Archive Entry June 1, 2024

Month 6 of 2024 and I’ve made a lot of progress towards my gaming goals that I set back in January. At the time of this blog post, I reached my 150K Gamerscore goal on my Xbox account and have finished 33/52 games for my #1FinishAWeek Challange. I added a new book to my shelves, read another, and finished 5 games total in May with a total play time of 33 hours and 48 minutes. I played a few other games that won’t be discussed here as I only played them for achievements I hadn’t finished when I first beat them earlier this year or further back.

#1FinishAWeek

The first game I played and finished this last month was Little Kitty, Big City (click the title for a trailer). I have been waiting for this game to be released as it looked super cute and I am a cat parent. I played with my wife and accomplished all of the goals in the game while stoping to watch all of the schenanigans the cat gets into as it tries to find its way home after falling off it’s window sill in a neighboring apartment building. Its a short game but fun to just run around and explore. With hats to wear and other animals to help, LKBC is a fun game for anyone that is an animal lover or wants something relaxing to play.

After reading a latest Assassin’s Creed book (which I will discuss further down) I wanted to follow up this Chinese story with The Rewinder. This game follows Yun, a Rewinder who is tasked by underworld masters Mr. Black and Mr. White to stop an evil moving through China and infecting its people to create Yoaguai (Chinese demons). With the power bestowed on you, Yun accesses the memories of the people around him to determine what caused the evil in the area to take control and influence those involved via inception style thought influences. The art style is pixelated but detailed and the story is interesting enough to the point that I purchased the prequel mission DLC to learn about Yun’s father, Mort. The memory time controls is a cool mechanic, but this game should be played more for the story.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is the sequel to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrafice from 2017 (which I finished a few years ago). This series focuses on mental health, specifically psychosis as the titular character Senua suffers from “The Furies”, voices in her head. In the sequel, Senua has defeated the evil that took her love from her and is now enslaved and taken to Iceland where she escapes her captors after a storm destroys their ship and finds here self facing a new evil, giants. The game is best experienced with headphones as you will hear The Furies through binural audio and it really pulls you into the game. Most of the game has you walking through the landscape as you speak to your companions, but there is sections of combat where you must learn the rhythm of the enemies to defeat them. One top of this, the motion capture and high definition graphics make the game look amazing (even more so on PC).

Chants of Sennaar is a puzzle game where you are a human that awakes in a Tower of Babel with no instruction on what you are there to do. The first room you enter from your starting point has nothing but a door with a lever next to it and a sign indicating what the lever does. However, the language is foreign to you and through the process of using said lever, you determine the words to be “Open Door” and “Close Door”. Once you have interacted with the sign you jot down the words in your journal and can assign the persumed meaning to them using the ingame keyboard. After a few more interactions, you sketch what each word stands for and assign the designated characters to the images to confirm their meanings. With this process, you meet multiple races of people that reside in the tower and must help them communicate with each other in hopes of saving the tower from dying. With beautiful artwork and a soothing soundtrack, this game is a great one to play in an afternoon especially if you are someone interested in languages.

Project 13 was the last game that I finished in May and one that I will be reviewing soon for Dolores Entertainment. From a growing trend of seek and find style games, Project 13 is an anomaly game where you walk through a repeating hallway within a mental health ward and look for things out of place; things that are more sinister and frightening than that of the residents within the facility. From posters of health services changing to pictures of zombies, people injuring themselves, or bloody floors, you must find and report these errors in hope to escape after your 13th pass through the hallway. Its a game that I enjoyed but did experience issues that I will share in the future with my full review of the game that I hope to have out sooner than later. I’m just waiting for the game to finalize its release on Xbox and allow me to record my playtime and unlock the achievements within the game.

Assassin’s Creed

Assassin’s Creed: The Hope for Chang’An

I started May with a book in my Assassin’s Creed timeline that I had placed on the backburner for a while. The Hope for Chang’An is a Chinese novel based in a version of the Assassin’s Creed universe that is not considered canon to the main franchise. This was because of the book’s exlusive release in Mainland China and Simplified Chinese language and is only tied to the franchise in name and certain aspects of the core story such as the Assassin’s Creed (rules) and ancient artifacts and civilations (the Isu). i had to translate this book using Google Translate and copy it to a document so that I could actually read the book and loved the story and characters so much that I wish they were considered canonical to the series.

Following a young Assassin named Zhangsun Qi, the story follows her quest to restore her family name as Emperor of China after being overthrown by Emperess Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty. This historical figure and the events of her time as ruler are the historic background to the story with Zhangsun Qi being the reader’s guide through an age of betrayal, government conspiracy, and prophacy via the “Tui Bei Tu” that was written prior to that period. The Hope for Chang’An is the first in a series of 10 novels that will be coming to China and I hope I can obtain the others as they release easier than I did with this one as it took a while to find an imported copy and seller.

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows

May was the month that fans of Assassin’s Creed finally got to see footage from the Codename Red project, now Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Set in Feudal Japan during the Azuchi-Momoyama period, players will get to play as the historic figure, Yasuke (the first black samurai) and Naoe (a Japanese shinobi). Other historical figures like Oda Nobunaga and Nagato Fujibayashi will also play major roles in the game and the mechanics discussed will be unlike anything previously experienced in an Assassin’s Creed game.

Of course, a new game means an awesome Collector’s Edition, which I preordered. This $270 CE will have all of the goodies in the image above and for me, will be the larges statue that I have on my selves. I am excited to learn more about the game in the next few weeks as the developer, Ubisoft will have a showcase on June 10th to discuss the game further and provide gameplay footage.

Books

One of the books that I have been holding off on purchasing for my historical library is The Bible. Multiple games and stories in the Assassin’s Creed franchise speak to the bible or characters read various books from its pages. But I didn’t want just any $1 bible that I could pick up in a used bookstore, so I waited to speak with my grandparents (mother’s side) and ask if they had an extra one I could keep. Very thoughtfully, my grandfather offered me his father’s bible that he carried with him when he was still around and I was happy to take it as not only a copy of the book I needed, but as a family heirloom. Its a New American Standard Edition of the text and one that I do plan on reading in the future as I would like to know the stories better for my understanding of historical texts going forward. Much like learning of the religions and beliefs of other cultures, this is a key text to learning about Christianity.

What’s Next?

Check out this cool Walking Stick Bug I saw at my grandparents!

Anyways, in June I plan on continuing to focus on my Assassin’s Creed timeline. I am super close to finishing Assassin’s Creed: Pirates and am nearly at 30 hours of playtime, but the game kills my battery on my phone quickly and makes it overheat (I need a new phone). Afterwhich I am playing Freedom Cry and reading AC: Forsaken. If I am still able I will play AC Rogue but with how long I have taken to get to this point, I am trying to set my expecations a bit lower.

I also plan on playing some more games on my Xbox that I own or can play via Game Pass that I own on another system. Currently with my #1FinishAWeek challenge, I am set until the week of August 25, 2024. SO I have plenty of time to focus on my timeline and not worry about falling behind. Plus if I finish the games I listed earlier, I will be well into September and much closer to the 52 required titles for the challange.

I’m also focusing on saving up for the large Magic the Gathering purchase I have for their Worlds Beyond: Assassin’s Creed expansiont that releases in the first week of July. With that and my pre-order for the Assassin’s Creed: Shadows game, I am not going to be purchasing much for the next few weeks.

Until next month, I hope you have a great start to your summer and spend time with those you love and enjoy your own hobbies. Also, Happy Pride to my fellow LGBTQIA+ family and friends!