What do you mean? My kids have been playing my library using the new Family Sharing rules for a couple months on my LCD deck by opting into the beta.

And yes, the new Family Sharing is amazing. It’s made me want to buy exclusively into Steam ecosystem.

I just signed up for their 2 year subscription deal, and always looked forward to getting my latest edition. Also listened to their podcast, which was great too. Super bummed about this.

I feel the same! I’m wrapping up world 6 and wondering when there’s going to be any challenge or clever secrets! There’s only been a handful of stages with double exits, every wonder flower is damn near unmissable, and there’s been maybe a couple times that I grunted “oh that’s clever” when seeing a hidden something. I like the creativity of each wonder flower being different, but I was definitely expecting a lot more based on the extremely positive reviews! I haven’t finished the challenge world (I think I’ve discovered 4 so far?) and only one of them took me more then 2-3 tries. Almost every level I’ve 100% cleared on my first try. I’m not a platforming savant, I swear!

Didn’t continue anything at all I was playing last week! On a whim, I decided to give a little try to Dave the Diver. Like 12+ hours invested now (which is relatively large amount for me in a week…) and it’s all I’m playing. I love so much about the game. There are quirks, and things that could be improved (why on earth can’t I sort my diving pick ups while on a dive to pick the heaviest stuff to drop quickly??), but it feels very much like a “greater than the sum of its parts” game. Which is saying something, since there are a lot of parts in this game! There is enough tedious parts that are detracting enough that I doubt this will be on my top 10 of the year list, but it’s not far from it anyways. Definitely planning on finishing the story and definitely recommended!

Sea of Stars is the highlight for me. Very excited about that.

The remainder is kinda weak for me. Firewatch is excellent, but has been on game pass before. I’ve been meaning to play Gris someday, so might finally get to it. I have no interest in horror so skipping Texas Chainsaw.

Not a great look that more is leaving than adding.

Leaving August 31:

• Black Desert (Cloud and Console)
• Commandos 3 – HD Remaster (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Immortality (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Nuclear Throne (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Surgeon Simulator 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Tinykin (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Need to find time for Immortality and Tinykin before the end of the month!

Sea of Stars is easily the highlight for me. Nice that it’s on Game Pass and PS+ for more exposure. I enjoyed The Messenger a lot and I’m really curious where they’re going next.

I’m excited about trying Moving Out 2 with my kids. We enjoyed the first a bunch and it looks like just more of that.

I’m curious to try Cursed to Golf too. Heard good things about that.

Also, don’t look down on additions like PJ Masks. These AA quality young kid games are awesome for families. I’m sure my young kiddos will love trying it out for a few hours and help get them interested in gaming as a hobby. It’s great to have a few of these on the service because it can be difficult to justify spending much on them, when they tend to only be played a few hours. Especially because I’m unlikely to play it haha.

Overall really good month for PS+.

Seriously. I’m never upset about a game delay these days because there are already so many games to play that I literally will not be able to get to in my lifetime. I’m still mostly catching up on games from the last few years and can’t imagine when I’ll even get to most 2023 games!

I can definitely see the brain tiredness! I blasted through in a couple days and probably would have enjoyed it even more if I’d slowed down haha. It’s such a gem of a game. I wish there was more like it, but the only game that gave me the same feeling is Return of the Obra Dinn.

Tried Atomic Heart for an hour or two and I think I’m done with it. I found the loot collecting tedious, the upgrades felt excessive and padded, the characters overbearing, and combat was just okay. I think this could’ve been massively improved by cutting 30-50% of the play length by streamlining loot and progression and cutting weaker content. But I’m almost always the one saying games are too long and could be dramatically improved by cutting.

Finished another storyline in Octopath Traveler (1). I’ve finished 4 of the 8 main stories now. I still enjoy it, but just a little bit at a time.

Put a bit of time into Jedi Fallen Order. I’ve enjoyed it a lot more after dropping difficulty to baby mode and just blasting through story. Something about the movement or progression or exploration feels tiring to me. Especially backtracking through worlds I’ve already visited once or twice. I’m maybe halfway through and debating just watching a YouTube video for the remainder of the story…

Still making progress in Tears of the Kingdom. Maybe 25-30 hours in. I’ve started using the official guide’s “companion” for sections I’ve personally completed already. I really like how they wrote it as spoiler free as possible, with suggestions of landmarks or quests to get to that make sense for each section you’ve done. I had completely missed a couple armor sets that will be very handy!

It’ll be nice for FF14 to come to Xbox finally. I’m curious what they mean by “whenever possible”. Probably previous exclusivity agreements prevent all games coming to Xbox, but I’m sure there will be some that don’t come to Xbox for other reasons too.

Great biweek drop for me.

Celeste is a modern classic and everybody should at least try it. It’s been on game pass before, so not as exciting, but still great.

Maquette is a very interesting puzzler that’s worth a try.

Venba is a new release indie that’s gathering a lot of buzz. Looks awesome and is the one I’m most excited about.

I’ve also been wanting to try Toem, The Wandering Village and Figment 2.

It’s about time to let Games with Gold die. The initial list of included games with Core is better than anything that’s been on Gold in many years.

I’m slightly surprised they’re going to let anybody who has games from Gold stay in their account as long as they stay on Core. I figured they’d just let them have permanent keys to them, so it’d be less hassle to track that forever. It’s basically just a rebranding of Gold anyway.

Still think it’s crazy to charge a monthly membership for online multiplayer at all.

I didn’t realize there was apparently no McPixel 2. They seem to have done the Goat Simulator 3 thing where it skipped 2.

Then I was curious and it turns out the two games released 3 days apart, and McPixel technically released first. So they beat them to it!

GTA5 returning to Game Pass with the “next gen” upgrade is nice. Maybe I’ll finally give it a try.

I tried the first McPixel years ago and it’s silly dumb fun.

Not a lot leaving. Pretty good half month.