Miracle Merchant - iOS
For the first time in a decade, I'm not involved in any podcasts. I've done five (I think) in that time span. One hit 100 episodes and 4,000 concurrent downloads (then I quit), another hit 50 episodes (then we both quit), another hit 30-some shows (then I quit) and the others were only a handful of episodes. So now I'm TRAPPED with my own thoughts, and no one to vent to. When my kids were born four years ago, I thought I could finally practice writing and make something out of myself. I was wrong. KIDS ARE A FUCKTON OF WORK. Not ideal for practicing anything except operating motor vehicles on two hours of sleep for months at a time.
Been really down with what the 45 has done to the climate...not the atmospheric climate (yet), but the social climate? Political climate? MY EMOTIONAL CLIMATE? Not trying to be a drama queen, but the dude is a major bummer and I've found myself reading more news in the past year than possibly in my entire lifetime combined, and also wanting to avoid the news at all costs. It's seriously giving me anxiety. I need to get some positive thoughts down, SO WHY NOT BLOG ABOUT IT?
I went through July trying to not by ANY video games. Historically, I buy a ton all the time and either never play them, or play through the tutorial and never play them again. By cutting myself off, I was forcing myself to dig into the backlog. As of this writing, I have 2,439 physical games. That's way too many. I need to get rid of at least 2,000 of those. The kids aren't going to want to share a bedroom while my shit sits in it's own room, forever. ANYWAY, so I technically did buy two games. The first was on July 6th, 'Kirby's Blowout Blast' (3DS) for $7. 'Finished' it in an hour. It feels a lot like a speedrun mobile game kinda deal. The second was 'Infinite Minigolf' (Switch) on July 28th. I had intended to buy it, and it happened to come out in July. I'll buy anything Zen Studios does, because they make pinball games and I like feeding people that make pinball games.
Around the same time, I had vowed to finish 'Yakuza 0' (PS4). I bought it in February, and finished it in June. I made myself finish it because I so rarely finish anything and a friend wanted to talk to me about it afterwards, so he helped egg me on. In July, I made a point to finish 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' (and get my first platinum trophy!), and I finished Telltale's 'Guardians of the Galaxy Episode 2' (XBO) and 'Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink' (XBO) and I feel like another game or two, but I'm drawing a blank. I gave 're:Core' (XBO) a solid chance, but the map was super confusing and frustrated me into giving up a couple hours in.
Around the same time, I had vowed to finish 'Yakuza 0' (PS4). I bought it in February, and finished it in June. I made myself finish it because I so rarely finish anything and a friend wanted to talk to me about it afterwards, so he helped egg me on. In July, I made a point to finish 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' (and get my first platinum trophy!), and I finished Telltale's 'Guardians of the Galaxy Episode 2' (XBO) and 'Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink' (XBO) and I feel like another game or two, but I'm drawing a blank. I gave 're:Core' (XBO) a solid chance, but the map was super confusing and frustrated me into giving up a couple hours in.
It was actually kind of exciting to be FORCED to play through stuff I had sitting on the shelf. I sampled a few other games, but with no 'rush' to finish something to make room for the next new release, it felt like the pressure was off and I allowed myself to get deeper into side missions and storytelling, instead of beelining and just trying to get through it as fast as possible. If a game I wanted showed up on sale during the month of July, I let it go. "If it's on sale once, it'll be on sale again..." I tried to convince myself. I passed up the recently released 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' when it hit $19.99. I wouldn't have EVER done that in years/months/weeks past. The exercise in restraint not only helped my enjoyment of the games I already had available, but it changed my pocketbook. I wasn't dumping a bunch of money into slots on the shelf that just sat there until the next new release pushed it out of the way. We ended up with a surplus in our checking account for the first time in a while. I AM A CHANGED MAN. I am excited about several upcoming releases, but I'm going to go slow and cherry pick them. Focus on deals and stuff I am really excited about, and the other games will go on sale (or free on PS+ and Games with Gold eventually) or I might never get to them and THAT'S OK. I don't have to play every game. I don't have to bounce from experience to experience 30-minutes-at-a-time, never giving in and absorbing the final, often expansive product that dozens/hundreds of people poured their hearts and time into for years.
I hate it when blog posts are too long. But I haven't written in years, so this'll be the exception.
I'm also an avid iPhone gamer. Every week I go through the new release highlights on Wednesday night and read reviews. There are so many interesting games coming out on the AppStore every week that it's incredibly hard to keep up. It doesn't help that many are free to try, or $0.99 to play the full game. The past two weeks have been amazing for mobile gamers, and most of what I'm 'Now Playing' are mobile games. And I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface with any of them. And the ones listed below are just the highlights. I haven't even OPENED many of the games that looked neat and were free to download.
I hate it when blog posts are too long. But I haven't written in years, so this'll be the exception.
I'm also an avid iPhone gamer. Every week I go through the new release highlights on Wednesday night and read reviews. There are so many interesting games coming out on the AppStore every week that it's incredibly hard to keep up. It doesn't help that many are free to try, or $0.99 to play the full game. The past two weeks have been amazing for mobile gamers, and most of what I'm 'Now Playing' are mobile games. And I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface with any of them. And the ones listed below are just the highlights. I haven't even OPENED many of the games that looked neat and were free to download.
Now Playing:
- Titanfall Assault - iOS - 4/5
- Cat Quest - iOS - 4/5
- Flippy Knife - iOS - 4/5
- Space Frontier - iOS - 4/5
- Miracle Merchant - iOS - 5/5
- Lego Dimensions - PS4 - 3.5-5
- Super Ultra Dead Rising 4 Mini Golf - XBO - 3.5/5
- Splatoon 2 - Switch - 3.5/5
Now Listening:
- Rozwell Kid - UHF on DVD
- Interpol on shuffle on iTunes
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