The year is zooming by, as most years seem to do now! Here are a few items that have happened so far this year:
- I finally played and finished all three Dragon Age games released up to this point ahead of the new Veilguard game coming (supposedly) later this year.
- Using a Chromecast with Google TV on my living room TV and an Nvidia shield on the ‘movie room’ TV – I’ve been playing with the Steamlink app to stream games from my desktop. Over a decade ago I participated in the beta program for Steam Big Picture and home streaming. It didn’t work great back then, but now it’s almost flawless. I’ve tested via 5ghz wifi (living room) and hard-wired gigabit internet (movie room TV). Hardwired works better, but I can’t overstate how nearly flawless it is. I’m using 1080p 60fps on both TVs and it’s great, I would believe my PC is hooked up to the TV. Wireless is a bit worse in the living room but it is playable. If hardwired feels like the PC is attached to the TV, the 5GHz wireless connection feels like a perfectly playable yet unoptimized 60fps console game. I recently played 103 hours of Dragon Age Inquisition all the way through in my living room (wireless) via Steamlink. There are some quirks like controller de-syncing with the Google TV/Chromecast, but it’s not a deal breaker.
- I’ve seen some good and different action movies so far this year, movies such as Monkey Man, The Accountant and Boy Kills World were great. I also really enjoyed Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – not a huge shock since I’m such a huge Guy Ritchie fan.
- A few of the other great titles I enjoyed so far this year are:
- Lincoln – a truly special film, especially today if anyone watches the lunacy of the news
- Gangs of New York – had amazing performances but dang a bummer of a movie.
- Inglorious Bastards – I also finally watched Life is Beautiful, something I’ve put off for over 20 years, both to do with the Nazi infestation of Europe, though vastly different tones. Both were good to great movies and both were absolutely brutal (albeit in slightly different ways).
- Violent Night – A bizarre take on Santa Claus that even more bizarrely worked well. I loved this movie, and I did not expect to. This solidified David Harbour as a top actor for me.
- South Park – End of Obesity – Shockingly Matt Stone and Trey Parker still got it, this was hilarious and the funniest thing I have seen this year.
- Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit – I missed this when it initially came out. Kevin Costner, Chris Pine, Kenneth Branagh, and Keira Knightley in a Jack Ryan adventure? I feel this movie worked very well and am sad there wasn’t a sequel.
- Video Games! Now that I can more easily play games anywhere in my house, what have I been playing?
- Currently playing: The Thaumaturge – An interesting AA title that does a few things well (the turn-based strategy mechanics, particle effects, tone/setting, music, voice acting of at least 2 actors one of which is the main character) and some things not done so well (English translation (or the writer didn’t have English as their first or fluent language), Linearity as the game feels on rails a few hours in, voice direction as some actors sound like they’re European others sound like they’re from the north Atlantic seaboard in the US and are supposed to be related in the game). I’m curious where the game is going to go, the things done well are interesting and fun and the things not done very well are ignorable… at least so far!
- Notable games played outside of the Dragon Age Series:
- Hades – one of the few rogue-like games I really enjoy (the other is Dead Cells from a few years back)
- Tales of Kenzera: Zau – this game hits you in the feels
- Dragons Dogma 2 – The game is impressive, but I bounced off it pretty hard, I wish the narrative was stronger
- Avatar Frontiers of Pandora – A beautiful game, though felt a bit vapid, I should return to it to play a bit more to see if I want to finish it
- FF7: Rebirth – Dense… probably a bit too dense with checklists and minigames, but beautiful and enjoyable on the whole. I got to the halfway mark and need to return to it.
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth – Likely my favorite game of the year so far, finished it and really enjoyed every minute. No one else tells stories the way Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios does, I’m looking forward to their upcoming announcement of their next game at TGS this year.
- Last Epoch – Great Diablo-like, fun and pretty!
- Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown – I’ve played a couple of hours of this and need to get back to it!
- Games I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year:
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard – My series playthrough is now complete and I’m ready for the fourth entry!
- Avowed – I’m cautiously optimistic about Avowed, the developer Obsidian can make amazing games and I sincerely hope this is going to be one of them!
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – I’m a mark for Indiana Jones media, I grew up watching Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. I will absolutely check this out and I hope it’s great!
- Assassins Creed Shadows – I continue to play every Assassins Creed game and rarely regret doing so, it’s been fascinating to see how the games have evolved since the first entry.
- Star Wars: Outlaws – From the people who developed the division and publishers of Assassins Creed, looks interesting.
- Warhammer Space Marine 2 – Violent action combat, ’nuff said
- Metaphor Refantazio – From the makers of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, should be interesting
- Fantasian – Free of the Apple Arcade exclusivity agreement, coming to PC and consoles this year. From the makers of Final Fantasy, I’m interested in this release.
- Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – if it releases in 2024
- Suikoden 1 & 2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars – I missed these when they were new, I’m interested to catch them on re-release – also hoping it releases in 2024
- Resolution / Goals Check-in
- At the start of the year, I had 3 goals:
- BMI Reduction to 20% and/or 165lbs weight – Sadly, this one isn’t going great (currently at 184lbs), but I am exercising regularly and feel great.
- Read 20 books – Blew this one out of the water, mainly due to discovering ‘He who fights with monsters’ and read about 10 books in a couple of weeks. I’m currently sitting at 45 books read.
- Income without misery – I’m currently in the process of interviewing with two potential employers for a job that sounds great. I’m cautiously optimistic here!
- At the start of the year, I had 3 goals:
