In lieu of anything long form, I’m just going to make a thread on what I’ve been playing. Using the extra time as an excuse to replay old favorites and clear backlogs. I don’t have the means to capture a lot of older consoles, so I’ll do what I can visually.

Mass Effect- One of the games I’ve beaten the most and this my 5th or 6th time through. I hold the trilogy very dear. Hearing that menu music for the first time in nearly a decade was pure nostalgia.

This is the closest I’ll have to a “definitive” playthrough. I missed out on some ME2 DLC, and never touched the Citadel DLC or the patched ending of 3. I’m also not a high school boy trying to use Shepard as self insert and more cognizant of Ash’s space racism.(My original Shep)

ME1 isn’t the most beloved because of the jank and place it sits in between old and new Bioware. The mako and the very desolate side planets are actually pretty essential to setting the tone and giving a sense of exploration. Something the series lacks later on to some degree.

The complex lore of the alien races and their messy relations. The mundane details of Citadel law are fascinating. Hanging out with Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Liara, Kaiden, and even Ashley on the Normandy. That iconic synth heavy OST. The film grain and lens flare. Love it all still.

I’m always worried about returning to games I’d put in my tops that I haven’t played in years. Maybe they’ve not aged well, maybe how much I’ve changed means I won’t enjoy them anymore. Replaying Mass Effect has given me a new and deeper appreciation for it.

With most of my favorites, I have distinct memories about the setup of my room, food I ate, where life in general was. I remember being sick when originally playing ME1 and driving around all the barren side planets. Now I guess a pandemic is forever tied to Mass Effect for me.

Mass Effect 2- My reaction back in 2010 was this is great but a step back. More content but inconsistent. Less janky, but that's from the RPG mechanics being stripped. Character writing is superior, but the overarching plot is less so. Same for OST.

I feel largely the same, but I’m enjoying the cast even more. The loyalty missions aren’t all home runs, but largely are. The supporting cast like Aria, Morinth, Maelon, and so on are also really good and capture the tough choices and morals grays when the main plot fails too.

The DLC is leagues better. Played Shadow Broker before which is fantastic and really cements Liara’s character and her relationship with Shepard. Overlord is very good and gives me some mako like action and exploration. Arrival is pretty strong to boot. Nice to finally play them.

I really love how Shepard can go around the universe recording disingenuous endorsements for shops in order to get a discount on model ships.

My biggest issue though remains the “Suicide Mission.” It’s a weak finale. Built up to for 30+ hours as this impossible task with guaranteed death, but it isn’t. If you engage with the loyalty missions, which most will, and make the obvious tactical choices, everyone lives.

It’s not interesting enough on a systems to provide challenge. Nor is it conducive for player based story crafting. This flowchart makes it look far more complex than it actually is.

As much as this thread has been fairly negative, I do love ME2 still. I just find the faults more bothersome than 1’s and more interesting to talk about. I have a feeling it will remain my least favorite of the series, but the entire trilogy is superb.

Probably going to jump into something else before diving into ME3. I don't own the Leviathan or Omega DLC packs. That's $25 better spent on food and bills right now.

Revisiting one of 2013’s biggest games means revisiting my writing. I was at Plus10Damage at the time. I put it at my number two spot on my yearly top 10. The silver lining to Plus10 going offline is my review isn’t available anywhere but Google Drive, as it deserves.

Certainly not as high on it as I was nearly a decade ago, but I don’t sit in the camp of those who hate it. That largely comes from the game still being visually impressive. The environment design is great and the lighting is strong. That first 20 minutes or so holds up.

Then the matter of how Infinite handles American exceptionalism, capitalism, and race. It's an aesthetic cheaply slapped on. I wouldn’t say the game isn’t in conversation with the player, more so that the conversation is like being told why you should vote Biden.

The entire relationship between Booker and Elizabeth is garbage. It’s such a male power fantasy in ways that I look back on and roll my eyes. I used to think the cover was just crappy marketing to appeal to presumed makeup of the gaming audience. It’s actually spot on.

Still quite enjoy the combat. It’s frantic. While that fairly often leads to plain messy, the moments where it clicks, it really clicks. Swinging around on the skyways, and slinging all the powers about with some solid gun play is still totally enjoyable.

The end is pulp sci-fi. Even though there’s little substance, I can’t say I was bored. It's infatuated with itself, but maybe it's just my type of junk. I think Infinite is decent, if very damn messy. Still enjoy the song they used for promo.

I’ve had a soft spot for Reach since it launched in 2010. I’m not sure I would've called it my fav Halo, but it was up there. They took one of the best parts of the multiplayer, designing your own Spartan, and let that power fantasy be a little more personal.

I’m still a sucker for it This is the first time I’ve touched Halo since being disappointed with 4. I’m not particularly keen on playing 5 anytime soon. Infinite meanwhile, I‘m hopeful because it seems like 343 has realized that the series needs something new. But…

Jumping back in, I forgot how much I adored Halo in my teen years. The spectacle. The cliche but enjoyable mystery of the ancient alien race. Just how good of an FPS it can be at its heights. That OST.

I see the criticisms of Reach clearer now. Some missions are duds, such as the space dogfight. It’s linear early on. The best Halo missions are where scope plays into the notion that you’re fighting in a massive galactic battle. Even if you’re only seeing a sliver of it.

The civilian evacuation is a highlight, as it’s the most inline with the core theme. That being the point where a battle has gone from the vague cliched feeling of a “losing battle” to a catastrophic defeat you can’t possibly grasp the full scope of while in the midst of it.

Noble team are cliches that I bought into at the time of release, likely because I was so deep into Halo at that point. It’s a fanservice game in a lot of ways. Ending with a note from Bungie thanking fans for supporting them during their 10+ years of working on the franchise.

The PC version is really good, though I’d suggest playing it with a controller. Tried m&k for a couple missions and Halo is so clearly designed at its core to be a console FPS. I’ll keep working my way through the Master Chief Collection as they add all the games to it.

Annoyed that Xbox Game Bar failed to record any of the clips I took. Also, the fact that "Skip" pops up in every cut scene when you take a screenshot is silly. But I suppose I should be thankful it only took a full factory reset of my PC to get Game Pass working properly...

I'm like 15 hours into my ME3 playthrough that I suspect will take close to 50 to finish. But this god damn scene. It's just a little moment. One that isn't given an objective marker or big budget cutscene. Yet it's such a great encapsulation of the series and ME3 especially.

It’s impressive how much this series hasn’t changed since the last iteration I played, NHL 13. Which is to say this doesn’t look like actual hockey. The same strategies still work nearly every single time. Hits play too much of a factor and the physics are not of this planet.

I play sports games mostly for the management sim. This is okay-ish in. Which means I'll continue to craft my ideal Flyers roster and never know why I loose or win any given game I sim through because mainstream sports games aren't great in that regard.

It was very amusing to be playing and then all the sudden Snoop Dogg showed up in the booth.

I recall finding the stop-and-pop combat a formative experience in regards to how games don’t need fun. More so, they could be intentionally mindless, and derivative. I actually found the gunplay far more enjoyable in a “this video game is fun” sort of sense this time.

Probably helps that it has been years since we were in the midst of being glued to chest-high walls. But I found the scrambling, desperate nature to be satisfying to grapple with. Reminds me a bit of The Last of Us in this regard.

It also holds-up visually because of some splendid direction of the set pieces and world design. Conceptually it's an environment filled with views worth lingering on.

Influences are worn on the sleeve. Apocalypse Now being a huge one from film, but this really is a Bioshock game in a lot of ways. A fallen opulent city, factions vying for the scraps, a "charismatic" ideologue, you the newcomer, recorded diary, issues of "class."

Spoilers I guess for a 8 year old, 6 hour game that's a $1 on PC. Obviously, the main talking points are the themes of war, American interventionism, the role of soldiers, and how video games have a history romanticizing such. And I think they largely hold up.

Though the times it takes choice away are contrived. The late plot twist waters down the punch of the game's criticisms. Worse is the ham-fisted ways it sometimes mishandles that which is seeks to chastise. The white phosphorus scene is well documented at this point.

Rightfully, Spec Ops: The Line seems essential if you were in charge of designing a syllabubs for a course on narrative evolution in video games. Not as something beyond reproach, but one of the major stepping stones. Again, $1 on Humble Bundle and 6 hours.

While I really appreciate this bartender's enthusiasm, and understand the universe is dying. I would really appreciate if she could serve some drinks in between her killer moves.

While playing the games in this thread, I’ve been taking notes. Turns out, I have much to say about Mass Effect 3, and I’m going to hold a lot back for the sake of something larger down the line. But, I think this might just be my favorite game.