With Valentine's Day coming tomorrow, fake holiday or not, I thought I'd talk a bit today about how My Lovely Bride and I will be enjoying our Valentine's weekend. Why should this matter to you? Well, we've been together for over 33 years, so maybe how we celebrate might give y'all ideas for how to build a strong connection with your partner?

So I'm a bit late to this news, but wanted to talk a bit about it, before the gaming news cycle moves on to something else. Specifically, there has been a leak (from a person known to reliably be correct on previous leaks) that "Starfield" will be coming to the Playstation 5 on April 7th, 2026. There is no confirmation that this will coincide with the upcoming "Starfield 2.0" content update, let alone the overdue second DLC (perhaps called "Terran Armada", which Bethesda teased us with last October).

So, I would like to apologize to the fine folks over at Magpie Games. I am very sorry for the comments I have made previously regarding your company, on my old podcast, in blog posts, and I'm sure elsewhere. Let me explain the circumstances that led to this. Several years ago, Magpie Games launched a Kickstarter project for a second edition of their urban fantasy TTRPG, "Urban Shadows".

So I'm rather late to this story, but since we're closing in on the Anniversary Update for "Avowed", I wanted to comment on it. Why? Because I enjoy the game, and looking at what's on the table for this coming update (currently scheduled for February 17th), I really can't wait to dig into this new content! First of all, the game will be coming to Playstation 5 at the same time as this release.

Welcome to February. Everything sucks. Now that is obviously hyperbole, but let's be honest... there isn't a whole lot going on this time of year. At least here in the northern hemisphere, February is the middle of winter. It is generally cold weather, mild at best in the southernmost areas. Rain is abundant in the south, and the weather gets progressively worse the further north you go.

So I have been a fan of the tabletop roleplaying game "Rifts" for decades. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I'm a huge fan of the setting and style of the game. I have only tolerated the game itself, because the system in the original Palladium Books version is barely playable. Regardless, I still bought a lot of those original books, and my old group played that game for years, off and on, just because of the setting alone.

So last Thursday, Microsoft held their most recent Xbox Showcase, which featured a couple of upcoming games (with "Fable" being the most interesting, in my estimation). Really, it wasn't anything special, and since nothing was announced in advance regarding Bethesda games, the "Starfield" fan base really shouldn't have expected anything from this showcase. But after 10 months with no news regarding "Starfield" (other than an extremely short teaser trailer that gave us nothing but a potential name for upcoming DLC or an update), and no major update at all in a year, I think it was pretty reasonable for the fans to expect the "mystery" game discussed at the end of the Showcase might be "Starfield".

Alright, I know it has been a week since this particular Kickstarter project closed, but I felt I needed to say a few things about it, once I got a chance to really consider it fully. Someone made a tabletop roleplaying game based on the 1980's animated adventure "Thundercats". Now, I'm sure you'll note that - unlike other TTRPGs being funded via crowd sourcing - I waited until this project was closed to post about it.

So I used to play a lot of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs), but they have all fallen to the wayside over the years. Sure, I still have "Neverwinter", "Star Trek Online", and "DC Universe" on my Xbox, with a smattering of other such games on my PC, but I haven't played any of them in months, if not years.

So I'm pondering writing a small tabletop roleplaying game, a sci-fi adventure for solo play. It has aspects of science-fiction exploration, procedurally-developed settings, and cosmic horror. It is, as the cover image implies, heavily inspired by the probes sent out into cosmos by Humanity over the last 70+ years. I am also leaning heavily on the "Lasers and Feelings…

Last November, Valve announced their upcoming gaming hardware projects, including their next attempt at a console-like standalone gaming PC, so-called the "Steam Machine". While technical information for the device has been fairly plentiful, the asking price at retail for it has not. ... until now... maybe. You see, a Chech retailer apparently leaked the local price for the "Steam Machine", and it isn't good news.

As I said in my post the other day, I'm not feeling well, and as such we'll not be posting this week. Well, actually, I did post as normal this week, just talking briefly (i.e., whinging) about my illness. There was no content of worth released this week. Clearly not. That said, I am hoping to get back to posting something of worth next week, but we'll see how that goes. This infection is well and truly kicking my ass.

Sorry, I'm likely not posting anything this week, since I am quite ill (I have an abscess in my upper gums), and the pain and nausea is making blogging rather difficult to focus on. Sure, I could post another half-hearted screed against AI in gaming, or talk about my favorite mods in a two year old game that nobody plays outside of the Xbox crowd, or something like that.