I finally finished playing the library’s copy of Star Wars: Fallen Order and returned it after having renewed it twice; I liked it enough to find a cheap copy of its sequel, Jedi Survivor, on sale at Amazon, and bought it. These games are a fun challenge, and much different than the shooters like The Division and the shooter/loot grab titles like Fallout I’ve been playing. Truthfully, I’m pretty tired of the Bethesda engine. Nuclear apocalypse, sword-and-fantasy, or outer space: it’s all the same mechanics, and there’s very little that’s new to the formula. The Jedi games are 50% skill based puzzle-solving and 50% kool lightsaber fights, all set in a sprawling, richly detailed environment. They don’t go super dweeb-heavy on the lore, and there’s just enough of a music cue to let me know I’m in a galaxy far, far away without beating me over the head with it. (See: Battlefront, which was fun but forced me to shut off the music entirely).
Speaking of the library, I had to drive Finn out to a different branch to pick up a book for school, and found it to be much larger, and much better stocked, than our local. I walked out with a stack of 10 CDs, two new games to try, and an interesting history book. Their wall of multimedia is huge compared to the branch down the street—so I believe this will be my new go-to for the immediate future.