The new Forza Horizon 6 game launches in a day. I’m super excited to play. I restarted my GamePass subscription just to be able to play. I thought about purchasing the game, but my wife has wanted the subscription again for awhile now, so we both benefit doing it this way.
Forza is the reason I own an Xbox. I first played Forza Horizon 3 years ago at a friends house when I was visiting. I became hooked because the racing was a bunch of fun. I remember saving up to purchase an Xbox One because I wanted to play the game more. I had never owned a Playstation or Xbox before that because I mainly played on PC. I remember my wife being surprised when I told her I wanted to get an Xbox simply to play a racing game. We’ve used it to play a bunch of other stuff since, but Forza Horizon is still the game that I use it for.
I’ve owned every Forza Horizon game since 3. When I heard 6 is coming out, I knew I was going to play it. I actually upgraded my Xbox to the Series X to see how good Forza Horizon 5 played on it compared to the Xbox One. I can’t wait to see how Forza Horizon 6 looks because I actually just got a new TV not too long ago that has the higher frame rate to take advantage of the graphics the Series X can push.
Tomorrow night will be the big test to see how it all plays. I have the game preinstalled already, so I am ready the minute it goes live! It’s going to be awesome!
I mentioned awhile back that I was very tempted to play World of Warcraft (WOW) again with the launch of the newest expansion: Midnight. I kept watching videos about it and stuff that was going on in the game, and it finally got to me. I purchased the expansion. I fired up my subscription again. I jumped back into the game.
I’m really enjoying the Midnight content. I realized that I never really finished the content in The War Within, so there was some stuff that I had missed out on. I could have gone back and played through the later patches of the last expansion, and I might down the road, but I really wanted to jump into the Midnight stuff, so I did the catch-up questing to get some of the story and started playing.
Seeing the redone zones of Everson Woods and Silvermoon was amazing. The area is so much larger now than it was before. The new Zul’Aman is fun. I’m about to get into Harandar, so we will see how I like that one.
Playing WOW is always a fascinating time sink. I have to make sure I have the time to really get into it, so I’m breaking down my gameplay to a few days a week. I don’t really get into endgame content like raiding because I’m not great with massive boss fights and don’t really have time to learn all those mechanics. I am very much a storyline player. I’m hear for the story and not much else. Once I finish the story, I’ll probably be done until they release more.
I understand they have a much faster release cadence on patches now, so maybe I won’t drop out of the game for a year at a time. We will see. Either way, it feels good to be back.
I hope Valve continues to give Windows a run for their money. I like that Microsoft is responding with putting a gaming focus on Windows. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I won’t lie, I’ve been tempted to jump back onto a gaming-focused version of Linux like Bazzite or CachyOS, but I’m also interested to see how some of the changes to Windows will look. I know that the latest gaming mode is now live for all Windows users with an update. I’ll have to look into that as well and give that a try.
I mentioned two posts ago that I was feeling a bit left out with the current expansion of World of Warcraft (WOW), or maybe more that I was getting that itch to play again.
Today, I’m just randomly going through some YouTube Shorts, and this video pops up:
Short, sweet, and to the point. However, I started playing WOW when I was 25, so I definitely wasn’t a kid at the time, but this short got me a little emotional because it is right. I can’t go back to the first time I played WOW and the feeling I got of this massive world and me running around in it. I remember being super amazed at everything and feeling like it looked so good.
I was introduced to WOW by a co-worker. At the time, I was working the graveyard shifts at convenience store in a town in Southeastern Idaho. I worked with two other people on a rotation. There were always two of us at night, and we would rotate on who would be there. Two nights on and one night off.
The one that introduced me to the game was a guy named Tim. He loved video games. I hadn’t played a video game since high school. I had gone away from playing them and primarily did coding stuff because at the time, I liked tinkering with writing small scripts or programs to that could make a computer do stuff, and it fascianted me.
Tim started talking about the game one night and how much work he put into it. I found it weird that you could get so much out of a game. I wasn’t a big fan of Warcraft because I remember a high school friend of mine would play Warcraft, and it never looked fun. So, I was thinking it was still the top-down looking style game, and when Tim said I should give World of Warcraft a try, I said that I wasn’t interested.
A few months later, he invites me over to his how, and he shows me the game. I was blown away seeing him run around and basically doing whatever he wanted. That idea blew my mind. I decided to take him up on his offer. He purchased a copy of the game for me and gave me money to pay for my first month of gameplay.
I was hooked pretty quick. He invited me into his guild. Introduced me to a bunch of people, and we played whenever we could since both of us worked at the same place, it was very common that we didn’t have a ton of time together. I moved on to another location within the company, but he and I kept in touch and we kept playing for a few more years as guildmates before I moved on to playing more with my brothers and cousins.
I kept in Touch with Tim after that, and he would always reach out and see if I was going to play the next expansion that was coming out. Sadly, he passed away from a heart attack about 8 years ago. Losing one of my WOW buddies really hit me hard especially since he was my original WOW buddy. Every so often I will see something WOW related, and it will bring back those memories of playing with him again.
That YouTube Short did just that. I know I’ll never be able to jump into the game again with him and run around doing silly stuff. It still hurts sometimes, but I am happy for the memories we created. WOW is a part of who I am even if I don’t play anymore. That doesn’t mean I won’t. I’ll probably jump back in when the newest expansion goes on sale because I always love the stories it tells, and I’ve invested a lot of time over the years to be a part of those stories.
I wasn’t expecting to have the WOW feels today, but I did, and I wanted to share.
I started playing World of Warcraft in late 2006. I was introduced to the game by a friend I made at work. He actually purchased the game for me and my first month of game time. I think I played almost daily for a few years and loved it. Found out I had family that played as well and ended up spending a lot of time in the game.
I remember playing through the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. After that one, I think I’ve played off and on since. A lot of my family stopped playing, and some of the guilds I was a part of over the years disappeared leaving me to mainly play solo now, so I don’t really jump in like I used too. However, I still feel that pull to jump back in and see how the current story is playing out.
World of Warcraft just came out with another expansion called Midnight. I am experiencing a bit of FOMO right now. I really want to play, but I am much busier now than I was 20 years ago, and I don’t know if I can justify a monthly subscription for it only to play occasionally. But I really want to play again. It’s amazing to me how addicting a game can be.
What am I watching today? Let’s Game It Out playing a mining game where they discover a really amusing exploit.
I always look forward to a Let’s Game It Out video. Josh comes up with some really amusing ways to do things in games and usually finds some way to break them.
What I’m watching: Minty Comedic Arts – The E.T. Atari Game Controversy.
My Aunt had this game when I was a kid. I remember playing it and being freaked out about it for some reason. It was a game I would only play if there was someone with me. If I was by myself, I would ignore it and play other Atari games.
