January…June
Apologies for anyone who likes reading these posts, this year has honestly been kind of a blur up to this point. I’ll do my best to summarize my areas of interest since there’s so much to talk about that a single topic per post would easily take me the rest of year to write about. Think of this preamble section as the ramblings of someone who feels like they haven’t really had a moment to breath between current events and the ever-warming planet.
I like to try and categorize each year based on the significant growth I experienced, and this year is certainly no different. Having been present for a wide spread of life events like a wedding, a baby shower and just recently a graduation, this year seems to largely be focusing on a macro level of where I am in my life. For starters, I’ve practically been driven insane by apartment living and the forever grim phrase, “The cost of living”. This hasn’t really been helped by the almost monthly cadence of a big bill requiring my attention.
Whether it’s rent, car insurance, utility bills or just a dozen eggs, it feels like every bit of progress I’ve made income-wise has effectively been reset. However, not everything has been doom and gloom. Being able to be a part of the aforementioned life events was a great chance to take stock in where I am, where I started and where I want to be as I near my 30th year on this rock hurtling through space. Anyways, that’s more than enough doom and gloom for one blog post. Onto the more exciting stuff!
Gaming
I’ve been spending quite a bit of this year focused on my backlog and titles I’d say I was getting around to playing and then let continue to gather dust on a shelf. Of the stuff I’ve played, I’m going to mostly focus on three that were stand-outs to me.
Pseudoregalia
This game was interesting when I first started out. It was clearly designed with nostalgia for 3D platformers in mind, but it really showed its true colors once I started obtaining more of the movement abilities this game has to offer. By the end I was almost always hurtling towards my destination using every tool I had to do so. I hadn’t had this much fun with a movement-based platformer since Super Mario 64. That being said, it was over just as fast as it started, with my final play time clocking in at roughly 5 hours. I’ve since picked up a few more 3D platformers clearly inspired by the N64 era, so I’m keeping my hopes up that I find another just as fun as this was.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (OpenMW specifically)
A friend of mine and I not too long ago started playing through the Elder Scrolls series from Bethesda, only we started with the latest and have been working backward from there. Skyrim was just as I remembered, only this time I not only finished the story, I actually earned every achievement for the Special Edition on Steam. From there we visited Oblivion, although we maybe spent a 1/4 of the time there that we did in Skyrim before moving on for our own sanity at how bland a lot of the game felt. This brought us to Morrowind, specifically using the OpenMW game engine.
After some difficulties with setup and tweaking of settings for preference, I can easily say that this has usurped Skyrim as my favorite Elder Scrolls game. When compared to Skyrim and its streamlined user experience, Morrowind feels both unintentionally and intentionally obtuse about how it operates. Until I really started tackling the main story or maxing out stats, my character was largely treated like someone from out of town in a remote region would. This was in stark contrast to the almost immediate 180 that Skyrim takes once you’ve done anything that has a unique NPC bark tied to it.
The feature I came to like most about Morrowind was the sandbox-like feel a lot of the mechanics had behind it. It felt like I could easily take any build in Morrowind and turn it into an unkillable money printer with enough time and resources. That being said, it did have some rough edges to it that I can’t ignore, like the significant amount of region-crossing errands the main quest sends you on prior to the finale. However, I can see myself revisiting this game for many years to come, if only to explore more of the custom content added by the Tamriel Rebuilt project.
TUNIC
Wow
That’s about as succinct as I can describe this game. It’s familiar yet fresh, it’s mysterious but also eager to share those secrets, and most importantly, it was just a ton of fun from start to finish. What began as a playthrough much like my first time playing A Link to the Past, it quickly turned into something even more special. There’s so much I’d like to talk about, but like Outer Wilds, it’d be better to spend my time imploring you to check out this game. It can be challenging at times, but there are actually a surprising amount of Quality of Life settings you can tinker with to make sure your playthrough isn’t cut short by something you don’t want to deal with.
Movies
I’ve been trying to focus more on films that are outside the typical American diet of “Marvel Movie Number Twenty-Something” and the same Disney stories I saw growing up, only now they look bad. Of note, here’s a short list of the movies I’ve seen in the past 6 months that I’d say anyone could appreciate if only they gave enough time to comprehend the film’s intent:
- Seven Samurai
- Stalker
- 12 Angry Men
- Sanjuro
I seem to have caught a bug for black and white films, because I think I’ve seen more in these past 6 months than I have my entire life. Of the previously mentioned, 12 Angry Men has to be a standout for delivering on its premise and managing to do so not only in under 2 hours but be engaging from start to finish. A lot of times movies seem to be in a hurry to get to the parts that have already been shown to you dozens of times through trailers and voice clips. For most of the movies mentioned, the opposite couldn’t be more true. Several times shots from these movies would feel like they go on for eternity, or seemingly film nothing while denying the viewer a resolution that they’ve been hanging on the edge of their seat for.
Unfortunately, my desire to see movies in cinema has basically evaporated, which I’m honestly not too upset about given that a single trip out to the theater can easily set me back almost $30 unless I catch a matinee or decide to simply not buy anything beyond the ticket.
Books
Last year I was able to get back into reading. This year, I’ve been struggling to maintain the cadence I managed to cap off last year with. Technically I haven’t even finished one book, assuming you consider The Lord of the Rings books as one single story. If you have a decent understanding of the plot either through the movie or the book as well, I’m at the beginning of the end with the Return of the King. I’m hoping to finish this book relatively soon, because I have at least another dozen books waiting for me to finally get around to reading since I started reading this series last fall.
Unfortunately, LoTR is turning out to be a rare case of a series that I’d much rather watch than read. I simply might be too impatient still for this series, but Tolkien’s writing style seems to be absolutely stifled in trying to be a historical account of a fictional world than an engaging story. Chapters are frequently 20+ pages and for the most part they’re spent setting up the location where the minimal amount of story will be taking place for that chapter. In the worst case, the momentum of a chapter grinds to a halt as the backstory of a character is delved into or recounted to give a better idea of their motivations. Again, it might be a story I really resonate with at some point, but I’ve clearly come to realize that this point definitely isn’t it.
Things to Come
The latter half of this year may fly by just as fast as the first half, but I honestly welcome it with open arms. I’ve already made a significant amount of fantastic memories and I’m hoping that momentum carries me through to the first snow. If I can find time to post here I will try to, but if I’m being honest with myself the next time I check in might be around the start of Fall.