XBOX ONE – DJMMT's Gaming (& More) Blog
Posts about XBOX ONE written by djmmtgamechangerdoc
https://djmmtgamechangerdoc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/blog-logo.png?w=32
DJMMT's Gaming (& More) Blog
I honestly didn’t want to write this post. I write them every year, so I did it out of tradition, but my takeaway for the year is that both the gaming industry and community will never change. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing if they weren’t both so broken, misinformed, and often downright stupid. It’s a shitshow all around. So, I’m gonna wrap up the highlights for this year, but it’s a lot more bad than good.

Let me start by summarizing my own personal year of gaming, as is tradition. I had a really great year of gaming. As I write this, I managed to beat 61 games in 2022. And I’m very close to finishing World of Final Fantasy, so I might just hit 62 by the end of the year. And I didn’t just play a lot of games with no quality behind them. Many of them were quite good. I’d say my top 10, in the order I played them, include Inscryption, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Voice of Card: The Isle Dragon Roars, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Death’s Door, the Banner Saga Trilogy (I’m cheating the count here), Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, and Bayonetta 3. I’ll provide the full list in my Gaming Goals 2023 post next week. It’s hard to say what my GOTY was, as I have yet to play some of the bigger contenders like God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring. But I feel like both Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Bayonetta 3 were snubbed at The Game Awards.

I finally got a PS5 this year but, as I write this, I haven’t actually had time to play it yet. I probably went overboard on the initial accessories purchases, but I always do that when I get a new console. While I’m still very backlogged with PS4 games, and always said I didn’t want to start using the PS5 until I had cleared out my last gen backlog, I ultimately ended up doing exactly what I said I wasn’t going to do and downloaded the remaining PS4 games I still want to play to my PS5. Once I finish World of Final Fantasy, I’ll retire the PS4 for good. My first game of the new year will probably be to platinum God of War Ragnarök. All in all, I think it was a great year of gaming for me personally. Now let’s talk about everyone else.

As I say in this post every year, it’s impossible for me to cover every topic in a single post, as too much gaming related controversy goes on in a given year. So, I’ve narrowed it down to a short list of topics that mostly encapsulates the state of gaming this year. In no particular order, here we go.

ACTIVISION BLIZZARD . . . AGAIN

If it’s not one thing with this company, it’s another. I included Activision Blizzard in the list last year, because of their rampant sexual harassment problems and the bad PR that came with it. This year, they were, and remain, in the spotlight for way too much time, but ironically it’s not their own bullshit that caused it. This year, it was all about the debate of whether or not Microsoft should be allowed to buy them. I almost wrote a post about this acquisition. Or rather, I almost wrote another post about this acquisition that wouldn’t be focused mostly on COD. I did write a post this year about that.

Personally, I’m against Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard for various reasons, none of which have to do with any desire to play COD on PS5, or any platform. And thein lies the real problem. This discussion has taken months and centered around COD. Why the hell are people debating a garbage competitive FPS among a sea of other garbage competitive FPS franchises? They’re a dime a dozen, and all play pretty much the same. Who cares? There are so many more important topics to be considered in the discussion of a hardware distributor purchasing one of the largest third-party publishers in the industry after having already purchased one of the other largest third party publishers in the industry a year ago. The fact that so many people, gaming journalists, and other companies have made this entire discussion about COD exclusivity is maddening.

Additionally, I really hate the toxic nature of how gamers have discussed this topic as end users. Mostly what I’ve seen isn’t XBOX users happy that Microsoft will add a publisher and ideally more games. It’s XBOX users happy to see PlayStation users lose access to games. Why? Why is anyone happy that other people will have access to less games? And let’s be clear. The same exact thing would be happening if Sony was buying Activision Blizzard. So much of the gaming community today is just man-children fighting each other about which company gets to have too much of their money for little in return. It’s angering. If it didn’t personally affect me as a gamer when stupid people do stupid bootlicking things, I’d say they all get what they deserve. Another part of this debate that really angered me was people getting angry at people voicing their disagreement through the proper legal channels. The entire system of governance in any democratic system is the ability for people to voice their concerns and know that they have been heard and considered. That does not mean that everyone who complains will get what they want. But the idea of denying them the right to voice their concerns is horrifying.

It’s good that people contacted their local representatives in multiple countries about this issue. It’s good that multiple government agencies took an interest in vetting this purchase. This is an issue that tax paying, adult citizens care about. Whether or not everyone agree with how important it might be is besides the point. We should absolutely support the idea of people being able to voice their concerns over an economic decision that will affect their purchasing power and access to products they want as consumers. Anyone who disagrees is a fascist, regardless of your personal opinion on whether or not a company should be able to buy another company.

POKÉMON

My personal takeaway from the Pokémon franchise this year is that a great many changes need to happen but won’t because the sales numbers will never weaken. Pokémon Legends: Arceus was one of the best games I played this year. Not just one of the best Pokémon games. Just one of the best games in general. It was everything I always wanted from a Pokémon game. 3D graphics, active and dynamic gameplay, stealth Pokémon hunting, and real motivation to keep catching the same Pokémon encounters multiple times. While I wouldn’t say it was a perfect game, it was truly amazing. Proof positive that the classic Pokémon model is not only dated, but ready to be replaced with something new. The fact that the game wasn’t given more recognition at The Game Awards is honestly ridiculous. Truly a victim of having released too early in the year to be remembered.

The problem is that Arceus seems to have been a one off, or at best an experiment that might have value at a future undisclosed date. I wish Scarlet/Violet had implemented this new gameplay model. I want to play Scarlet, but I honestly don’t know if I can. Not only did they go back to the boring old model, supposedly with some changes from what I’ve read, but the game is apparently a bug-ridden mess. I’ve seen many people say that this is the most fun traditional mainline Pokémon game ever made, gameplay wise, but everyone also says that the bugs are rampant. One of my friends bought it day one and ranted at me via text the same day about how bad the performance is.

The major issue with Pokémon is that they’re now doing way too much with the franchise too quickly. Why were Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Scarlet/Violet both released this year? There was no need for that. We have tons of recent Pokémon content. The show is still running, people are still playing Pokémon Unite, and Arceus was worthy of a GOTY nomination, even though it ultimately got snubbed. Why shoehorn in more Pokémon games this year? They should have delayed Scarlet/Violet and got it working properly. Pokémon Sword/Shield was released in 2019, so I understand the argument of it’s about time for a new generation. However, that calculus isn’t taking into account modern content management factors that didn’t apply back in the old days. Sword/Shield got two huge DLC expansions in 2020. Diamond and Pearl remakes were released in 2021. And lets not ignore spin-off games like New Pokémon Snap! and Pokémon Café ReMix. That’s a lot of content.

Game Freak/Nintendo needs to chill and leave these games in the oven long enough to cook properly. It’s not like people will forget about Pokémon if they don’t do a new gen every 1 – 2 years. It’s a shame, but it keeps happening because people keep buying them day one. Scarlet/Violet made record sales, even in the face of all those glitches.

ENOUGH WITH THE PS4

I’m sure I sound biased, having literally just stated in this post that I recently got a PS5, but I’ve actually been saying this for months and had originally planned to get a PS5 much later down the road. I’ve written multiple posts stating this, such as last month in this post about God of War Ragnarök. Sony, and by extension all their developers, needs to stop supporting the PS4 with new AAA games. I know that’s a tough pill to swallow; but the quality of new games is being hindered by having to support last gen hardware.

The hard truth is that every gen eventually ends. It’s annoying and expensive, but it is objectively what’s best for the games. We have already seen multiple PS5 games doing less than they could, because of the need to develop a PS4 capable version of the game and trying to cut costs. With an unlimited amount of time and resources, this wouldn’t be a problem, but that’s not the world we live in. It’s time to accept that the PS4 and XBOX ONE are done. They both need to be retired so new games can live up to their full potential. And I’m saying that as someone who literally just downloaded 20 PS4 games onto my PS5, as I transition my backlog forward to the next gen.

$70 GAMES

This has been a topic of discussion for more than a year now, but I hadn’t personally experienced it until recently. For Christmas, I bought a new AAA PS5 title for two friends and myself, so we could play the game together. That’s $210 for a measly three games. No additional DLC, no special editions; just three copies of the vanilla game. That’s a lot of money. Even when compared to the $180 it would have been for PS4 games, that’s a $30 difference. For reference, I spent only $25 to buy Horizon Zero Dawn and all the DLC. $30 is functionally another game. Remember that Sonic Frontiers released in November this year and was down to $30 by Black Friday. So we’re not talking about a paltry sum. That extra $10 can immediately be felt as a burdensome cost increase.

As a person who doesn’t usually buy games at launch MSRP, I’m not going to buy games at $70 often. But it effects more than just launch spending. All costs have and will go up as a result. During Black Friday sales, I noticed that games that used to be priced at $19.99 are now being priced at $24.99. DLC costs have increased with the next generation. If the $10 increase only affected day one AAA pricing and all other things remained the same, I’d probably not care to discuss it. But nothing exists in a vacuum. Rising prices raise all fees. Couple that with the fact that PlayStation Plus has increased in price as well and we’re talking a significant chunk of change for what has ultimately been shorter, buggier games and more microtransactions for a vast majority of AAA releases on all platforms. The only real solution seems to be chaining yourself to subscription services in the hopes that they eventually make the games you want to play available. And that often won’t be day one either.

STEAM DECK

The Steam Deck released this year. It’s an impressive piece of equipment. It’s great for indie titles. It is not a Switch killer. That’s really all that needs to be said about the device. Hardcore PC games don’t really want one, because it can’t perform at desktop level. And Switch owners have no interest in trading in the streamlined Switch experience for a more complicated way to play the same games minus the Nintendo exclusives, barring emulation. While the device is interesting on paper, the target audience is mostly casual gamers who don’t want to be limited to the Switch library and tech enthusiasts who like throwing away money on new toys. I thought about buying one, as I do have a lot of indie titles I’d like to play on the go in my Steam, Epic, and GOG libraries. But ultimately it wouldn’t be any different than just playing the indie titles I have on Switch. I can honestly say that if PC indie titles weren’t often cheaper than on Switch, I’d buy a majority of them on Switch instead rather than changing over to a different portable gaming device.

Additionally, we’re still being asked to trust Valve hardware. Or more accurately, the Steam Deck asks us to trust Valve to properly manage their hardware. Based on the company’s track record, that’s a tall order. If you’re happy with the current Steam Deck and don’t feel the need for future updates and support, then by all means. But if you genuinely believe that Valve will support the device the way Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony support their respective consoles, then good luck with that. I will say that the prospect of winning a Steam Deck during The Game Awards was my favorite part of the show, which I wrote a post about a few weeks ago.

SQUARE ENIX

What can I say about Square Enix that hasn’t already been said about the last Star Wars trilogy? In recent years, the company has become a lackluster, disorganized (badly organized?) shell of what it once was. The weird thing about Square Enix is that they are still making some really solid games. But they’re often not the games being talked about, for a number of reasons. Like the Voice of Cards series. These turn-based JRPGs are short, well-written, and beautiful. I even wrote a post about how the first one reignited my love of turn-based RPGs. But these are low budget titles somehow being churned out at a rapid pace and then lost in the ether. Really, that’s one of Square Enix’s biggest problems right now. They’re putting out a ton of JRPGs at a staggering frequency, but not really marketing any of them, save for the occasional Nintendo Direct announcement. Meanwhile, they’re focusing on Final Fantasy titles, often with announcements that sour people’s expectations for them. Let’s also address the fact that the last two or more mainline FF games have been disappointing. Final Fantasy XV is bad, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. And yes, there’s a post about that too. But there’s also games like Marvel’s Avengers that had so much potential, and a shit ton of content, but the business model was everything that makes people complain about EA. It’s just not a good look.

Square Enix’s problems go way past their game management though. They’re also going whole hog against consumer demands and doing crazy shit like selling Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive, arguably two of their most successful studios of the last several years, and the IPs that go with them for money to invest in *checks notes* blockchain gaming? Who the hell thought that was a good idea? I mean sure it’s easy in hindsight for me to call out the company after the fall of FTX, but crypto, NFT schemes were a sinking ship even back in May when this was all announced. It just doesn’t make any sense. To be clear, I don’t see Square Enix going bankrupt any time soon. But I won’t be surprised if Sony or Microsoft ends up buying them in the next few years at a hefty discount as they continue to shoot themselves in the foot with terrible decisions. And that Symbiogensis reveal was just the funniest, most disappointing thing ever. Sorry Parasite Eve fans.

ADAPTATIONS

It’s very impressive how suddenly game adaptations are making a comeback in a big way. And not sucking . . . a decent amount of the time. Shows like Arcane and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners have seen great success. But it’s not just animation. Live action adaptations are rolling deep, and we continue to see more and more announcements. The Witcher, though that seems to be floundering in all directions now, proved that there’s a big market for game adaptations targeted at adult audiences. Now we have a The Last of Us show soon to release from HBO, a Warhammer announcement, with Henry Cavill in a leading role, and serious talk about a God of War live action series.

Personally, I don’t really need adaptations like these, as I actually play video games. But I can appreciate the idea that there are great stories in video games that deserve to be exposed to a wider audience. Sadly, those larger audiences seem to be pulling these productions away from the source material much of the time. When you haven’t played a game and you watch a show, you have no reason to complain about how much it deviates. But the core audiences making these adaptations possible are usually fans of the games. Deviation is often irritating to them, and producers really don’t seem to care about that. Like even The Cuphead Show, which I’ve watched in its entirety, has no respect for the game it’s based on, story wise. The plot of the show is entirely different and unrelated to the game. From a writing standpoint, I get it. I’ve beaten Cuphead, and I can say that there is no way you could have gotten three seasons of content out of that game by following the plot. The producers knew exactly what they were doing with this show. It’s clearly not built for fans of the game. It’s a kid’s show that just happens to have been visually inspired by a game.

My major issue with game adaptations is that they never adapt anything that needs its story told. They’re not picking well-written obscure games that nobody played. They’re picking mainstream titles that most people already know about, even if they didn’t play the game. I know people who don’t own PlayStation consoles but have taken the time to watch God of War in its entirety on YouTube, because the game is that popular. Why adapt something with that much awareness? Obviously money, but that’s not the point I’m making. Why not adapt something like Legacy of Kain or Star Ocean? Who needed a retelling of Uncharted? And I really liked the Uncharted movie, which isn’t actually based on the games narrative wise. But a game that popular didn’t need its story retold to a larger audience. Especially when that story was just a younger, less educated Indiana Jones to begin with. I wish Hollywood would stop being lazy and playing the safe bets.

There are probably more topics I should have included, but these were the biggest gaming highlights in 2022, for me. There are individual games worth talking about, for one reason or another, but that’s not really the point of these posts, as they’d end up getting ultra-specific and be even longer than they already are.

I can say with confidence that 2023 is going to be a great year of gaming, for me. Because no matter what garbage ends up happening, I’m still going to get to play God of War Ragnarök, Horizon Forbidden West, and a bunch of other games on PS5. There are also some amazing looking games scheduled to release this year. I’m really excited for Wild Hearts, Wo Long Fallen Dynasty, Forspoken, Fire Emblem Engage, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, among many others. I have no doubt that good games will be released in the coming year. But I’m also fairly confident that industry players will continue to make things worse due to a combination of greed, hubris, and a blatant lack of audience awareness. In any case, happy gaming I guess.

This week both the XBOX Series X and PlayStation 5 will launch, barring some last minute Cyberpunk 2077 level troll. This is a momentous occasion as it means that we have officially started the next generation of gaming. As expressed in last week’s blog post, I still don’t know if I really consider these consoles truly next gen worthy yet but the fact is that these are what we have for the next generation of gaming. But that’s not really what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the last generation of gaming.

While the consoles will still be supported for presumably and hopefully some years to come, the fact is that the time of the PS4 and XB1 is officially in its twilight. These consoles are now the walking dead in the throes of their death rattle. This is not meant to be inflammatory or argumentative. It’s merely factual. Our current/last gen consoles are now in the final stretch towards obsolescence. So I wanted to take the time to discuss the high point(s) of the last generation by “officially” naming the Game of the Generation (GOTG).

I have seen many discussions, Twitter debates, video posts, and gaming news site articles about what the Game of the Year will be, with the debate centering around Ghost of Tsushima versus The Last of Us Part II, due to the fact that Cyberpunk 2077 missed the cutoff. In my opinion, Ghost of Tsushima should win between those two and when/if the time comes to discuss it (probably in like a week or two) I will do a full post about it. But let’s not talk about 2020 today. Let’s talk about 2013 – 2020.

It’s always hard to differentiate gens because of the overlap at the beginning/end of each gen and cross-gen titles. So for the purposes of discussion I will only include games that launched between November 2013 and November 2019. I’ll also not include any games that launched as cross-gen titles on either last-gen (PS3/XBOX 360) or next-gen (PS5/XSX) consoles. I will only include Switch games for Nintendo’s part in the discussion, though an argument for Wii U titles can certainly be made. And I will not include any ports for any platform. I will allow full remakes, but no cross-gen remasters, which are just glorified ports. So Link’s Awakening remake, yes but The Last of Us remastered, no.

The real question is what defines the GOTG? Like with GOTY (Game of the Year), it’s a very nuanced debate that too many people try to rush through with a simple level of reasoning, usually based on their own personal preferences. The truth is that it can’t be as simple as which game you liked the most, which game got the best review scores, or even which game sold the most. I believe it’s a combination of those things but also so many other things, many of which are almost impossible to measure completely objectively and this early in the discussion. And yes I realize that I’m using the term early even though we’re literally at the end of then generation.

I think there are a number of different factors that need to be considered when discussing the GOTG, and I’m happy to admit that a number of them aren’t exactly easy or even possible to objectively answer or even necessarily compatible to be asked in the same discussion. So here’s a list of 10 questions that I think we should consider when trying to determine the true GOTG. Note that these aren’t even all the questions one could ask. I started with 15 and whittled it down for the sake of time.

When was the game released?

I think time plays an important role in this question. As I’ve said, it’s hard to differentiate gens when many games overlap. Another issue is that certain games are rushed out at the beginning of a gen to get launch status and boosts in sales. It’s also apparent that games launched at the end of a gen can struggle because people are waiting for the next gen consoles. Really it’s the games in the middle of a gen that get the right amount of time to develop something great while already having enough data from other games to really push a console to its limits. Marvel’s Spider-Man is a great example of this. That’s not to say that a game launched at the beginning of a gen, such as Dragon Age: Inquisition, or at the end of a gen, such as Ghost of Tsushima, shouldn’t be serious contenders for GOTG.

2. How many people actually bought the game?

This matters because game development, while art, is also business. Sales numbers also help to measure appeal. If no one was willing to purchase a game, was it really that good? Yet there are countless examples of games that actually were really good that people didn’t buy, such as Alien: Isolation. The game is criminally undersold. At the same time, there are plenty of trash games that sell millions of units. Annual sports games being the best example. We also have to account for the fact that many games are free to play or launched free as a promotion. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was one of the most downloaded games in the PS4’s history. It also launched free for PlayStation Plus subscribers. So you have millions of people playing a game they didn’t pay for. That also happens to be Fortnite’s story. Does it matter that people probably wouldn’t be playing these games if they had to pay for them? Conversely, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was not free on Steam and yet has millions of users on that platform as well.

3. How many people actually played the game?

Hidden gems are fairly common in the gaming industry. There are simply too many games to play and many aren’t published by big companies with massive marketing budgets. So it’s easy for a lot of great games to fall through the cracks. But is it right to award GOTG to a game very few people played? Even Among Us was able to build a following eventually. At the same time though, the idea of not having a big marketing budget keeping you from being a contender for GOTG seems extremely unfair. Yet it wouldn’t make sense to name a game nobody played as the defining experience of a generation. Another issue to consider is exclusive titles. The fact is that far less people played Ratchet & Clank (2016) than Devil May Cry V simply because the latter was available on more platforms, allowing for a wider net of potential players. At the same time though, God of War, The Last of Us Part II, and multiple other PS4 exclusives outsold many multiplatform games, including Devil May Cry V, in the last gen.

4. How many people actually finished the game?

This one is pretty straight forward. A lot of people start games but often don’t finish them. No matter how much fun a game is, if people aren’t willing to finish it then clearly something is wrong. Some games are too difficult for some people, such as Dark Souls, and some games are really good but simply too long, such as The Witcher 3. But should we punish a game for providing too much content or being too challenging for mediocre players even while being totally fair/acceptable for average players? There needs to be some middle ground with this topic but how does one even try to measure that?

5. Was the game actually good or were the people behind the game just really popular?

This is the problem with brands being part of the discussion. Many games sell well based on franchise popularity or studio prestige while not actually being a good game. Again, all the annual sports titles fall into this category. They aren’t bad games but there’s not really anything innovative or new about them from year to year. They just up the graphics a bit and update the rosters. But let’s consider an even more obvious example: Death Stranding. That game is proof that people will do anything to support Kojima, including convincing themselves that delivering mail is fun. Yet I would bet that the people who argue the game is actually great wouldn’t be willing to die on that hill if it wasn’t a game by Kojima. It’s impossible to fully divide a game’s popularity and sales based on its own merits versus loyalty to the brand, but it does need to be considered in the discussion.

6. Was the game good at launch or did it require several post launch improvements to become something worth playing?

While we’ve had patches since the last gen, this was the first generation where genuinely bad games launched and then were fixed over time to become not just serviceable but supposedly good games. No game exemplifies this more than No Man’s Sky. That game launched terribly and was met with huge outrage. But over time it has added several large scale updates and transformed into a highly favorable game. But is this acceptable in a discussion about GOTG? Should a game that was only made better because of backlash at launch be considered a triumph? In a way though, it does express what the experience of gaming in the last gen has been like. Post-game patches, updates, and sometimes large scale changes are here to stay. This also factors into games with large amounts of DLC, whether paid or free, and expansions. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was great, but a huge part of the game’s success came from the impressive expansion packs and the extremely fair pricing of post launch content, including a bunch of free DLC. So do we grade the game in totality or only in its launch form? Because we have to apply the same criteria to all games. Some win big when you include post launch updates and content, while some lose or get no extra points.

7. Are certain genres excluded from the GOTG discussion?

This is an issue that can anger many people, because there are many types of gamers. Some, like myself, play for the story. Others hunt trophies. Many people hate single player experiences and only want to play multiplayer games. There are so many different types of games and people that play them. So how does one pick the best of a generation when no matter what game it is large swaths of people will hate it? For me, I’d eliminate all games that don’t have a single player mode driven by a story, but many people would vehemently disagree with that decision.

8. Are our expectations for GOTG the same this generation as they were last generation?

I think this is one of the most important questions a person can ask in this discussion. The fact is that what gamers collectively called good games last gen is different from this gen, for better or for worse. Today some of the most popular and profitable games are those with no single player mode, no story, and run on constant microtransactions with no cost to jump in. Many require an always online connection as well. In the PS3/XBOX 360 era, these types of games were hated. Constantly maligned for their terrible business models and called lazy cash grabs for their lack of meaningful content. Today they’re championed and given special award categories just to keep praising them long after their release. Clearly there has been a fundamental shift in the way games are viewed and judged within the community and that needs to be accounted for in a GOTG discussion.

9. Do GOTG contenders have to have won previous awards?

This is an interesting question because often games get snubbed. But at the same time if a game couldn’t win any meaningful awards then how can it be considered GOTG? It would be easy just to look at all the GOTY picks since 2013 and compare them but I think that’s a bit too easy. Also, there are several game awards. The Game Awards is just one show with one set of awards every year. But there is probably something to the idea of focusing on the games that have won the most awards overall.

10. Does a game’s length factor into the GOTG discussion?

This is one of those questions where the answer is objectively supposed to be no but there are also clear nuances to the discussion. A game can be too long and most open worlds are. But a game can also be too short. And I definitely think value has to play a factor in the discussion of GOTG. Value also happens to be relative though.

When I try to pick a single GOTG that best encompasses all the greatest aspects of the last seven years of gaming, I draw a blank. There are simply too many games that were important, for different reasons. I can come up with a short list, but it still seems impossible to pick a single game. And that’s ignoring the fact that I didn’t even get to play every game. Or even every game actually worth considering. Of course there are specific games that stand out amongst the sea of great titles we experienced. God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Witcher 3, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Bloodborne, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin’s Creed : Origins, and Monster Hunter: World just to name 10 I’d happily consider off the top of my head. And I could keep going. Now I could easily cut that list down to five. I’d quickly eliminate The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Bloodborne, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Ghost of Tsushima, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for various reason. We could also quickly remove Super Mario Odyssey, because while the game is great it certainly doesn’t stand up as GOTG. And I’d say the same thing about Monster Hunter: World. So that leaves us the big three: God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and The Witcher 3. Now it’s hard.

I think it’s interesting that those three remaining games are all established franchises, though this iteration of Spider-Man is an original game series. When it comes to gameplay, it’s a toss-up between Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War. When it comes to writing, I think it’s easy to default to The Witcher 3, but in reality all three games are fairly well written. For game length it’s of course The Witcher 3, but for pacing I’d say God of War takes it with Marvel’s Spider-Man close behind. We could do this all day. Going through every criteria between these three games will never net a clear winner. And that’s the bigger point that I think needs to be addressed. It’s not really realistic to choose a GOTG. Because the choice could never be totally conclusive. It makes much more sense to name Games of the Generation, as in multiple titles.

A generation of games is simply too many to choose from. And choosing a single one to fully encompass everything the generation had to offer is laughably impossible. What makes much more sense is to choose a collection of games that together expresses what this last generation was able to achieve. Obviously there will still be debate over what games should be included, and there should be. But I think creating a list of titles that together delivers the overall experience of what the last generation of gaming was makes way more sense than trying to pick an all-encompassing game to represent the Switch, PS4, and XBO over the last seven years. So let’s make a Games of the Generation list.

For me, a Games of the Generation list should not simply be the top 10 games of that generation. While that would be an excellent collection of games that would certainly be worth playing, it wouldn’t be the best list of games to fully express what the last gen was about. Rather I want to select the most appropriate games that together distill the last generation of gaming into a single well curated collection. Similar to what the PlayStation Plus Collection intends to do on the PS5. The first thing I’m going to do is not choose 10 games, but instead choose 12. Why 12? Because then you could play one game each month of the year and by the end of the year you would have gotten the full eighth generation gaming experience. So here’s my full list for the Games of the Generation with an explanation for each game in the collection.

Games of the Generation (A Collection by DJMMT)

This list is not in any particular order. It has not ranking and is meant to be played as a collection with each game taking up to a month to complete. Some games are top shelf experiences and others are not, but together the collection is meant to express the overall experience(s) that truly defined the last generation of gaming.

Fortnite

I hate Fortnite. I hate the battle royale shooter concept and experience. I hate the microtransactions, the lack of single player modes, and the fact that these games are so popular. But I’d be flat out lying to not include this game in the collection because BR shooters were a huge part of the last gen of gaming. Epic Games made more money from Fortnite Battle Royale than all their other in house developed games combined, and it’s a free to play game. So many people got into Fortnite that random franchises and people went out of their way to get involved in the craze. Travis Scott held a concert in game, Thanos made an appearance, and people I never would have expected became addicts. Even my sister, who never played a shooter before in her life, got into Fortnite. It simply has to be included in a list expressing the essence of the last seven years of gaming. But note that this game is not included only because of how prolific it is. It’s included to express the entire BR shooter genre. PUBG, Fear the Wolves, Hyper Scape, and countless other battle royale games came to be during this generation. The genre solidified itself as a staple part of modern gaming, for better or for worse (let’s be honest it’s worse).

Honorable Mention: PUBG, though no longer as popular, and not nearly as creative, started the modern concept of the battle royale genre.

Tetris 99

I included this game because though it started with shooters, the battle royale experience in general became a huge part of gaming as a whole. Nintendo especially showed that the battle royale concept didn’t have to be limited to any specific genre. People just like the concept of playing a game they already like competitively with a large amount of other players. Tetris 99 started this idea of branching the battle royale model out to other types of games. This idea proliferated and ended up being used in games such as Mario 35 and culminated with the creation of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout by Mediatonic. But I still chose to include Tetris 99 here because it best expresses the idea that anything, even the simplest of games from decades ago, can be made into a successful battle royale game.

Honorable Mention: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is currently the most successful non-shooter battle royale and has more modern gameplay than Nintendo’s takes on the genre.

The Witcher 3

I struggled a lot with which open world RPG to include. The open world genre has saturated gaming. It seems every new game that isn’t an FPS is an open world RPG with way too many objective points and bloated maps. Ubisoft is responsible for a lot of these like multiple Assassin’s Creed titles, multiple Ghost Recon titles, and multiple Watch Dogs titles. But we also had Red Dead Redemption 2, Ghost of Tsushima, and even God of War added some open world RPG elements. But I think the most noteworthy title in the genre is The Witcher 3. Not only does it have a large map, lots of missions and objective points, and RPG elements, but it also has a ton of story content of the highest quality. It expresses not just what was best about this genre but also what was best about this generation. There were some games that just went above and beyond expectations while keeping the prices manageable for consumers. None delivered more so than The Witcher 3.

Honorable Mention: For a streamlined version of the well written, open world RPG experience, I highly recommend Ghost of Tsushima.

Bloodborne

While many would think Bloodborne would be a given, I struggled a lot with this decision. It’s certainly a keystone title of the PS4. But this is not a PS4 collection. It’s a general gaming collection, though some exclusives have been included. I chose Bloodborne because it expresses the fact that the Soulslike genre was started by From Software but also addresses the fact that Dark Souls is over. We’ve moved past Dark Souls and branched off into new franchises that make use of the Dark Souls gameplay model. Nioh, The Surge, Code Vein, Mortal Shell, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order are all takes on the genre that have nothing to do with Dark Souls or even From Software. I’m glad the genre was able to branch out away from the one limited art style, gameplay mechanics, and weapons types. And really Bloodborne is not my favorite non-Dark Souls Soulslike game. I picked it more because it’s still a From Software title and ushered in this move away from the Dark Souls franchise.

Honorable Mention: For a Soulslike with an actual plot and less somber aesthetic, I highly recommend Nioh. Also, it’s not by From Software which I think better expresses the point of this entry.

Uncharted 4

I didn’t choose Uncharted 4 because it was the best story focused third person action game from the last gen, though it was a top tier one. I chose it because it was made by Naughty Dog and is the fourth installment in a franchise that didn’t by all rights need to continue. A big part of the last generation of gaming was sequels we didn’t really need but that still managed to knock it out of the park. There were many games I could have put here such as God of War, which I do consider a superior game. I could have even put Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. The point is that many studios decided that rather than creating new franchises they just wanted to lean back into tried and true IPs that were guaranteed sellers. Many of the games were astoundingly good, but at the same time it became very apparent that sequels were now all the rage for studios because marketing a new IP is just too much trouble. Ubisoft even went on record saying that they were no longer developing single release titles and that everything they plan on making moving forward will be meant to be a longstanding franchise with several installments.

Honorable Mention: God of War is simply one of the best games made in the last 10 years even though it was a sequel we absolutely didn’t ask for and certainly didn’t know we needed.

Detroit: Become Human

One thing that was really great about this gen was the fact that many alternative gameplay styles were able to accomplish amazing things. Both indie and AAA projects that did not do the same old thing gameplay wise were able to proliferate and succeed in ways we haven’t seen in a long time. I don’t think any non-action game impressed me this gen as much as Detroit: Become Human. I was always a lukewarm fan of Quantic Dream and absolutely hated Beyond Two Souls, but this latest installment from them was a top tier experience with powerful writing, exceptional acting, great visuals, and compelling QTE based gameplay.

Honorable Mention: Until Dawn, which I’d argue doesn’t control quite as well, is a similar experience with a horror element and more well-known actors.

DOOM

One of the things about the last gen that became a big topic of both debate and support was accessibility. But I think the definition of accessibility extends past being playable by people with physical disabilities or slower reaction times. Accessibility is about making games playable for more people, regardless of what the barrier is. I don’t think any game expresses that as much as DOOM (2016). DOOM was the first modern FPS game I ever played that was built for walk on players without having to play it on easy. I hate FPS games and I don’t particularly like gory demon themed aesthetics but I had such a blast playing DOOM. It was made for people who aren’t experienced or enthusiastic about FPS gameplay. Everything from the writing to the gameplay loop was constructed to make the player feel confident about what they were doing and thereby made the franchise more accessible to more people who wouldn’t traditionally play that sort of game. The fact that there’s an Animal Crossing DOOM meme expresses this point better than words ever could.

Honorable Mention: The Last of Us Part II was legitimately built with a focus on traditional accessibility options and has a number of features that make the game playable for people with a wide range of disabilities and limitations.

The Division 2

Love it or hate it, the games as service model is here to stay. Live games with continuously evolving content, no defined ending point, an always online requirement, and continuous updates and microtransactions are just too profitable for larger publishers to ignore and no company seems to do them as much as Ubisoft. Multiple franchises pushed out multiple live service games in the last gen. Ubisoft came strong with The Division, Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six Siege. Even sports games have elements of live service in them now. I think The Division 2 is one of the best examples of this type of game but admittedly, it’s hard to get the authentic experience when you don’t start on day one.

Honorable Mention: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a great example of a softcore live service game that updates on a literal daily basis from player to player. Content is still rolling out seasonally and while the gameplay is simple the constant compulsion to keep logging in has never been stronger. Also, there’s no microstransactions.

Beat Saber

VR remains a gimmick. There are some impressive VR experiences but the price and spec barrier for entry remains too high while the quality of software, for the most part, remains fairly low. PlayStation, which could have led the charge on accessible VR options, went as far as saying that the PS5 won’t even support upgraded versions of PS4 VR games. No company has invested enough into the technology yet to make it go widespread the way it should have by now compared to other gaming technologies over the years. And Facebook just keeps making the whole thing worse. Beat Saber is probably the best example of VR in the last gen in that it’s well known, fun to play, and gimmicky as hell. Definitely worth trying out but not enough to invest in your own VR headset.

Honorable Mention: Astro Bot Rescue Mission is a PSVR exclusive that was supposedly going to revolutionize VR. It was highly regarded by pretty much everyone who played it and was a fun take on classic 3D platformers.

Cuphead

Few indie games have been able to accomplish the demand, acclaim, and exposure of Cuphead. It’s a game that started out as an XBO exclusive and then eventually made its way to both the PC and Switch due to sheer demand. While the art style is what attracted people, it was the promise of extreme difficulty that hooked them in. So much hype was established around how challenging the game was. People went out of their way to play it in order to prove they were legit enough. Eventually the developers released an easy mode because so many people complained that they couldn’t move forward but wanted to see the ending. I eventually played and beat it on PC without using the easy mode.

Honorable Mention: Ori and the Blind Forest is another indie that was widely praised and also started as an XBO exclusive before making its way to PC and Switch. The general opinion is that it’s not nearly as hard as Cuphead.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

I did not support the FFVII Remake. I have major issues with many aspects of the game including breaking it up into multiple parts, drastically altering the story, and destroying the original gameplay. That being said, the new gameplay is quite good. Or was for the short duration I tried it during my experiences playing the beta build and the demo. The reason I included this game in this collection is that it best expresses this gen’s obsession with remakes and remasters. So many games were ported, remastered, or remade for the PS4 and XBO. It’s like people stopped wanting to play new games. Resident Evil, The Last of Us, and countless other games, many of which weren’t even old enough to need remastering, were ported and slightly upscaled for easy profits. Even Nintendo got in on the action with a huge number of Wii U to Switch ports.

Honorable Mention: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake is an excellent remake that is absolutely worth playing. Since I didn’t get to finish the game as a kid, it has been quite a joy getting to play it on my Nintendo Switch with amazing graphics and smooth gameplay.

Monster Hunter: World

This game can actually have fallen into multiple categories on this list. It’s a live service game, a long RPG, a sequel, and the most accessible entry in the Monster Hunter franchise, gameplay wise, to date. Monster Hunter: World is impressive in the fact that it was able to take a fairly niche franchise and make it a mainstream craze. I put in over 100 hours before I finally stopped and I hadn’t really even scratched the surface of what was available to do even though I finished the main campaign. The game is fun, addictive, and works well as both a single and multiplayer experience. Everything about it just screams eighth generation of gaming. The funniest thing is that it doesn’t necessarily do anything better than other things from this gen. The graphics are great, but by no means the best. The gameplay is solid, but by no means the best. The writing is average at best. Everything about the game was done better by a different game. And yet it is still such a superior and addictive experience compared to many other games that did specific things better. It’s just a game that’s worth sinking time into.

Honorable Mention: Pokemon Sword/Shield is another example of a franchise that spent many years being popular while also niche that released a much more casual and accessible experience in its latest installment. Changes to the formula and the addition of online multiplayer content coupled with an amazing open world map and 3D visuals improved the franchise considerably for casual and new players, making it just as much a time sink as Monster Hunter: World but way easier to play.

That wraps up my Games of the Generation collection. I want to reiterate that this is not meant to be a collection of the best games released in the eighth generation of gaming. It’s a collection of experiences that together summarize what the eighth gen was about in its totality. There are better games than many of the titles in this list and each of the honorable mentions is worth a play as well. This was an excellent gen for gamers, albeit not necessarily the most innovative one, and many of these games will be remembered and (re)played for years to come.

What games do you think best define the eighth generation?

As next week will officially start a new generation of console gaming, I thought it was important to go into this supposedly new era of gaming by discussing what next gen actually means in 2020 and more specifically what it should mean. A new $500 box being sold with a higher number on it doesn’t make it next gen. The way we play games on it determines that. And yes the games are the important part. So let’s ask some tough questions of both Microsoft and SONY.

Before getting down to brass tacks, I want to take the time to say a few things about the transition between this gen and next gen. At the start of every generation, we debate the cutoffs; and rightly so. How do we really determine what is and isn’t next gen during the transitional period? Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a PS5 launch title and yet I can play it on my PS4. Cyberpunk 2077 will release a week after both PS5 and XSX launch and yet it’s been in development for the better part of a decade and will release on both current and next gen consoles. It’s difficult to really differentiate between gens when games release on both gens at the same time and began development years before a new gen had even been announced. Are these games really next gen or should they be categorized as current gen?

While there are many different arguments about differentiating gens, I think it’s important to discuss what our expectations should be for generational transitions as a whole. For context, I think the transition from the SNES to the N64 was the most noteworthy generational transition we’ve ever had and I think the transition from the PS3 to the PS4 was the least noteworthy generational transition we’ve ever had. My reasons for this are that for me generational transitions should fundamentally change the way we experience games or gaming as a whole. Nintendo has always been very good about this. Pretty much every generational change going back to the NES has delivered noteworthy shifts in the way people play games on their platforms. Even the failing generations such as the Wii U were huge departures in gameplay from the preceding console. That is what generational shifts used to be. That’s what they’re supposed to be. Today new generations, for PlayStation and XBOX but not Nintendo, usually just mean better graphics and somewhat faster load times. For me, that’s not a worthy generational transition.

If the gameplay experience is not changing in some fundamental way, then it’s just a spec upgrade akin to buying a new graphics card or CPU for your PC. I don’t care if the graphics are slightly crisper. It’s nice, and I’ll take it for a good price, but it’s not really next gen. I don’t care if loading times are slightly faster. Again, I’ll take it for a good price. But in no way will that fundamentally change the way I experience games. Say what you want about Nintendo’s crazy controllers but every console since the NES made you redefine what it meant to play Nintendo games at an almost foundational level. That’s a generational shift.

I like to focus on actual gaming when talking about next gen upgrades, but I will admit that in certain ways external features that aren’t actually gaming can count as part of the discussion of next gen upgrades as well. For example, the PS3 didn’t really change much about how we played games from the PS2, other than again much better graphics and loading times, as well as the size of games. But it did solidify the online component of gaming for PlayStation users. The PS3/XBOX 360 introduced us to an online console store, accounts based gaming, trophies/achievements, cloud saves, subscription services that include “free games”, and the beginnings of online e-sports as a serious mode of competition at a professional level. None of these things reference actually playing games but they all had and continue to have huge effects on the way we participate in gaming today. And that is why I consider the transition from the PS2 to the PS3 a much more noteworthy generational shift than the PS3 to the PS4. The PS4 and XBOX One did very little to revolutionize gaming. They essentially offered better graphics and faster loading times with more convenient content creation features and media streaming capabilities that have absolutely nothing to do with gaming. That’s really it. You’re playing the same types of games in the exact same ways but now it’s easier to stream, capture pictures and video, and share to social media directly from your console. Didn’t affect actual gaming much at all. So the question is will the PS5 and XSX constitute actual next gen console upgrades?

We haven’t actually used the consoles yet, but from what I’ve seen the main upgrade between the current gen and next gen consoles is the SSD. The graphics will get slightly better, but not enough to really change much. Control schemes don’t seem to be changing much at all, though I am excited to see if developers will actually take advantage of the DualSense’s haptic and pressure sensitive features. That actually could be a true generational shift if taken seriously by studios. But really the main upgrade appears to be the SSD. An SSD will make games much faster than the traditional HDD consoles we’ve grown accustomed to. But, like with the controller features, it will only matter if made to matter by developers. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a PS5 launch title that is being touted for its lightning fast loading times, and they are impressive. But that’s not a change or improvement to my actual gaming experience. It’s an improvement to my overall experience by wasting less of my time and keeping me more active longer. But the way I actually interact with the game will be no different than with Marvel’s Spider-Man. I don’t care if the subway loading screen no longer exists when I fast travel. It’s nice but it doesn’t change the way I play the game.

The SSD actually does have the potential to revolutionize gaming, but so far the only game I’ve seen actually trying to do that is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which I cannot wait to play. Insomniac Games is actually trying to use that SSD to affect gameplay and storytelling with this game. The ultra-fast loading means you can hot swap worlds in real time with no lag. That’s a potential game changer for how games are made and played as well as the type of games that even get made. Think of what’s actually possible with no loading times at a gameplay level. When I played Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, one of the things I was truly impressed by was this barely used mechanic where when you walked through certain archways the world would change in real time. The changes were small but completely changed the game. Things such as ladders appearing or paths opening would happen by walking through a specific archway. I said while playing the game that you could build an entire game around that mechanic, and with an SSD you actually can. This appears to be the premise of The Medium: A next gen game where you play within a dual reality and can constantly change between two dimensions of the same world. We’ve seen games like that before but hopefully not to this level of detail and transition. But even that is still level one use of the SSD. What if you could hot swap between four different alternate realities like in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions but in real time as part of the gameplay and not just the storytelling? Now that sounds next gen.

Another facet of the SSD, like with the PS3/XBOX 360’s online additions to gaming, does have a lot of non-gaming potential as a next generation transition as well. Whether or not it sticks is a different matter. One of the things that really impressed me from the PS5 UI presentation was the ability to take advantage of the console’s speed for quality of life features. Features such as the ability to look up hints in real time on console and show them as picture in picture videos. The ability to watch others play games and chat with them as picture in picture videos. The ability to hot swap between games and return to your first game almost instantly with a couple button presses. Currently I don’t usually play multiple games in a single session of gaming on the same platform. Sometimes I’ll do stuff like play a mobile game or Switch game concurrently with a PS4 game, but rarely do I play a PS4 game and then switch to another PS4 game in the same session. I just play one game until I’m tired of playing and then turn the console off altogether. My first thought tells me that this is more a function of habit than preference, but when thinking about it further it’s probably more due to time. Specifically loading times.

I rarely play more than one game on the same platform at the same time. There are exceptions, but in general I try to focus on one game per platform at a time. And really I prefer one game at a time in general but live games and streaming have made that impossible. Currently I’m playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (PS4), Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)(will be finished by the time this is published), and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS) regularly. That means almost every day. I’m playing Animal Crossing because it’s a live game that constantly adds updates and I’m compelled to continue playing it for now but I’m admittedly ready to be done. I’m streaming Ghost of Tsushima, which matters because when I stream a game I only play it during streams, with a few exceptions for collecting and grinding where necessary. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is my current narrative game that I’m just playing for me. I’m also causally playing Link’s Awakening Remake, which I’m nearly done with, Super Mario 35, and I need to jump back into Pokemon: Sword since the new The Crown Tundra DLC recently dropped and I haven’t even fully finished the Isle of Armor DLC yet. Note from this list that I’m currently only playing two games on the PS4, but I play these two almost every day. I’m also nearly finished with both. Yet I’ve never played them in the same gaming session. The fact that I’m streaming one of them definitely plays a factor, but even if I wasn’t I still probably would never play them both in the same session. This is because swapping between them takes forever.

If I wanted to go directly from standing in the map in Ghost of Tsushima to standing in the map in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, on my normal PS4, it would take approximately 4 minutes and 20 seconds. The full process includes saving and returning to the title screen in Ghost of Tsushima, going to the dashboard, selecting Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, closing Ghost of Tsushima, and finally loading through Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey’s not one, not two, but three start up loading sequences. It’s important to note that open world Ubisoft games always take a long time to load up. It doesn’t matter what platform you’re on. They always take a long time to start. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint takes a while to load on PC as well. It is admittedly considerably faster to transition from Odyssey to Ghost of Tsushima than vice versa. But the point is that in either case it’s minutes of wasted time. The motivation to switch games is simply not present. I’d rather just end that entire session when I get bored with one game than waste that much time switching. Supposedly this issue will not exist on the PS5. You can instantly switch between games and then switch back to the exact spot you were in without loading. That speed of transition may get me to play more than one game in the same session.

I can see myself playing something like Dark Souls and getting stuck on a boss and then deciding to change to something completely different for like 30 minutes to cool off and then going back to fight the boss again. I can see myself playing Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, having a friend login to play Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and deciding to jump in and play with him for a few rounds, and then jumping back into Valhalla. It the transitions are seamless then I have no reason not to. But if I have to go through the massive transitional times between games that we have right now then it’s not worth it. I’m gonna ask my friend questions like how long does he intend to play and ask myself how long do I feel like playing that for. Because if the answer to either question is not long enough then taking the time to switch games just isn’t worth it. The Nintendo Switch is surprisingly fast to load up the games so I actually do switch between games on there often enough. But on my PS4 or PC, it’s a super rare occurrence. So while I can’t say for sure, I could see the PS5/XSX being a true generation transition externally from actual gameplay as well if it’s really as fast as being touted and these special features are actually as easy to use as they say. The ability to look up hints for collectibles on console instantly is a game changer in and of itself.

At the end of the day, what I want to see is a real generational shift. I want to see these new consoles fundamentally change the way we play games. And not just in how we pay for them or access them via streaming services. I want the games to actually be different in noticeable ways. I want the ways games are made and tied to narratives to be different. Not just different, but better. I don’t want the next big new IP to just be another God of War, The Last of Us, or Assassin’s Creed clone. I want something I haven’t played before. When I look back at the last gen of games, many stand out to me as being really good. Few stand out to me as being really good and different. Many indies are different. Sadly few are actually depth defying in how good they are while being different. That is of course a limitation of budgets more than anything, but that doesn’t change the fact that it matters. I want to see AAA games made differently. But more importantly I want to see those games made possible only because of the technological advancements provided by the PS5/XSX. If I can play it on my PS4 and the only difference will be slower loading times and nominally worse graphics, then it’s not really next gen.

I remember the last game I bought for PS3. It was Dragon Age: Inquisition. An excellent game that was almost unplayable on PS3 because it required too much of the last gen console. I had so many glitches and enough lag time to go to the store and buy a PS4. It played terribly on PS3 and that let me know that the console was done. But even then I won’t say that the limitation was in actual gameplay differences. It was just that the game was too large and detailed for the older hardware. That don’t impress me much. The last game I played on PS2 was The Force Unleashed, and you know what, it played fine. It looked terrible but it ran smoothly. I only shelved my PS2 after that because I already had an XBOX 360 that had been gifted to me so I saw no reason to keep buying games for the older console when they would look better for basically the same price on the next gen console. But if I hadn’t already owned a next gen console at that point I would have kept buying PS2 games until they wouldn’t run smoothly anymore. Graphics and load times aren’t next gen. They’re just a given for next gen. I want the PS5 to wow me in new ways.

I will not be buying a PS5 day one. I actually can get one fairly easily, since I live in Taiwan and people aren’t insane here. But I have opted not to rush. This is because while the PS5 has already shown exclusive games that I want to play, and eventually will, it has not shown me anything that I absolutely must play right now. Not to mention that some of the games announced that I really want to play, like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, will be available on PS4 as well. If I just can’t wait, I’ll buy it on that platform. Add that to the fact that I’m still very happy with my PS4’s performance, and that I have a huge backlog of PS4 games actually worth playing, and there’s simply no reason for me to upgrade at this time. I’m happy to hold out for a PS5 PRO, given the current information and games available. It’s up to SONY, and developers, to change my mind. I don’t owe SONY or Microsoft anything. I don’t have to upgrade. They need to convince me to upgrade by providing content that I can’t get anywhere else and can’t pass up on. They haven’t done that yet. But I hope one of them, almost assuredly SONY at this point, eventually does. Are these new consoles actually next gen? Or just more of the same with a speed boost? Only time will tell.

I’m a big fan of GOG and have been for many years. They’re actually my favorite storefront to buy PC games from. Though their selection is limited compared to Steam and other PC game distributors, I try to buy from them wherever applicable. One of the main reasons I really liked them when I first found out about them was how convenient their distribution system was. There was no launcher. You just went to their site and downloaded the entire DRM free game you purchased directly to be used offline. For me, this was always a better, more convenient option than Steam. Some years later, they released the GOG Galaxy launcher, which I was against at first because it meant having to have yet another launcher and that suddenly DRM was slowly, and sadly, becoming a thing for GOG. Make no mistake, requiring a launcher to access your games is a form of DRM. Having to login to access your games is a form of DRM. Eventually I gave in and started using GOG Galaxy. It’s good as far as launchers go, but there’s nothing particularly better about it compared to other launchers.

In the time since installing GOG Galaxy 1.0, I have had to add a number of additional game launchers to my system. Uplay, Origin, Bethesda, Epic Games Store, and so on. Every publisher has decided they need their own launcher now. I’m not one of those people who gets angry at companies for not putting their games on Steam. I understand their desire to want to make more money and spend less of it distributing their games. But like with TV streaming services today, there’s a point where there’s just too many entities offering what is essentially the same service with disjointed content. This is what first attracted me to GOG Galaxy 2.0.

GOG Galaxy 2.0 offers a simple value proposition: manage all your games in one place. It’s a launcher that allows you to see and manage all your games, including those you have on PS4 and XB1, in one organized collection. Honestly it sounded too good to be true when I first heard about it. While simple from a technological standpoint, I didn’t see how GOG, or really any company, would deliver something that actually connects all the games I have, except for those on Nintendo Switch, in one convenient location with user data and preferences from that many separate launchers and two non-PC gaming platforms. So I jumped at the chance to download the beta build as soon as I saw the announcement. I’ve now spent a fair amount of time using the launcher and thought it would be beneficial to write a review of my experiences.

The first thing I want to say is that GOG Galaxy 2.0 (GG2) absolutely delivers. I can honestly say that this is the last launcher I will ever use for my normal day to day gaming needs. That being said, there are a number of caveats which sadly still requires me to make use of other launchers to get the full spectrum of PC gaming and management services I require for all my PC gaming needs. The second thing I want to say is that this is absolutely still a beta build and while I have been using it as my go to launcher, it has a number of bugs and fixes that need to be made. It lags at times when trying to apply tags to games from the grid view. It even crashed once and made me have to restart my whole system.

In practice, GG2 is basically Facebook for your games via other game launchers. I say that intentionally with all the good and bad that comes with the Facebook platform. The way it works is that you manually connect each launcher you have installed on your system into GG2’s interface by logging into each launcher via GG2. You can connect or disconnect launchers/services you have connected at any time. To me there does seem to be a level of security risk with linking and logging into all your platforms at the same time and handing that login information to GOG. But you make the same sort of decisions with connecting your social media to your phone every day. I will also acknowledge that each launcher you connect has you login to the launcher’s official login window as opposed to a special GOG one so maybe they aren’t actually being given your login information directly. You can’t actually buy any games, other than from the GOG store, in GG2. In fact, you can’t even access stores from other launchers from within GG2. It’s strictly a platform for managing your games while replacing GOG Galaxy 1.0 for GOG related purchases and gaming.

What GG2 actually does is import your library page from each connected launcher, along with whatever play progress data it can find, and mashes all those libraries together in a single, convenient UI. The launcher separates each connected platform via convenient tabs, but the default page shows you your entire collection of games as one massive list. It can be viewed in either grid view with imported cover images for most games, or list view which shows the name and platform each game comes from. When you choose a specific launcher tab it just filters the same view to that one platform’s games.

I was quite impressed with the amount of information GG2 imported for each game from each platform. It shows all your achievements/trophies, the date they were acquired, and your play activity for each game. As a note though, it only tracks data from PS4 on for PlayStation and GOG data after a certain year, when I guess they officially started tracking play data for users. Many of my games have no data shown. It imports your friends list from each platform and shows you a comparison of how you’ve done compared to your friends in each specific game. On the subject of friends lists, there’s a feed on the right of the launcher that shows friend activity across all platforms in real time, organized by platform. In one convenient location I’m able to see which of my friends are online in Uplay, PSN, Steam, and so on all at the same time. I’m able to see what games they’re playing and what they’re accomplishing in real time with time stamps. Even though the feed isn’t interactive, it’s super convenient when trying to pick which game to play, if you’re looking for a multiplayer experience. You can also hide/show the feed with a single button on the UI. The add friends and chat functions only work for GOG friends though.

It needs to be said that GG2 is still limited in what it can actually do in reference to non-GOG games. As the other launchers aren’t actually ceding control to GOG, you can’t directly launch games from GG2. When you press play on any PC game a login window for that game’s launcher will pop up before you can actually play the game. Even if you’ve told GG2 to remember your login information for all platforms, you will still have to manually login to each game’s perspective platform every time. Launch a Steam game, you have to go through the entire Steam login process. Launch a Uplay game, you still have to go through the entire Uplay login process. What GG2 is doing is essentially creating desktop shortcuts for all your games and organizing them into a single unified and curated list for you. I will say though that there are a number of bugs, as this is a beta. For instance, not all my games showed up. Sometimes they show up and then other times they don’t. Often a specific connected account disconnects the next time I load up the application and I have to reconnect it. Thankfully though, when this happens my tagging/filtering options remain intact.

From a security standpoint, this is a good way to do this. GG2 doesn’t actually have full access or control of your other accounts and thus if it was hacked, that wouldn’t necessarily allow the hacker to have access to all your games and account information. At the same time, it’s very inconvenient. Having all your games in one place with access via a single login regardless of where you purchased the games would be amazing, and GG2 almost gets there. Having to login again for that last step to actually play your games is depressing but ultimately manageable. Especially considering the time you saved by not having to open multiple launchers to figure out which game you want to play.

As far as PlayStation and I assume XB1 titles, obviously you can’t play them from the launcher. GG2 simply says “launch this game from your console” when you click the play button for a console game. What would have been nice is at least being able to activate the app on console from your PC, but we’re not there yet apparently. It’s also important to mention that, at least for the PlayStation games since I don’t have an XB1, GG2 will only track games tied to your PSN account with a digital footprint. What this means is that all digital PS4 games, including ones you own but don’t have downloaded, will show up in your GG2 list under the PlayStation tab. But only PS4 games that you have actual progress in will show up when it comes to physical versions. I think this is because it’s using the trophy list to figure out which non-PC games you have.

I really like that GG2 shows when you own multiple versions of the same game on multiple platforms. It very clearly shows you how many versions you own, which platforms you own them on, and lets you select which version you’d like to interact with and check player data for. This is a clutch feature that I’m not sure I would have even thought about on my own. It’s not perfect at this point though as some games do show up twice in your list. I think it comes down to naming within each platform more than anything else. For instance, The TellTale Game of Thrones Season 1 game shows up twice in my list. One version on PS4 and the other on PC. But the one on PS4 is just called Game of Thrones while the one on PC is called Game of Thrones: A TellTale Series. So I think that’s why it happened. And yet it didn’t separate my three versions of Batman: Arkham Asylum, each with a slightly different name. In fact, it shows each slightly different name in the game’s main page when you click the versions owned tab. So it’s not an exact science at this point.

What is actually much more useful and convenient than the tabs is the manual tagging and filtering system. All your games on all platforms are shown together in one giant list as a default until you use the filters. GG2 gives you the ability to manually tag and filter all the games in your list in whatever way you want. You can also manually hide games from your list. The filtering system lets you use as many tags as you want concurrently to filter the list and tells you how many games using the tag(s) are currently hidden. As a bonus feature, you can click the notice and it will reveal the hidden games and hide the normally shown ones and then go back to normal when you click it again.

The filtering system is a feature I’ve had to do manually for years with folders on my PS4. It’s super convenient in GG2 and makes managing a combined list of more than 600 games much easier. I created three custom tags for filtering: Beaten, Backlog, and Trash. I tagged the games I have already completed with “Beaten”. This allowed me to filter out all the games I’ve finished when I’m trying to pick a new game to play. I tagged the games I actually would like to play from my collection with Backlog. This allows me to set apart games I would actually like to play at some point from the rest of the group, thus streamlining my decision making process. Finally, I tagged the games I would absolutely never play with Trash. My one complaint about the tagging system is that it has to be done manually one game at a time. You are unable to select and tag multiple games at once. This is a non-issue once you’ve gone through and gotten all your tagging done, but it’s hell when you go through and tag your entire collection the first time.

There are also a number of small quality of life features that aren’t necessary but make for a way better experience. For instance, when you are scrolling through the grid and you click into a game’s page there’s a back button. Pressing it will take you back to the place in the list you were at when you clicked that specific game. You can give the games star ratings. You can look at your user data measured in daily, weekly, or monthly increments. There’s a general activity feed that shows everything you’ve done such as add games, get trophies/achievements, and play sessions. There are lots of little things like that which make for a great overall launcher experience.

My one big complaint, which doesn’t surprise me and I doubt it will ever be fixed, is that you can’t connect multiple accounts of the same platform. For instance, I have 2 PSN accounts and 2 Steam accounts. This is because I live in Asia but for the most part purchase games in American digital stores. Sometimes I’m forced to purchase a game through my Asian account(s) for various reasons. GG2 doesn’t account for this though so all my secondary account games are not shown in my collection. This is a problem easily fixed that will most likely never get added.

Overall, I really like GOG Galaxy 2.0. It’s not a finished service yet, but as far as launchers are concerned, it’s the most convenient game organization and management tool I’ve ever seen. I wish I could connect my Switch account to it too. Even people who don’t use GOG can find a use for this if they’re buying their games on more than one launcher/platform. The organizational tools available make it a must for anyone with a large selection of games. I look forward to using the launch version of the software.

When I was a young lad, back before the age of internet, always online, and microtransactions, we played many great games that made no sense but were tons of fun and super addictive in a healthy way. I can’t tell you why fat, Italian plumbers jumped on mushrooms or why blue hedgehogs felt compelled to collect golden rings, but I can tell you that the number of mushrooms I squashed and the number of rings I collected is much higher than the number of Fortnite bucks I’ve earned. One of my favorite games from my childhood was the original ToeJam & Earl (1991) for the Sega Genesis.

If I’m honest, I didn’t really understand the game as a kid. It was the original roguelike before that was an established genre. I played it often but never really knew what I was doing. I also don’t remember watching the opening movie so I don’t think I even knew what the premise of the game was back then. What I do remember is that it was one of the games that my father and uncles used to love to play and we all would play it together. I also loved the funky music and the fact that a character was named ToeJam, because that was and still is funny to me for some reason. So when I think about ToeJam & Earl, it’s always with great fondness. I eventually did go back and play the original game years later, actually watched the cutscenes, and completed it. I also completed the ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth (2002) for the XBOX. I tried ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron (1993) right after completing the first game, but I really didn’t like the different gameplay style. In any case, I have always cared a great deal about this franchise. That’s why I was ecstatic when I heard that someone was making a new installment after all these years. It is an honor and a privilege to be able to play a new ToeJam & Earl game in 2019. I kind of wish I had gotten the Switch version so I could round up my uncles and father and play it as a family once again.

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove! is both a sequel and a remake of the original game. It is important to understand this going in because it informs a number of design choices that people who aren’t familiar with the original game might not like or understand. As I said previously, it’s a roguelike but it has a number of conventions specific to this franchise and not much else. It’s also important to understand this in the context of judging it. If you’re looking at it strictly as a game being released in 2019, then it’s obviously not going to stand up to most if any top tier games being released today. Or at least that would be the case if we didn’t keep getting dumpster fire AAA releases like Fallout 76 and Anthem. But if we look at this in the context of recreating a game from 1991, then it’s one of the most true to form remakes I’ve ever seen not based on a game from the modern era. That’s the context within which I played and ultimately chose to review this game.

Assuming you have played or at least looked up some footage from the original game before starting Groove!, the first thing you notice as soon as the opening cutscene starts is that the graphics are vastly improved but true to the original style. It’s like night and day even though they’re both flat environments pretending to have three dimensional qualities. This new game definitely has a bit more depth to it with things like hills and the ability to clearly see the previous level floating beneath the one you’re currently on, but it’s still the same 2D style used in the first game. The vibrant colors stand out so much in this game. Compared to original, it’s like you were looking at a dirty screen and someone finally cleaned it off. Everything is brighter and way more detailed, including ToeJam and Earl themselves. Plus there are a lot of display options. You can play full screen or windowed play in 18 different resolutions.

There is a literal hoard of earthlings in this game to interact with, both evil and good. The movement is fluid and diverse for all of them. The playable characters move very smoothly as well. There’s no skipping or lost frame rate issues, even when playing with multiple players on or offline. Not only is the movement smooth, but it’s also well animated. What I like most about the game’s graphics is the amount of variety. 68 earthlings, 67 different types of presents, 25 stages with random layouts, nine playable characters, and even multiple environments from level to level. Many of these assets are interactive as well. Even the trees and bushes can be directly interacted with. And this is all randomly generated depending on which mode you’re playing. You do see some repetitive stuff such as enemy assets reskinned in different colors in later stages. But overall there’s a lot going on in Groove! and the game handles it perfectly.

The HUD is simple but effective. You have the level counter on the top center of the screen, which also notifies the player when a piece of the spaceship is on that level. In the bottom right you have the mini-map. With the rest of the HUD being in the bottom left, showing the character’s avatar, the XP bar, the HP bar, and the power up meter. In local coop mode, the HUD for the second player appears in the top left corner of the screen. When playing with four players, the HUDs are distributed to each corner of the screen when playing in a single screen and to the top left of each box when in split screen mode. What’s really nice is you can turn the map and HUD off if you want an extra challenge. You can also make the map larger at any time by holding the map button if you need to examine it in finer detail. But really the mini-map, assuming you have a large enough screen like I do on my PC, is quite adequate. It shows you locations for special things, the entire grid of the current level you’re on, and environmental landmarks such as desert or water. I never once needed to use the enlarge map function during play.

The menus are done very nicely too. A much better, clearer font than was used in the original game. The manual, which is quite comprehensive, is broken up into clear sections with small blocks of text, making reading through the whole thing very easy to do. It’s not an overwhelmingly graphic intense game. It’s more like an art piece that combines the simplicity of the past with some of the benefits of modern graphic development to make something totally new and beautiful but still definitively retro in nature. You’re not getting the bare bones Sega Genesis graphics but you’re also not going too far and getting something odd looking like ToeJam & Earl III. Ultimately I think it’s a wonderful looking game that delivered exactly what it needed to visually.

The first thing I want to say about the gameplay is that it’s buttery smooth. I was surprised at how smooth the gameplay actually is. Even when using a controller, a DualShock 4 in my case, the input works perfectly. There’s no lag. No input issues. This game works. I was very happy with how it instantly accepted my controller and gave me no issues. Now the game will not revert back to keyboard automatically if your controller gets disconnected during play. My controller ran out of battery in the middle of a game while running away from a group of enemies and I couldn’t pick up with the keyboard. My guy just stopped moving until I got the controller plugged in. The game doesn’t even pause when this happens. And since you spawn in the same spot where you died, I just kept dying until I got the controller working again. A bit of an oversight on the developer’s part, but nothing game breaking and easily fixed with a patch. HumaNature Studios is also really responsive on Twitter and is actively seeking out and listening to feedback for future patches, so this issue may very well be fixed in the near future.

The gameplay is quite simple in practice. You have to traverse 25 levels in search of 10 spaceship pieces, which are scattered randomly throughout the levels. The 10th piece is always on level 25, as stated in the manual. You traverse these levels by walking around each one trying to find an elevator. You can walk normally or sneak to avoid being seen by bad earthlings. Different presents can affect your movement as well. You also have the ability to swim through water but you can only swim for an amount of time corresponding to your current health. Meaning the larger your life bar, the longer you can swim when you’re at full health. You always start a new game with three lives but can earn more as rewards and through presents along the way. While traversing these levels you can collect money, presents, and food which also all incurs XP. Money is used to pay for services from good earthlings and to use certain items like parking meters. Presents, of which there are 67 different types, can do all sorts of things, both good and bad. They can do things like refill health, give you special powers like flight and better jumping, or reveal parts of the map. They can hurt you as well by doing things like dropping all your items, damaging you, and lowering your rank. Some presents are broken when you find them and have a chance of exploding when opened. You can also drop presents you don’t want.

You can only carry a limited number of presents at a time based on the character you choose and your current rank. Food can either restore or remove life. Rotten food, which always looks like the same types of food, hurts you while all other food helps you. Different types of food give or take different amounts of health. You can also gain XP. XP is used to increase your rank. Increasing your rank increases your stats like the size of your life bar, walking speed, and number of presents you can carry. There are a total of six stats with each character having their own strengths and weaknesses. You always start at the bottom rank at the beginning of a new game and can work your way up 15 ranks. You don’t level up automatically. Once you’ve collected enough XP, which can be gotten in many different ways, you then have to find a “wiseman” and he will increase your rank free of charge. You don’t have to increase your rank to beat the game. As soon as you find all 10 pieces of the spaceship you’ve won.

The gameplay is very simple to understand but that doesn’t make it easy. The many different enemy earthlings can be quite tricky and they often congregate in groups. Some will chase you or hit you with status effects like freezing you in place. Some will even drop you down to lower levels. Sometimes you’ll intentionally have to jump off levels to get away from enemies, causing you to have to back track and make your way up again. The map for each level always starts off blind and then expands as you explore the level you’re on. Presents are important. It’s necessary to use them often but strategically. The presents do many different things, but many of them are not identified until you’ve used them once. This means every time you find a new type of present you risk it being a bad present if you haven’t already used it previously to identify it. There is also a good earthling you can pay money to identify presents for you. I’m not 100% sure if this is true, but it seems to me that presents you’ve identified in past games will be identified in all future games. But there are also enemies and bad presents that remove your present labels and I’m not sure if this carries over to future games. It’s definitely something that I need to confirm with more research. It could also very well be completely random from game to game.

The gameplay is always the same but there are three difficulties that can be played across three modes. The “Fixed World” mode has the map stay relatively the same every game. This is a good mode to learn how to play the game once you’ve finished the tutorial. But the real challenge is when you hit “Random World” mode. This is the same gameplay but the layout of the levels changes every time. This is the roguelike experience that was spawned by the original game. There is also “Random World Hard” mode. At the start you only have Fixed World mode and then you have to reach level 10 to unlock Random World mode. But you don’t unlock Random World Hard mode until you complete a Random World run. The Hard mode is harder but not by a huge amount, in my opinion. There aren’t necessarily more enemies but they do more damage. There are also fewer presents around. Or at least that was my experience playing it. I played it in coop with a total of three players so maybe that affected the experience as well. We did manage to beat it though. You also have to take into account difficulty level and character. You can actually change your difficulty mid game whenever you want from the pause menu, but you can’t unlock prizes and achievements unless you’re in normal mode, which is considered the hardest of the three modes. Because of this, I never took the time to play in either of the two easier modes because that would be a complete waste of time. Each of the nine playable characters has their own stats, so it’s important to understand all six stats and choose the character that best fits your play style.

There are also two mini-games that you play within the game as special occurrences. The Hyperfunk Zone is kind of like a Sonic the Hedgehog style special zone. It’s a 2D side scroller where you continuously run from left to right collecting items until you run out of time or hit an exit portal. There is an ending, and an achievement for reaching it, but it’s quite a ways forward so it’s hard to achieve. It’s fairly simple to play and only requires you to press one button to dodge past exit portals. If you time it wrong then you leave the Hyperfunk Zone before reaching the end. You can also run out of time but picking up clocks extends your time in the zone. When you enter the Hyperfunk zone during coop play, all players are transported there regardless of where they are on the map. Each player plays independently but the running pace is the same. That means if you have two players and one gets out the other player can continue and the player who is out has to wait for all other players to finish.

The second mini-game is kind of like Guitar Hero but with buttons. You have to press corresponding buttons to a beat as they move down the screen. It works OK but the timing isn’t as clear as Guitar Hero and the feedback isn’t there with vibrations or anything so you tend to be too early or late sometimes because your eyes don’t agree with the beat, even though it looks like you were on time. This mini-game is played solo directly on the map so playing doesn’t affect other players during coop.

Groove! supports both local and online cooperative play. When playing in coop mode, only one person has to be in normal difficulty to unlock prizes at the end. This is really convenient for when playing with younger children or amateur gamers. You can enjoy the game with them while allowing them to play at an easier difficulty without losing out on prizes. Local coop supports up to four players. Each HUD is added to another corner of the screen and the screen splits for local coop so having more than four players would get way too cluttered. Online coop, which doesn’t split the screen, also supports up to four players. You don’t actually see the HUDs for other players in online coop so technically there’s no reason it couldn’t support more, but four is the maximum and honestly that’s enough for the size and scope of this game.

I really like the way the coop works because it’s not limiting like most coop games. You are playing the same game on the same map, but you can work fairly independently of each other. You have your own lives and life bars, money, and presents. But present effects are shared. Or at least some of them are like invisibility. It didn’t seem like physical enhancement presents are shared like wings or rocket boots. When one player runs out of lives they become a ghost and can take a life from another player if that other player agrees to give one up. All players show up on the mini-map so you know where you are in proximity to each other. But if one of you falls down to the previous level the other player isn’t affected. The one limitation is that players can only progress to unvisited floors together. This means that if one player reaches the elevator to the next floor first then they have to wait for the other player(s) before they can progress to the next level, even if that player has fallen down to a previous level. Thankfully though, you are immune from all damage when inside the elevator so you don’t have to worry about dying while waiting for other players to get there. Even the fake elevators give you immunity when waiting for other players in them because they don’t reveal themselves to be fake until all players have entered them.

During local coop, the game will instantly switch between shared and split screens depending on how close players are to each other. It will also split the screen if one of the players accesses the present or pause menu. The other players are unaffected. The screen splitting is dynamic so it constantly changes back and forth. It’s a horizontal split for two players, a horizontal and a vertical split for three players, and a 2×2 split for four players, all of which work fine for this gameplay. You do need a large enough monitor to play comfortably with that many players though. I can’t imagine trying to play this with four player split screen on the Switch handheld mode screen. The split can be set to dynamic or fixed. Dynamic means the screen will split based on location. The player farthest north on the map will inhabit the top screen in the event of a split. Fixed means the same player, player one, will always be on the top, or top left in the case of four players, whenever the game splits the screen regardless of your specific location on the map. This can be toggled in the pause menu at any time. There is a teleport option in coop mode that allows a player to join the rest of the group instantly but I haven’t figured out exactly what prompts this yet. I think it’s when all but one character is in the elevator waiting to move on to the next level, but I couldn’t recreate this in all situations.

During coop there is a quick chat function which is fairly easy to use. It’s all preloaded text based comments that appear over the speaking character’s head. These can be used, whether online or offline, to give other players information like where to go or that you’re waiting for them. There is also a verbal cue to tell the other player(s) to look, but that’s only in local coop. In online coop, when characters are near each other, you can see the message appear over the speaking character’s head. When not near each other the message shows up at the bottom of the screen with the avatar of the character/player speaking. In local coop the quick chat message always appears over the speaking character’s head, requiring other players to look at that player’s screen if they’re not near each other and thus in shared screen view.

The drop in and out nature of the gameplay works really well for casual and serious play. Even the online allows people to drop in and out at a whim without ending the game. You can create private and public lobbies and jump into and out of games of any difficulty, including those you haven’t unlocked yet, easily. It will also let you continue if you jump into a game and then the original host leaves for whatever reason. The only issue I experienced with the online was once I joined a game and got all the way to the 