PixlBit

Hey guys, so I'm finally, mostly, back in commission. I definitely got the flu and it's been super horrible. Just went to the doc this morning because I definitely have a follow-on sinus infection that's resulted in the most brutal of headaches that won't subside. Truthfully, it's been hard to do anything feeling this shitty, but I did manage to sneak a few games in during the moments where I felt ok enough. Just going to go through them all below with my thoughts:

Yoshi's Crafted World

After the Nintendo Direct, I downloaded this. It took me until a couple nights ago to finally play though. I really enjoyed Wooly World and you'd think that this would've already been on my must-have list, but I guess I just didn't really have any strong feelings for it. Needless to say, after the one level demo, I'm now super excited for this one and really want to pick it up when it comes out. I'll probably wait at least a little though because it drops a bit too close to Sekiro. The aesthetic is really cool, and even though I read that the resolution is pretty abysmal, it still looks pretty good and they hide it by blurring the background. It works with the art style and doesn't look as horrendous as you might expect by reading the resolution. The locked 60fps also helps that.

Gameplay-wise it's really cool to see the classic Yoshi's Island gameplay expanded into 2.5D and it's super fun to essentially explore the foreground and background by chucking eggs all over the place. Hopefully the gameplay holds up for an entire game and Crafted World turns out as great as the demo leads you to believe it will be.

Tetris 99

I also grabbed this after the direct and have played only three rounds of it and I managed to do better with each successive play. There's a whole neat battle royale aspect where you're one of 99 participants and clearing rows in different ways has different impacts on who you're targeting with your attacks. You also need to play defensively and clear rows to stave off attacks. The whole thing is really dynamic and it's a fun take on the classic gameplay. I look forward to playing some more and getting a better feel for it.

Daemon X Machina: Prototype Missions

I've been pretty excited for this one and I guess the demo was fun enough. I'm still hazy on what the heck is going on and how to really play, so I guess my excitement has been muted by this demo. There's clearly a pretty big investment to be made into building and customizing your mech and playing tactfully in the actual missions. I was struggling towards the end of the demo and I think I might've missed something important in my infirmed haze. Maybe I'll pass back through and try the demo over again from the beginning. For now though, I'm thinking I'll wait this one out when it releases later this year.

Crackdown 3

This is the game I've spent the most time with so far. It's been reasonably fun, but I feel like I'm playing a worse game than past entries in the series. Maybe it's Saints Row IV that has spoiled me, but this doesn't even begin to hold a candle to that. I enjoy the style of game, so I'm still enjoying my play time, but this one isn't near as good as I hoped for.

It doesn't cover any new ground and the controls feel kind of imprecise. Locking on to enemies is a bit frustrating. Unlike other games, it's not easy to move your lock-on to a different enemy and you need to retarget to do so. As you can imagine this is a bit touch-and-go when there's a lot of enemies on screen.

All that aside, it's basically Crackdown 1 with updated graphics, some different objectives, a new city, and what feels like less precise controls. I liked a lot of the stuff they added in Crackdown 2, like the flying, and wish that was in here. It's not a step forward for the series in any tangible way and that's definitely been impacting my tolerance to push through the less fun parts of the game. I'm very thankful I go this through GamePass because it's absolutely not worth full price. If you plan to pick it up in the future this is one of those 30 bucks at most purchases.