Not great, Dave!
- I got stuff to do for Lunar Week (starting on the 20th, this Sunday). I got stuff to write; I got stuff to scan; I got stuff to grab imagewise from emulators and LPs. I hate working with images. I love posting images; I love the posts that result from images; being able to put together reasonably good-looking picture-page stuff like the Phantasmagoria review or even the post on Psycho Dream is one of the joys of having this blog. Obtaining and refining images, though, has always been a problem and a pain in the neck for me. I've never been good at it, and one of the posts I want to put up for Lunar Week involves wrangling images from several sources. (Animated gifs would be more illustrative of a number of points, but that's way beyond my skillset.)
I'm using Lunar Week to get a number of Lunar-related things out the door that have been shuffling around in the vestibule for too long. And despite complaining, I have made progress, even with the imaging projects! I've scanned pages from a doujinshi, and I've also scanned the complete run of Shining Forth, the RPG zine mentioned here I loved in the 16-bit era. Of course, image cropping & processing awaits. And then the other imaging projects. And then the writing. Only some of which is done. (There were also loose ends on a long-undone Lunar translation project I wanted to tie up for Lunar Week, and, oh, man. I have been supremely irresponsible with that project to a point that makes me extremely disappointed in myself.) - I gotta play The Quarry before I get spoiled on it. I'm getting a physical copy on PS4 to avoid potential performance/response-time issues on my laptop and to have a little bit of resale security in case Supermassive pulls another wolf incident, but I have to wait for a special order to come in, as no one reputable in my area had it in stock. I'm currently watching other shows by two streamers who are playing it, and while I'm being careful to avoid chats, prestream shows, etc., I'm on Overbeck-level borrowed time. Even watching unrelated YouTube videos is getting perilous, with all the thumbnails on the side promising EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE QUARRY. The rush seems ridiculous - it's literally a few days old, and it's a miracle I've so far avoided being informed of every single development and branch in every plot beat.
- Then I gotta play the sequel to A.I.: The Somnium Files, which releases in a few days, and you can just copy everything above with the difficulties on that.
- I gotta knock out Live-a-Live before the - remake? remaster? I don't know what you'd call whatever Square does to its 16-bit titles nowadays; it's not extensive enough for the former and not enough, you know, in the positive direction for the latter - comes out. I have a couple pieces I'd like to write up and get out before the game debuts officially in the West.
- There's also something I want to write up that's time-sensitive about a professional translation in which I was involved. Lotta writing going on. Lotta playing not going on.
- As for watching: I tried watching Stranger Things, and I got all of one episode in. It wasn't because of the quality of the program; I just have limited time to watch programs with undivided attention anymore. Lots of my video watching consists of stream that can go on in the background as a supplemental diversion while I'm doing something hobby- or work-related.
- I've also spent a good deal of time collecting documentation and evidence on an Ongoing Local Problem for allegedly interested authorities. If past patterns hold, all this time expenditure will result in absolutely nothing, but I have to try. I also wanted to enjoy the May weather and flowers a bit; Maine has many problems, but it does look glorious in the two weeks of spring it gets. (That said, temperate weather has lasted a bit longer this year - all the way from May into mid-June! - so fingers crossed this continues.) I also had a sudden medical issue that for which I had to track down specialist treatment and am in line, I guess, to have examined, though my phone isn't exactly ringing off its hook. I'm in the middle of reading six books. I'm translating a Clock Tower novel and have 130 pages to go.
So, with all this, I decided to expend more time by complaining here about the state of affairs. Thank you for entertaining my first-world problems.
ETA: Now I gotta play something for work.
No! Not 1995! This is for 1994! Also, can you guess whose twenty-odd-year-old magazine lost its cover again?
Fair warning: I'm posting this mainly for completionism. (Completionism in regard to the GAMES 100 issues I have, at least, which range from '94 to '98.) There's considerably less content (for our purposes) in this issue for a few reasons. First of all, 1994 was the last time GAMES lumped board games and electronic games together into the same award categories, so the video games have only half the spotlight. This also means less wonky category fun to be had. Beyond this, there are significantly fewer pages devoted to the GAMES 100 (just seven in 1994 compared to the eleven for video games alone in 1996), and the entries for each honoree are significantly shorter. Apparently, the magazine released a standalone, sold-separately GAMES Buyer's Guide to Games in 1994, advertised in this issue as covering over 400 games, not just the Games 100 honorees. This didn't seem to have been a success, as I believe this was the only time GAMES did this; in 1995, the GAMES 100 had a lavish amount of space carved out for it in the primary publication. It does explain in part, though, why the feature seems truncated this year.
So there's not much to discuss, but let's take a look at what we have.
Please ignore my baby attempts at kanji on the side there.
Well, the last line of this post held true up till now.
After watching Gerstmann's stream, there is no way any rational person can conclude his departure was voluntary. Those leaving jobs through an orderly, respectful parting don't cobble together a Patreon the morning after their hastily-announced last day on their job while they're so choked up they can barely speak. The lockstep evasiveness of the rest of the staff about the incident; the complete corporate-speak of that utterly tone-deaf press release that completely downplayed Gerstmann's significance to the site and their very jobs and was so desperate to shove him off the stage; the fact that, again, the departure of the founder of the site and one of the most influential figures in games journalism was announced by a single tweet from the man's own account after he departed, marked by none of the honorariums given every other departing on-screen personality... I complained copiously about the state of the site after the ill-fated Red Ventures sale a year ago, and, yeah, the old guard, Gerstmann included, had very demonstrably reached the burned-out, fed-up asshole stage of "sick of your job," but throwing an industry pioneer and the father of two young kids out on his ear and practically dancing on his cleaned-out virtual desk while promoting your significantly less-talented asses was absolutely not the way to rectify matters.
And yet I see that most of the superfans have, indeed, swallowed the "lol everything's hunky-dory!" corporate PR line. Two explanations: a) an absolute lack of EQ or real-world knowledge of how workplaces function, and/or b) a total need to consume, consume, consume unquestioningly lest one betray the brand. The latter is endemic to sci-fi and fantasy fandoms, which are notorious for accepting diminishing returns and prolonging a property way past its natural end, but also has set in boiling-frog style among some Giant Bomb fans with the parade of increasingly-vital departures from the company in the past couple years. Also, for all the online railing against capitalism, people do think that corporations are their friend after a few honeyed words over social media. Not even honeyed, in this case. Sweet-'n'-Lowed.
I'm disgusted with how those still at the site have comported themselves in this travesty, and I'm glad I have better people in gaming media to support.
Memorial Day has three purposes. First, it's the unofficial start of summer. Second, it's a patriotic holiday, a sort of lite Fourth of July. Third, it commemorates the sacrifices of veterans, a tradition that has expanded to varying extents from area to area to a more general honoring of loved ones who have passed on.
I can't do cemetery visits, as everyone I knew who's gone has been cremated, but I keep a text file of brief descriptions of memories I have of departed loved ones, and for the past few Memorial Days, I've taken to setting aside an hour to look back on these memories, person by person. Time is the enemy of the mental image, and reliving these memories keeps them fresh, keeps them alive. It fortifies those defining moments, such as my dog Sarah sitting happily in the grass of a campus park beneath a white cherry tree, panting with goofy cheer in a storm of petals. It helps recall the sensory part of their presence, such as how my cat Brambles, bitten in the throat by a wild animal after being tossed on our lawn as a kitten, had to burble his way up to meowing but was always sweet and expressive enough to give several strong mews in various inquisitive tones once he got going. I remember how Grandpa Wayne, father of a family friend, always had to sneak the family dogs some food despite express prohibitions, and how Art, a mechanic by trade, helped teach me how to drive. It can even spark other memories - usually, each year, I'll add a couple in the course of the hour.It's a downright useful, accessible, and, I think, suitable ritual for the holiday that I'd recommend to anyone. This year, it even got me going through old photos. Above, not far out of puppyhood, is Sarah of the cherry blossoms and her sister, Luna, known for her on-point critiques of Lunar titles.
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