What a Great Game

In Stray, you play as a cat and as such, you can do many cat things.

It’s been a while. Too long. I haven’t been writing here much and that needs to change. I think my main block is finding topics of interest to write about. I’ll have to look into how the pros do it maybe. Anyways, let’s talk video games. Specifically a game that was a big deal when it was released back in July: Stray, AKA “The Cat Game.”

I don’t buy new games often, and the last game I bought at or before launch was Cyberpunk 2077. We all know how that game turned out. I did enjoy the game, but it was a bit disappointing that it felt like an Early Access title and I just paid sixty bucks for it. Stray, on the other hand, showed me that new games can be great on launch day.

Okay, so I’m a cat guy. One of my roommates is an old tuxedo cat with several pseudonyms including Turkey. This game piqued my interest when I noticed it in the video game news. “Wow,” I thought, “A video game with a cat as the main character, that’s pretty cool, I’d play that.” The game was released on July 19th and I totally forgot to pick it up. It was like thirty bucks and I figured it would be well worth buying it at full price. I picked it up off of Steam a few days later. Let me tell you, it was worth every penny.

My first impressions of the game is that it was damn near perfect. It hit almost all of the targets for me: the atmosphere was amazing, the sound, graphics, everything just hit the spot. The cyberpunk aesthetic is definitely there with all of the neon lights, slums, and sentient robots. And the best part: You get to play as a cat. Maybe this might sound lame to some but it makes for a great adventure as you leap from platform to platform among the buildings. Plus you can do other cat stuff like sleep, scratch carpet, and meow. It’s pretty sweet.

After just a couple of hours of playing, I fell into love with this game. It was so much fun to experience a semi-open world game through the eyes of a cat. The game has quite a few puzzles to figure out and while they aren’t particularly difficult, they are fun to figure out. The game is a little short in length although it does have a bit of replay value if you want to 100% the game. 

I did read a few articles that noted that the PC version suffers with some graphical stuttering and I did notice a little at times on my rig with an RTX 2060 but I didn’t find that it detracted much from the game and recent patches probably have already corrected the issue.

This game probably won’t appeal to hardcore gamers so much though; this is a game that is meant to be played slowly and enjoyed. It’s an experience and not a competition, more akin to an interactive art exhibit than something like a football game. 

So there it is, my take on Stray. I’ve been playing some other games lately as well, so expect more content soon. Until then play some games and refurbish your SNES! Ha! Maybe I’ll get into that some other time. 

The Weekly Ramble

Each week I think really hard and ramble on about a topic of my choice

This week I’m going to ramble about a game I enjoy. For some reason or another (probably getting older) I have been enjoying city-building/strategy games. A couple months back it started when I played a few games of Sim City which I found on this neat 120 in 1 SNES cart I bought off of Amazon. It has its fair share of stinkers but there are some gems in the rough on there as well as some forgotten titles. Kind of makes me want one of those FXPAK pro carts but those are a little out of my budget for the time being. Anyways, I’m not talking about the SNES, so back to the topic at hand. 

So I played some SimCity for a bit, then I remembered I had Cities: Skylines! I went back to my PC and fired it up, had fun for a good minute and progressed quite a bit with some strategy advice from different sources. Both are great games if you enjoy being the Mayor of a city and planning a city, designing a city, etc. Surviving Mars I believe is by the same devs as Cities and is quite enjoyable as well. Maybe someday I’ll get back into that one. Okay, let’s get to the game I originally was getting to. 

The game is one of my favorite modern titles. I’m stuck in between retro and modern games at the moment. I would get into why, but I’ll save that for another time. The game I really have been enjoying lately is a city-building survival game by 11Bit Studios that released on Windows in 2018 and PS4/XboxOne in 2019. The name of the game: Frost Punk. 

Frost Punk: Let the cold begin!

Frost Punk is one of those games I like to fire up and play when the weather here in the great state of Minnesota, USA gets below zero degrees Fahrenheit. That crispy frost sound it makes when the temp drops really puts that chill in your bones as you play. The aspect of surviving the cold is only one of the challenges of this game though. There are many decisions you will have to make as the Captain of your new settlement.

Before I get into the game any further, I just would like to say that 11Bit is one of those studios that makes games I enjoy for some reason. I have another game by 11Bit, This War of Mine, and if anything, 11Bit does a great job of pulling your emotional strings by the end of the game. The decisions you make in the game will come back to haunt you by the end if you survive. It really makes you wonder what it would come to if an apocalyptic situation like Frost Punk really were to happen. This War of Mine on the other hand, was based upon an actual conflict of the past: The Siege of Sarajevo. 

Building a new home in Frostland is tough. Can you survive?

In Frost Punk you can play several different scenarios, the main one being A New Home. You play as a group of Londoners leaving England to escape the Deep Frost. You start near a huge coal-powered steam generator. The generator provides much needed warmth to your people and will be essential for your survival. Round up some coal and fire it up. Your people will thank you. 

Along the way you will be presented with different challenges such as feeding your people and providing them with healthcare. Each decision you make will raise or lower hope and/or discontent among your people. If your discontent gets too high, or your hope too low, your people will give you an ultimatum. Guess what happens if you don’t meet that ultimatum. I won’t spoil it for you here. 

Tough decisions are to be made during the game to survive the Deep Freeze.

Late in the game (if you can survive that long) the decisions get tougher as the temperatures get lower. Towards the end of A New Home, the temperature drops to an insane low. If you don’t prepare properly, you’ll perish. If you do, you will survive, likely with a cost. You have survived, but was it worth it?

You and your people made it. The city survived. Was it worth it?

That’s my ramble for the week. I just wanted to highlight a game I enjoy. Frost Punk is definitely a challenge to survive but it seems like it has just that right amount of challenge that won’t make you rage quit. Well, that’s enough rambling for the week. Join me next week for another Weekly Ramble!

I’m Back from My Hiatus

Hey everyone! So last time I posted, I was on a mission to make an attempt to write something and post on a more regular basis. Well, that didn’t happen. Regardless of that, I have decided to not keep a particular schedule and instead post when inspiration hits. Ideally, I would like to get about three posts per week. If I can make that happen, great. If not, well, I won’t stress about it.

As far as gaming goes, I’ve been stuck on retro for quite some time now. I’ve been revisiting classics like Lufia II and Super Metroid for the SNES, as well as RE: Director’s Cut and Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation. I’ve been meaning to get back to some modern titles like Cyberpunk 2077, but I just haven’t got around to it yet. I’ve been having too much of a nostalgia trip playing my old favorites. 

Tech projects have been minimal. I recently managed to get my Raspberry Pi Plex server to recognize my external drive. It actually was a pretty simple fix and I should have paid closer attention to the tutorial I was following. I also picked up a Google AIY voice kit and put it together. So basically I have a smart speaker, like a Google Home or whatever they call it. Google Assistant? Something like that. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it yet. I had an idea of making a natural language chatbot of some sort, so that may be a project in the works. 

As far as my Raspberry Pi obsession goes, Twister OS is my favorite OS for the Pi by far. It looks good and runs nicely. Ubuntu on the Pi, however, doesn’t fare as well. It’s a bit glitchy and needs some work to run optimally on the Pi. Oftentimes I get error pop ups that notify me that “something went wrong.” I assume these errors are largely due to the Pi’s hardware and ARM architecture. Ubuntu just doesn’t run perfectly on the Pi. Still, it is nice to have Ubuntu available for the Pi. I’ve also been dabbling with Kali running in a VM to mess around with the various pentesting tools. I played one of those CtF VMs that I found online. It was a beginner level CtF that’s Mr. Robot themed. I’m a total noob at that kind of stuff so I followed along using a tutorial. Pretty neat stuff.  

Now for health and wellness. I feel that I’ve been neglecting this for the past few months a bit. Recently I’ve been trying to get on more of a regular exercise routine. So far it’s been going alright. I’m trying to get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day. Well, maybe it’s been more like every other day but I’ve been making an effort at least.

I’ve been keeping up with the keto diet I follow and something I’ve really been enjoying as a snack are cheese sticks and olives. I tend to go for a chipotle cheddar or pepper jack style cheese stick. There’s just something about cheese and olives that just clicks for me. I’ve tried a few different types of olives but the green pimiento stuffed ones are usually my go to. I’m a fan of the Pearls Olives to go cups since they seem to taste better than the olives in a jar. However, I did pick up some large Queen pimiento stuffed olives from Costco that are pretty good. The generic manzanilla olives that I picked up from a local grocery were a bit lackluster though.  

There. I mashed up everything in one blog post. Hopefully I can get some ideas generated so I can get some more blog posts going. I have a couple gaming related ideas brewing in my head and hopefully I can get some other areas of interest covered too. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea to mash all of my interests into a single blog? I’ll have to mull it over a bit, perhaps a restructuring is in order. Be sure to check back often, who knows, maybe my blog will be overhauled the next time you check it. Ha ha. 

Retro Trip: The Legend of Dragoon

The Moon That Never Sets. I’m having a hard time setting this game down after picking it up and replaying it.

I recently found a good stack of my old PlayStation games I had collected over the years. A few I remembered playing back in high school, spending tired-eyed nights with those classics. One of them I remembered being good and enjoyable but twenty years of wear and tear on my memory has fragmented it a bit and now I don’t remember much from the game. So I fired it up and decided to give it a solid replay. The game: The Legend of Dragoon. After playing it for a bit I soon found out that I was going in for a hardcore Retro Trip. Let’s dig in and take a look:

The game so far has been pretty awesome. I’ve been cruising right along through the game, enjoying it the whole way. It is a little linear as it lacks an open world map like the Final Fantasy games, but I kind of welcome that and it doesn’t bother me all that much. I get lost easily in open world games. Go figure.

The story so far at times was a little generic, sometimes a little corny, but all in all so far it has been pretty solid for me and I have been enjoying it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get angry and cheer on the good guys. Just what you’d want from a good retro RPG.

I do like the different style of gameplay Dragoon uses during battles. Some characters have moves called “Additions” that require you to press a button at a certain time in a quick time event style. This does take a bit to get used to if you’re conditioned to just mashing a button for battles in turn based RPGs. I’m going to have to say that while this QTE system is welcome, it does require some ridiculous precision to get it perfect and it can be frustrating at times. Overall though, it kept my attention during the battles and added a bit more immersion into the game. You actually become a part of the battle instead of mindlessly mashing a button.

The graphics, I’m going to  be honest, don’t hold up strongly today. The pre-rendered backgrounds looked nice but are kind of dated by today’s standards. The character’s polygonal models looked a little aged by today’s standards as well. I can’t really rag on the graphics too much though. The animations and cut-scenes were fantastic considering the age of the game. I also thought the various magic spells and Dragoon transformations were very impressive visually, all things considered. 

I just finished the first disc of the game not too long ago and I’m having a great time replaying this game I almost forgot about after about twenty years. Pop this RPG in and you’ll be in store for a Retro Trip indeed! 

The Last Week

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Video games and coffee last week. A good combo, no?

Hey everyone! I’m back with another Last Week entry. I had originally meant to shoot for getting this post in on Sunday, but hey, things come up. Last week I played a bit of Dead Space and I’ve been going on a real PlayStation era retro trip that I’m trying hard to shake off. I’ve also been working on getting Neofeud finished, I’m to a point where I’m so close to the end I can taste it! I’ve also decided to focus on finishing Cyberpunk as a priority over my Elder Scrolls games. I also have to highlight this keto coffee drink I’ve been drinking lately. Let’s take a closer look at last week:

Last Monday I fired up Dead Space for a quick session. Unfortunately, as I feared, I saved it after I accidentally used all of my medpacks. It was purely my mistake, I was using an Xbox 360 gamepad and kept pressing X thinking it was the reload button. I quickly depleted my medpacks and was playing hard mode after that mistake. I also realized that you can smash the green boxes by using your kinesis power. I facepalmed and realized it would probably be best to start over. In my defense, the game shouldn’t allow you to use medpacks if your health is completely maxed. Just a thought. I’m probably going to speed through a new game save up to the point I was at. It sucks but it happens.

Friday night I switched it up from Friday Night Fights and had a Friday Night Flashback! I found a bunch of my PlayStation games recently and decided to play Fear Effect. I had bought the game years ago but never really had the time to play it until I dug it out of the closet. I had a pretty decent gameplay session – I died a few times, beat some bosses, and actually made it to the second disc of the game! I had a pretty good time streaming the game and am pretty excited to continue it for the next Flashback! I might put off Friday night fights for a bit to finish this title, we’ll see! 

I didn’t do any games or streaming over the weekend. My wife and I went on a nice hike through one of our fine State Forests though. We both have been on a mission to get more movement into our routine. The forest was great. We basically just hiked the trails to get a feel for the area and we also saw some deer tracks and trees that appeared to have some beaver gnaw marks on them. The forest floor was a little moist from all of the winter melt and the recent rain, so our shoes were caked with mud when we returned to our vehicle. Other than the mess it was a good time!

As far as keto/low carb goes, I’ve been working on a few products to take a look at but I do have one for this week!  I’ve been on a bit of a caffeine kick lately so unfortunately I’ve been drinking some energy drinks like Red Bull. I’m not really a huge fan of the carbonation and extra ingredients all of the time so I wanted to switch it up a bit. I like coffee and a lot of keto coffees tend to be a bit high in calories, around the 100-200 calorie range. I was looking around at my local grocery store when I eyed these KITU Super Espresso coffee drinks. These were only 35 calories and tasted pretty darn good. It has a modest ingredient list, is sweetened with monk fruit, and is 99.9% lactose free! Give it a shot if you need a low calorie, keto friendly boost! 

That’s it for Last Week! I’ll have another Last week rounded up before you know it! Stay tuned!

This Week in Gaming

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I had a pretty exciting week playing some solid titles. Today was a bit of an off day though.

Hey everyone! This week was a pretty exciting week for me! I played some old games, some new games and most importantly I had a lot of fun! Let’s take a look at my week:

First, I’ll just share a bit of gaming news that I’ve been seeing out there. There’s been a lot of games with anniversaries: Super Mario Bros. 3 celebrates 31 years, Zelda celebrates 35 and I’ve been seeing a lot of Super Metroid floating around on the internets (the original Metroid celebrates 35 years as well). In other gaming news, CDPR, the developers of The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 was hit by a ransomware attack in which the hackers have reportedly sold stolen source code on the dark web. There’s a ton of other news I could go over but these are a couple of things that have stuck with me this week.

What have I been playing this week? Well, I’ve been trying to balance some retro games along with a few modern titles. Sunday I played This War of Mine, a title by 11bit studios from 2014. It’s a wartime survival game that requires strategy and tough decision making. It’s also a very tough game for me to play. 11bit really knows how to pull those emotional strings. Frost Punk is a lot like that too. Both are great games that will punch you right in the feels.

I had to take a break from getting my soul crushed, so for Monday Night Retro I played a game I hadn’t played in a while but knew I could finish: Deja Vu for the NES. I jumped into it and then realized I had forgotten quite a few details in the game. I ended up continuing the game on WedNESday and successfully finished it. Okay, full disclosure, I needed to use a guide to fill in some of those blanks that were missing from my memory. Sometimes you just need that one sentence from a text-based guide to pull you through.

Friday was Friday Night Fights! I played Super Punch Out!! for last week’s FNF and the game was harder than I remembered! For this week’s FNF I continued Greatest Heavyweights for the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive. The last time I played I made it into the top ten rankings and this week I climbed up to number two! Next week I’ll take on the champion, Mike Dixon, for the belt!

Today I tried to start on my new In Medias Res series where I play a game from my library and just load up a save and play. My goal is to complete a couple of games within this year, but today I was having an off day. I fired up some Dead Space to play and something with my gamepad was going wonky. I did some troubleshooting and found out it was my retro gamepad that was plugged in causing issues. I played another session with my XB360 gamepad for a bit and realized I was a bit too fatigued from the night before. Next week I’ll have to wrap up FNF a bit early and rest up for Saturday’s stream.

As for new games I’ve picked up, Neofeud is a title I’ve seen floating around on my twitter for some time. It was on sale, so I decided to give it a shot. It’s a point and click adventure set in a cyberpunk world, both of which piqued my curiosity. I’ll be sure to fire up that game soon and share my thoughts.

That’s it for this week! I’m thinking about making this a weekly post where I recap games I’ve been playing over the week. As for what’s coming up next, I’m going to be taking it easy until next Friday for Friday Night Fights. I’ll probably be working on some other things though so stay tuned!

NES A to Z – Z: Zoda’s Revenge

It’s taken me way too long to play this game. It was pretty fun during my gaming session.

I remember way back in the day I had been given a Nintendo Power subscription for Christmas. I remember there was an issue with guides for both StarTropics and its sequel, Zoda’s Revenge when it was released back in 1994. These games looked and sounded great but they were a couple more titles that eluded me back in those days. By a stroke of luck, the randomizer chose Zoda’s Revenge for the letter Z. The game was a great Action/Adventure game where you play as Mike Jones, a young man who acts as the hero and main protagonist of the game. It had a few RPG style elements as well. I remember playing the original Star Tropics briefly at one point, but I never got very far and never beat the game (another game I may need to explore again sometime.) The graphics and sound were good, controls were solid, and most of all I had a lot of fun playing the game during my session. It’s another game I would definitely return to for some extended play sessions in the future.

What’s Next?

With so many titles from then and now, what do I play next?

Hey there gaming fans! I just finished my A to Z NES series last Saturday (well, I have one blog post to go) and I’m ready to start a new project! My new series will be called “In Medias Res” which, from Latin, translates to “into the middle of things.” I studied English (Creative Writing) for my undergrad and for me this referred to a story that would toss you right into the action while filling in bits and pieces of the story along the way. My series will be somewhat similar: I’ll take a game from my library and start from my last save, starting right in the middle of things. I’ll take my time to get my bearings and continue on with the game, with the end goal of completing the chosen title. I have quite a few titles in mind, and my current Twitter poll I put out got locked in a 3-way tie between Cyberpunk, Dead Space and We Happy Few. I’m thinking of alternating games every other Saturday to mix it up a bit. I probably will focus on Dead Space since I really would like to finish that title and then move onto Cyberpunk with We Happy Few on the side. I’ll finish up the series with one of the Elder Scrolls titles I have, either Oblivion or Skyrim. It’s going to be an exciting road coming up ahead so keep it locked in for more in the coming weeks!

NES A to Z – Y: Yoshi

Yoshi was a puzzler in the same vein as Tetris and Dr. Mario. It wasn’t as good as either of those games though.

This game’s title was a bit misleading: there was hardly any Yoshi in the game! This game was a puzzle game where you sandwich various SMB enemies in between two halves of a Yoshi egg. You can also match three to make them disappear. Mario rotates plates at the bottom of the screen as the enemies drop from the top. This game wasn’t really my cup of tea. I like puzzle games but this one just didn’t do it right for me. I’d much rather sit down with a game like Tetris or Dr. Mario than Yoshi. It’s not terrible or unplayable by any means, it just didn’t have strong enough gameplay to keep me hooked. This game hasn’t aged well by the looks of it and with that being said I would put it in the lower tier of puzzlers for the NES. It just didn’t scratch that puzzler itch for me.

NES A to Z – X: Xexyz

Xexyz was a great blend of platformer and side scrolling shooter. Guess how to pronounce it.

Wow, another solid title, and one that’s hard to pronounce no less! This game was a combination of an action platformer and a side scrolling shoot em up. It was pretty fun and the gameplay was solid. The graphics and sound were on point as well. The platformer stages had many doors to enter. Some had stores, some had treasure boxes, some had minibosses to defeat to advance to the next area. There was also a simple puzzle I had to solve during my gaming session to advance to the next stage. The nice part was that an in game hint tipped me off on how to progress. While the platformer section was fun by itself, I was really impressed when the game  transitioned to the side scrolling shoot em up. Your character hops into a flying mech suit and you blast enemies side scrolling shmup style for a bit! It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it during my session. Overall I thought this game was an exciting blend of the two genres and is another one of those games I think would make a great retro reboot.