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Blog: A Little Joy – 01/20/21

Everything is so chaotic right now and it’s insanely difficult to focus on anything outside of the ever growing train wreck that is American politics. Even now as I write this, I fear that by the time this article goes live some horrible bullshit will have happened. I pray that everything goes smoothly and America doesn’t collapse in under its own weight, but literally anything is possible these days. But at some point I can’t keep staring at the wreckage and need to focus on things that make me happy. So here are some of the distractions I engaged in last week that brought me joy…

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Blog: Exhausted – 01/13/21

I don’t know that I necessarily have the words to properly describe my feelings about the events of last week, nor do I know that I want to go into too much detail about it. In short, it’s been extremely difficult to watch my country rip itself apart at the behest of a sore loser who refuses to believe that more people told him to go fuck himself than those who begged for him to stay. Things are bad right now, and with the ongoing threats of violence all around the country planned for the next few days I think we’re all kind of just hanging in a limbo and waiting for whatever is coming to finally arrive. It’s times like these that I’d normally try and turn to my hobbies to distract myself from the hourly misery that’s been foisted upon us, but there hasn’t been a video game that’s done that for me in the past few months…

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The Master of Disaster: Holiday Havoc – 18

I currently play in two Dungeons & Dragons groups, one of which I run and the other I just play in. For my group, we’d been running the newly released Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, while my other was neck-deep in a Dragonlance campaign. However, as we crept closer towards the end of 2020, we found ourselves in the middle of one of the weirdest holiday seasons of all time. So with a lot of people unable to see family and get particularly festive this year, I wanted to do something special for them the only way I knew how to: A holiday themed one-shot. It was also an opportunity for me to move away from the lackluster module of Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, but that’s a story for another time. Instead, I’d like to tell you the story of Holiday Havoc: The Clausening, the holiday one-shot I ran for both of my D&D groups…

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Blog: That Dang Virtual Reality – 01/06/21

There was a small part of me that expected 2020 to draw itself out by introducing a secret 13th month we’d never had before, but thankfully the calendar held together and we’re finally in January. Since the New Year ticked over however, I can’t really say that I’ve been playing much of anything, partly because there’s nothing new that excites me right now, and partly cause I’m busy focusing on other stuff…

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Game of the Year 2020

Welcome to 2021, a year that I will set no expectations for because we all saw how well things turned out in 2020. But before we leave 2020 to rot in it’s rightful place in the universe’s dumpster, let’s bid one last farewell to the worst year I’ve ever experienced by celebrating the games that got me through it…

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Game of the Year 2020: Bottom 5

This year has seen its fair share of great video game experiences worthy of both praise any recommendation, but it’s also seen plenty of stinkers too. Now this list isn’t meant to imply that these games are the worst games of the year, because they simply aren’t. These are just some games that I happened to play this year that I really did not enjoy for one reason or another. A lot of the games in this list either already have or will eventually see significant fixes and updates that can technically fix a game I had issues with, but some of the games on this list are beyond what a bug fix can rectify…

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Blog: It’s Almost Over – 12/30/20

Well hey there everyone, I hope you’re enjoying all the Game of the Year stuff thus far cause we’ve only got two more days of it to go. It was extremely difficult for me to pull this all together just because despite this being a massive year for video games, not a lot of things really got their hooks into me. Regardless, this isn’t about Game of the Year stuff, more of that is coming tomorrow. Instead, I’d like to get a little sappy here on the last blog of the year…

By Ari Posted on

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Blog: A Little Joy – 01/20/21

Everything is so chaotic right now and it’s insanely difficult to focus on anything outside of the ever growing train wreck that is American politics. Even now as I write this, I fear that by the time this article goes live some horrible bullshit will have happened. I pray that everything goes smoothly and America doesn’t collapse in under its own weight, but literally anything is possible these days. But at some point I can’t keep staring at the wreckage and need to focus on things that make me happy. So here are some of the distractions I engaged in last week that brought me joy…

By Ari Posted on

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Blog: Exhausted – 01/13/21

I don’t know that I necessarily have the words to properly describe my feelings about the events of last week, nor do I know that I want to go into too much detail about it. In short, it’s been extremely difficult to watch my country rip itself apart at the behest of a sore loser who refuses to believe that more people told him to go fuck himself than those who begged for him to stay. Things are bad right now, and with the ongoing threats of violence all around the country planned for the next few days I think we’re all kind of just hanging in a limbo and waiting for whatever is coming to finally arrive. It’s times like these that I’d normally try and turn to my hobbies to distract myself from the hourly misery that’s been foisted upon us, but there hasn’t been a video game that’s done that for me in the past few months…

By Ari Posted on

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The Master of Disaster: Holiday Havoc – 18

I currently play in two Dungeons & Dragons groups, one of which I run and the other I just play in. For my group, we’d been running the newly released Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, while my other was neck-deep in a Dragonlance campaign. However, as we crept closer towards the end of 2020, we found ourselves in the middle of one of the weirdest holiday seasons of all time. So with a lot of people unable to see family and get particularly festive this year, I wanted to do something special for them the only way I knew how to: A holiday themed one-shot. It was also an opportunity for me to move away from the lackluster module of Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, but that’s a story for another time. Instead, I’d like to tell you the story of Holiday Havoc: The Clausening, the holiday one-shot I ran for both of my D&D groups…

By Ari Posted on

Blog 0

Blog: That Dang Virtual Reality – 01/06/21

There was a small part of me that expected 2020 to draw itself out by introducing a secret 13th month we’d never had before, but thankfully the calendar held together and we’re finally in January. Since the New Year ticked over however, I can’t really say that I’ve been playing much of anything, partly because there’s nothing new that excites me right now, and partly cause I’m busy focusing on other stuff…

By Ari Posted on

2020 0

Game of the Year 2020

Welcome to 2021, a year that I will set no expectations for because we all saw how well things turned out in 2020. But before we leave 2020 to rot in it’s rightful place in the universe’s dumpster, let’s bid one last farewell to the worst year I’ve ever experienced by celebrating the games that got me through it…

By Ari Posted on

2020 0

Game of the Year 2020: Bottom 5

This year has seen its fair share of great video game experiences worthy of both praise any recommendation, but it’s also seen plenty of stinkers too. Now this list isn’t meant to imply that these games are the worst games of the year, because they simply aren’t. These are just some games that I happened to play this year that I really did not enjoy for one reason or another. A lot of the games in this list either already have or will eventually see significant fixes and updates that can technically fix a game I had issues with, but some of the games on this list are beyond what a bug fix can rectify…

By Ari Posted on

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Blog: It’s Almost Over – 12/30/20

Well hey there everyone, I hope you’re enjoying all the Game of the Year stuff thus far cause we’ve only got two more days of it to go. It was extremely difficult for me to pull this all together just because despite this being a massive year for video games, not a lot of things really got their hooks into me. Regardless, this isn’t about Game of the Year stuff, more of that is coming tomorrow. Instead, I’d like to get a little sappy here on the last blog of the year…

By Ari Posted on

2020 0

Game of the Year 2020: The Trends I Missed

One of the things that’s been most interesting to me this year has been seeing the types of games that unexpectedly exploded in popularity. The fanaticism around games and forming communities around them isn’t anything new, but in more typical years it was inevitable that someone might miss a big trend or event in gaming. Considering I’ve been home most of the year however, I was able to see these wild surges in popularity among various games and genres in a way I hadn’t ever been able to before. Despite all of this, I feel as if I’ve dipped into several of these big trends that took the internet by storm this year and managed to bounce off of most of them…

By Ari Posted on

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Game of the Year 2020: 5 Games I Considered Playing, But Didn’t

Despite finding myself at home and with an influx of free time this year, for a multitude of reasons I ended up missing out on a lot of big and well regarded games. All of these entries go beyond the obvious, “lack of money and time” argument that might usually pollute a list like this, so I figured I’d shed some light on why there were such glaring gaps in what big titles I played. There are certainly more than 5 games I considered playing this year but didn’t, but I feel as if these were the biggest ones in the bunch. But hey, even if I did want to play every big release, there’s no way I could possibly make time for all of them, let alone afford that many games, so I guess money and time is a factor after all…

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Blog: CyberFunk – 12/16/20

With the holiday season in full swing, I’ve found myself falling behind when it comes to completing previously planned projects. In addition to gift shopping, updating this site, planning for D&D sessions, and the general things I need to do to stay alive, it just feels like my free time is become more and more scarce. This is all a long way of saying that it’s going to be pretty quiet around here until the end of the month when the Game of the Year stuff starts dropping. But in what little free time I was able to scrounge together, I did manage to spend some time with Cyberpunk 2077…

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Gut Check: Immortals: Fenyx Rising

When talking about Immortals: Fenyx Rising, it’s impossible not to bring up 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, an excellent game that was bound to inspire other developers to build upon its success. Enter Immortals: Fenyx Rising, a game that’s so clearly inspired by Breath of the Wild that at times it feels like plagiarism. However, for better and worse, Ubisoft did not make a carbon copy of Breath of the Wild, because that would be an insult to one of the best Zelda games out there. What we have on our hands is a louder, less subtle, yet still solid facsimile of a modern classic…

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Blog: Boba Fett – 12/09/20

So I’m just gonna rip the bandage off and say it — I think Boba Fett is a shitty character. You might be wondering where this is all coming from and to answer that I’d point you towards the hit Disney+ exclusive show, The Mandalorian for this particular blog. You can also thank my friends for the part they played in this blog, specifically how every conversation we’ve had since the latest episode went live have included some sore of Boba Fett themed joke. They know I hate this dude, and I’d like to explain why.

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Blog: One Last Rant – 12/02/20

I know I’ve repeatedly complained about my inability to secure a PlayStation 5, but I promise you that this is the last bespoke article you’ll have to endure unless something truly buck-wild happens. The majority of issues that are plaguing the launch of both the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 can be summed up with “not enough stock,” or “scalpers.” It’s truly been an exhausting and underwhelming experience that’s made me question why I’m fighting so hard for the chance to spend $500…

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Gut Check: Fuser

Somewhere between my first and fiftieth Smash Mouth and Carly Rae Jepsen mashup, the comedic flair that initially attracted me to Fuser faded into the background and was replaced with a genuine desire to make a song that actually sounded good. While Fuser isn’t much of a “game,” it is a pretty powerful and accessible piece of software that’s capable of generating some genuine ear-worms of songs in an easy and accessible way…

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Blog: A Big Bloated Blog – 11/25/20

It’s almost Thanksgiving here in America, which traditionally meant that we all had an excuse to break any diets we were clinging to, were subject to horribly racist and misguided “conversation” with distant relatives, and would ultimately result with hiding in a bathroom to avoid your family. Luckily you don’t have to engage with any of that shit this year and that’s fucking great. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have eaten a traditional Thanksgiving dinner this year but between the whole pandemic thing and the election thing, I’m super good with just staying home…

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Blog: Whoa-vember – 11/18/20

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but it’s gotten really weird and bad out there recently. Like, shit is so bizarre that it’s genuinely hard to keep track of anything anymore even when it isn’t whatever horrible thing is happening in the news. But let’s try and take a fun little sojourn in the opposite direction of the grimness of our world, and instead discuss some video games for a change. That should be fun, right?

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