Tag Archives: retro

It’s 2025!

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It’s been the better part of a decade since my last post, which itself was a long time coming. Thought I’d drop in some updates. And who knows? Maybe I’ll start updating here more frequently. I wouldn’t mind putting my thoughts and experiences with games and gaming down, if only because organizing my thoughts appeals to me.

Near the start of the pandemic we finished our basement and I (finally!) got my game room. Or, actually, a game room / office. I work from home now and I work from the game room. Anyway, I now have a home for my voluminous collection of games going back to the Atari 2600. And the amiibos. So, so many amiibos.

Rocket League®

I play a lot of Rocket League these days. It’s a fun, challenging game. The general attitude of your typical random player leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s a testament to the game that it’s still worth playing despite such nonsense. I’m not highly-ranked at all, but I’ve improved over the years and will likely play it for years to come, assuming it doesn’t collapse or something. Which, I mean, it could. I’ve got a small collection of pretty silly Rocket League videos over on TikTok.

I’m still collecting consoles, but I definitely use Analogue consoles for normal gaming. When possible, I have consoles running to both an LED and a CRT. I’ve got several consoles with ODEs (PS1, Saturn, Dreamcast, GameCube). And of course I have an Analogue Pocket, which is a solid product.

My son (13) enjoys old games and has a taste for analog tech, so he’s got my SNES hooked up to a small CRT in his room. He also recently got a record player and he loves vinyl records, which is interesting. Still, he is a teenager and definitely plays a lot of modern games, especially with friends. Which is great.

My daughter (9) plays console games a little less, but she loves Mario Kart 8. Minecraft as well. They both play that, actually, along with Roblox.

I’m not entirely comfortable with Roblox. I can ramble about that another time, maybe.

I play a weekly game with some friends that, at the moment, rotates between Borderlands games (currently Tiny Tina), Helldivers 2 and Rocket League.

In the tradition of Stack of Shame, I’m currently trying to “finish” God of War: Ragnarok and Balatro. Balatro has come to the fore for me lately, but I’ll get back to GoW soon.

Anyway, I’m going to try to regularly write here. I likely won’t adhere fanatically to the premise of the blog (finishing my backlog) in favor of just writing whatever I want to about video games and gaming culture. We’ll see!

Oblivion

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I knew it would happen. I knew the moment I started this blog that I would eventually pick Oblivion back up. I haven’t looked at the save game time stamps from when I last played it, but it was probably 5 years ago. I never beat it, of course. I’m sure that by skimming over this blog you can guess why.

But the thing that led to me dropping it is what’s brought me back: the seemingly endless side quests. I’ve started a new game and I’m maybe a dozen hours into it. As soon as my character escaped from the underground caves and sewers, she promptly ignored the main quest and went off fishing, spying on merchants, etc. It’s tons of fun. Just travelling between cities and noticing a cave, then deciding whether to head in is just a ton of fun.

Yes, I know I’m playing too many games at once. I always do this. So I’ve put a few on hold. I might put Assassin’s Creed III on hold too. It was probably a mistake to play Brotherhood & Revelations back-to-back and then start #3 immediately after. So I’ll get back to that. As Final Fantasy XIII-2, I’ll get back to that too. Frankly, they’re kind of hard to write about too. Final Fantasy I was easy to write about because there were so many gaps to fill in — the story in the game was pretty bare. Oblivion may be more like that, due to its fairly non-linear design. We’ll see.

I’ve also been on a bit of a retro kick lately, and I’ve greatly expanded my console and game collection. I recently picked up a Genesis, a NES, a ColecoVision (2 of them!) and a Game Gear. Not all of the games I’ve got recently will end up on my list of games to beat (ColecoVision and Atari games often can’t be beat in the normally understood way), but I’m sure some will. Games like Sonic 1–3, Super Mario Bros. 1–3, Dragon Warrior, etc. I don’t think Ninja Gaiden will make the list. I doubt I have the patience to beat that sucker.