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.

And you should be too, quite frankly. I don’t know if you’ve checked recently, but that COVID-19 thing that our nincompoop of a president and his deluge of moronic followers consistently bellow is a “hoax,” much to the surprise of nobody turned out to be real. But people are going to travel out of spite and ignorance regardless of how much that “liberal science” keeps pleading for them to stay home. So do yourself a favor and stay the fuck home if you can. I know that not everyone is in a situation where they can do that, but for those who can make that choice, pick the option where you don’t endanger the lives of everyone around you.

Yeah, stay home and distract yourselves by maybe watching some movies or reading a book. Definitely don’t refresh certain retailer websites in the hopes that a certain stupid looking console might suddenly become available. If everyone could just ignore the internet for a short period of time, that would be so ideal. I must have signed up for so many notifications for when the PlayStation 5 is back in stock that I’m certain my phone will explode when retailers make the console available again.

What else is going on? Oh, the president is still trying to undermine our democracy and erode the foundation that our country is built upon with frivolous and baseless lawsuits, but what else is new? It’s kind of like when you see a kid throw a tantrum in Target or something, it’s loud, annoying, and inescapable unless you just leave the store altogether. That’s basically what these past few weeks have been like, except it’s a grown man with a bad spray tan that’s doing it in front of the entire world. Hopefully this all comes to pass without too much more damage.

I don’t have a great segue to pivot off of that, so I’ll just say that I’ve been playing some Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and boy howdy is it unremarkable. On the plus side, it runs on my computer at a stable frame rate and looks gorgeous while doing it, unlike another Ubisoft release from a month ago. But on the flip side of that coin, it’s just kind of boring. Admittedly I haven’t played too much of it, but I haven’t found the story, characters or mechanics to be all that interesting. Honestly, it just seems kind of bland.

Remember when Assassin’s Creed started pumping out sequels that were basically the same game crammed into a new setting? That’s what Assassin’s Creed Valhalla feels like. It isn’t a bad game at all however, it’s just unremarkable. Not every game needs to be revolutionary or anything like that, but Assassin’s Creed Valhalla just kind of feels like another solid entry in the series and nothing more.

Also, I couldn’t play it for the first day because I kept running into an infinite loading screen that stopped me from actually ever starting the game. I tried a bunch of different options and tweaks to try and get on the other side of this blank void of a loading screen, but nothing sufficed. But for the first time in history, I have to say that a game streaming service saved the day.

I noticed an ad on Uplay+ that alluded to a glut of Ubisoft games, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, were currently available on Amazon Luna. Amazon Luna is Amazon’s (surprise, right?) game streaming service. It works fine, but is not the way I’d ever play these games. That is unless they offered cross-save functionality that would allow me to get through a busted loading screen and then take that new save back to the version I had installed on my computer. But what are the odds of tha… oh wait.

Yeah, for the first time in my life I’m thankful I had access to a game streaming service. Oh, and for those of you worried about my finances, I have no intention of keeping the service after the free trial is up. But hey, maybe before the trial is up I’ll try to whip up an article or something about it.

Also, with the holidays coming up and the end of the year approaching it’s time for me to start thinking about Game of the Year type stuff again. I’ve got some ideas and loose plans for things, but we’ll see if they pan out the way I want them to.

I think that’s about it for me this week. Hey, thanks for stopping in and reading this rambling mess. I appreciate your support. Be safe, be smart, and enjoy Thanksgiving if you can, and you’re an American. To everyone else, enjoy your week and ignore all retailer websites for a few days so I can get the funny looking console. Thanks!