Last year I attempted to do a write up for all the games I completed last year. I wrote like 5-7 entries and got bored. I complete too many games (or maybe my criteria for completing games is too loose), and don’t really have any great insights into the majority of them. I decided this year to do a top five trends or categories that really stuck out to me this year. So, in no particular order, the top five good things in video games for me:
Nintendo Comfort games (Mario 35th and Animal Crossing)
This year was really all about comfort. If I was doing a traditional games of the year list, Animal Crossing would be top if only for the sense of normalcy it gave me during these crazy times. It allowed me to exist in a place where people cared for each other, and I was working for something that was for the good of the community. It was something that the real world was sadly lacking. When I wanted to take a break from my Animal Crossing village, I chose to jump and hop around with 35 years worth of Mario goodness. The 35th anniversary of the red plumber was this year, and I played through most of the mainline Mario games, and watched plenty of fools playing through Mario Maker 2 levels. It was something that gave me joy (and some frustration, looking at you Super Mario Sunshine) without having to search too far.
VR Games
I got a Playstation VR set last year, but I didn’t really get the chance to dive into it until this year. Games like Super Hot VR, Astrobot, and Beat Saber breathed new life into their respective genres, and made me a believer that even if VR isn’t the future of video games, it is something everyone should at least try out. Many people will talk about immersion in games, and how things will add or take away from feeling like you are “in the game,” but until you dodge a bullet in Super Hot VR, find a secret collectable in Astrobot by literally looking behind you, or sweat your butt off by swinging the best lightsaber simulator that has probably ever come out in Beat Saber, you have not, in my opinion, yet felt what it really feels to be immersed in a video game.
Workout Games
Talking about sweating your butt off, with gyms closing down, and/or being potential vectors for fatal disease, working out via video games become a fun way to keep fit at home. While the aforementioned Beat Saber and the VR Harmonix game Audica were very fun ways to exercise, the real MVP was Ring Fit Adventure. This Switch game comes with a leg strap and the Ring-con which allows you to do various strength exercises along with the typical aerobic exercises. The way it is able to do both aerobic and anaerobic exercise while couching the workouts in a fun game wrapper makes working out everyday compelling and something I want to do. Leveling up and choosing skills may not directly make me healthier, but it helped to motivate me in ways the gym just can’t.
Old Namco Games
Earlier this year, Namco released the Namco Archives Vol. 1. It had classic games like Mappy and Pac-Man (including a fun de-make of Pac-Man Championship edition), but the game that stood out to me was Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti. The game had never come out in the US before, and here it was with no fanfare. The game isn’t exactly “game of the year” material (Kid Dracula for the NES takes the concept of adding cuteness to horror themed games with better results, also most of the boss battles are just endurance tests instead of something more interesting), but it felt like Namco was bringing something special to us. A few days later, Namco released a HD version of Mr. Driller DrillLand. With new HD visuals and a new casual mode, Namco brought out what I would argue is one of the best puzzle games ever made with a soundtrack to match. It is a perfect blend of puzzling out which route you should drill through with, and actually going through with the route with the speed and precision needed to succeed. The default game requires time and practice to even get past the 2nd level of all the challenges, but the casual mode cushions that a bit, enough to make the game more accessible. If that wasn’t enough, then Namco updates their taiko drum rhythm game to include songs from Mr. Driller DrillLand, Katamari Damashii and more. It made it feel like Namco was really feeling its own history this year, and it made it one of my favorite things to experience in 2020. I didn’t even mention all the cool Namco games on the Turbo Graphix 16 Mini, but that is probably too niche at this point (Galaga ‘88 is amazing).
Itch.io bundle and indie games in general
Itch.io earlier this year offered the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality which directly supported Black Lives Matters by giving all their proceeds to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Community Bail Fund. The sentiment was strong, and it was incredible how many creators supported this effort. The bundle raised over 8 million dollars, and provided people with over 1,700 games, video and otherwise. Supporting this bundle essentially created a game and board game collection all on its own. I am still going through all the games, and finding stuff that is the epitome of video game goodness and freshness. Dominique Pompelmousse 1 is a musical adventure game that charmed the heck out of me, and the sequel is an almost End of Evangelion style reflection on the nature of video games and sequels (though a lot less depressing than that anime movie). A Short Hike is basically if they combined Animal Crossing and Zelda Breath of the Wild, but made it 4 hours and managed to keep all the charm. Celeste is probably my favorite 2D platformer from the last 10 years or more. Far From Noise is a contemplative game about a car dangling off the side of a cliff that gave me more catharsis about this trash fire of a year than anything else. All those games, and hundreds more, all came in one bundle. It was incredible. If you missed out on these, I still would recommend getting these games as they made me thankful that I play video games as a hobby more than anything else. Shout outs to Frog Detective 1 and 2, Dicey Dungeons, and Hades for also being amazing.
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Monday, June 1, 2020
#Blacklivesmatter
Usually when I talk about politics, it is usually in the context of some media, but the murder of George Floyd, the countless injustices that have lead to these revolutions, and the standing up to corrupt power, begs some sort of response.
I find in moments like these, I need to listen. I have heard some brilliant, compassionate, good perspectives, and I have heard some tone-deaf, ugly perspectives as well. I figured that the best I can do as a privileged white CIS male is to forward some media to you that might help people understand the history and roots of why we all need to speak out against white supremacy.
First, here is a website called 8 minutes 46 seconds. That is the amount of time an officer of the law took to murder George Floyd. Please note that while the website only displays text, it is still something that is emotionally hard to deal with and process.
Second, Your Black Friend by Ben Passmore should be a required text at this point. It is about the life experience of a black person in America, and what they have to deal with day to day. Here is a youtube video as well that was made from the same material (I recommend supporting both).
Third, græ by Moses Sumney is a music album that is incredibly deep and beautiful, but this lyric from the song boxes really struck a chord with me:
I truly believe that people who define you control you
And the most significant thing that any person can do
But especially black women and men
Is to think about who gave them their definitions
And rewrite those definition for themselves
It is so important that we question the assumptions that the culture has laid upon us, and break the chains of ignorance, and this album helps us do that.
Lastly, The Dollop podcast by Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds is a bit different than the first three, as they try to make the tragedy and foolishness of history humorous. It is more important now than ever to hear about American history and how it led to this moment. I find that their sarcastic gallows humor allows me to process it without going crazy, or falling into a deep depression. I would recommend going through it yourself, but here are some episodes that relate to how we got here today: Oregon and the Ku Klux Klan, Boston Busing 1974, and Donald Trump (part one).
I find in moments like these, I need to listen. I have heard some brilliant, compassionate, good perspectives, and I have heard some tone-deaf, ugly perspectives as well. I figured that the best I can do as a privileged white CIS male is to forward some media to you that might help people understand the history and roots of why we all need to speak out against white supremacy.
First, here is a website called 8 minutes 46 seconds. That is the amount of time an officer of the law took to murder George Floyd. Please note that while the website only displays text, it is still something that is emotionally hard to deal with and process.
Second, Your Black Friend by Ben Passmore should be a required text at this point. It is about the life experience of a black person in America, and what they have to deal with day to day. Here is a youtube video as well that was made from the same material (I recommend supporting both).
Third, græ by Moses Sumney is a music album that is incredibly deep and beautiful, but this lyric from the song boxes really struck a chord with me:
I truly believe that people who define you control you
And the most significant thing that any person can do
But especially black women and men
Is to think about who gave them their definitions
And rewrite those definition for themselves
It is so important that we question the assumptions that the culture has laid upon us, and break the chains of ignorance, and this album helps us do that.
Lastly, The Dollop podcast by Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds is a bit different than the first three, as they try to make the tragedy and foolishness of history humorous. It is more important now than ever to hear about American history and how it led to this moment. I find that their sarcastic gallows humor allows me to process it without going crazy, or falling into a deep depression. I would recommend going through it yourself, but here are some episodes that relate to how we got here today: Oregon and the Ku Klux Klan, Boston Busing 1974, and Donald Trump (part one).
Friday, May 29, 2020
Media Consumption during a Pandemic
I was originally going to write some more focused thoughts on some shows I have been watching lately, but my brain just wasn’t up to it. Trying to watch something and have some insight into it has become more taxing as the stress of not going outside out of fear of catching a disease that many people in your neighborhood don’t seem to know or care about exists. I saw a woman with no mask on in a grocery market talking to two older people who did have masks on gathered closely together and talking about visiting grave sites. Not only was this breaking the rules that the grocery market themselves established, but the irony of talking about visiting graves while potentially spreading a disease that could kill the two people you are talking to was too much for me to bear, but I digress.
I have found myself less focusing on something I need to think deeply about, and watching things that are more pleasant, more surface level appeal. I was going to write about City Hunter (a popular anime from the 1980’s), and how it is a reaction to more women getting jobs in the late 70’s and 80’s, but Ryo Saeba’s sexual harassment “antics” I could only endure for 3 episodes before I tabled it. I tried to formulate my thoughts, but at some point I didn’t really want to do the work to form a concise thesis about it. Instead I have been watching Uchitama?! Have you seen my Tama?, an anime that takes the popular mascot character, and anthropomorphises them to follow them on their various adventures (here is the trailer to get an idea of what I am talking about). It is a silly show, and a lot of logistics that come with how they try to switch from a properly proportioned human, to a cute cate or dog mascot, that I can’t decide is brilliant or dumb. In the end, it is just cute people/animals doing cute things. It feels like all my brain can take right now.
Which is a little sad, as working from home has given me more free time, it should be the perfect time to be able to sit down and really focus on analysis. The very idea that I would be able to do a 40 hour a week job, and do 2 blog entries a week was born out of the naive belief that I could just get through all the stress the outside world is bringing, and just focus on writing. I consider myself more of an inside person, but living with many of my outlets no longer available has been harder on me than I anticipated. As much as I would love to sign up to the Criterion Channel and watch some thought provoking media (especially as I got my tax return and can afford it) but I know in my heart of hearts that most likely would end up feeling more like work than something I would enjoy. As time goes on, I may just bite the bullet, but it is just harder than it should be. The worst part is that it isn’t like this is going to be over soon, and the world doesn’t seem to be getting better, so relief feels like it will need to come from the inside.
Unfortunately, just like I don’t have any insights in the media I have watched, I also don’t have any insights into how to get through this crisis with your mind intact, but I figured that writing about it and getting it out there will be the first step in trying to confront it. Hopefully, this will encourage me to do something more productive, but even if it doesn’t, as long as I keep writing, and someone enjoys it, maybe it is worth writing something. Either way, I am going to keep doing my best, and see what I can cook up for next time. Keep safe, and let’s get through this together!
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Entertainment Log Blog 5/16/2020
They say if you want to be a writer, you should practice everyday. Write anything, even if it is just a grocery list. I am not sure if I will ever be a writer, but I certainly do write things for a living, granted most of them are either helping people with technical problems or telling them we can or can’t do something. I figure that is more productive than a grocery list (as it pays for the groceries) but I figured I would go the extra mile and start up this blog again.
I don’t do a journal anymore, and I have a poor memory, so I figured this will be a entertainment log blog, for one because the name “log blog” tickles my fancy, and also because my brain just has too many thoughts about the stuff I consume and I have no outlet for it, so here we go!
Hatsune Miku Mega Mix
I have written about Hatsune Miku before, and here is a link if you are curious. But just in case you don’t want to read that whole thing, Hatsune Miku originally was a mascot for a music creation program (the name Hatsune Miku is a portmanteau/play on Japanese words roughly meaning “first music creation”) and has now become the face of a cultural phenomenon where people from all over the world use her image to create a world of music, music videos, and their own fanfiction. I say fanfiction, but the big difference between Hatsune Miku and many other popular characters is that since Hatsune Miku and her band of vocaloids are mascots of a music creation tool, the fan created works can easily become as official as anything from the original creators. Things that now define Hatsune Miku such as the Nyan Cat song, the Ievan Polkka, and even the trademark leek she carries is all from fan created songs and videos.
So the Hatsune Miku video games are effectively vehicles for Sega to take all of this fan created material, and a good amount of their own creations, and sell it to consumers in the form of a music game. There are several issues with taking fan created content and then selling it back to them, but unfortunately, I don’t really have insight if the fans who created this music is being paid (or if they were secretly employees of Sega or Crypton Future Media all along) so I will have to leave that alone for another day. The music game itself plays like a digital karaoke. Instead of singing the songs, you tap certain buttons to the voice track. If you miss a button, the vocal track goes silent until you press the right button again. It is a simple game that if you really break it down amounts to just just pressing buttons when the game tells you to, but learning the track, getting better with the timing in chorus with the music and video end up being as fun as a silent karaoke can be. It helps that the music is pretty good, and the music videos are entertaining. This new Switch release is a paired down version of the enormous PS4 release, but gains the most important X factor that defines the Switch, which is being able to switch from TV to portable. Being able to take this game anywhere, and play with a good set of headphones makes it so that, even if it has less content than the PS4 release with all the DLC, being able to play anywhere is as integral as being able to play music anywhere. Being able to go anywhere and play, especially when you have over 100 songs, is the ideal way to enjoy all there is to Hatsune Miku Mega Mix and I heartily recommend this game, or at least try the demo. There is so much to play, listen to, and customize that I see myself playing this game for a long time.
Final Fantasy 7R
Apparently I also wrote a blog about Final Fantasy 7 nine years ago. Boy, does time fly. Spoiler warning, but here that is for your reference. One thing I was worried about with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is that it would sand down all the edges of the weirdness and quirkiness of FF7, and become more of an idealized version of FF7 that is more boring for the sake of being “cool.” I have gotten to chapter 9, and I can say that FF7R is wacky and inspired in its own ways, and is just a joy to play. Barring some side quests here and there, FF7R is everything I wanted from a remake of a game that is now over 20 years old, and still manages to be fun and relevant today. There are a couple of great surprises that show off FF7R’s humor (in particular one of the fights in the coliseum), but it also brands itself with its own narrative weirdness that I am not sure what exactly is happening yet, but I have a couple of good guesses. Either way, FF7R is continuing to be full of delights and surprises, and I am just glad they didn’t mess it up.
Animal Crossing New Horizons
I have heard someone say that this isn’t just the game of the year, but potentially the game of the generation for what it provides during this pandemic we find ourselves in. Only time can tell, but it is hard for me to disagree. I have put 80 hours into this game, and while most games at the 80 hour mark I get tired of the bad pacing, and wish they would end, but Animal Crossing is a game where I wish there was just more. Most games try to be compelling by giving you a challenge, or something to save or protect, or even just levels and numbers to progress through, but Animal Crossing is compelling as it is a kind, nice world that allows you to go as quickly or slowly as you need. Even things that I was worried about before like paying off loans, or keeping my villagers happy, have sort of melted away as I just want to hang out around a place where everyone does their own thing. I can only really improve things, rather than fear that I will do something wrong. Animal Crossing isn’t just a great game, but it is a refinement and a reminder that games can be so much more than we allow them to be.
Well, that is all for this time. Next time I'll write about some animes. Have a great day, and keep safe!
I don’t do a journal anymore, and I have a poor memory, so I figured this will be a entertainment log blog, for one because the name “log blog” tickles my fancy, and also because my brain just has too many thoughts about the stuff I consume and I have no outlet for it, so here we go!
Hatsune Miku Mega Mix
I have written about Hatsune Miku before, and here is a link if you are curious. But just in case you don’t want to read that whole thing, Hatsune Miku originally was a mascot for a music creation program (the name Hatsune Miku is a portmanteau/play on Japanese words roughly meaning “first music creation”) and has now become the face of a cultural phenomenon where people from all over the world use her image to create a world of music, music videos, and their own fanfiction. I say fanfiction, but the big difference between Hatsune Miku and many other popular characters is that since Hatsune Miku and her band of vocaloids are mascots of a music creation tool, the fan created works can easily become as official as anything from the original creators. Things that now define Hatsune Miku such as the Nyan Cat song, the Ievan Polkka, and even the trademark leek she carries is all from fan created songs and videos.
So the Hatsune Miku video games are effectively vehicles for Sega to take all of this fan created material, and a good amount of their own creations, and sell it to consumers in the form of a music game. There are several issues with taking fan created content and then selling it back to them, but unfortunately, I don’t really have insight if the fans who created this music is being paid (or if they were secretly employees of Sega or Crypton Future Media all along) so I will have to leave that alone for another day. The music game itself plays like a digital karaoke. Instead of singing the songs, you tap certain buttons to the voice track. If you miss a button, the vocal track goes silent until you press the right button again. It is a simple game that if you really break it down amounts to just just pressing buttons when the game tells you to, but learning the track, getting better with the timing in chorus with the music and video end up being as fun as a silent karaoke can be. It helps that the music is pretty good, and the music videos are entertaining. This new Switch release is a paired down version of the enormous PS4 release, but gains the most important X factor that defines the Switch, which is being able to switch from TV to portable. Being able to take this game anywhere, and play with a good set of headphones makes it so that, even if it has less content than the PS4 release with all the DLC, being able to play anywhere is as integral as being able to play music anywhere. Being able to go anywhere and play, especially when you have over 100 songs, is the ideal way to enjoy all there is to Hatsune Miku Mega Mix and I heartily recommend this game, or at least try the demo. There is so much to play, listen to, and customize that I see myself playing this game for a long time.
Final Fantasy 7R
Apparently I also wrote a blog about Final Fantasy 7 nine years ago. Boy, does time fly. Spoiler warning, but here that is for your reference. One thing I was worried about with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is that it would sand down all the edges of the weirdness and quirkiness of FF7, and become more of an idealized version of FF7 that is more boring for the sake of being “cool.” I have gotten to chapter 9, and I can say that FF7R is wacky and inspired in its own ways, and is just a joy to play. Barring some side quests here and there, FF7R is everything I wanted from a remake of a game that is now over 20 years old, and still manages to be fun and relevant today. There are a couple of great surprises that show off FF7R’s humor (in particular one of the fights in the coliseum), but it also brands itself with its own narrative weirdness that I am not sure what exactly is happening yet, but I have a couple of good guesses. Either way, FF7R is continuing to be full of delights and surprises, and I am just glad they didn’t mess it up.
Animal Crossing New Horizons
I have heard someone say that this isn’t just the game of the year, but potentially the game of the generation for what it provides during this pandemic we find ourselves in. Only time can tell, but it is hard for me to disagree. I have put 80 hours into this game, and while most games at the 80 hour mark I get tired of the bad pacing, and wish they would end, but Animal Crossing is a game where I wish there was just more. Most games try to be compelling by giving you a challenge, or something to save or protect, or even just levels and numbers to progress through, but Animal Crossing is compelling as it is a kind, nice world that allows you to go as quickly or slowly as you need. Even things that I was worried about before like paying off loans, or keeping my villagers happy, have sort of melted away as I just want to hang out around a place where everyone does their own thing. I can only really improve things, rather than fear that I will do something wrong. Animal Crossing isn’t just a great game, but it is a refinement and a reminder that games can be so much more than we allow them to be.
Well, that is all for this time. Next time I'll write about some animes. Have a great day, and keep safe!
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