I've written a few posts over this year about video games. Earlier in the year it was about how Mac gaming should be better, then how new games weren't supporting Xbox One anymore, old school games, etc. I have cyclically over the years realized that it feels good to just lose yourself in a game from time to time, and that I feel generally mentally refreshed when I spend time doing that.
Recently I bought a handheld gaming PC, which wasn't even a thing two years ago. I also relented and replaced the Xbox One with an Xbox Series X. That thing had a nine-year run, which has to be a record for any console I've had, and I waited three years to get the new one. But we've had a Game Pass Ultimate subscription, which includes Xbox and PC, for several years now, and we've used it a ton. The quality of what's available, as well as some of the older back catalog, is pretty great.
As both of my readers probably know, I spend a lot of time feeling bad about not doing "impactful" or "meaningful" things. It occurs to me that I need to stop doing that. Playing games gives me a little more balance among things that I like to do, not to mention things I have to do. So this month, I decided to stop trying to force all of the other things and just let myself get lost in gaming for now. I'll organically get back to my movie, software projects and whatever when it feels right. In fact, I know that isn't even far away, because I've got the itch to publish the next forums release.
What got me started was rediscovering Dungeon Keeper 2, which holds up really well as super fun, and often challenging. On the handheld, I wanted to play through a few games before writing about it, so I went through Portal and Portal 2. I also replayed the first of the Tomb Raider reboot "Trinity" trilogy, which runs remarkably well on there. Then on the new Xbox I played through the second, and I'm now in the third (which looks really remarkable on that machine). I also scored the Jedi sequel for $30 the day after Thanksgiving, which is one of the games that does not run on the older one. If you can see a theme, there is one. I really like the stuff with a narrative and a decent story. That Tomb Raider trilogy is pretty great, and the funny thing is that I don't remember playing through them the first time. The art is stunning. The Jedi games are similarly great. Of course I've always loved the Halo series. I've knocked out other short games like Jusant. Dungeons 4 has a lineage back to Dungeon Keeper, but so far I'm not as impressed. I've also been playing the enormous Starfield, but to be honest, combat is really hard, and getting the story to move forward is slow. Not sure if I'll stick with it.
Oh, and I play a lot of crosswords from the NYT.
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