Console Catch-Up - January 2026 Monthly Recap
- Adam Cassar
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Here is to the first month of 2026 passing by. Has it been eventful? Yes, but thankfully not as catastrophically as some of the months in 2025. There were some days that were particularly emotional, but I feel that things are slowly climbing up.
Have I managed to put in a bit more time into gaming? A little bit more. I even finished a couple of titles. Though I did have a little misfortune... I lost all my progress on Yakuza Kiwami and I haven't had the opportunity to play it again to get to where I was - partly because I haven't had a lot of time to invest in it and also because I was partly put off in having to restart it; even though I was only at Chapter 4. But I will get there again.
In the meantime, I have been playing a few other games. On console, I have now started Epic Mickey Rebrushed, a game I have always wanted to complete after starting it briefly back on the Wii. And I have played Zero Hour and Arc Raiders with my brothers. But enough about that. Let's see what was completed this month.
Name: Breakout Epilepsia
Date Completed: 04/01/2026
After all that had happened at the end of 2025 I wanted to start off the year with a simple game. This one happened to be free on Steam - just three chapters with five stages each and a boss fight.
The game is your typical arcade Breakout clone but at least some of the levels were varied not just from the layout of the bricks but either some level gimmicks - like the screen being upside down - or the paddle having some level specific ability.
The boss fights were then more like a top down arcade shooter, where you controlled a ship and shot at a giant heart while dodging projectiles. Honestly, they weren't anything special, but for a free game, I was happy to complete it. And I only really played it to pass the time. There is supposedly a story but I had no clue what was going on.
One thing I would warn though, it isn't joking when it calls itself Epilepsia. Everytime you hit a brick with the ball, the screen flashes bright white. On some levels, with the bricks packed together, it was honestly disorientating and sometimes I would fail to catch the ball on its rebound because of it.
Name: Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater
Date Completed: 08/01/2026
Finally, I can say that I have completed a game on the PS5. Honestly, I lost track of how long it has been.
I got this game back when it came out because I am a huge fan of the series and had hoped to complete it quickly. But that was not the case.
I am in mixed minds, though, with this entry. On the one hand, I enjoyed the sharper look; it hit the nostalgia hard, and I was especially happy to see that Snake VS Monkeys was back.
But on the other hand... the game is pretty much a copy/paste of the original. Everything was kept faithful to the original, which, to a degree, is good. And it's not like they didn't add ANYTHING. There were changes in the controls and the shortcut menu. But it would have been nice to have just a little bit more. Maybe a bonus game like Snake VS Monkeys. They did unlock Guy Savage in the main menu, which was a nice touch.
They did have an online feature added later, Fox Hunt, but I never got around to trying it out. The player count is already dismally low, and I'm not really a multiplayer sort of person, not unless it's co-op.
BONUS ENTRY:
Name: Black Mesa
Platform: Steam
Status: Released
I was genuinely surprised to learn when this game was being made, that it was not by Valve. Normally unofficial remakes get shut down quickly. But not only was this one not shut down, it was practically encouraged by Gabe Newell.
So I was curious to play it, and I completed it back in January 2023. I was impressed by how true to the original the game was, to the point where my familiarity with the original helped me a lot with this game. There were some sections which were enhanced and improved; and an entirely new section in the alternate realm (Xen was greatly elaborated and improved upon).
It was a fun shooter and it made me love the original even more. At the time that I finished it, they were working on adapting Blue Shift as well, which I look forward to picking up and playing at some point.
And with that, I can happily close off the month of January. I am still working on myself and my personal life, but at least I do feel I am taking steps in the right direction. Also, I have been enjoying my time developing my writing. When I started creating stories for AI chatbots - proper stories, not mindless slop - I didn't realize how much I would come to enjoy it. I proudly hold over 150 entries, all with their own story, with plenty more in the pipeline. I am looking forward to adding a couple more games to the completed list by the end of February, and I also hope to have either played enough of Yakuza Kiwami to get back to Chapter 4 or surpass it.
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