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Sunday, April 27, 2025

Weekly Update #17: 😔

April 20-26, 2025

Yep, three weeks in a row with no gaming. On top of the computer setup, I also had some car troubles last week that took up a decent chunk of my time. Not to worry though! The problems were finally fixed on Friday, and I’m going to be redeeming my weeklong Game Pass trial shortly. That means I should finally get a full week of gaming in to break up the streak.

Game Acquisitions



A small selection of acquisitions last week, but all once again free. Animal Rescuer and Starseed were won in Reddit giveaways, Alessia’s Dollhouse is a free short-form horror game from IndieGala, Thief is yet another Prime Gaming giveaway, and The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood was purchased by someone in my Steam family which gives me access to it. That one looks the most intriguing in my opinion.

# of Games: 5

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Shadow and Bone Season 2 Episodes 6-8 (completed)

·       Black Mirror Season 7 Episodes 1-3 (still watching, not currently canceled or renewed)

·       Red vs. Blue: Restoration

·       Planet of the Apes

I liked how Shadow and Bone finally came together by the end. Characters that seemed irrelevant were finally integrated into the plot while others were more fleshed out. The ending was good but not fantastic. It unfortunately ended on a cliffhanger which will now never be resolved which is a shame. I feel like this world could have a lot more stories to tell. Black Mirror is just as terrifying and poignant as usual. Definitely not a feel good show, so do not watch it unless you’re in the mood. Red vs. Blue: Restoration officially marks the end of my Rooster Teeth backlog. It came out last year and was the conclusion of a long-running web series that started way back in 2003. Rooster Teeth was recently bought back by one of the original founders so we’ll see if any more comes out of it. It had been too long for me to remember a lot of the references, but it was still somewhat enjoyable for what it was. Planet of the Apes was a first watch for me, although I already knew the twist ending. I think it lives up to its reputation as one of the best sci fi films of the era. I’m not planning on watching the rest of the originals as I haven’t heard great things, but I will be watching all the modern movies next. I’m really looking forward to those.

Conclusion/Upcoming

It’s officially been over a month since I last played a single-player game. Where is the time going!? It’s crazy how busy I’ve been lately. I want to make the most of the Game Pass trial so I’m probably going to postpone my monthly post for April until after the trial is complete so I can get as much time in as possible. As mentioned, I’ll be continuing Black Mirror and Planet of the Apes with Rise this week. If I finish Black Mirror, I think I’ll move on to Arcane next. My plan with Game Pass is to play both Turnip Boy games, ‘Little Kitty, Big City’, and Mullet Madjack. If I still have time left over, I’ll try to play either Road 96 or Donut County. It should be an exciting week. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,196 (+6)

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Weekly Update #16: Still No Gaming😬

April 13-19, 2025

Yikes, another week like this and I might have to hand over my gamer license! In all seriousness, I’ve still been too busy with work and setting up the new PC to actually play anything. I’ll get back to it eventually, obviously, but I want to make sure everything works perfectly before I get back into the swing of things. I did still watch stuff though, and I even purchased a video game!

Game Acquisitions



Wavetale was on sale at Humble Bundle for a measly 89¢ + tax so I snatched that up. I’ve never heard of it but the previous low was $2.99 so it was probably a pricing error and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Looks like a solid game too! The others were mostly Amazon Prime giveaways, they’ve really been on a roll with those lately.

# of Games: 8

Total Money Spent: $0.96

Price/Game: $0.12

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episode 9 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       Shadow and Bone Season 1 Episode 8-Season 2 Episode 5 (still watching, show ended)

·       Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Nearing the end of Shadow and Bone, only three episodes left! This is a pretty good show, I recommend it to anyone who enjoys more grounded dark fantasy. The stakes don’t feel as “real” as something like Snowpiercer so I’m finding it more difficult to get into the story and characters but it’s still fun for what it is. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was just simply a dumb movie, but I knew it would be going in so I wasn’t too bothered by that. It was clearly made for kids and die-hard Sonic fans of which I don’t fall into either group. I still recommend it for fans of the previous movies as it had some funny moments, just don’t go in expecting quality cinema.

Conclusion/Upcoming

So yeah, another short post due to two weeks of no gaming. I’m currently working on setting up all my emulators in Playnite and it’s going slower than I expected. Right now I’ve got Bluestacks (Android), Cemu (Wii U), Citra (3DS), DeSmuME (DS), Duckstation (PS1), and Dolphin (Gamecube and Wii) set up. I still need to work on PCSX2 (PS2), PPSSPP (PSP), Project64 (N64), RPCS3 (PS3), Ryujinx (Switch), SNES9X (SNES), Visual Boy Advance (Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance), and Vita3K (Vita). I’d like to say it shouldn’t take all week but I’d probably be lying to myself. If I do finally get it all set up, I need to work on streaming games from my old PC to my current PC next. This will allow me to continue Torment: Tides of Numenera as well as play 32-bit PhysX games which my GPU doesn’t support. This will almost certainly take all week so unless my friend and I hang out and play Tales of Phantasia this week, I’ll have three updates in a row with no games played. I have to claim my weeklong Game Pass trial by the 29th so I’ll definitely be playing games by then.

The movie/TV front is looking a little more exciting. I’ll probably finish up Shadow and Bone this week, and then I have a ton of shows to pick from! Right now the frontrunners are Arcane, Black Mirror, Daredevil: Born Again, Raised by Wolves, and Tales from the Loop. I’m thinking Black Mirror right now, it should be a short six-episode watch. I’ll be starting the Planet of the Apes movie franchise next. My plan is to watch the original, skip all the other older movies including the failed reboot, then watch the current reboot quadrilogy (Rise, Dawn, War, and Kingdom). I’ll be set for the next month with those. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,190 (+3)

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Weekly Update #15: No Gaming ☹

April 6-12, 2025

Welp, it’s finally happened. For the first time since starting my weekly blog, I didn’t get any game time in. I’ve been messing with Photoshop for the first time to make YouTube thumbnails for my upcoming Game Pass game playthroughs and didn’t have time for anything else. I think they came out alright, hopefully you’ll get to see them in a couple weeks. This will be a shorter update as a result, but I still wanted to get something out there for you to read.

Game Acquisitions



Despite not playing anything, I still added another five games to my list. Totally free, as that usually seems to be the case so far this year. River City Girls is the most well-known of the bunch. I’m not really a beat-em-up fan, but I also haven’t played all the way through one before so perhaps I haven’t given the genre a fair shake. Plus this one is co-op and everything is more fun with friends.

# of Games: 5

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Shadow and Bone Season 1 Episodes 2-7

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episode 8

·       Moana 2

Looks like not much was watched either. I’m enjoying Shadow and Bone so far. Seeing the different magical abilities people have is cool. I’m curious what direction the show’s going to take after what happened in the most recent episode. I will say that it does feel smaller of a show than I was expecting. For some reason I was picturing some grand fantasy epic like LOTR and instead it’s just the interesting exploits of a small core group of mostly ordinary people. I’m not complaining, I just need to adjust my expectations. Moana 2 was, as expected, not as good as the first movie. It was OK, but not really mindblowing. The character I thought was the villain didn't really do anything at all, and the best song in the movie took lines from a song in the first movie to try and be just as good. The movie was not all that memorable and I likely will not be returning to it until Moana 3 comes out (we know it's gonna happen).

Conclusion/Upcoming

I’m going to be spending the next few days probably in Photoshop, then hopefully getting back to setting up Playnite on my new computer. I’ve only had one gaming session since finishing the build a couple weeks ago which is not great. I don’t expect to finish setting everything up this week but if I do, I’ll be playing both Turnip Boy games. Even if I don’t get everything set up, my friend and I may still get another Tales of Phantasia session in. It’s slowly starting to get interesting! I’ll be watching Shadow and Bone all week so no new shows there. I did switch up my upcoming movie list a bit. The next movie on my list is going to be Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The first two were OK video game adaptations with some funny moments and I’m sure the third installment will be more of the same. I do like Keanu Reeves though so that might help. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,187 (+4)

Weekly Update #17: 😔

April 20-26, 2025 Yep, three weeks in a row with no gaming. On top of the computer setup, I also had some car troubles last week that to...