I play a lot of games. Maybe too many.

As Jason alluded to in his thought provoking blog post that I failed to respond to, there's so much damn choice, and so little time. In the old days, we'd use our time to play the same favourites over and over again and so we'll never forget those experiences.

Now we spend our time roving, grazing, traipsing from game-to-game, giving each a cursory look and nothing gets locked in, everything is fleeting. The impetus for making this post was primarily to force myself to slow down and take stock of what the hell I've been doing. In the process, there was a lot of, "Oh, right, I beat that game, didn't I?"

Gaming's first world problems. Or something.

Here's what I've been playing over the last month or two:

Fire Arrow Plus
Forgettable time attack-based vertical shmup.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2
Fantastic sequel to an amazing game, which was a tribute to one of the best games ever (Castlevania III). This might see a review. If I still wrote reviews.

Panzer Paladin
Gary sent me this code, so I have to review it. It started out as a pretty cool hack and slash platformer starring a girl in a mech and a nice NES look and pretty funky music. And then it overstayed its welcome.

DoDonPachi Resurrection
Another entry in what's probably the best bullet hell shmup series ever. I prefer Blissful Death in the same cannon, but it's hard to go wrong here.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
I missed this the first time 'round. Turns out, you can't really go back. Well, you can, but it's difficult. Compared to today's sandbox games, like say, GTAV, it's clunky and looks terrible, so it's challenging to see what all the fuss was about, but of course you had to have been there. And I was. But I was playing R-Type Final at the time.

Micro Mages
Great puzzly precision platformer -- presently my favourite genre. Four worlds, each with two regular stages and then a boss stage, for a total of 12 levels on normal. Then you gotta redo everything on Hard, which is where I am, but I've lost interest and... I get the idea. Still, it's definitely recommended.

Squidlit
Here's another title meant to look like a GameBoy game from ye olde days. I think Jason reviewed it and said it was nothing special. I think Jason was right.

Tengai
I was on a Psikyo kick for awhile lately, and I played the shit out of Gunbird, which is absolutely timeless. I thought I'd try this, their attempt at applying their manic shooter making skills to the horizontal realm. It's good, but it's not Gunbird (or Samurai Aces, even).

Cathedral
Kind of glum and repetitive old school sidescroller that kind of looks like a very subdued Shovel Knight, but is no where as much fun to look at or play. It goes give you that fix for a short time though.

Awesome Pea 2
Monochromatic precision platformer that lends itself to speedruns gets a sequel. The sequel is much harder, much less forgiving, much less fun (surprise!).

Glare fall
"Fall" really isn't capitalized here, it's not just me. That might be the most notable thing about the game. It's a very basic sidescrolling shooter featuring a girl who emits very few bullets and very few come at her in return. It's easy and over in minutes.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Definitive proof that we don't need Nathan Drake to make a great Uncharted adventure. But I definitely miss Nathan's Theme -- that song was everything. It's Naughty Dog, so the roster is progressive (a pair of female protagonists, an Indian bad guy), the attention to detail is mind-boggling, the graphics are stunning, and the set pieces are something to behold. I won't say it's better than A Thief's End, but I did have more fun with this one.

The Last of Us 2
I should really write a very late review of this. It's both the bestselling and most divisive game to come along in a long time. Again, Naughty Dog give us amazing action sequences, and some of the best visuals you've ever seen. But the storytelling is purposefully subversive and some say, too clever for its own good, managing to undermine the authenticity of its narrative to make its point, which to be fair is worth making and well made, but at what cost? Besides all of that, the game feels much too long and drawn out and repetitive. 25 hours of scouring ruined rooms for pills and parts and skulking about in tall grass. Do they have an editor? I replayed some of the first game right afterwards and found that the pacing was better, and the chapter-to-chapter storytelling much more compelling. Bigger and better, they were going for, but bloated joined in the fray. Still, if you loved the first game, how do you not sign up to play this one? You just... have to, flaws notwithstanding.

Anyway, that's it. A few reviews should be forthcoming. But I mean... at least one since I'll be forced to do it.

It occurred to me that I might have an RotW to do, but Emp hasn't been harassing me, so I'm not sure.