After the jingle of the bells quiets down the fresh new year is upon us. As part of the glow of the new year I always think a bit about the previous year. As part of that, it's fun to consider what things I enjoyed that bubbled to the top of the rest and since lists are fun, here we go. It's not a top 20 gaming list(as in I don't have 20 things), not sure I played that many games but a list of all the stuff I enjoyed in the book, movie, music and game space.
Feel free to drop your lists in the comments.
Andor: It seems Star Wars life is now lived as a series of Disney+ TV shows. Most of them have been fine, some have been pretty good (Obi-Wan) but one show punched out to be incredible and Andor is the show. It's a very emotional show and the way it highlights the grey area in how rebellions in space can be born is superb. If any show makes Tie fighters and Storm Troopers menacing, it deserves high praise and Andor does just that.
Storm of Swords (Audiobook): Game of Thrones is a massive cultural empire right now and I started in 2022 listening to the Audiobooks. I'm currently listening through book 3 - Storm of Swords and I finally understand why everyone is nutty for Game of Thrones. I've never seen the shows, so I can't comment, but the books as read by Roy Dotrice are next level incredible. The series starts our creating a good character in Ned Stark and shows you immediately that good people don't win with high minded and lofty morality.
FutureNever: I'm a reasonable Silverchair fan so I decided to give Daniel John's new album FutureNever a spin and I love it. I feels thematically like a later album Silverchair follow up that marches on to newer territory while looking back more than a couple times.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 13: They are officially off Netflix and hosting themselves on The Gizmoplex and I can say this is the strongest reboot season they've done yet. Doctor Mordrid, Santo and the Lost Treasure of Dracula, Munchie & The Christmas Dragon make this season one of the most eclectic mix of films yet and their riffs make them sublime. After The Christmas Dragon series finale they confirmed Season 14 and I can't wait. The idea they had to spread out the episodes and livestream them each month to fans as we chat and watch them together was an inspired choice. It turned each episode into an event and I can't wait for next years slate of incredible movie riffing!
Marvel Snap: A free to play card game that doesn't require money to win? Holy shit kids sign me up! Ever since it launched I've been playing it daily and I see no signs of slowing. I've unlocked all the base cards and the game is a bit slower to grant me new cards but I'm still having all the fun. The nice thing about free to play games are they are easy to bounce off of and this one in particular as I won't lose anything and they don't have any silly "all your cards will expire on X date for the new card set" limitations. I was initially sad the core Hearthstone developers left to do this but after playing it I honestly wish they left sooner.
Fortnite: You know, this game isn't new but I play it regularly and it's still fun and I think it's worth noting. Another free to play game that doesn't require money to win and I'm still here for it years later. Earlier this month Fortnite upgraded on my XBox with the new engine and it looks incredible on my Series X. It's fun these live games can make serous updates and don't lose any of the performance and move forward well into the future. Love you Fortnite.
Retro Game Scene: Quake, Diablo II, Doom Limited Run Games Release: I think this is more of a shotgun entry in that there were a ton of retro game re-releases that I loved. Night Dive remastered Quake which was one of the best, if not the best re-release of all time. Blizzard dropped Diablo II and I thought was was incredible and it might be on par with Quake but I felt Quake is a bit higher in that they kept the original pixel art relatively untouched and Diablo II went a fully other direction artistically.
Doom got an incredible box release with Limited Run Games and I stupidly didn't get the top of the line box which I'm still kicking myself about. I didn't think it would matter to hear the Doom music, but when my friend Will showed it to me in person I realized I made a mistake. I have a good version but my box no makey the music.... oh the woe, the misery!
Shredders Revenge: A new Turtles beat-em up that is incredible? It came and it kicks shell! For a beat-em up it's pretty lengthy but that didn't stop folks from complaining anyway (the original arcade games were shorter kids!). If the developers previous beat-em ups are an example, they will release a DLC pack that should add new content and I'm very curious what that would be? Either way, what we got is in my opinion an instant classic and something I'll always come back to with friends.
Cowabunga dude!
Feel free to drop your lists in the comments.
Andor: It seems Star Wars life is now lived as a series of Disney+ TV shows. Most of them have been fine, some have been pretty good (Obi-Wan) but one show punched out to be incredible and Andor is the show. It's a very emotional show and the way it highlights the grey area in how rebellions in space can be born is superb. If any show makes Tie fighters and Storm Troopers menacing, it deserves high praise and Andor does just that.
Storm of Swords (Audiobook): Game of Thrones is a massive cultural empire right now and I started in 2022 listening to the Audiobooks. I'm currently listening through book 3 - Storm of Swords and I finally understand why everyone is nutty for Game of Thrones. I've never seen the shows, so I can't comment, but the books as read by Roy Dotrice are next level incredible. The series starts our creating a good character in Ned Stark and shows you immediately that good people don't win with high minded and lofty morality.
FutureNever: I'm a reasonable Silverchair fan so I decided to give Daniel John's new album FutureNever a spin and I love it. I feels thematically like a later album Silverchair follow up that marches on to newer territory while looking back more than a couple times.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 13: They are officially off Netflix and hosting themselves on The Gizmoplex and I can say this is the strongest reboot season they've done yet. Doctor Mordrid, Santo and the Lost Treasure of Dracula, Munchie & The Christmas Dragon make this season one of the most eclectic mix of films yet and their riffs make them sublime. After The Christmas Dragon series finale they confirmed Season 14 and I can't wait. The idea they had to spread out the episodes and livestream them each month to fans as we chat and watch them together was an inspired choice. It turned each episode into an event and I can't wait for next years slate of incredible movie riffing!
Marvel Snap: A free to play card game that doesn't require money to win? Holy shit kids sign me up! Ever since it launched I've been playing it daily and I see no signs of slowing. I've unlocked all the base cards and the game is a bit slower to grant me new cards but I'm still having all the fun. The nice thing about free to play games are they are easy to bounce off of and this one in particular as I won't lose anything and they don't have any silly "all your cards will expire on X date for the new card set" limitations. I was initially sad the core Hearthstone developers left to do this but after playing it I honestly wish they left sooner.
Fortnite: You know, this game isn't new but I play it regularly and it's still fun and I think it's worth noting. Another free to play game that doesn't require money to win and I'm still here for it years later. Earlier this month Fortnite upgraded on my XBox with the new engine and it looks incredible on my Series X. It's fun these live games can make serous updates and don't lose any of the performance and move forward well into the future. Love you Fortnite.
Retro Game Scene: Quake, Diablo II, Doom Limited Run Games Release: I think this is more of a shotgun entry in that there were a ton of retro game re-releases that I loved. Night Dive remastered Quake which was one of the best, if not the best re-release of all time. Blizzard dropped Diablo II and I thought was was incredible and it might be on par with Quake but I felt Quake is a bit higher in that they kept the original pixel art relatively untouched and Diablo II went a fully other direction artistically.
Doom got an incredible box release with Limited Run Games and I stupidly didn't get the top of the line box which I'm still kicking myself about. I didn't think it would matter to hear the Doom music, but when my friend Will showed it to me in person I realized I made a mistake. I have a good version but my box no makey the music.... oh the woe, the misery!
Shredders Revenge: A new Turtles beat-em up that is incredible? It came and it kicks shell! For a beat-em up it's pretty lengthy but that didn't stop folks from complaining anyway (the original arcade games were shorter kids!). If the developers previous beat-em ups are an example, they will release a DLC pack that should add new content and I'm very curious what that would be? Either way, what we got is in my opinion an instant classic and something I'll always come back to with friends.
Cowabunga dude!
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Andor was difficult for me to get into at first and maybe even for a while, but I ultimately enjoyed it. Disney+ is in my Top pick-a-number. I very much enjoyed the shows this year like Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Obi-Wan, and She-Hulk.
Shredder's Revenge is cool pretty much. I got through it rather quickly on the easy level and kind of got tired of it just as quickly, having gone through it with all the characters.
This post reminded me of something really interesting Steam alerted me to via email, my 2022 Steam Replay. It let me know which games I've played this year, when, and other details. You can check mine out here: https://store.steampowered.com/replay/76561198048899188/2022?l=english
> Shredder's Revenge is cool pretty much. I got through it rather quickly on the easy level and kind of got tired of it just as quickly, having gone through it with all the characters.
Yep, it's a quick game. I like that it's fun to play with friends over again.