Reconnect Recap - w/e 8th February

Reviewing the week that's been over on Reconnect

Kia Ora folks!

Despite a busy home life of trying to get packing for my move I was able to finish off Fallout S2, play a decent amount of Megabonk, start a new run in Baldurs Gate 3 with my partner, and sink about five hours into Jedi Survivor. So needless to say, the packing isn’t going well.

Its another week of the Reconnect Recap, the companion newsletter to Reconnect, the website that houses forty thousand games articles and updates multiple times a day all in the name of creating a discovery space for writers across the internet.

This week we’re talking a lot about the ends of games, talking plenty about the perspective you look at a game, four articles about the PS2, and heaps more!

Let’s dig in.

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• ⌛️ Hit up the archive to see older issues.

• 🧠 Read my occasional thoughts on the industry, here.

• 🦋 Follow Reconnect on Bluesky

• 🔗 Hit up my Linktree to see my other work

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Great Write Ups

• Nailed the landing: Despite thinking their overrated, Big Nerd Gaming, shares their top 10 video game endings, and I’m quite miffed that RDR2 ending isn’t on there, nor in first place. But maybe it’s because it’s so good it deserves its own seperate article.

• Sticking the landing: Cat dives into their thoughts with Baldurs Gate 3 with their own Review, for the most part its a positive piece, but Cat touches on the ten million dollar question, how does a game with that much choice and bravado stick the landing?

• Didn’t stay for the landing: Kimimi the game eating she monster, wins the award for best blog name, hands down, but they also remind us that you don’t need to finish the game if you’re no longer having fun.

• Topping the Charts: The Alinea Insight newsletter has the sales figures for games sold on Playstation in January.

• Gamings, Yellow Pages: Brian Schneider & Magnvs have created an exhaustive list of those on Substack writing about video games, tabletop games, the industry and everything in between. Such a mammoth effort from the two and it’s well worth having a look. Of course if you think you should be on there, let them know!

• A changing landscape: Console Crit Chat reminds us all how game discovery has changed, when once we used to read magazines and wait outside stores, we now do everything digitally.

• The Good, the bad, and the ugly: I’m not a fan of fighting games, they don’t float my boat, but they do float the boat of Brandon over at ‘From the Desk of Chaos’ who has written up a piece of which trends in fighting games are working and what isn’t plus some novel ideas.

• I hardly ever went home: TimeExtension talks about the absolute mammoth work that brought XenoGears to the US.

• What am I looking at?: The UX Checkpoint explains how to give your UI structure and clarity and how to avoid cognitive overload.

• Traveller Tales: Harrison Polites gives their review of Octopath Traveller 0 and how it’s refreshing once and a while to play a truly deep and long game.

• Mario is a flaccid standee: Oh Jake Steinberg… You have an absolute way with words. I don’t care for Mario, no Smash Bros, but your steadfast defence of Mario’s honour in the most confusing fighting game on the planet was a pleasure to read.

• Isometric pre-rendered fakery: Before games could be powerful enough to render 3D objects in real time, games had to fake it by pre-rendering objects to give the feel of 3D. Practice Flip takes us on exercise in doing that today to understand more about how it works.

• Isometric Art is stunning: It seems like Trip Harrison and Practice Flip are thinking the same way at the moment. Trip explains how Isometric design works, how it came about and how it has evolved to create some stunning scenes.

• Fear, Fear Never Changes: We are all back on the Fallout buzz at the moment, i’ve jumped back into FNV for a bit and had some intentions to play FO4 but alas life got in the way, so I’m settling for consuming Fallout through other mediums like The Saved Game’s walk through of the three scariest places in FO4.

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Fun Tidbits

• This week ObsoleteSony went H A R D on the PS2:

  • Why Was the PS3 $599 at Launch?

  • What is PS2 Recomp?

  • The PSP was never ‘basically a PS2’

  • Complete List of all PS2 Models

• Strong Museum Of Play Acquires “Comprehensive Collection Of Atari Materials”

• Learn Godot in 2026 Humble Course Bundle

• Operation Highjump seeks to continue Metal Slug’s comical running ‘n gunning

• “We’ll Never Be Able To Reach That Level” - Final Fantasy Legend Nobuo Uematsu’s Reaction To Yuzo Koshiro’s SNES Debut

• Various Game Boy Advance prototypes

• Here’s Why Official Dreamcast Magazine Never Got A Proper Final Issue

• Factory 95 is a retro Windows inspired automation sim about making a slide-show factory

• Getting Personal with the Game Bub

• Abxylute E1 - A $70 Dual-OS Handheld That Sadly Fails To Impress

• Tomodachi Life Living the Dream finally lets you be queer

• Horizon Hunters Gathering is a co-op action game set in Aloy’s world

• “Built On Theft And Plagiarism” - A Growing Number Of Game Developers Are Sick To Death Of Generative AI