Here we are, 11/12ths of the way through 2022. I love this time of year. Honestly November and December are about the only part of the year I really love. We need to move back north so summer can once again be something I look forward to instead of dreading.
Big news for me this month is I broke down and ordered a Steam Deck. It hasn’t arrived yet; I guess it is my Christmas present to myself. I’m not even sure WHY I want one but it just got stuck in my head that it was a cool gadget I needed in my life. I haven’t really bought a ‘toy’ since the new consoles 2 years ago so I don’t feel TOO guilty about spending the money.
Last Month’s Games
Spiritfarer is still being played every once in a while. I wrote a post about why I’m more or less done with it, but I still take a poke at it every now and then.
Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below got completed: here’s a post about that.
Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris has been dropped. I haven’t been able to shake off the ill will generated in the first part of the game.
Actually a lot of games have been dropped for no particular reason other than too many games, not enough time:
Fallout 3
Yakuza 0
Destiny 2
Cyberpunk 2077
New Games This Month
Dying Light 2 wound up warranting its own post. I have a complicated relationship with this game. In fact I finally had to uninstall it because I kept finding myself playing it even though I wasn’t enjoying it much and it was making my physically ill. Uninstalling it broke the cycle and I’m FREE!
Pentiment is a nifty little narrative adventure from Obsidian. It is (so far) all just talking to other characters so it is pretty chill. I really enjoy what I’ve played but that game play loop of just reading dialog is always a struggle for me. I always think “Heck, I should just read the book.” I do want to finish it, though. There’s been a murder and it must be solved.
Gotham Knights was a Black Friday purchase and despite my best efforts I’ve only put a short time into it. I’m enjoying it, but it is such early days I don’t feel qualified to say much about it.
And just at the very tail end of the month, I let Genshin Impact back into my life. 🙂
TV
Andor was great. Rogue One is my favorite ‘modern’ Star Wars movie and I really enjoyed the darker, more serious tone that Andor shared with that movie. Can’t wait for Season 2.
Winx: The Fate Saga was bad. Granted I’m not the target audience, but I’m kind of over these shows where some young person thinks they know every, and go off and do whatever they want, and wind up being the hero.
Star Trek Voyager is still voyaging. I think it generally has gotten better (I think we’re in Season 5 now?) but not consistently so. Some episodes are real clunkers.
Currently we’re watching Wednesday, which I expected to be a rather silly show, but has turned out to be kind of a dark dramedy and we are LOVING it. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s about Wednesday Addams of The Addams Family after she’s been sent away to boarding school for non-human types. Now that I think of it, Winx is about a teenage girl sent to boarding school for non-human types as well, but the two shows are night and day in terms of quality.
Reading
Nadda. I’m back to not really doing any reading. 🙁
And that’s November. Wow, that was a short recap, eh? Hope everyone has a great holiday season and I’ll be back with December’s recap next year! Har! A dad joke to finish things off!
I was going to do a post about WINX getting a second season. I think I did mention it in another post. I should preface this by saying I really enjoyed both seasons. I like most of the characters and the dialog is often quite amusing. It is, however, utter nonsense and poorly-written nonsense at that. What’s more, it’s a ludicrous departure from the source material to the point where you wonder why they bothered to use the name at all. My post was going to be about how in hell a series like this gets renewed when so many other, hugely superior shows get cancelled. I don’t believe it was even a particularly big success in terms of viewing figures but it certainly looks cheaper to make than most fantasy shows so maybe that’s the reason.
Wednesday is great. I’m loving it. It is, however, no better than the wonderful Chilling Adventures of Sabrina so I’m a little bemused by the enormous attention it’s getting. I guess that’s down to Tim Burton’s involvement.
If you’re not already watching it, I’d highly recommend The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself although it’s a *lot* harsher than the average teen-focused fantasy show. I actually had to give it a break after half a dozen episodes because the tension was getting too much for me. I’m goibng to go back and finish it after I’m done with Wednesday.
I like harsh. I’ll check out The Bastard Son, thanks!