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The Open Worldification of Video Games

Today I read an article on Rock Paper Shotgun which was a bitter rant about how bad Sonic Frontiers is and there is a paragraph in it that I want to expound upon:

Oh, for God’s sake, of course I’m bitter. How could I not be bitter that Sonic has thrown all that delightful strangeness, that off-beat wrongness back in my weeping face? What the hell is Sonic Frontiers, anyway? A set of enormous maps that you gradually reveal portions of, complete with icons all over it to tidy up? It’s blinkin’, bleedin’ Assassin’s Creed, isn’t it? This is what people want from Sonic! This is what makes them cheer! To see him to fall in line. For him to be boring.

Stuart Gipp, “Sonic Frontiers is popular, but it’s a boring Sonic game – and I’m bitter about it”
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packetcat reads 2022 Week 50 – Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Pages: 626
Purchased from: Kobo

This one is pretty good as far as YA fantasy goes for me. Good characters, an interesting magic system and a plot that kept a good pace throughout. The book also deals with complex issues like trauma, grief and racism. All of these were handled with care and weaved into the narrative in a natural way.

The only thing I disliked about this book is what I usually seem to dislike about YA fantasy books…the romance plot. In this book’s defence, the main character is a teenager and the romance stuff is very teenage romance stuff. I am just too old for that particular kind of romance in books now.

This book was another recommendation by cari of the the cari can read YouTube channel, no misses yet!

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 49 – Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Pages: 369
Purchased from: Kobo

For the first time this year I decided to try reading a short story anthology instead of a full novel. It was pretty good! A bunch of very thought provoking stories by Ted in this one. I especially liked the one about the “digients”, very interesting.

This was a nice change of pace from all the full length novels I’ve been reading this year.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 48 – The Flight of the Aphrodite by S.J Morden

Pages: 347
Purchased from: Kobo

A rather depressing hard sci-fi novel. This one definitely leant into the psychological horror aspects of hard-scifi. I am not sure just how realistic the mental breakdowns depicted are but it certainly was a book where there’s no respite from the onslaught of the terror of being in deep space far away from any help.

I only recommend this one if you are up for a psychologically grueling read.