Monthly Update: August, 2025

 

I don't even know where to start with today's Monthly Update.  I'm coming off the heels of writing my article for Monday, August 4th, and getting into a jovial video game headspace is a little awkward, which might make more sense once y'all read that article.  There's so much shit going on, not just in the US, with the checklist execution of Trump's transition plan, aka Project 2025, along with the lesser-known Project Esther and the hijacking of real-world anti-semitism by conservative right-wing white Christian nationalist organizations (aka, the current Presidential Administration and the architects, The Heritage Foundation), and their desire to database healthcare records of US Citizens in the name of obesity and diabetes is utterly rediculous, that this would just be a run on sentence of humanitarian atrocities and ongoing war crimes.

And no one wants to read that here at 6:30 on a Friday morning.  That's what NPR, Reuters, and the Associated Press are for. 

As I write this, I'm currently sitting at a table in Victoria, BC. Like any good geriatric millennial, I brought along the Switch OLED and the Steam Deck, and obviously my computer, as there's no way I'm typing this out using the virtual keyboard on the Steam Deck. However, I do have a Bluetooth keyboard for the Steam Deck, but that's at home.  I bring this up because I sucessfully signed up for the current Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program, and while I was able to download it onto the Switch OLED, I wasn't able to access it due to the whole Switch virtual game card semi-minor-debacle.  The playtest runs from July 28th through August 10th, so I'll at least be able to play (and not report because of NDA requirements), but I'll probably have some general things to say in September's Monthly Update, just nothing that could get me perma-banned from using Nintendo's online services.

So instead of participating in the playtest, I've jumped back into Triangle Strategy, and I've likely chosen (again) the more difficult path because I didn't feel the persecution, imprisonment, and enslavement of a group of people just because they have rose colored hair by an authoritarian religious government overseen by an invisible oligarch was not the route I wanted to take.  I'd rather be the last ruler of a region in the long term than actively participate in a form of ethnic cleansing in the short term.  I don't know, call me naive, I guess.

There have actually been several announcements in the last couple of days, including those from the Nintendo Partners' Direct yesterday (July 31st).  There was the Final Fantasy Tactics announcement and subsequent semi-fallout a few weeks ago.  In short, content from the PSP The War of the Lions version is not all there.  There was the announcement of SOMA coming out on the Switch (also compatible with Switch 2).  There was the announcement of Octopath Traveler 0 and then the subsequent fallout about its Switch 2 release on a game card only, and the Switch 1 edition not having additional content that is on the Switch 2.  I finally watched something regarding Bloober Team's new game, Chronos: The New Dawn, during the direct, which surprised me that it's also being released at the same time on the Switch 2.  It looks like some kind of combination between >observer_ and what I imagine their work on the Silent Hill 2 remake was like; still need to play that game too.  I'm also super-hyped for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment because of how much fun I had with Age of Calamity and how much world-building that game did for me with the Breath of the Wild setting/timeline.  Interestingly, it's advertised as being "canonical events," a feature that was denied to Age of Calamity.  As with Chronos, I'll probably wait to see some kind of comparison between how Star Wars Outlaws runs on the Switch 2 compared to the three-year-old Steam Deck.  Lastly is the game that's quite a mouthful, The Adventures of Eliot: The Mellinium Tales.  And no, I'm not at all sick of Square Enix's HD-2D.

On the Steam Deck, I've been playing the usual, The Elder Scrolls Online.  But I've also been playing more frequently, Resident Evil 6.  I'm not sure if I'll write a First Impressions article, as the game consists of four separate stories, and I may end up writing separate Game EXP articles, followed by an all-encompassing one once I've finished everything.  I also finished Final Fantasy - Pixel Remaster, but just the first/original Final Fantasy.  I'd intended to use it as a cool-down game after Resident Evil 6, but I just got hooked and sank 23.5 hours into the game that introduced me to the JRPGs and Nobuo Uematsu.  So I started up Final Fantasy II - Pixel Remaster with the same intent.  It's been about 21 years since I last played Final Fantasy II on the Game Boy Advance, so I'm eager to replay this title (and really looking forward to Final Fantasy III, since I've only played the 3D DS remake from 2006).

I think that's it for now.  So I'll see you out there, or likely not.  Unless you're between my commutes to/from home and work.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

In the Joyous Days of Childhood

Monthly Update: August, 2024

 

Can cops just stop killing people who are in their own houses after having called the police because there was a suspected intruder?  How power-hungry and/or insecure do you have to be to feel threatened after waiting around for minutes when a woman in a nightgown says "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus" to shoot her in the face!?  Cops untrained in mental health intervention, even if the initial call is not mental health related, should never put themselves in a situation where they can claim Qualified Immunity because "this exact scenario has never happened before."  Or even cops breaking into other people's apartments and killing the person when the cop is in the one who is in the wrong location.  Yes, that's six years ago, but oh well, it still pisses me off.

Also DJT is an ass and his inability to understand that some people are biracial is staggering.

I'm sure that there are better ways of transitioning, which I am legally obligated to point out until the day I can do it flawlessly.

I recently tried out the new built-in Recorder function on the Steam Deck and in one instance, it worked great!  I pressed the Steam button plus the A button and the recording started (after enabling the recording function in the settings) and when I exited the game, the recording stopped.  The recording is stored on the hard drive of the Steam Deck and, at least on the Steam app on the Steam Deck, and it is stored with all of the other screenshots taken using the Steam app.  Where I ran into a problem, how do I do anything with this video?  I recorded under 30 minutes of gameplay for an upcoming article and accompanying YouTube videos; the file is 1.6 GB in size.  Steam tells me that I cannot send the video to my phone because it is too large as 100 Mb is the maximum file size.  I have the option to send it to my laptop, but again, Steam tells me that the file size is too large.  So what do I do?  I've searched for a solution, both on the Googs and on the Steam Deck Recording Beta forums and Support forums, but I haven't found my specific issue, which I would find hard to believe is the first time this has ever happened.  What I do find amusing is that there is a lot of focus and wording about "clips" as if people who're using the recording function are only interested in 30-second clips and not full-on walkthroughs lasting hours.  I guess I'll just have to open Desktop Mode and track the file there, then upload it to DropBox?  My other solution is to use the same screen recording function through the Steam desktop app and then upload them to my laptop, which I've now done four times for an article coming later this month for She Could Fly: Documentary Escape Game.

As for other games, I talked a bit about some that I finished while yachting around Norway, but for those of y'all who don't want to click back, I'll just list them here along with a few other titles:

• Started
• Layers of Fear 2
• She Could Fly: Documentary Escape Game
• Finished
• BAISU
• Bright Lights of Svetlov
• The Outer Worlds
• Journey
• Continued Playing
• Kingdoms of Amalur: The ReReckoning
• The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (Remake)
• Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line
• Triangle Strategy
• Animal Crossing
• Fallout 4
• Whispering Lane
• Bit.Trip Presents: Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
• Bit.Trip Runner
• Gave Up On
• Seed of Life
• Demos I Need to Write About
• Bonefield
• Enotria
• Hannah
• Haunted Bloodlines
• Judero
• Reason Unfound
• What the Car?

Alright, now that we're done with lists, let's just say goodbye for now and that I'll (likely) have an article up for Journey on Monday and maybe a First Impressions for Fallout 4 (after having already played for 42.9 hours) on Friday.  I've got some ideas for the rest of the month.  Kind of.  Maybe?

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

And The Horsement Shall Come

P.S.  Hell Yeah!

P.P.S. Holy Damn!

P.P.P.S.  Jesucristo!!

Monthly Update: August, 2023

 

Yes, I am still playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and although I am not at the 220-hour mark that one of my friends is currently at, I did just clear the 150 hours.  What is surprising to me about this, is that I spent about 120 hours in Breath of the Wild, and by that point, I was ready to be done with the game and wanted to move on.  Here, I just finished the second temple out of, I think, four.  I know part of this is that I find the shrines in TotK a lot more satisfying to play through than the shrines in BotW and, it has been a while since I played BotW, but it definitely feels like there is a lot more to do in terms of side quests.  I also like the mechanics and functionality of the Ultrahand more than the Sheika Slate.  I also enjoy that there is less sense of urgency in "finding/rescuing Zelda."  I recall being a little worried about Tears of the Kingdom having too much emphasis on building and essentially being Minecraft in the Zelda Universe, that you would need to build all kinds of crazy shit to succeed, but that has not been the case at all for reasons that I will get to when I eventually get to writing my Game EXP article; look for it this Holiday season.  

I also want to throw out there that this is probably my favorite Legend of Zelda trilogy. Of all time. And yes, I count Age of Calamity as canon with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

In other games, I finished the main story in Celeste and will likely write an article about that, although I am still trying to decide if I want/need/have to play through "The Core" level before writing because I am 100% certain that there will be people who tell me that I have not actually beaten the game unless I finish ALL THE LEVELS.  Except that I have had nothing but positive interactions with the Celeste community.  It would be as if the entire Soulsborne community was made of Solaires and Siegmeyers.

I am also plodding along in Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition, although I hit a bit of a progression wall in the form of three trolls and four wraith spiders.  I have tried eeking them out one at a time, but when one triggers, it seems like they all trigger and come a-charging.  They get a whiff of blood and then I die shortly after.  At the moment, my one mage (an Invoker) does know two third-level spells, Dispel Magic and Haste, but does not know any offensive spells, which is not great in a game that is very combat-heavy.  Maybe I just need to make the 80-hour trek back to Kuldahar and see if I can buy a Fireball or Lightning spell from Orrick the Gray and then hope for the best?  (I of course wrote that before the section where I had to go up against four spellcasters and six bloody trolls).

Earlier in the month, I saw a trailer for Part 2 of The Witcher Season 3 and thought, "I'm sorry what?"  I was not aware that the third season had released, which either means that I am not tapped into Netflix's marketing demographic, or that advertising for the release of Season 3 was almost two months into the WGA Strike and with the SAG-AFTRA strike two weeks later, it might have gotten lost in all of the entertainment news hubbubs.  And speaking of strikes and diminishing residuals for writers, WGA/SAG-AFTRA members, maybe this will be the kick in the taint that streaming services (looking at you Disney+ and to some extent Netflix) need to start releasing more of their shows on physical media (thankfully the Castlevania series received a physical release of all four seasons, and I have reason to hope that this will continue with the new Castlevania: Nocturne series), especially the Star Wars series.  I want to say that I have read somewhere that one of the reasons Disney has not released their Disney+ shows on physical media is to keep subscription rates up, but I know at least for myself, that I would be more likely to rewatch season 7 of The Clone Wars or rewatch season 1 of The Bad Batch if I could just pop on down to our basement to put on an episode to watch with The Squire.  But right now, I would have to either plunk him down in from of a laptop and I am trying to limit the amount of small-screen time (laptops, phones) he experiences during the day, or buy a Blu-ray player capable of logging onto Disney+. Plus, The Squire likes to play with Legos and Amiibos while we watch episodes of Star Wars Rebels, and I try to keep things consolidated there in the basement.  This could end up being its own article so I am going to stop now.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

Monthly Update: August, 2022

It is August and it feels a little weird saying that for a couple of reasons.  First off, it does not feel like we are going into the back end of 2022, the second sequel to 2020, but it is also now in our second month of the new fiscal year at work, which seems pretty anxiety-inducing because I started with the company I work for when they were finishing up their previous fiscal year which means I have been with this company now for just under a year.  Bonkers I say.  Bonkers.

I am sure that some of you will probably say/think something along the lines of "oh thank christ" because I am not bringing up any social issues right now, but that is because again, there is just too much to wrap my head around.  The January 6th Commission Hearings, the blowback from the SCOTUS repealing Roe v Wade, the attempt to codify gay marriage/contraception, that there were 20 Republican congress-humans who voted against a bill to reauthorize a human trafficking bill because why would someone not want that unless they were or have actively benefitted from humans trafficked or you are just a piece of trash?  Or saying that unattractive women shouldn't have to worry about abortion access because they're too ugly to get pregnant.  Yes, he said that and is still in congress because fuck knows why.  Yeah, a lot of this is government related because that is what gets attention and it is honestly hard to stay up-to-date with everything that does not get picked up by various national news agencies, or even local newsgroups.

Well, I guess I did get into the barest amount of social issues.  So take that.  Somewhere.  I guess.

I got back into #IndieSelect games over the last week of July, the last time being back in January.  The first of the three games, Shutshimi, I posted about last Friday.  I also plan on having an article out for Gateways on Tuesday or Thursday.  Without spoiling too much, this is a 2D platformer that was released in 2012 with an interesting and innovative approach to a Portal-esque mechanic but does a lot more with it than I went into the game expecting.  I will also be starting in on Dropsy, a point-and-click game by Tendershoot and A Jolly Corpse.  Although the article on Dropsy might take longer than next week to come out depending on how obscure and "unconventional" of a point-and-click game this turns out to be.  

I did take a break from playing F.E.A.R. to play the #IndieSelect games, because that is what you do, and I think that I might be just over a third of the way through if you have been following our Twitter feed.  I promise I will get back to this first-person-black-ops shooter with paranormal undertones once I finish with Dropsy unless any more #IndieSelects on Steam drop in my lap.  On the Switch, I am still playing and nearing the end of Final Fantasy X, and I have quite a bit to say about this game that will likely take me some time to put into coherent thoughts because bloody hell knows that my articles for husk, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Blasphemous, and Professor Layton and the Unwound Future are all sitting in draft-limbo; although I think I will likely have my Game EXP for husk out this upcoming week.

And then I am still working on my Atari Greatest Hits, Volume 1 project.  I was a little surprised by the amount of work it actually takes to play a game for 10 minutes.  And that 10 minutes does not include the time I spend reading the instruction manual, because, for some games, there is a surprising amount of things to know before going into a game that only has one button.  And then there are the pictures I need to take of the game cartridge, and at various times while playing trying to anticipate what the couple of paragraphs I dedicate to the article are going to be about.  So really, the 10 minutes I have allocated myself to play the game really comes out to something like nearly an hour, especially if I end up liking the game.  Hopefully, I will get this out before the end of the year.

Show-wise, Conklederp and I finally finished Ms. Marvel a few weeks after the final episode aired, and I did not really know anything about the character before watching the show, we were fine with how her powers were depicted, which a large swath of the Intersocialmedianet seemed to be upset about.  I am pretty stoked for the Andor series on Disney+ at the end of the month; so happy birthday to Dellaños for that release date.

I think that is it?  Maybe?  I know there are things I did not mention like my general lack of playing the Oculus Quest 2/Meta Quest 2, but that is mainly because I have been spending the better part of my evenings playing PC games and it can be challenging finding the time to play VR games with a sleeping toddler only 20 feet away in the next room.  I also have a little bit of a beef that I probably will not get into about Google's Chrome Cast and how that works with the OC2/MQ2.  I tell ya.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

If You Love Me, Please Be Kind

Monthly Update: August, 2021

 

It's August.  It's 2021.  Over the last week or two, there has been an increase in the number of unvaccinated people in the United States contracting COVID-19, and how many of those new cases are the Delta variant is, at least of this writing, not entirely clear.  I have been debating with myself when I would go back to our original Monthly Update banner up there at the top and I think I will take my cue from the WHO who apparently will say that the pandemic is over when "the worldwide spread of a disease is brought under control to a localized area, we can say that it is no longer a pandemic but, instead, an epidemic[.]"  So there we go.

#ActiBlizzWalkout was a thing that happened this last Wednesday and as of this writing to show support from a lot of people in the video game industry in regards to the the victims of sexual harassment and discrimination as well as Activision/Blizzard's response to the initial filing of the lawsuit.  Aside from the general accusations about there being a frat boy culture at Activision Blizzard and the general disregard for women in the workplace, I am not caught up on the specifics of the alligations so I will leave it at that and do some (more?) research.  Oh except for the whole Cosby Suite thing which was a hotel room at BlizzCon "operated" by Blizzard developer Afrasiabi.

I feel I was somewhat productive over the last month considering (as of this writing) I remain unemployed but have a potential interview lined up for the week before this article comes out.  I did manage to finish a handful of games such as Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (article coming on Friday), Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (article coming sometime not this Friday), The Unholy Society, and Doki Doki Literature Club! (not the new iteration that came out on June 30th) and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (although some may say my prolific use of rewind/save states means that I am a n00b sucking piece of trash who should put down the controller and play an age appropriate game like Pinochle or Tiddliwinks).  I am frequently impressed that I was even able to make it this far in the game when The Kid and I played through it the winter it was released; the frequency that I have used saved states and rewind is a bit embarrassing.  Most of the time I will try to at least make it to the checkpoint before using rewind, but I do not have all the time in the world to hone my skills to the levels they were at when I was 15.  And then I started up Call of Cthulhu on the Switch as well as replaying Amnesia: The Dark Descent since it has been eight-and-a-half years since I last played the game on Steam.

Big video game related news last month was that the semi-long running rumors about a Dead Space reboot/remake/HD remaster were finally confirmed during EA's big press event, which you can read more about that here.  My biggest question though coming out of this announcement is if I will upgrade my laptop to something that can play the remake or just buy an Xbox X/S because I do want to play The Elder Scrolls VI because playing that game is going to be in a similar boat.  Because then there is also The Callisto Protocol which has been announced but not if it is going to be an exclusive.  And then there is Negative Atmosphere which I am still a little surprised has not been shut down by EA just because it looks so much like Dead Space even though it uses all originally created assets (at least from what I understand).  We are a year or so out from TCP s release date and no word on NA, and TES VI is probably the furthest away from being released.  So in the meantime, I reinstalled Dead Space 3 to pick that game up from where I left off when I apparently stopped playing two-and-a-half years back.

TV show-wise, Conklederp and I have been somewhat productive.  We started and finished Lupin, a Netflix series made in France about a guy who grew up reading the Lupin novels.  We also finished the first season of Loki on Disney+ and really enjoyed the show, although neither of us are hardcore MCU fans.  It was interesting to see this iteration of Loki since this specific Loki was from right after the attack on New York, from the events in the first The Avengers movie, which was before the two Thor sequels, although those events were brought up in the show.  The finale seemed to open up the next phase of the MCU and had an amazing performance by Jonathan Majors (who we loved in Lovecraft County).  We are also finishing up The Bad Batch, the sequel to The Clone Wars animated series that I was initially unsure about based on the characterizations of Clone Force 99 in Season 7 of The Clone Wars.  The biggest takeaway from the show is that I love seeing the Empire in the days/weeks/months/years following the end of The Clone Wars and the beginning days of the Empire.  And all of these Star Wars series including The Mandalorian as well as the rest coming out on Disney+ really hopes that Disney will see the benefit of releasing all of these series on Blu ray, because I honestly do not see people only keeping their Disney+ subscriptions so that they can rewatch episodes of The Mandalorian.  But I could very well be wrong.

Finally, the other month (June?) I finally admitted that my Kindle Paperwhite was nowhere to be seen in our house after looking for nearly five months, so I picked up a Kindle Fire 8 HD 2020 Edition during Amazon's Prime Day, so now I have access to digital library books, which is a wonderful feature.  So I picked up and started reading Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, and at 13% complete, I am surprised by how well the book is written and just the overall setting so far.  I must have had low expectations going into it because I have found myself looking forward to picking it up to read; the 21 day checkout period probably also has something to do with wanting/needing to read 5% every day, but I am genuinely engaged by the characters, some of which are dealing with PTSD following the Battle of Endor and the fall of the Empire, themes that I feel are not common in a lot of the movies and TV shows.  There will probably be a Book Review article coming, but only after I finish the one I have going for The Witch-Cult in Western Europe.

So that is kind of where I am at right now, or at least where I am/was at the end of July leading into August.  Wait!  How did I miss that SkateBIRD has a potential release date of August 12th!?

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Pulling in a Wave of Thought

Monthly Update: August, 2020

So July happened.  Huh.

Thankfully/Fortunately? Conklederp and I do not live near downtown PDX, not because we are afraid of being graffitied, but because it has been pretty warm during the end of July that we have had to have our windows open (a lot of homes here do not have air conditioning, and our house doesn't even have any vents/duct-system installed).  And having tear gas wafting in through an already 80ish degree house with a sleeping two-month-old Goblino would be an unpleasant experience for all involved.  Plus I am sure our PCP would be annoyed at having to frequently treat a newborn baby with mild to moderate external and internal chemical burns caused by exposure to CS Gas.  But hey, all in the name of progress, right?

Just over a week ago, I finished (again) the first season of The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season on the Switch, then breezed through the 400 Days DLC and promptly jumped back into Season Two.  I have talked a bit about why I am replaying this series, but just to mention it again, because that is part of why we are here, is because the third season and my computer did not get along and I have not finished the series yet.  I am also playing through Golf Story for the first time and I do not know what it is about non-realistic golf games, but I would rather play something like this or Mario Golf rather than something closer to PGA Tour 2K21.  Realism is not something that I am looking for in a golf video game, kind of like Tecmo Bowl is to Americal football.

Back towards the beginning of the month, I put together a spreadsheet of all of the games in my Switch queue that I have not finished, which does include games that I have started but never finished for one reason or another, like Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Goetia, Darkest Dungeons, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  I did this as a sort of self-check if only to show myself that there are a number of games that I can start without buying more games, although it can be difficult if something like Blasphemous or Catherine: Full Body goes on sale with a significant discount.  I guess I should give up hope on either The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Expansion Pass or Fire Emblem: Three House - Expansion Pass going on sale.

But you know, using the spreadsheet, I did select four games that I finished last month: The Sinking City: Deluxe Edition, Old Man's Journey, The Office Quest, and the first game in the Apocalipsis: Wormwood Edition; granted three of the four games could be completed in 1-5 hours and finishing The Sinking City opened up a lot of time I had been spending on that game to spend on others.  Maybe after I finish up Golf Story I will start in on either Mother Russia Bleeds or maybe, just maybe, I will finally give Night Trap - 25th Anniversary Edition a go because who doesn't love some good ol' FMV schlock?

Something that has surprised me over the last month is that I have not been playing The Witcher III: Wild Hunt much at all.  What I think this boils down to is that the game does not look as great on the TV so I instead prefer to play it in handheld, and since three of our four Joy-Cons are out for repairs (more on that update later), my only option is with the Pro Controller.  This means that the Switch screen is sitting on a stand, further away than it would be if I were holding it, and that makes reading text more difficult, especially since the text in TWIII:WH can be pretty small at times, especially in the inventory screen.

And yeah, Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 3 is 7:X weeks completed.  I was at first annoyed with how much water there was everywhere, but now I feel that there have not been enough changes to the map following the flood for it all to feel as interesting as it could have been.  Unless all of the water recedes and previously hidden and undiscovered underwater areas are revealed, which might be pretty cool. (Called it!) [This article was written between Monday, June 27th, and Friday, June 31st].  Ugh.



~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian

We Knew It All Yet Lacked Understanding

Monthly Update: August, 2019

Bloody fookin' 'ell it's August already.  By now you should just expect that nearly every one of these Monthly Updates is going to start with an exclamation and show of astonishment that we are in a new month.  You think I'd be used to it by now, but nevertheless, I am still over here like, "How the hell is it August!?"

But here we are.

Let us start off with some sad first world problem news.

I had pre-ordered the Bayonetta amiibo that I thought was Player 2, being the design from the first Bayonetta game and when I picked up the order at Best Buy, I found out that what was actually shipped was the Bayonetta amiibo from Bayonetta 2.  And. . .motherfuckers!  Okay, sorry.  That stemmed from me going into my email to pull the image showing the amiibo I had ordered but Best Buy have now updated the image link embedded in the email to the correct amiibo so you'll just have to believe me that the image that was sent was not the image of the product that was received.  To note, I immediately returned the figure since it was not the one I had wanted.  But what really gets my ungulate is that this was originally a Best Buy exclusive amiibo back before I had any interest in a Bayonetta amiibo since I did not yet have Bayonetta on the Switch, and then sold out semi-quickly.  This, I thought, was a second release of that, but then it turned out that this turned into a GameStop exclusive instead of a Best Buy exclusive.  Back in April.  What this really boils down to is the same issue that has been plaguing the amiibo accessories since day one, coupled with one company purchasing exclusive rights.  Like I said, first world problems here.

But for new purchases for the Switch, there's Fire Emblem: Three Houses that I had pre-ordered back in July 2018 came through but I am holding off starting that beast until after I finish Octopath Traveler.  Oh, this game.  There is so much that I love about it, but there are things that I wish Square Enix had done differently that I will get to in probably two articles, hopefully after I finish it later this month.  I mean I am 96 hours in and will definitely be finishing the game with all eight characters.  It has definitely been a ride.

And Fortnite Season X started yesterday so I used my V-Bucks (earned free through playing mind you) and picked up the Season X Battle Pass.  I do feel a little shameful having put in over 250 hours (over the course of more than a year) into this thing, but I enjoy playing it as a way of de-stressing either before/after work, and inbetween playing heaving RPGs.  If Left 4 Dead  or an Ace Combat game akin to Ace Combat X (on the PSP) were on the Switch, that would easily take over as a fun short de-stressing title to not think too hard about while playing.  But for the time being, my $9.99 that I gave Epic Games last year has definitely been worth it; I mean it comes out to about $0.03/hour which is a pretty decent investment.

Lastly, the game that I started back in June and finished mid/late last month was What Remains of Edith Finch, which I have already talked about earlier this week.  That is a game that I really loved, both for how unexpected the game was (not surprising since I did not really have many expectations going into it), and all of the emotions it made me feel.

Oh!  And Conklederp and I just started the Curse of Strahd campaign with Elvisish DMing!  I am playing a Halflight Lightfoot Wild Mage Sorcerer.  We had a Session 0 last week and began the adventure, so I am pretty excited about finally heading back into Ravenloft after an absence since 2nd Edition.  We'll be meeting once or twice a month which I feel is pretty standard when you have a DM and five PCs.  So look out Strahd von Zarovich, we're coming for ya!  And we're probably going to die in the process.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Am Your Pin Boy

Monthly Update: August 2018

I feel like I can sum up July in six words.  

Battle Chasers: Nightwar.  

Fortnite.

Dead Space.

And for what it's worth, having a good old fashioned turned based JRPG and and two 3rd person shooter are a good combination of play style and mind sets.  Also the fact that Fortnite was free (without the $9.99 Battle Pass) makes it doubly awesome considering that I have presently put around 35 hours into Fortnite. Then taking the 15 hours I have put into Battle Chasers, and having played through the first Dead Space (for the third time), and playing through Dead Space 2 (for the second time) has pretty much been my video game playing for the month.

I did play a couple rounds of Paladins when that came out, and I will probably write about that game in the coming weeks.  I also played a bit of Dawn of the Breakers, which seemed like an over the top anime inspired mobile phone game that I have since deleted from my account.

And I should definitely mention Octopath Traveler seeing as how I did buy it, but have yet to play it.  I know it's a game that will eat up a lot of my time and I want to treat it like Final Fantasy VI considering those are what the visual design of the game reminds of.  But I do not want to be playing two turn based JRPGs at the same time.  I mean I might be able to enjoy both games at the same time, but there really is no reason to.  So I'm going to pull a 1990 move and swap with Beardsnbourbon so he can play it and I will finally take a stab at Super Mario Odyssey.

Not a lot happened on the movie front aside from seeing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which wasn't a bad movie, but during a scene where a character wakes up after being tranquilized and is threatened with imminent death from an encroaching lava flow was played out as a comedy bit, I knew the tone for the rest of the movie was going to be similar.  And I was okay with that, because they were fairly consistent throughout the entire movie.  Which is fine.  It's not how I would have originally wanted the movie to be, but I can accept that because I came out of the movie entertained.

And speaking of entertaining movies, Conklederp and I now have tickets for a screening of Back to the Future at Oregon Museum of Science & Industry with a lecture beforehand by astrophysicist Ethan Siegel (who apparently is a favorite of Portland?).  We saw Fargo a couple of months back which included a 30 minutes lecture that looked at the detective film, film noir, and "film blanc" genres.  We were apparently impressed enough that we're now going back.  Plus tickets ended up costing only $8 each with connivence online ordering fee.

Hmmm.

You know, I think I am going to call it.  Gaming wise, I see August being as similar as June.  We might have a D&D game thrown in there, but since both Conklederp and I can only make two out of four possible weekends, there is a decent chance.  And if not, maybe we can scoop some people up for another round of Mansions of Madness.  Because who doesn't like being swallowed by a house and deposited into the ether of some cosmic eldrich horror?



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Turn Around

Monthly Update: August 2017

CONKLEDERP AND I GOT A SWITCH!!!  But more on that in a bit.

So July saw a lot more of the same as far as playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia on the 3DS goes.  I feel like I am nearing the end of the story and a little disappointed at how the story has progressed, although I still recognize that it is from a Famicom era game that was originally released in 1992.  But that is only if the game ends with how I am now expecting it to end, which I hope is not the case.  Maybe I was just hoping for a little more character development in some way that I cannot really explain.  Either way, I am still trudging through Duma Tower.  Yup.

On the PC front, I started Diablo II after not being able to get the original Diablo to run on my computer, which all started from having played Diablo III on the PS3 with Deep-V.  I read everything from changing various compatibility settings to long lists that included creating .bat files or downloading third party programs.  Presently I am working my way through Lut Gholein, recalling a bit from my first time playing through six years ago and very much enjoying every hour I sink into that game.  

Okay, let us just move onto the Switch now because that is all am able to think about while trying to type out my thoughts, but I will keep it semi-brief so as not to take away content from the First Impressions article that will be coming out either next week or the week after.  It was just over a week ago that I randomly decided to check out a Best Buy next to the Banfield (picking up prescription cat food) just to see if they had any Switches in stock.  And they did.  There were four grey Switch boxes there in the display case.  I immediately texted Conklederp and we decided that we would talk about the feasibility a $359.98 (and picking up a game too) purchase would/could be in our budget.  So after maybe 30 minutes after Conklederp came home, we headed back to the Best Buy to see if they were still in stock.  I was prepared to park in the same spot/area I had earlier in order to recreate similar situations to when I had seen them in stock earlier, but we ultimately decided to actually park next to the store.  We walked in, found the Switch display along with now six Switches, so we snagged ourselves an employee, snagged ourselves a Switch, but did not snag ourselves a game since I was fairly set on picking up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe so that both Conklederp and I could play together (Breath of the Wild is closely on the horizon). Upon coming back home, I ordered Mario Kart from Amazon which arrived roughly two days later, with the days in-between were spent playing any demo we could download from the eShop.  A few days later, we added Snipperclips to our game collection (which will probably have its own First Impressions as well in the coming weeks).  You know what?  I think I am going to end the Switch Paragraph Wall of Words now and switch topics (groooaaan).

Movies!  I don't think Conklederp and I went out to the movies in the past month but I am looking forward to seeing The Dark Tower after we get back to the states.  I have also heard from a number of people that I should see Dunkirk, which I did not really have much interest in until I saw one trailer in particular that made me think, "Huh, I may just want to see this film."  At the moment, I still kind of want to see Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets as I do love me some Luc Besson films, although I seem to always be chasing that Leon: The Professional and The Fifth Element highs.  That is about it until next month when IT comes out, then. . .Star Wars Episode VIII in December?  And Whenever Thor: Ragnarok comes out.  Perhaps I need to pay better attention.

On the board game front, it has really been all about Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition, which we always seem to play when friends come over, and I have absolutely no problem with that.  And how the hell have we not yet written an article about that game!?  I will have to take care of that either this month or in October for semi-obvious reasons.

At this point, I somewhat feel like I am rambling so I am going to head over and make myself (another) cup of coffee because yay for coffee dependency.  In short though, I expect August to be a lot of Switch playing, finishing FEE:SoV, starting another game, and starting The Handmaid's Tale as I just finished The Book of Were-Wolves.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
My Plan Requires Time

Monthly Update: August 2016

First off, how the hell is it August already!?  I'm sure there's some word for people who talk or at least reference how the passage of time seems to creep up on them and smack them in the face with the new calendar page for the month.  But August it is, so let's talk about July first because that's the way we do things. . .here, in the Twilight Zone.

July was semi-productive.  D&D happened and is set to happen again in a few weeks (minus two people, but with a group of seven, you still have to play even if a couple are unable to make it, otherwise, we'd only play a few times a year).  Conklederp and I also played a new game with Salty Liver and WhoBear called Whitechapel, where you play an inspector hunting Jack the Ripper.  We only played through the second of the five murders, but by the end we had two corpses, Jack (WhoBear) was still on the loose, but we were pretty sure we had tracked down the general location of his hideout.  While camping, we also managed to sneak in another session of Betrayal at House on the Hill, which was won by destroying our respective Voodoo dolls (creepy little bastards).

On the video gaming front, I reinstalled Neverwinter Nights, mainly to see if it would still run after trying to install and run the first two Diablo games; Diablo couldn't be recognized as a functioning program by Windows 10, and Diablo II decided to make the game look like it had been shat out by a rainbow on acid.  But Neverwinter Nights loaded, started up and plays just fine and there will more than likely (read that however you want) be a post about it later in the month.

Conklederp and I also renovated our "Office/Retro-Gaming Room" and now it is more "Office/Reading-Room" oriented, but not through any adultiness, but rather because of complications my SNES and N64 have with in the normally functioning department.  I did move the GameCube out into the main room and is currently hooked up to our TV and it plays well enough.  Now I just need to get my copy of Eternal Darkness back from Sidmesh and go through that game in 16:9.

I have also been working again on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and a bit more questing with Conklederp in The Elder Scrolls Online, although it seems that every so often my game will crash/freeze and I have to spend the next couple of minutes cursing, Ctrl-Alt-Del'ing out and resigning in.  Thankfully we're not in Cyrodiil (PvP area) or I might be more frustrated/irritated/annoyed/angry/purturbed/et cetera.  I also finished Doom 3 (again and this time without Vorlynx's help with the Guardian) and so I continued on with the only  DLC, Resurrection of Evil, which I may or may not talk about during this month of Augustus. 

TV-wise, I already talked about the Netflix series Stranger Things, which I highly recommend anyone who enjoyed The Goonies, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Alien, or Stephen King's novel IT.

As for articles that I have on the back burner and are likely to show up within the next month include the following:

• I picked up a Steam Controller last month and have been tinkering around with it a bit, although I am having issues with the keyboard showing up correctly on screen when I do not have Steam's Big Picture Mode running in the background. [ARTICLE]
• I finally completed The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and briefly talked about the writing in that game a few weeks back, but never got around to putting out a full fledged article.
• Continuing The Elder Scrolls, the NDA was lifted last week for the closed beta of the TGC The Elder Scrolls Legends, so I plan on writing about my limited (and continued) experience with my first real foray into the world of TGCs. [ARTICLE]
• I picked up a couple of titles for my 3DS through the eShop, both of with are older games (1988 and 2002) and both will probably garner their own posts as one's a sports game and the other is a side scrolling platformer. [SPORTS ARTICLE]
• I beat Mega Man 4 earlier in the month and I really feel that I need to write a post about this as I have some thoughts and feelings that need to be expressed in this fourth title on the NES. [ARTICLE]
• Also just having beat (finally) Gunman Clive 2 on the 3DS, I may get around to writing about this game (which was great by the way). [ARTICLE]
• An update on the status of my Etsy shop, ExorStitch. [ARTICLE]
• A review of a number of the free games that I picked up during Steam's Summer Sale and mentioned in an article back at the beginning of July. [ARTICLE #1]
• I've also been meaning to post my First Impressions article about The Witcher, and since I am only 13.2 hours in, in a 36 - 66 hour game, I feel that I am still in the position to post under this category.
• I would like to post a First Impressions article for two games that I've played a bit of, Vertiginous Golf (a dystopian mini-golf game), and Rock of Ages (think Marble Madness, meets an RTS with a Monty Python skin) which are both really fun in their own rights. [Vertiginous Golf ARTICLE]

That's actually quite ambitious for me, considering that there are only eight more Mondays and Fridays left in the month and I have, what, 11 possible articles listed here.  Maybe I will condense some, or perhaps I will just forego writing one or more of theses articles all together.  Either way, that was July and here comes August.

Bugger all.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

An Illustrated Scene Descends in the Sleep

Monthly Update: August, 2015

Did I talk about possibly updating the logo for our Monthly Updates?  I think I did. . .yes I did.  And since nothing has changed logo-wise in that time, I think I'll continue to sticking with sure things.

So July I was able to complete a couple of games that I'd been working a while towards, Half-Life and Fallout, both great PC games from the late 1990s.  Shortly after finishing Fallout, I decided to start up Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, seeing as how it's the next game chronologically whereas Fallout 2 was the second game in the series released.  I'll be coming out with a First Impressions article later in the month.

I also played a handful of rounds of Team Fortress 2 with Chreekat earlier in the month and was amused when he said that I was almost voted out of the game because I was idle for less than 30 seconds, as I was also in the process of making dinner and I didn't want whatever I was cooking on the stove to potentially burn.  I forgot how much fun TF2 was as I hadn't played it in well over a year (the last time might've been with Coolman and SneakyTiki) and I had to reinstall the game and re-figure out the interface and the various characters.  I should play it again soon.

With the mention of more games, I made a decision, probably around the time of beating Half-Life, that I would decrease the number of games I play at one time in order to try to finish games a lot sooner than I have previously been.  I of course say that now, but we'll just have to wait and see what the fates decide.  

I of course am still working my way through Radiant Historia and have had to peruse Gamefaqs in order to find out where to travel back in history to find the right time to talk to my target in order to influence them in either the present or the alternate present.  Time travel can be a bit confusing.  Thankfully dialogue scenes can be fast-forwarded.

And don't worry, Conklederp and I are still playing through Elder Scrolls Online, but we just haven't quested in a while due to her work schedule and my homework needed to be submitted by a certain time schedule.  I did recently find out that there was a new species of Orc, Wood Orcs, that apparently live in Valenwood along with the Bosmer, but that area is traversed around level 35 in the Aldmeri Dominion; we're playing in the Daggerfall Covenant.  So about 100 hours on another side of the war and I'll be able to see what's going on with them.

On the physical gaming front, Exploding Kittens, the Kickstarted card game tri-created from the creator of The Oatmeal and admittedly some other people I'm not familiar with (Elan Lee and Shane Small) arrived in the mail yesterday.  I'm excited to play this fun and ridiculous game that apparently can take about 15 minutes to play an entire game.  I have read over on The Reddit that the packaging of the cards in their respective boxes hasn't gone as well as the creators would have liked, although the response from the boxing/shipping company seems to be positive.  But ours arrived just fine, all stickered, shrink wrapped and sealed with all of the cards where they were supposed to be.  There might be an article about this game (along with the rest of the Intern Nets).

Dungeons & Dragons is still happening and I would say that we're about 2/5s of the way through the quest, maybe more, maybe less, but all depending on the number of side quests that the PCs want to take and how confident Dagnar Ungart is that her cousin Gundren Rockseeker is being kept alive by his captors.  Or how confident that Tula Tealeaf is that Glass Staff won't kill her aunt Qelline Alderleaf and nephew Carp as well as their other captive, Sildar Hallwater.  It's a bit of a clusterfuck right now, but as the DM, it's the best kind.

August, I'm not 100% sure what will entail.  I'll have half of the month off so I might get a fair amount of gaming completed and I'll probably be posting more frequently.  Ah, and I'll probably have some pictures up of the miniatures that I finally got around to painting.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Witness the Details of Defilement