No, not the Site’s birthday (that comes in June), but my own! I’m twenty six as of today, and hopefully I’ll be here safely for many more decades to come. Figured it would be a good day to note some of those changes and plans I mentioned in the last update despite not much being posted since then. Still, some progress in the background has been made on things.
Interviews Polished
As of now, a few interviews I made in the past when I had the dumb idea to use colored text are now fixed to be readable on this dark background color. So far only one has been fully, 100% polished up (the David Turnbull interview), while the other (Dahku) still has some bold/italic things I need to fix, but that’s pretty good. I also plan to edit the category of “bonus articles” (which were mostly all just interviews anyhow) to shove substantial interviews into my Interview Initiative category.
Most are already in both categories to begin with, but since I came up with the “Bonus Articles” concept as a “oh I did a review, here’s another related thing to it I made” sort of thing, I’ll keep it around in case something non-interview, non-review manages to pop up in the future. It may just end up being a good place to do preview articles, if I ever have a reason to do one in a way that isn’t just an opinion piece. Still, I hope you enjoy the slow migration and polishing of my older pieces, and I’ll let you all know when everything is color-less and readable again. Especially when I have plans for more interviews this year…
The Attack of the Queue?!?
Uh oh I added games to the queue! …And already have caught up on them, basically. Yeah, I noted earlier I requested a few games for review, and a batch of them came in via the upcoming Toaplan Vol 3 Collection on Steam. Reviews of those four games will go live in early February after the embargo lifts. I also got offered several steam games, and while I managed to ignore/reject most of em due to my slimming down focus, I took on a promising game that gave me big “passion project like a Wii U eShop game” vibes, and it was a decent time. Super Retro Boxbot was that game and I covered it yesterday, so check it out if you like sokoban likes.
I also have two NES games for Series X on deck, and one of them (Dead Tomb) is getting reviewed this very week. The other has been in my inbox for a while before I decided to finally redeem it last week, so that’ll be out within the late Jan/early Feb window, since Full Quiet is quite the complex game! Otherwise the XSX queue will be caught up again, and really it wasn’t derailed hardly at all to begin with. After all, I do enjoy covering retro reissues and plan for that to be my main focus post-queue.
Switch queue? Well… RCG2 is getting played more! I took more notes on it and was able to note the performance improvements since the last time I took Co-Op notes around launch, so I think it’ll work out like my Dawn of the Monsters review, working as a neat post-Switch launch review for those who were turned off by the launch performance. Then with that, it’s a triple header of RICO/Lost in Harmony/Neo Atlas for that system, and I already have notes for RICO mostly done.
PS4 is the big focus after RCG2 though, with Omensight and Crystar getting neck and neck attention soon. This is gonna be a long journey and I’m not even sure I’m prepared for Yakuza 5 considering how much of it I already played before taking a break, and still being nowhere close enough to review it. 3 was a bit tricky, 4 was fun and easy to review, but 5 is just as infamous in length and depth as it lives up to be. Thank god I’m not covering Infinite Wealth, as i’d easily reject that game even if it was offered to me solely due to how it sounds even crazier in length than Yakuza 5.
Oh! And TSIQOUE, the final Steam queue game should also be finished up this week. Thus, the Steam queue will be fully caught up on “backlogged” stuff, barring some IFI ports I gotta check in my inbox for to see if they were review copies i redeemed (if I did, I’m adding those to the queue and covering them) and the upcoming Toaplan stuff set for early Feb. I’m up to date on Steam games and will be a bit more open to taking more of em via Keymailer/Dev emails (that’s how I covered Boxbot after all), but don’t expect me to approve or redeem anything if you send something over.
I’m still gonna be very picky considering I have a bunch of 2019 console games to cover still. Nearly five years, and time has allowed those wounds to finally heal and my focus to return. Doesn’t hurt to ask though, worst that’ll happen is I’ll say no if I don’t think I can review it swiftly. There is one upcoming game that if I get I’ll drop everything to prioritize a review of that by embargo, but that’s basically the only thing that would derail reviews any further besides life happening.
Post Queue Plans and Twitch!
The post-queue site redesign/logo change is still in the works. Have a nice prototype doodled in paint by me, to give to an actual artist pal to make into something good. I may get it made in the next month or two, but will not roll it out until the queue is finished. That’ll be when I time my site’s “rebirth” and change in direction, and start working on some interview ideas I have… after a bit of a nice break.
Of course, all those Evercade reviews will kick off after the queue clears too, which will take up a bunch of time for the year, but also lead to SFG having ample content for 2024. That and the occasional new game offered/requested by me to look at, with more time dedicated to them than I used to be able to use. Yet again, I aim to cover mostly anything, with a big focus on retro reissues, retro style games, and indies, so don’t be ashamed to ask to let me cover something. (and dont be surprised if I say no or dont reply, especially if you do so during this packed queue period) I may also try freelancing for certain sites I know friends at, and give a bit of a name as a writer in general. (SFG will always be my no 1 priority, though…)
Oh, but for a bit of good news, I do plan to stream more on Twitch for my casual non-queue gaming purposes, and that’s just a thing I’ll do for fun. You can watch for fun if you follow my rules at https://www.twitch.tv/sfgconnor but just keep in mind I’m mostly there to casually chill with other games I wanna stream to friends I know from communities. Thus, don’t expect me to make “Going live on twitch!” website posts unless I make some sort of major find I wanna share in that fashion. Since I’m retired from video retrospectives, I feel this is the next best thing i’d be willing to do to gush about retro gaming with peers.
Well, that was a late Jan update! Not much to note besides what I just did, but I do hope you notice and enjoy the tick up in activity soon. So far so good as I’m writing this, and I hope my birthday goes well too today! So take care everyone, and see you very soon with TSIQOUE/Dead Tomb this week.