The Queue: Soup Season

It happened slowly and in fits and starts, but I feel like it might be, at long last, soup season. For me, it’s also baked pasta season just because I don’t feel sweaty just thinking about running the oven, so let’s not be too picky about it. Of course, in about a week I’m going to be sad that summer basil season is then also therefore over, and also very annoyed at having to wear socks constantly for the next few months, but for now can I interest you in some corn chowder?

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions and we’ll give you the answer with some croutons, probably.

My answer was going to be MediEvil, which was a longtime favorite of mine for being both mildly historical and fun, but apparently it already had a remake in 2019 exclusively for PlayStation.

Incredibly, monkey’s paw wish-style ironically, one of the games I’d love to see remade is actually Morrowind. I’m pretty sure there are overhaul mods, either for Morrowind or even Skyrim, that update both the graphics and the incredibly janky gameplay, but I am lazy and would love to have that just available out of the box.

There are also a bunch of games from back in the day that are still sort of available out there, but I’d love to see them ported to Steam. Notably, the Gemcraft tower defense series. They started developing on Steam a while back and so there are some available there — though one of the earlier ones still uses a flash framework, so I can’t actually get it to run on my PC anymore. I just really enjoy playing old school tower defense, and that game archetype seems to be all but dead.

Back in the day I had a discrete character for everything, but now I just don’t have the time or patience. Give me one character to rule them all. If my Hunter could heal I would play only her forever, but sometimes I just need to hold the lives of four strangers in my hands, with menace.

A lot of the really neat upcoming games I have my eye on do have demos, but I’m not exactly sure what I’d get out of the demo. Like LocoMotive, which is a whodunnit adventure game set on a train. Sure, I could get a better feel of the mechanics and things, but at its core, it’s a whodunnit. Most of the mechanics are going to be very secondary to the plot, and I’m only going to be annoyed when the plot is cut short.

There are a couple which are going to be interesting to explore as a demo, like Sulfur, which is a sort of looter shooter, but usually I get a good feel for the gameplay — or at least, whether or not I’ll enjoy the gameplay — from preview videos. Generally as long as it’s not excessively QWOP-y or a platformer, I’m down.

There are also a few demos that have caught my eye, but as soon as I see the name of the developer it’s kind of a moot point. Usual Jane looks really neat! But it’s developed and published by Finji, whose games are always right down my alley (Tunic, Night in the Woods, Chicory, I Was A Teenage Exocolonist), so there’s no real point in playing through the demo.

I just kinda feel like I’m better served slogging through the backlog.

No, but I doubt it would make for good soup, so.