A Gaming Check-In with The Drifter: Games I Touched in 2025
The first in a series. A year of amazing games, a busy schedule, and touching a few games that I found were interesting enough, but won't finish this year, (and that's okay).
Hello again, friends.
It’s nice to be back. Back to doing what I like for a change. Where have I been? Oh, you know… Here and there.
Honestly? It’s been a hell of a year. Both in video games, in a positive sense, and in my personal life, where it has been nonstop craziness. We travelled a TON this year for family. It was nice taking a couple of vacations, as well as making a few weekend trips for some friends’ weddings this past year (to the bride I discussed Metaphor ReFantazio with at your reception— you are the REALEST). Still, all in all, it’s been one busy calendar year for me and my family. In good, wholesome ways mostly. But work has been so stressful for me.
Not to get into the particulars, but it’s the age-old issue of doing so well working for a company that refuses to rehire a position in my department. Someone who had run the warehouse I work at left after twenty-some odd years, leaving me to run a warehouse by myself, with no training, no help, and a mess of an inventory space to go through (that I am still sorting out, by the way). I picked up the slack, and now I am rewarded with more work. That’s corporate America for you. No raises either. I get tired of being jerked around.
I’d leave, you know, if anyone else would hire me, but no one seems to want to give me a job. I have an excellent work history, and I have been here in the warehouse coordinating for the better part of 3 years (this is my 2nd stint in the company after leaving once for poor management), and I have never been fired anywhere I’ve been. What gives?? Anyway, that’s a glimpse of what I have been dealing with. At least I have my own office, good insurance, and lots of PTO to use. I shall be using some of it soon for the holidays, I imagine, too. So it isn’t all bad— but it could be better, right?
What has been good are video games. They’ve been REALLY good this year, in particular, I think. I would venture to say that by the time it’s all done and dusted, this year is gonna be one we remember, along with the top years in gaming as it comes to releases. The best years in gaming vary for folks, but I think most people in the industry and abroad think that the years: 1998, 2001, 2007, 2011, 2017, (and maybe 2020) are the truly best years we have had for game releases since the medium’s inception. I really do think you can throw 2025 in that group, too, given the sheer dearth of quality games that you can play on your console or PC of choice this calendar year.
If I were to rattle off some of the best games I’ve played this year, I would put them up there with some of the very best any year had to offer, strength on strength. It’s wild how much good stuff this year has had.
SO, to tackle this recapping of the year we have had so far, I think the best way to do it is by slicing it up piecemeal, discussing the segments on the whole, or chatting about the various groupings of games that are on my mind this year. I think of putting games into ‘buckets’ when talking about them, mostly, and sorting these things out this way works for my brain... This is a check-in, so as soon as I hit publish on this thing, it’s gonna age. I think that’s okay, too. I am becoming more accustomed to change and being okay with that in my life as I get older. It can be good for opinions to ebb and weave and completely change as times roll on. I think that’s okay. In my head, while that idea isn’t the ‘neatest’ and ‘tidiest’ thing to do, I think I am just gonna ignore my brain for a moment and go with my gut. I’m gonna be a little messier this go around. I hope you enjoy.
(This is gonna be a series, I think. Gonna talk about what I have touched this year for this entry. As I move on, I will hit all the various game buckets I have placed my video games in thus far. Enjoy!)
The Drifter Dabbled: The Games I Touched (But Didn’t Finish)
“Despelote”: (Played for 1 hour on PS5)
This is a really neat thing. I will come back to this one. It’s one of those things that is so personal, well-made, and short that I can’t pass it by completely. I like a lot about this one, but for some reason, I can’t quite bring myself to find the time to give myself over to it. In “Despelote”, you play as a little child in the year 2002, obsessed with soccer as your home country of Ecuador is going through turbulent socio-economic times, while in the background, their national soccer team attempts to make it to their first appearance in the FIFA World Cup.
This seems to be an autobiographical story-based game about the developers’ childhood in Ecuador during this time period, and I would be doing myself a disservice not to see this through. It seems very good. It’ll have to wait, though, as you’ll see with the other games on this list— I have had so much to play and so little time. Cool game!
“Deliver At All Costs”: (Played for a couple of hours on PS5)
On paper, this game should be my jam. A package delivery game with the 50’s “Red Scare”/Nuclear Family, ‘ah shucks’ vibes paired with a destruction, offroading RC Pro-Am style isometric arcadey action? Sign me the hell up!
There are some fit and finish issues I have with this thing on a purely technical level (the character models, the environments, and the UI seem to be a bit on the lower budget end of things), but the core conceit of smashing through literally an entirely destructible island is very fun. The controls are a bit too squirrelly for my liking, however. After a particularly frustrating time fighting the driving mechanics in one of my sessions with it, paired with doing a few annoying couple of delivery side quests to boot, I ultimately decided to put it down.
It’s published by Konami, weirdly enough, so I would’ve hoped that Far Out Games would’ve gotten the budget to make what they wanted at this modest scale of a game, but the experience playing this thing left me feeling pretty wanting by the time I moved on from it. It’s neat, at the very least. Not sure if I will come back to it. If I do, I won’t be this year.
“Gears of War: Reloaded”: (Played for around 4 hours on PS5)
The thing is, I’ve played this one before. Like twice, actually. I played the original on Xbox 360 and liked it, and again, when The Coalition rereleased Gears of War Ultimate Edition on the Xbox One. This is really just another refresh of that Gears Ultimate version, and while it’s good, it doesn’t seem improved enough to play through again this year. Gears 1 is a good game, but I think Gears 2, as well as 3, are vastly superior to it in many respects. If they ever remade those, I would be there in the tank for it, I imagine. Gears with no Horde mode just feels wrong, you know? That mode didn’t come around until 2, I know, but still. It’s just weird to think of a Gears game not having one now.
If I get a wild hair to play the series again from the start, though, I will be playing this version of Gears 1. I think I bought this thing for the novelty of it. Playing Xbox Studios games on other consoles is very weird for me still, and I haven’t gotten over the whole porting situation yet with Microsoft just dropping the exclusives on every competitor’s platform (but Nintendo’s, strangely enough). Now with Halo: Combat Evolved getting a full-blown remake for the Xbox Series, PS5, and PC, as well, it’s safe to say it’s just gonna feel weirder soon, I think.
“Avowed”: (Played for 5 hours on Xbox Series S)
Out of all the games I just briefly touched this year, this is the one I want to get back to the most. Everything about this game worked for me. I loved the world, the companions that I met, and the story was very engaging from what I saw of it. “Avowed” takes place in Obsidian’s “Pillars of Eternity” universe of CRPGS. Every bit of dialogue, flavor text, and customizable bit and bob of this thing seems great. I like what I have seen so far.
The best part of this game so far? Brandon Keener, the voice of Garrus Vakarian from the original “Mass Effect” series, voices one of the main companions in “Avowed”, and that’s a huge draw for me. There is something about his particular timbre that I like… he sounds very soothing. Actually, I had a jumpscare regarding him as an actor while watching HBO’s medical drama “The Pitt” the other day, seeing Keener playing a secondary character in a dramatic arc during the first season. Very odd listening to him actually talk on screen after having played those games previously.
But I digress…
You’ll sense a trend coming up in the games I haven’t finished. A lot of these titles are Xbox or PC exclusive. I sold my Series S this year to help fund the purchasing of my Switch 2— and lemme tell ya I do not regret that decision at all, so far. I do still want to play this game, but I think it’ll be once it goes elsewhere. I made the right decision. Hopefully, “Avowed” comes out on PS5 soon so I can take another crack at it, one day. Great game.
“South of Midnight”: (Played for 3 hours on Xbox Series S)
This is another game I want to get back to. When they put it on something other than an Xbox, that is. “South of Midnight” is a very thematically unique game dripping with rich Black Americana, swamp bayou brilliance, and confident music. The opening of this game is a real treat, with a set-piece that sweeps you right off your feet at the start. I really enjoyed what I played of it.
I’ve heard about the criticisms of this one, however. Combat outstays its welcome and gets tedious towards the end of the game’s short 6-8 hour runtime, but in my time with it, I haven’t had any such qualms. So far, it’s a beautifully crafted, wonderfully realized little passion project from Compulsion Games, that is lightyears ahead of their previous narrative survival game misstep, “We Happy Few”. A game that had a killer trailer, wanted to be “Pathologic” (cult classic PC game you should look up), and really let me down on all fronts.
I would like to take another stab at this one, one day.
“The Rogue Prince of Persia”: (Played 3 hours on PS5)
I think I have changed my mind largely on the roguelike genre. I used to really despise the games in that category for some reason. I’ve lamented on this Substack about this very thing, but games like “Balatro”, “Hades”, and “Slay the Spire” have disabused me of that opinion, I think. Really, the games I hate in the genre the most have gotta be “Dead Cells”, and “Returnal”. There is just a sweet spot that the genre has to have between runs that doesn’t feel so punishing as to completely turn me off from playing them.
I gotta say, while “Returnal” is fun to play, dying from an environmental hazard 90 minutes into a run from something offscreen, and being sent back to the beginning of the game is a crushing experience that soured me to no end while playing it.
“Dead Cells” issue is pacing. It’s very stop-and-go. I feel as if I am constantly being slowed down by enemies and hazards in that game. In a roguelike, I wanna haul ass. I’m sure for skilled players you can do it, but it feels akin to Sonic the Hedgehog when he loses momentum by getting hit and losing his rings, for me.
“The Rogue Prince of Persia” is more the latter than the former in these examples, but the game is very fun, well made and something I might return to. This game was developed by Evil Empire, the support team that maintained the original “Dead Cells”, and its DNA is heavily apparent in this new game. I think I dropped it ultimately because I have more games to play and even better roguelikes to chip away at this year. Fun game, but not as memorable as I would’ve liked.
“Absolum”: (Played 3 hours on PS5)
This is my kind of game. I really enjoyed what I played of this. The concept of a roguelike beat-em-up is a very unique idea, and it’s a clever twist on a mature and well-established genre. The fact that “Absolum” does so much with the trappings of a run-based, stage-by-stage beat-em-up is really refreshing, given the concept. I haven’t seen a roguelike do it quite like this, and the results are extremely satisfying, well thought-out, and endlessly engaging in terms of how varied each run could be in a mechanical sense. Of all the run-based video games I have dabbled in this year, this and “Hades II” are by far the best feeling video games to play in the genre.
“Absolum” is an absolute gem, but, unfortunately, I couldn’t consistently find matches on console to party up with like-minded players to run through the campaign reliably. It’s a bummer because if I had better luck, I probably would have played more of it this year. I’m excited to get back to it at some point, though. Maybe I will ask my wife if she’d be interested.
“Eternal Strands”: (Played 2 hours on Xbox Series S)
Another casualty of selling my Xbox. Oh, well.
“Eternal Strands” was on Xbox Game Pass when I looked into it for a bit. I am a sucker for narrative games with interesting gameplay hooks— especially from indie studios. Games like “TOEM” with their camera-based cataloguing mechanics, “The Sexy Brutale” with its time-manipulation deduction flavoring, and even this year’s “Wheel World” with its lite bike modding system, are some recent examples I can think of from independent outfits that really excel as games that have strong gameplay hooks to engage in. “Eternal Strands” carries the same philosophy of great gameplay hooks for players, but with multiple, deep gameplay systems in its makeup.
In combat, fights with large-scale monstrous enemies play out similarly to encounters found in games like “Shadow of the Colossus” or the “Monster Hunter” series of games, where you can mount foes to attack weak points in their proverbial carapaces or armor to gain an edge. There is also a robust and very fleshed-out physics-based magic system that you, as a Weaver, can use to topple enemies, subdue, inflict status ailments, and trigger environmental hazards during fights.
Both of these alone are very ambitious by themselves, but pair those mechanics with a deep narrative, impressive writing chops, and a well-rendered companion conversation tree with your NPC supporting cast, and what you’ve got here is a fascinating, dynamic potpourri of RPG-lite systems that come together shockingly well given their scope. I am aching to see more of this game, because the first impressions I had of it were great.
One day, I will get this on sale, play through it in its entirety, and I am almost certain I will like it even more.
“Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist”: (Played for 4 hours on PS5)
Do me a favor. Take a look at screenshots of this thing. It’s just GORGEOUS. Love the art style of this game. I dabbled slightly with this team’s previous game: “Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights”, but never got back to it before this recent entry hit this past spring. Everything about the way the game looks, plays, and sounds is fantastic. The setting, music, and story especially are haunting in their dreary melancholy, and I just loved every bit of this I played.
At it’s heart its a 2D ‘search-action’ game (props to game industry veteran Jeff Gerstmann for coming up with a real, descriptive genre name that isn’t ‘Metroidvania’) with ‘souls-like’ mechanics: where you move from place to place, level up your character, increase their magical capabilities (that remind me visually, and functionally of the ‘Stands’ in “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”), and fight difficult enemy types to gain items to increase your access to the different gates of the world map, as it were. I love these games, and “Ender Magnolia” was hitting all the familiar notes when I put it down for other things. I will come back to it. It’s just a matter of time, really.
“Elden Ring: Nightreign”: (Played 5 hours on PS5)
For my last journal entry, I will admit, I just didn’t click with this one. I just did not latch onto the whole idea of this game from the jump. I think the main trouble for me was squaring my feelings of being a rabid single-player From Software fanboy, against my aversion to multiplayer games on the whole, to how I play video games these days as a matter of course. I just don’t like squadding up with my friends that much. This is very much a me problem.
I will, no problem, play 50-60 hours of an RPG by my lonesome before even wanting to dabble in a few rounds of the newest and latest multiplayer offering. I just don’t like playing video games with people. I like playing games alongside folks, but not in the multiplayer sense. Like in the way we are hanging out on Discord, talking shit while I am grinding experience in a long RPG. That’s the kind of thing I like.
I chalk this aversion up to the sheer glut of established service-based multiplayer offerings out there being mostly, completely uninteresting to me. I am not interested in grinding hundreds of hours for shallow offerings. The corporate greediness of the monetary systems in these games is also a big roadblock to my enjoyment of these types of video games. I also have played many hours back in the day of both “Overwatch” and “Destiny 2” when they were new, and I sunk far too many hours in each for my liking.
At some point, you wonder why you’re doing it, grinding for the next bit or bob that will ultimately be swapped for a newer and shinier thing. Or leveling up a character that will also be static in an odd way. Where you are raising an account level and an hour count, but you aren’t making much of a marked difference in the game on the whole, regardless. It all feels very ‘hamster-wheely’ to me. Churning out gameplay for the sake of it. I just think the idea is very played out, for me personally. Occasionally, I will partake with friends if they beg, but if I have a choice, I usually abstain from the whole ordeal. If a From Software game didn’t reel me in, I don’t know if anything will be able to, if I am honest.
Now— back to play Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a long, tedious RPG filled with many ‘checklisty’ things to do on its large map. I like slop, but I wanna pick the slop I wanna eat. I’ve eaten too much of that other food for my liking.
Not much about the game. I just don’t like these types of things these days, and that’s okay.
That’s a quick recap! I will be doing more of these as we get deeper into ‘Game of the Year’ time, I think. So stay tuned for more things like this. I am experimenting with formats, so bear with me if it isn’t the usual thing I am known for here.
I also want to give out some categorical awards for this year in games. I have a podcast I do called “Stick Drift” (check it out here: https://youtube.com/@stickdriftpodyt?si=PxkpKjw_mhml9svB) where I will be doing this very thing come February next year, once I have played all the new 2025 video games I would like to before I engage yet again in GOTY discussions.
Thank you if you read this first entry— and like Dave Dameshek likes to say: “It’s been a thin slice of heaven!”