Welcome to the first edition of Monday Mushings, my weekly newsletter covering my 5 Ws:
What I’ve been playing
Where I’ve been playing it (platform, not actual physical place)
Who I’ve been reading
When I’ll be posting next
Why you should care
I’ll not always answer the last W successfully, but I’ll always try.
This week I’m writing about Anno 117, ARC Raiders, and Dishonored, three completely different games, variety, yay! The amount of time I spent playing ate into the part of the pie that’s meant for reading, but we still have a few article recommendations. I do have a clear plan in my mind of what I’ll be writing about next, so stay tuned for that later in the article.
As part of my main job as a freelance journalist I’ve been covering two of the biggest recent releases: Anno 117 and ARC Raiders. Two games whose titles start with A, and that’s where the similarities end.
Anno 117 was a new experience for me. RTS, 4X, Grand Strategy, City Builders, these are all genres that I am woefully educated in. I’ve tried time and time again to get into them, but I haven’t quite managed. So outside of what I was required to do for work, I didn’t play much of it.
ARC Raiders, though… I’ve now clocked nearly 47h into the game, a little over two weeks post-launch. Most of those were spent alone in the Rust Belt making friendships with strangers. Some of them were with my own friends, but that usually ended up in constant bloodbaths.
Not only am I more used to games like ARC Raiders, Embark Studios has done an excellent job trimming the fat and giving us a truly juicy experience without the endless list of unpleasantries that come attached to a title like Escape From Tarkov— take a look at Steam reviews for that game, if you need an explanation.
Besides this two, I’m finally back to my Steaming The Deck series with Dishonored. It is my first time playing it (I know) and I’ve been enjoying my time so far, although I am only a couple of hours in. If you also own Dishonored, Steam Deck is an excellent way to play it. It runs at a locked 60 with great visual quality, I highly recommend it.
Got a bit ahead of myself in the last paragraph, but that’s alright, it is only the first edition of Monday Mushings, after all. Both Anno and ARC Raiders have been played on my PC, while Dishonored as been walking with me inside my Steam Deck.
No complaints regarding performance of any game, except some issues with Anno 117, but you can fix those easily by toning down the graphics a bit and capping FPS to avoid massive dips when zooming in and out.
I have a few pieces planned. A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing the team at moi rai, the studio behind games like Monster Sanctuary and Aethermancer. Expect a piece on that conversation soon.
I interviewed a few more individuals in the gaming sphere but I’m still shopping those pitches around to a few outlets, if none take it, they’ll end up here!
A Steaming The Deck piece for Dishonored is already in the works, I’ll have it published sometime in December, if all goes well. Got a review key for an indie game in my mail today, so I’ll start working on that review, too (it’s a surprise!).
I didn’t think how difficult this one would be to answer. As Margot pointed out in her small yet brilliant piece— which I’ll link below, don’t worry—, you shouldn’t really care about any of this.
BUT if you are interested in video games, reading and/or writing about them, I’m fairly confident you’ll get something useful out of these weekly Mushings. If not, voice your frustrations below and tell me what I could do to make it better (these will be more effective as pleasant constructive criticism than harsh, mean words)!
I didn’t read nearly as much as I should’ve this week, but I still managed to find some excellent articles in the wild. Here are five I’d like to highlight, one for each day of the (work) week:
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond preview – “A surprisingly magical return to Nintendo’s legendary metroidvania series”, by Ashley Bardhan for Gamesradar+- A whimsical yet informative preview of Metroid Prime 4 Through Ashley’s Looking Glass.
These Developers Are Bringing Canceled Game Concord Back To Life, by Nicole Carpenter for Aftermath- An enlightening interview of the people who’re bringing back the most infamous release of 2024.
Elevating Canadian video games industry, one MIGS at a time, by Katya Ryabova for Playing This Week- Katya’s thoughts on the Canadian video game industry based on her time spent at a recent conference.
Thoughts: Do I actually WANT to play that game?, by Margot for Margot Plays Video Games- The aforementioned piece where friend of the Substack, Margot, covers the crucial difference between wanting to play a game and feeling like you should play it.
A word of warning from the Steam Machine’s ‘ideal’ customer, by Harrison Polites for Infinite Lives- Harrison clues us into what would make the console-PC hybrid ideal for customers like him.
See you next Monday!
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