David Sanders – Phenixx Gaming

2025’s Remaining Steam Sale Dates Announced

David Sanders — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 14:00:57 +0000

Valve has now publicly announced the dates of the second half of this year’s planned Steam sales, both major and minor alike. They’ve also revealed the dates for 2025’s Steam Next Fests, those glorious occasions when we can all download tons more demos of upcoming games than we could ever realistically play within a week. I shall now cover the deluge of dates Valve has decreed so that we can all…

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Is PC Gaming Reaching a Singularity?

David Sanders — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 18:00:39 +0000

I realized something a couple of nights ago. Toward the end of 2024, Rockstar Games finally ported the original Red Dead Redemption to PC and released it on Steam and Epic. Ubisoft has been adding Steam achievements to much of its catalog for a while now and has pledged to release Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Steam and Epic on day one. Just a couple of weeks ago, EA re-released complete editions of…

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Darkest Dungeon’s Narrator Wayne June has Died

David Sanders — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 16:00:24 +0000

“Ruin has come to our family”… and to my good mood. It brings me great sorrow to report to you that Wayne June, well-known as the legendary narrator in Darkest Dungeon and Darkest Dungeon II, has passed away at the age of 70. Red Hook Studios’ Chris Bourassa publicly announced Mr. June’s passing in a blog post published on Thursday, January 30th, 2025. This news has likely saddened legions of…

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Gift Guide: “Mindless Fun” Steam Games

David Sanders — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:00:53 +0000

If you’re anything like me, you might find yourself frequently dealing with at least some degree of anxiety and/or stress. If you or anyone for whom you’re buying gifts could benefit from having some new Steam games to play to help you zone out for a while, I’ve got a short list of suggestions to help with that. I call games like these “mindless fun” because that’s exactly how I describe them…

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Gift Guide for Handheld Gaming PC Owners

David Sanders — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:00:37 +0000

If you’re looking for gifts (or holiday gifts eventually) for someone in your life (or even yourself) who has a handheld PC gaming system, like a Steam Deck, an ASUS ROG Ally, or a Lenovo Legion Go, I’ve got a few ideas that might help you out. Everything I’ll be suggesting in this article is mainly intended for the Steam Deck specifically, since that’s what I personally own, but I’ll be sure to…

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Blightbound (PC) Review

David Sanders — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 18:00:23 +0000

When your homeland is cursed by a withering blight, who do you intend to call? Three random adventurers who happen to fit bog-standard RPG character archetypes! Okay, I know that’s nowhere near as catchy as the theme song from Ghostbusters, but it’s just about the best way I can think of to introduce Blightbound. I think my introduction does decently sum up the core gameplay loop, though: You play…

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Roadwarden (PC) Review

David Sanders — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:00:52 +0000

Text-based RPGs have never been “my jam,” as I suspect the youth would say. I didn’t grow up in what I think of as the genre’s “golden age” a few decades ago, so perhaps that’s why I’ve never gone out of my way to find and play games of this ilk. Roadwarden, however, is a notable exception to that gap in my personal gaming history that I’m sure will stick out in my memory for quite some time to…

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Gift Guide: City-Builder & Management Games

David Sanders — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 14:00:51 +0000

I know I certainly shouldn’t be placed in charge of building or managing anything more complex than a desktop PC, let alone an entire city, school campus, dungeon, small Caribbean country, or settlement that’s home to the last vestiges of humanity in the face of a snow-covered apocalypse. Even so, I still enjoy games that let me simulate those processes. If that applies to you and/or any of your…

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Wandersong (PC) Review

David Sanders — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 14:00:56 +0000

“Skipper Dan,” a song by “Weird Al” Yankovic, tells the story of a brilliant actor who has always been told he’ll be extremely famous someday. However, because he can’t find any big-ticket gigs in show business, he ultimately ends up working a job he despises, as a tour guide on Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise ride. This might seem strange, but the story told within Wandersong strikes me as the exact…

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Gift Guide: Turn-Based Strategy & Tactics Games

David Sanders — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 14:00:46 +0000

I’ve always preferred turn-based strategy games as opposed to real-time strategy. I find I struggle with having to manage multiple units and make tactical decisions without having as much time to think things through as I would prefer, even though I almost exclusively play strategy titles against AI opponents — they don’t complain if my turns take too long. If you and/or any of your loved ones…

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