Light Up The Night

I got the platinum trophy in Fallout 4. Makes it the 3rd game I've been able to do that in(besides Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne).

I bought The Last Guardian. I probably should not have splurged this month. I plan to donate to stuff like the ACLU, and I want to send something to Flint, Michigan, since I hear they still don't have clean drinking water because of their scumbag government.

...I mean, I guess this will be a monthly thing, so I guess it doesn't matter which month I splurge on something for myself.

...God, I really hope the resistance going on right now isn't a fad. I've depended on the United States to be stronger than I am, in the event of a global catastrophe. I really don't want that to be another thing I regretted believing in.


I'm also only just now getting acquainted with the work of The Protomen. I regret not listening to their stuff sooner.


END OF LINE

~A.H.

Dark Souls 2: No Deaths Playthrough Ending

A couple of days ago, I beat Dark Souls 2 without dying. It took 9 months of constant fuck-ups and swearing and resentment, blaming myself, my controller, the game(and to be fair, I'd say they were all valid targets of blame at different points). But it finally happened.

I set a goal for myself last year, and now I've achieved that goal.




Granted, I overleveled the fuck out of my character, and I wasn't going for some kind of insane world record or anything. The point wasn't to try and be the best person to ever play the game, just to see if I could beat every boss in the game without dying in a single playthrough.

Was it worth it? I mean, I didn't feel any different. I always knew I COULD do it, theoretically. I'm just surprised at how many bullshit deaths these games threw at me before I got this far. If nothing else, it provided a welcome distraction from the upcoming US election.

So umm... yeah. That's what I've been up to this year.


END OF LINE

~A.H.

Fave Things Of 2014: Part II

Part 1 of the list can be found HERE. This will conclude the main list, and then after this is the Grand Jury Prize.

Brace yourself: the nerd levels get critical from here on out:

5. DARK SOULS II

2014 in gaming was... Sonic Boom. It was Rambo. It was the clueless, lazy design of Assassin's Creed Unity. The disgraceful sound-design of Thief. The unplayable, unplaytested Master Chief Collection. The hollowed-out husk of a game that Destiny was supposed to be. The embarrassment of the Elder Scrolls Online. The toxic cynicism and entitlement of Watch_Dogs. The contempt for the human race that was The Walking Dead: Season 2.


2014 was Duck Dynasty: The Game.


We're not just talking about games that didn't live up to their hype; This is the year where the entire industry stopped trying. We've reached an event horizon where we're lucky if a game is barely functioning after a year and six patches.


And how did gamers react to this? And to the clear corruption and ineptitude infecting game reviews and news coverage that gives rave reviews and coverage to garbage? They saw all of these problems, and their solution was to... send threats to women. An actual conclusion reached by a frightening number of people is that everything wrong with games can be traced back to vaginas.


This hobby has never been uglier, emptier and more insulting to the people who keep it alive. This is as low as video games have been since the industry crashed. Roger Ebert and Jack Thompson were wrong about video games, but by God did we ever try to prove them right last year.

Anyway, I just think there's an irony to the fact that a Dark Souls game didn't hate its' audience as much as everything else last year.


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Fave Things Of 2014: Part I

Here are some things I thought didn't suck last year. 3 parts, Top 10 format, with one special "Grand Jury" prize synonymous with first place.

Sorry it took so long:



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10. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

I liked it. Could've been better, could've been worse. Great soundtrack and characters, though. I'm glad summer blockbusters can still have a heart.

I never thought I'd come close to crying over a tree and a raccoon.


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