My favorite DS game by far was Lock’s Quest. It was the first game that got me genuinely emotional, I had tears in my eyes during the ending. I remember initially being disappointed, as kid me wanted a strategy game, not something where I still had to run around and repair stuff in real time. But my god, my opinion changed quickly and both the gameplay and the story captured my fully. The music was just the icing on the cake.

My most played game by far was Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades. Shredding Can’t Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while sitting in a restaurant with my parents is one of my favorite memories of that time (with headphones of course). I believe this game single-handedly formed most of my music interests for my teenage years.

Finally, I have to mention Bionicle Heroes. I am a massive Bionicle fan (and currently rediscovering it through finally reading the books). This game is by no means a masterpiece, but it is a surprisingly fun first person shooter with great controls and decent graphics for the time. I adored it because my parents were very strict and didn’t let me play realistic shooters, but this way I could get my fps fix and play in the world of Bionicle at the same time!

My device was a Nintendo DS Lite, White with flame stickers that came with the Guitar Hero game. I loved that machine to bits.

What a fantastic piece of witty satire! Thanks for sharing :).

I’ve never played these games. It all just feels extremely overwhelming with the large amount of menus and systems. I’m also unable to focus on long games (I also have issues with long open world games like Breath of the Wild for example), so that is another thing that pushes me away. But the idea of a cosy grind while listening to podcasts does interest me.

However, I have seen the film: an absolute masterpiece in the “bad film genre”. Just beautifully brainless action, similar to the amazing Resident Evil films of the same creator.

Thanks for this write-up! It was a very interesting read and actually makes me want to try out the series now (especially P3 and p4).

Love that piece of sountrack you shared! Such a nice and melancholic melody!

I have the remake (The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition) in my Steam backlog. I’ve been meaning to play it for a while, but it seems like a game that will require my full focus to not forget the story / puzzles. Once some of the games I’m currently playing are finished, I might give it a go. Also seems like a fun game to play during the winter times, so maybe I’ll get around to it in a few months.

I absolutely love this retrospective video about the series by youtuber Ahoy: RetroAhoy: The Secret of Monkey Island. I highly recommend it!

What are you trying to achieve here, “triggering” people? It just registers as infantile to me.

My favorite is honestly my PS5. The load times are fantastic and I love the feel of the controller and the rumble / adaptive triggers. I also fucking loved my PS Vita, to bad it had such a mediocre run games wise.

Worst is pretty harsh, as I have loved all my consoles. But there’s no denying that the PSP was a bit garbage with its single analog stick (which was also very hard to use).

Also, I made the picture for this post myself from the different Wikipedia entries using GIMP. It was quite a headache 😅.

I personally have almost zero experience with this generation, though I realize it’s historic value. So many great game franchise originated here: Super Mario, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Zelda, Metal Gear, Mega Man, Mother…

I’ll give a shout-out to Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, which I got to know by watching a YouTube video on the world record history for this game. I then played some of it myself on my Switch and was actually quite impressed with the almost puzzle like gameplay!

I also played Super Mario Bros. While I respect it for being the first, I thought it was quite ridiculous at times (the way to progress in the final world was so stupid).

Still have to sink my teeth in the others!

Metal Gear Solid is one of my favorite games of all time, followed closely by 2 and 3. It really is an incredibly timeless piece of art in my opinion, just filled to the brim with incredible moments.

What is Shasta?

Haha I’m glad the links are being used, I included them for exactly that reason!

Slay the Spire is one of my favorite games of all time, so good choice if you decide to take the plunge!

Haha how did you end up here after all those months?

Age of empires II is one of my first experiences as a child playing games. I used to play it on a computer in the back of my mother’s pharmacy. A friend of mine was a huge fan, but I truly sucked at it.

Later I bought Lord of the Rings: the Battle for Middle Earth II, and to this date this is the only RTS that I actually enjoy playing a lot (I later also played the first one which is also amazing).

Still, I played Age of Empires II a lot, mostly the tutorial levels and the early missions of Jeanne d’Arc. I think the micromanaging and constantly having to do multiple things at once (like constantly making new units, etc.) were to much for me (and it still is). Still, a classic in gaming history and a part of my childhood!

That is the last level I still have to beat. Every o once in a while I’ll play it with a friend for a few hours, I’m sure we’ll make it one day!

I am a late fan of this series. I used to have a Gameboy color as my first gaming device, but never actually sat down to play a Mario game fully until Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch. I really liked it, but it wasn’t a 10/10 for me like for other people.

For me the unexpected match came in the form of Super Mario 3D World. Something about the simplicity of the level design (short levels with 3 collectibles each) combined with the amazing coop make this an all time favorite game of mine. I also adore the music and general tone and creativity. It really had an almost therapeutic effect on me, I’ve seen more immediate effect on my mood than any of the anti depressants I’ve tried :D.

I have Wonder but it’s a bit to strange at times for my tastes (even though it is incredibly creative it isn’t as relaxing as 3D World was for me)

It’s been a while, but here is another “Let’s discuss” post! I hope everybody is doing fine and these posts are still appreciated :).

I haven’t played this myself, but I know so many people who are extremely passionate about it that it felt like a good candidate! Looking forward to all of your musings!

I think the issue is not wether it’s sentient or not, it’s how much agency you give it to control stuff.

Even before the AI craze this was an issue. Imagine if you were to create an automatic turret that kills living beings on sight, you would have to make sure you add a kill switch or you yourself wouldn’t be able to turn it off anymore without getting shot.

The scary part is that the more complex and adaptive these systems become, the more difficult it can be to stop them once they are in autonomous mode. I think large language models are just another step in that complexity.

An atomic bomb doesn’t pass a Turing test, but it’s a fucking scary thing nonetheless.

I thoroughly enjoyed that! I’d read your blog!