate 3. Can’t say it was unfair, since the game’s reception was mixed overall, but Todd Howard surely must be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyL5kKW5xAo">a bit disapointed</a> with this outcome. -<br /></p> - -<h4 id="every-award-winner-on-stage">Every award winner on stage</h4> -<p>Last year during the winning speech for Best Performance, Christopher Judge, who portrayed Kratos in God of War Ragnarök, caught everyone by surprise by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij0VUU6L1io&amp;t=255s">speaking uninterruptedly for eight minutes</a>. It was clear that even the production wasn’t aware of what was happening back then, because this year they overcompensated for that little detour. This time around each award winner had no more than a single minute to deliver their speech before having a <a href="https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964">“Please wrap it up”</a> message on the teleprompter. The Game Awards always had problems in balancing the show between the awards itself and the promotional side, with the balance tending more and more in favour of the later as the years go by. I would be lying if I said that I don’t care about those announcements, but to put in perspective, any of the several ads for Lego Fortnite or Honkai: Star Rail that ran during the event lasted longer than any winner speech. -<br /><br /></p> -<figure class="c-post__img"> - <div class="c-post__video"> - <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vn_iJ7PBMJQ" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen=""> - </iframe> - </div> - <figcaption>❖ Poor Aonuma-san, barely had time to read his speech, not to mention his translator.</figcaption> -</figure> -<p><br /></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><br /> -From the few interesting announcements, to the winners trimmed speeches, passing by the countless unnecessary ads (I know Lego Fortnite is a thing FFS, I saw the first ad), The Game Awards 2023 was a complete mixed bag. I hope Geoff takes his lessons from this year and turn this event into something truly great, because the potential is already there. Or probably give 20 minutes on stage to each winner to compensate for the overcompensation. -<br /><br /></p>Beside the usual festive season, the end of the year is now also marked by a more recent tradition, The Game Awards. This event was initially created in 2014 by the gaming journalist Geoff Keighley to award the best games released each year, but has steadily grown to be more of a showcase for announcements of the upcoming ones, mixed with a considerable amount of related advertisement, absorbing some of the mediatic space left by the now (probably) defunct E3. It’s safe to say that TGA is by now one of the most important events in this media, with a viewership of 103 millions in 2022, according to the organisation. As so, everyone is interested in having a small piece the three and half hours of the ceremony’s runtime, from the small indie studios to the big names. There’s a bit of everything in here. But let’s focus on what happened during this year’s edition. Who came out on top and who or what were the biggest disappointments? Let’s find out by nominating the winners and losers of the The Game Awards 2023. \ No newline at end of file +<br /><br /></p>We now reach the end of 2023 and with that the end of the first month of activity of ABXY. I wasn’t expecting to have already five posts in such short time period, but here we are. Anyway, thank you for reading my stuff, regardless of if you read everything so far or if you just found this humble blog. Let’s now focus on today’s topic: What have I been playing during this year. Not a lot to be honest, comparing at least with previous ones, if we consider only game variety. It was a year where I invested a lot of time into western and japanese RPGs, genres notorious for their lengthy narratives and all kinds of griding activities. No wonder I didn’t have time for much else. In a year jam-packed with fantastic releases (some may argue it was one of the best years ever in that regard), very few ended in on my 2023 playthrough. Only three new titles, with two of them being remasters or remakes, had my attention during this last 12 months. However, there are still a few games released this year I want to play, like Pikmin 4 and Fire Emblem Engage. Hopefully, next year I will be talking about them right here. Without further ado, here are all the games I finished this year, listed by finishing date: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/abxy/played-this-month-mar-24.html b/abxy/played-this-month-mar-24.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a816e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/abxy/played-this-month-mar-24.html @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ + + + + + + + + Played this month – March 2024 ● ABXY + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Played this month – March 2024

+

Number 3

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+

8th April 2024

+

update

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+

Can you believe March is already over? I can’t. For me at least it was a quite hectic month, reflected with the radio silence here in this last few weeks, since the release of the post celebrating the 7 years of Nintendo Switch. But enough of excuses. For this catch up, I bring a respectable amount of games, all things considered, but most of my time was invested in two japanese RPGs with a number 3 on their title. Quite fitting for the third month of the year, don’t you think? Without further ado, here’s what I played in March: +


+ +

Metal Gear Solid

+

Action-adventure / PS1 +

+ +

I finally understand all the cult status behind Hideo Kojima and the Metal Gear franchise, now that I finished Metal Gear Solid. For a PS1 game from 1998 it has aged very gracefully, due to its voice acting, cinematography and gameplay. I will keep it short for now, as I will eventually do a review for this game. I have too many things to say about it, I just don’t know yet how to phrase them. +


+ +

Persona 3 Reload

+

RPG / PS4 +

+ +

My full-time job of this month. With 40 hours clocked in so far, I don’t know exactly how many I still have left in this expansive RPG, but I’m enjoying it so far. One thing I have to mention though, is the social links, which are essentially the friendships we can have in the game. Many of them suck, with the interactions with those characters ranging from painfully cringe to just boring. This was an aspect that was vastly improved in Persona 4 and 5. +


+ +

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

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Action-adventure / PS3 +

+ +

Still fresh from Metal Gear Solid, it was only logical that I would want to play its sequel. With that in mind I got a PS3, as it is to this day the only platform where the series can be played in its entirety. Regarding this second game, I only watched the 15 minute long intro cutscene and did not much else, but it got me intrigued. +


+ +

Formula One Championship Edition

+

Racing / PS3 +

+ +

With the start of the F1 season, I went to search for a good classic F1 game. I ended up finding this Formula One Championship Edition, a game developed by the creators of Wipeout that served as a launch title for the PS3, with an accurate representation of 2006 F1 season. Many aspects of this game held up quite well to this day, such as the graphics, gameplay… and the presence of Fernando Alonso, already world champion by the time this game was released. +


+ +

Mother 3

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RPG / GBA +

+ +

Few series have a stronger cult status as Mother. One of the major causes for it, beside its uniqueness, is the mystery behind its international localizations. During many years, Mother 2 was the only game of the series officially released outside Japan, as Earthbound. Mother 1 was released out of the blue for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2015, 26 years after the japanese version, as Earthbound Beginnings. As for Mother 3, arguably the best of the bunch, it suffered the worst fate, never receiving an international release to this day. Luckily, a group of talented fans did what Nintendon’t and created an incredible english translation. It’s thanks to them that I’m now playing this game. +


+ +

Star Fox Command

+

Shoot’em up / Nintendo DS +

+ +

After seeing a video from Good Vibes Gaming (a great Youtube channel that I totally recommend) about improving Nintendo DS games on the 3DS, I decided to try this Star Fox Command, as it was mentioned there. Unlike the other games in the series, this one combines the spaceship flying and shooting with some turn based tactics, which is totally my jam. So far it has been a pleasant surprise. +


+ +
+ +


+And that’s all for March. For next month, I have no idea, but I’ll try to focus on what I already have in progress. I need some closure, and closure won’t come if I keep adding games to my backlog. +

+ +
+ << More posts +
+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/feed.xml b/feed.xml index 9858ad3..401ff71 100644 --- a/feed.xml +++ b/feed.xml @@ -1 +1 @@ -Jekyll2024-03-18T23:26:48+00:00https://joaomarques.website/feed.xmlJoão MarquesUX/UI Designer & Frontend developer. Author of the gaming blog ABXY. \ No newline at end of file +Jekyll2024-04-08T00:17:34+01:00https://joaomarques.website/feed.xmlJoão MarquesUX/UI Designer & Frontend developer. Author of the gaming blog ABXY. \ No newline at end of file