PC's unlikely to become my staple platform again, but the rest of 2020 should see me booting up the laptop occasionally for Streets of Rage 4 and Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, which I snagged on sale.
In the last 10 years, I've only played a handful of games on the PC: Starbound, Pathway, Day of the Tentacle, Drawful 2. Rather measly for a former PC gamer! For nostalgia, I had picked up Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 during the previous Steam sale but never found time to play them. You need a good 60 minutes for a CRPG session. But when you have a baby, you don't have a good 60 minutes for anything.
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| Building my house in Starbound, the planet-exploration sandbox game by Chucklefish. |
That's why I'd been gaming exclusively on the Switch—it's easy to pick up and put down. (I haven't touched the PS4 since the Miss S came along. My parents came to Japan to help with the baby, and they hogged our TV, watching Netflix and subtitled J-dramas.)
So for the past decade, my laptop has almost solely been a workstation. Now, though, I don't even have a designated work table. You may have heard that Japanese apartments are small. Hence, what used to be my computer desk was appropriated as the baby's milk station. (Milk tins, baby diary, tissue, toys, scattered bits of milk formula . . .) Poor old lappy sits in a corner of the room, buried under books and a jumble of electronics that need charging. But it's seeing the light of day now!
This change took place towards the end of our obsession with Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The husband and I enjoyed visiting with friends through ACNH, and it was a great way to spend time with my brother-in-law back home. Now that we're all done developing our islands to 95% satisfaction, bro-in-law suggested we play something new together.
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| SOR4 made old fans happy, but it's a great entry game for newbies too. |
"We should play Streets of Rage 4," he suggested. "It's on sale now." As you know, the sale justifies the purchase.
It took awhile to figure out how to accept my bro-in-law's invite to play SOR4 on Steam. Then we had to fiddle with sound settings, because plugging PS4 controllers into my laptop cut off the audio. Meanwhile, we were getting used to sitting cross-legged in the baby's playpen, because there's nowhere else to play more comfortably.
But at last, we began our co-op journey of beating up hoodlums and cops.
I totally dig Streets of Rage 4's comic-book art and much-touted soundtrack. I'll have to post about this separately so you can see more screenshots from this fine-looking game.
I haven't enjoyed a beat 'em up this much! I only wish SOR4 could accommodate more than two players online. (It takes up to four players locally, though.)
Throwing punches has revived a bit of faith in my laptop as a gaming device. Sure, I'll have to play sitting in the baby's playpen, or maybe at the dining/diaper table. But I'm excited for our next beat 'em up session.
I also can't wait to get back into Gwent—the card game that forms the core gameplay of Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. While playing Witcher 3 on the PS4, I often lost myself in pursuing Gwent sidequests, aiming to beat every last Gwent player. Hearing that CD Projekt Red had churned an RPG—a whole RPG—out of the card game thrilled me to the toes.
You'll hear from me about Thronebreaker, though not anytime soon since I only have a small window for gaming at night. As a publisher would say, "Scheduled for a release some time in 2020."
While I prefer to game on the Switch, I also look forward to using my laptop for this game. Remodeling card decks should be faster with a mouse, don't you think?