Weekly Update 2025-10-26
The Crazy Hyper-Gamer Chronicle
Game Releases and Updates
Maid of Salvation – Maid to order, ready to serve. I’m in the mood for exactly this sort of game, and it gave me just enough satisfaction last week during Next Fest that I decided to pick it up and give it a playthrough. I’m a few more bosses further in than I got in the demo, and have gotten a bit more in the way of combat and exploration abilities, but not a whole lot. I’m hoping this picks up steam soon, but my instinct is telling me it might just be a bit short.
The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles – Another Next Fest game, albeit from a time before I had made this page. Its a linear dungeon crawler with some slight randomization, though I haven’t really gotten through the tutorials I’d already seen most of in the demo to tell whether it’s going to be worth the wait. I have had the time to read the dialogue, most of which I’d skipped while pounding out demos last year, and it’s fairly entertaining, so at least it should be a funny time.
Splintered 1.0 – It’s all coming together. The Dragon Quest 1 Randomizer homage I’ve been dipping into almost all year has finally come to a conclusion, and added the last of its planned content, including a new boss fight, new challenges, and a bestiary where you can actually see the important stats of each enemy type. So that’s why these things never fall asleep!
Tokyo Xtreme Racer Guest Driver – I’ve been hoping for news of more content for TXR since release, and I suppose my wishes have been answered… in the form of a collaboration with Hololive Vtuber Rindo Chihaya, who has been added as a rival, complete with her own customized and vinyl wrapped RX-8. Will we see more collaborations? Will there be a Momosuzu Nene car?? Will there ever be Porsches? Only time will tell. Until then, I’ve got a pink slip to race for.
Helldivers 2 gun buffs – when Helldivers revealed a big content patch that seemed to mostly be the most annoying bugs dialed up to 11, I sat it out. I’m not that bothered, nobody I’d play with has been in the mood, and everything I heard about the mode sounded more frustrating than fun. I guess that sentiment was widespread enough that the devs took note, and begrudgingly did a broad balance pass on most of the weapons that aren’t locked behind paywalls. Well, joke’s on you, Arrowhead, the starter rifle sucking isn’t why I’m not playing Helldivers this weekend.
Desecrators VR mode beta – while I thought Desecrators was decent enough on its own when I wrote it up earlier this year, I definitely thought it fell short of competitors, especially Overload, which has had a VR mode that plays pretty well and adds a lot to the experience of flying through Descent style levels with 6DOF. Well, the Desecrators devs have recently added a VR mode, or are at least beta testing one, and, as with Helldivers, I’m forced to say ‘that isn’t why I like Overload better.’ Or at least it’s not the only reason. But hey, who knows, I may give it a shot.
Synthetik 2 Update 17 – Another game I’ve been meaning to get around to playing more of, but have repeatedly gotten too frustrated at to stick with. This most recent update seems to be an attempt to generally improve the sense of progression in runs and give upgrades more juice and also differentiation. Well, unlike Helldivers and Desecrators, this is one of the things that’s been keeping me from enjoying Synthetik 2, and hopefully it goes far enough that I’m actually able to stick with it long enough to complete a run or two.
The State of Games Played
I got BALL x PIT as a gift, and being mostly Steam Deck-bound as I currently am, I’ve drowned my sorrows in it for many hours. It’s pretty easily summarized as Vampire Survivors crossed with Breakout, and fans of either game will probably find a lot to immediately enjoy. But it’s also full of creative additions, small details, and visual flair that make it possibly the most ‘complete’ Survivors-like experience since Holocure.
After Splintered got its 1.0 release, I jumped in and immediately blew through the new fourth chapter and most of the fifth and final… before stone walling hard on the new final boss. I spent some time last night grinding, swapping gear, and swapping gear again to finally get myself into position to beat him and finish the game… but THAT also just unlocked the final challenge mode… which is permadeath. So now I feel like I have to beat that to wrap things up and qualify myself to do the writeup. It may be a bit… I’m not known for my patience or good judgement.
I have had some opportunities finally to play a bit of Battlefield 6, and so far I’m pretty happy to move on from 2042. I’m not terribly happy about how the game locks away your ability to even begin progressing on gameplay challenges for unlocks behind a broad XP level gate, meaning you have to spend several hours just kind of playing before having any incentive to play in any particular sort of way, much less to start unlocking some of the alternative gadgets and gizmos.
Writing
I actually did more writing in the past two weeks of upheaval and responsibilities than I do most times, and that’s of course thanks to the Steam Next Fest demo event. Not exactly what most people are looking forward to, I’m sure, but it’s a necessary part of my year, the moment I get to first lay eyes on the obscure oddities I’ll spend the rest of my time trying to convince people are worthwhile. This event felt even more packed with goodies than usual… hell, this year in general has been a boom year in my opinion, and it’s exciting that even this late it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
Which, of course, makes it a bit disappointing that I feel like I’m far behind on my… not quite ‘quota’ of game write-ups, but like I’ve been dragging my feet a bit on wrapping up some things I should’ve put a cap on months ago. I’m redoubling my efforts to finish what I can given my situation, and will at least be trying to publish writeups of Splintered, House of Necrosis, and Tokyo Xtreme Racers sooner rather than later.
Other
One of the things I do every week in preparation for these update posts is scroll back through the past week’s worth of News on my Steam feed to gather up all the major releases and updates I have anything I’d like to say about. That might get a bit easier, at least on the release side, with the new Steam Personal Calendar view – yet another attempt by Valve to create a personalized recommendation list, this time visually organized into a month-long calendar, including the whole past month’s and week’s releases as well. This is almost custom-designed for my convenience, and I’m grateful that Steam has finally done something to make what I do a little less of a hassle.
On a personal note, my stay with family has gone from a temporary emergency to a pleasant, but more indefinite span of time – that is to say, my life’s not going back to ‘normal’ any time soon, and in fact, may never return to the ‘normal’ that I had known a month ago. It will likely be all for the better anyway, but that does mean I need adjustment to a new ‘normal,’ which will only last so long before yet another ‘normal’ life takes over. So the short version is my schedule will be even less rational and regular than it usually is, and it’s somewhat unlikely I’ll get a chance to finish every project and idea I had for the rest of this year… and I’m perfectly fine with that. I’ll get to them all in good time, and I fully intend to stick around and make the next year of this page even better in every way. Apologies to those who enjoy a steadier stream of content, but at least you’ve got these weekly updates that I’m not giving up on. Except on weeks when I write over 10,000 words about demos. Then you don’t get shit.