Another mega-batch of games as I forge ahead and try to wrap up my 360 revisit. I'll stick with the physical games first.
Lots of stuff this week, but it all comes down to Farm Together 2, which will be my friend and mine's obsession for the coming weeks.
Wed/Thurs is my weekend right now, so that's when I do most of my gaming. This is what I did this week.
When I was a wee lad in the arcades, motorcycle racers were not often a priority for me to spend my quarters. I was too busy playing After Burner, Galaga, or Ms. Pac-Man. But one day, I saw something that stood out from the usual bunch- Sega’s Super Hang-On, initially released in 1987. As I hopped on the mechanical bike and blasted around that first corner, I knew it was worth every quarter spent. I was one with the road- until I crashed seconds later. While I never won the race or played it in the arcade again, I always remembered how much fun it was. Thankfully, most of the traits that made the coin-op version fun translated well on the Sega Genesis.
I mostly played on PS4 today trying to get through my physical game collection so I can sell off anything I'm not totally thrilled about. But, I managed a little Xbox One play too.
My angel faction is so rad! These winged badies can wreck demon butt and perform a mean flying circus to boot. I got them tricked out with platinum wings, diamond mind bullets and radiance shock halos. I'm taking down RAID bosses with ease in this MMO. Thing is, Darla can only play on Wednesdays, Bob on Thursdays, Jeremy on Saturday night and Tamara on Sunday afternoon. It got so tricky getting people together, I played the following three games, watched a tv episode and downloaded two new games instead.
After conquering 2018 with the hyper-realistic open-world cowboy simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar has certainly not been resting on its laurels. As many of you now know, the highly anticipated hyper-realistic open-world crime simulator, Grand Theft Auto 6, has been announced. Thanks to the hundreds of hits my writing for PixlBit has amassed over the past nine years and the runaway popularity of my podcast, Nerds Without Pants (tens of satisfied listeners!) I was given an exclusive look at this upcoming juggernaut. Don’t worry, I got hands-on with this sure to be life-altering video game months before the Covid-19 epidemic. Now that my embargo has been lifted, the story can be told at last!
I suspect many, like myself, spent long stints in front of their Pentium II PCs constructing a wide variety of amazing theme parks and complex coasters in RollerCoaster Tycoon. Between the base game and its expansions, I clocked countless hours completing scenarios and building all manner of parks, maximizing profits and occasionally, constructing complex death machines for fun. Some of what made the original experience so great finds its way into RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures on the Switch, but it seems that a good bit of the experience has been streamlined and simplified to make it more accessible on the platform. This makes it a less compelling iteration of the series that’s outshined by even the original release.
I came to my office to post midterm grades, but apparently the university's website is down for maintenance, so I guess it'll have to wait.
So this month is almost at a close but at I will have made at least one BaD entry before its over for 2018. So, where have I been, in case anyone/no one has been wondering?
Today I tried to do maintenance on my PS2 Slim, play Back to the Future: The Video Game and Patapon Remastered, and watch Tom Baker era Doctor Who. Three of those ended in complete frustration.
I like to think that today’s entry is more than ramblings on a Monday Morning but most likely it will probably be just that. Sure there was some game related stuff I did this past week, but other than a couple of spots here and there, I really wasn’t sitting in front of a screen with a controller in my hand for that long, so instead here we are with a couple of gaming items, stuff I found, and other semi-interesting randoms.
At the tip top of Amazon’s page reads a banner: “New and interesting finds.” Never knew that was there. Did you? Apparently it's a feature they introduced a few months ago. I clicked around, surprised at the many artistic, unique products. I was amused, bewildered. By the end, I laughed, I cried, I lol’d.
It was a busy, busy week for me at the park last week, both in terms of getting the park ready for the holiday weekend and dealing with the huge number of people enjoying the park on the weekend. More on that in the Ranger Stuff section. In other news, I bought a new-to-me car yesterday. I am the happy owner of a 2007 Subaru Forester in a lovely sage green, it's the LL Bean package, so it's loaded with all kinds of goodies. But not the weather radio, which I will miss. Told the salesman at the dealership that it would be happy going to live in Freeport, which is where LL Bean is headquartered. Most of us in the area have worked there at least once in our lives.
I got Halo 2, 3, and 4 on day-one, but not this time. Halo 4, the first post Bungie, kind of annoyed me, so I'm not doing it this time. Oh well, end of an era for me. I got my old school gaming on instead.
I cut my finger badly on the sheet metal vent cap I was installing on the outhouse vent pipe today, so I apologize in advance for any typos. It was serious enough to require medical attention, but not so serious that I needed stitches, my doctor glued the edges together and back I went to work to spend the rest of the day filling out workers comp forms.
I didn't interact much with media in 1990; out of school and desperately looking for work to get by didn't leave much time for anything else. I think I heard that band World Party and their single Way Down Now on the radio. I always like them. I was probably listening to rock radio, so I likely heard Alice in Chains and Jane's Addiction for the first time. Gaming didn't happen at all. I didn't read anything either other than Arthur Janov's Primal Scream book (I was doing the therapy at the time). I saw Akira Kurosawa's Dreams in the theater that year with my girlfriend. That's one I remember clearly because it was really good. Eventually I got work doing maintenance at a resort in the woods (I wanted to get into publishing but I got no responses). It was like a summer camp for rich New Yorkers. I did all sorts of jobs there, and it was nice to be outside all the time. I got the nickname "Monk" there for my reticence.
It's been another busy week in a busy summer. So much so that I took today off just to relax. So far, so good on that front. As to what I've been up to, well, here's the rundown in the usual format.
Work's been keeping me busy and very tired. We had our annual bird watching festival the last weekend in April (was that really just a week ago?!) and most of my time was spent getting the park looking decent for that and getting the plumbing issues sorted out so we could open the bathroom building in time for the festival. I can now say with no hint of uncertainty: I do not want to be a plumber when I grow up. I replaced the tank bolts in two toilets, replaced the tank to bowl gaskets for both of them at the same time because the old ones fell apart as I was wrestling with getting the old bolts removed, and fixed a couple of leaks from various valves. I was less successful up at HQ - the leaky sprayer in the kitchen sink was a pain to remove and then getting the parts to plug it off permanently was problematic at best. I thought I had it fixed, but when I checked for leaks today, the bucket I put under it was half full. It'll be back under the mouse-infested sink tomorrow. Could be worse, could have had a toilet explode and embed porcelain shrapnel in my forehead like the maintenance mechanic last week. Who knew plumbing could be so dangerous?
