It's WRUP time again. So uhhhh...
A new preview of Black Myth: Wukong showing game play in Unreal Engine 5 is out there and it looks pretty legit. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Black Myth: Wukong looks to be a sort of "Soulslike" adventure game set in ancient China and the player looks to be in control of a monkey god. Technical battles with special powers, an extending bo staff and large scale bosses in beautiful environments seems to be the name of the game. I've been sort of keeping a corner of my eye on this for a some time and the preview has me more interested than ever. Check out IGN's official YouTube post and watch for yourself here.
One of my favorite old titles, Quake, got a remaster and release for all consoles and PC and Gamepass currently. I may have to pick it up myself and see just how well it holds up after so many years. It's funny because I actually ran into my old Quake CD not too long ago. That was pretty cool because back in the day not only did it have the game on the disc but you could use it in your boom box or car CD player and listen to the sound track from Nine Inch Nails.
There's a new cyberpunk game coming to town and it actually seems like it might be pretty cool. Exekiller is a first ever title from a new studio called Paradark and takes place 23 years ago in a sort of alternate timeline, post apocalypse scenario. It looks like the right kind of campy, gritty good time we need. You can see the preview for it here.
In other news, Jeff Bezos is butthurt about a NASA contract being given to SpaceX so he's suing NASA and that means that there's every likelyhood that the goal of landing humans on the moon again by 2024 won't happen. Thanks Jeff, nice work there. Way to hurt an entire project with your alligator tears.
Lawrence Livermore Labs just came very close to a self sustaining nuclear fusion when they were able to produce a reaction that equaled about ten percent of all the sunlight that hits Earth at once. According to TechRadar that's about seventy percent of what's needed to trigger a self sustaining fusion reaction. That's pretty amazing. If you'd like to read more about that and the above mentioned Jeff Bezos tantrum and more here's a link for you.
How about those games though?
AJ: The excellent 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider hit GOG this week, so I will definitely be playing that, as well a brand new remaster of Quake (the original) that is newly available on all current consoles.
Greywolfe: i'm about half way through final fantasy 1's pixel remaster. so far, it's been a blast, but it has all the old ff1 problems that were always there [there's very little signposting, and there's FAR too many encounters.] - not a bad little game, but i'm not sure it's a good entry point for new players [other than, perhaps, the systems are VERY simple and it's easy to get a handle on how the stats work, for the most part.] - i also finished arthur last week - neat little piece of interactive fiction history and DEFINITELY a view into how infocom may have evolved. right now, in that slot, i'm playing something more familiar - space quest 3, again - but i think i'm going to be finished with that very quickly and am going to have to pick up something else, though...i'm not sure what i'm in the mood for, old game wise.
Scrooloose: Working on SnowRunner's newest content finally. I have to say I'm not sure I'm enjoying it as much as previous expansions, this newest one just seems purpose built to be frustrating. All of the current maps have frustrating issues but it revolves more around problem solving and it's fun to figure it all out. While this current season is just a slog no matter what I do so far. I'm barely into it so hopefully as I complete missions things will open up and reward me with clearer paths. I'm also finally playing Plague Tale: Innocence, which has been very good. Not only is it beautiful and well acted, the emotional impact is quite heavy and the mood is set early. That was a recent Epic Game Store freebie. Another is Void Bastards and I've been enjoying it's small levels and random character creations for each time you die and start over. I actually played a guy who randomly coughed and alerted enemies as a negative trait. Fun times. So it'll be those things plus work this weekend.