Yes, PokéMondays is back. And so am I. If anything, I’m consistently inconsistent.
Today, I can happily report a long time hunt finally coming to a close. This one I didn’t keep track of the number of times I soft-reset the game. But it was a lot. I actually started this hunt a while ago. Not sure exactly when, but I know it was before Thanksgiving 2024. If I had to guess I’d say it was around 10k resets. It took so long I thought I somehow broke the game or corrupted the save file that would prevent it from ever appearing shiny. Then one night about two weeks ago while watching the original How To Train Your Dragon movie*, it finally popped. I had to pause the movie so I can drink in the moment.
The above is the encounter. Here it is after capture:
Here it is in storage:
And here is its summary:
It’s so beautiful! And I had to use the Master Ball, natch. ‘Cause a color-matching Pokéball is the best Pokéball. I’ll eventually transfer it to Pokémon Home via Pokémon Bank. But I first need to get me a Shiny Shaymin.
—
* – We wanted to watch it before seeing the live-action remake. If you haven’t seen the either one, it doesn’t matter if you see the original. The remake is like 99% shot-for-shot which is good and bad at the same time. Good because the original was a good movie, why change anything and risk making it worse? Bad because if you’ve seen the original there’s little reason to see the remake. On that note, I will say that the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut seemed to be missing a certain chemistry in the remake. I found them to be more enjoyable in the original.
Some spoilers ahead. Also, this post is going to talk about mental health and social issues that may be triggering for some people. It said so on its initial splash screen with a trigger warning:
So be forewarned that if you are sensitive to any of those topics mentioned in the screenshot, it may not be a good idea to read this post!
I didn’t know what kind of game Silent Hill: The Short Message was when I started it up. It was free on the PlayStation Store and bears the same name as a pretty popular franchise. I am only vaguely familiar with the original Silent Hill games that came out on the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 but I was looking for something easy to play in bed on my PS Portal to wind down the evening with. This was probably the worst game to do that with.
Look at the gorgeous lighting
Let me just say first the positives in that the game looks and sounds really good. The presentation and production value was top notch. And it was short, living up to its name. There’s only three Chapters to play through, and they’re all structured mostly the same.
You play as Anita trying to figure out what happened to her friend Maya and why you’re in the situation you’re in. You wander around an abandoned apartment complex known for graffiti and being a hotspot for teen suicide. After some flashbacks and clues you pick up from the environment, you end up being chased by a monster and you’re only escape is to find the right exit. Make a bad turn or open the wrong door, you end up in a loop until you make the correct choice. There’s no fighting or hiding, just running and opening doors. And if you’re caught by the monster you start the chase all over again.
I think most everyone has at some point freaked themselves out by imagining that someone or something is chasing you. If you’ve seen a slasher film, then the feeling is the same. If you’ve really been chased by someone in real life, my heart goes out to you. But the underlying feeling in all those scenarios is anxiety. When the monster is getting closer, the sound it makes is louder adding to the feeling of dread and panic. And it’s not easy to get rid of that anxiety either. The only way is to make a successful escape. There’s no attacking, no mashing of buttons, nothing. Once you escape you just have to let the feelings of anxiety naturally diminish. That’s not easy for some people.
This formula is the same for the first two chapters. Chapter 3 is where they add a slight twist to the chase sequence where in addition to running around, you have to find a total of five pictures in order to unlock two doors to escape the monster. The frustrating part of it is that not once during the game did it mention that you had to do this new task. I ended up finding a YouTube video (this one to be exact) to help me navigate and figure out what the heck I had to do. I’m sure with enough tries I might have clued in on the action icons above the photographs but they are easy to miss during the constant frantic running away that you have to do. It seems pointless too, you don’t have even a second to examine the picture because the monster is still chasing you.
And that right there should be an indication of my enthusiasm of the game. I pride myself on being able to figure out puzzles, beat bosses, and progress in a game without having to look up any help from the internet (case in point). But the final chase sequence was so frustrating I gave up. At that point in the game, I wasn’t vested at all and just wanted to get it over with. Once I look something up? I’m not having fun and I’ve given up. Very few games made me feel that way. With Silent Hill: The Short Message I was already done before Chapter 1 ended.
The parts of the games story that necessitated the trigger warning seemed a bit extreme, almost cliché-like. I can’t say for sure because I’m fortunate enough to never had to personally deal with those kinds of issues. That’s just what my gut tells me. There is no doubt that these are real topics, so for anyone who is currently or has in the past gone through those experiences playing this game may not be a great idea, hence the trigger warning. But if the game’s plot around those themes isn’t used to teach then why make this game? I get that not every game needs to be a teaching moment but it seems like it’s a missed opportunity to address really important issues. There are a lot of games that tackle mental health head on, Celeste and Omori come to mind, and those games are fun to play and you learn something. There’s a redemption arc in those games. Silent Hill: The Short Message offers none of that.
I’ve been in a dark place myself, as I’m sure a lot of us have been. Don’t worry about me though, me playing this game right now given my recent struggles is merely a coincidence and not a sign. Mental health is no joke and I feel like the way the game used it as a plot mechanism, felt wrong and a little gross. If that was the intent of the game designers then in that regard they did well. I just don’t think the end product is worth anyone’s time.
tl;dr version: This is not a good game. There’s nothing fun about it, no redeeming qualities, and the mental health topics weren’t handled very well in my opinion. I am still looking forward to playing Silent Hill 2 remake though, and Silent Hill f looks promising as well. I just hope those games have a better story.
Just like the trigger warning in the game, I’ll end this post like this with the same message:
This post talks about depictions of suicide, self-harm, abuse, trauma and bullying that some people may find distressing.
The author does not intend whatsoever to encourage or make light of self-harm and suicide.
If you feel that you are at risk of suicide or self-harm, please seek medical and/or professional advice, treatment, and/or support from experts in the field of suicide and self-harm prevention.
If you need immediate assistance, please contact a local hotline or hospital.
If you notice someone around you who appears to be struggling, try talking to them.
One brave step can save lives.
US 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline:
Tel: 988 URL: https://988lifeline.org/
International resource for local crisis support lines:
https://www.konami.com/games/silenthill/help/
And giving LEGO a run for its money. I mean just look at that gorgeous Acura NSX set. Here’s a picture of the set’s namesake, the first generation NSX:
No one can deny how close the set replicates the original. Honestly, I kind of doubt LEGO could do anything that looks as good or even comes close. Let’s do some comparisons shall we?
If we go by piece count, this mid-range set includes 876 pieces. My first instinct was to check out something from LEGO Speed Champions theme, but sets with similar pieces counts are geared more for play than display, and you get two cars in one set instead of one large set. So then I checked out the Technic line which foregoes the traditional bricks and System elements for more complex Technic elements. And to try and keep this as fair as possible, let’s compare Japanese import to Japanese import. I present to you, the 810-piece Toyota Supra MK IV from the Fast and the Furious franchise:
One does not look like the other. Well, maybe if you squint your eyes and stare at the sun for a bit (I’m kidding, don’t stare at the sun).
Okay maybe you’re thinking to yourself this is not a fair comparison. The LEGO set should be a System set, and not a Technic one. Fine. To do that kind of comparison I poked around and the best set I can compare Mattel’s NSX to was the Creator Expert 10271 Fiat 500 from 2020. It’s not a JDM import but close in terms of piece count weighing in at 960 pieces:
So in this sense, LEGO can hold its own but the Creator Expert line is somewhat dead for car sets. They are released under LEGO Icons now and the cheapest car sets from that theme are a pair of $80 F1 race cars. The majority of the cars that look realistic are priced well above $150.
Did I mention the NSX set is only $50? And that they come with metal parts? There are swappable metal wheel covers, a metal name plate, and a die-cast NSX. There’s also a decal sheet and you can switch between right-hand and left-hand drive configurations. They tout this feature is differentiating between Honda and Acura versions of the car, but it doesn’t seem to include any Honda badges which is a bit of an oversight. There’s also extra parts to turn your NSX into a pace car.
This picture makes me want to get four sets. One for each model, one to keep in package, and one for just in case.
Now the only other point of comparison to make is the quality of the bricks. MEGA, bought by Mattel back in 2014, was an inferior product back in the day. I never bought any but it’s been known to have serious quality control issues with clutch power, element tolerances, and color consistency. Have things improved since then? I honestly don’t know but I’m willing to risk $50 bucks for a display piece of one of my dream cars.
The Mattel Brick Shop Hot Wheels sets come in three price points: $20 for a Maserati MC20 or a Cadillac Project GTP Hypercar, $50 for an Acura NSX or a Corvette Grand Sport, and $120 for a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. Unfortunately the entire line is sold out right now at Mattel’s site. You can pre-order the Corvette and the Cadillac over at Amazon. Click through those affiliate links and help me get rich!
These sets look great, and Mattel is honestly giving LEGO some real competition. Even the higher priced set, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, seems on par with LEGO’s higher priced sets in terms of accuracy and features. But with real metal parts, something LEGO has never done, they stand on their own. You can check out the full line over at Mattel.com
I’d be lying if I said that thought never crossed my mind. But nah, I’ll pass. True, the site isn’t what it used to be. I won’t deny that but neither am I. One thing that has never changed is that this site is basically just an outlet for us to put our thoughts on paper. What’s changed is that the focus has broadened to more than a single theme of LEGO Star Wars to things that interest us or whatever else is banging around inside our heads.
In this day and age, with social media being what it is, I relish the fact that we can provide a written word or two. I noticed the trend moving towards short form video and doom scroll behavior and purposefully avoided it. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I actually enjoy writing and reading the written words of my fellow staff members. Writing is a skill I never really tried to get better at while I was in school and realized too late in life just how important it is. And now with the advent of Chat GPT, I feel like a lot of people will lose that skill. I’ll never use any AI tools for my writing. I’d rather struggle and put out my own voice than rely on a machine to do it for me.
Oh, one more thing: HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHHAHAHA!
I remember when amiibo first came out, they were so hard to find. The demand was crazy and the price wasn’t unreasonable for what you got: a well-sculpted figure that had an NFC chip. It was Nintendo’s entry into the then-crowded toys to life genre but rather than build an entire game around the toys, Nintendo did what Nintendo does and did their own interpretation of the concept. They instead made their toys game-agnostic so that they could potentially work across multiple games. Plus, they weren’t central to the gaming experience. Where by now we’ve seen toys to life games shuttered and nothing but a distant memory (Skylanders, LEGO Dimensions, Disney Infinity), amiibo is still going strong with Nintendo continuing to release new figures and new themes.
When amiibo debuted, the price per figure was $12.99 with 3-packs logically priced at $35.99. That was about 11 years ago back in 2014. More recently, MSRP rose to $15.99 when the Legend of Zelda series came out in 2017. I still found that price to be reasonable given inflation and the rising cost of goods. You get neat in-game features depending on which amiibo you’re using on a particular game and the whole experience was meant to be just fun little bonuses or making your game settings portable and convenient.
But now, they have skyrocketed to a whopping $29.99 for the new Tears of the Kingdom amiibo of the four sages. That is nearly double the previous MSRP. The price hike is most likely due to the stupid tariff situation. This report at ComicBook.com details the original price of the new TotK amiibo going up from $19.99 to $29.99*. At $19.99 I could have accepted it as a natural rise in the cost of goods, but at $29.99 it’s laughable and an easy pass. Because what’s the value that you’re getting out of them? A 4-inch tall, non-poseable figure? Some random in-game items, a chance for a paraglider fabric and maybe a weapon? A portable save file for your settings? (This price hike only affects the new amiibo; the ones that are currently available are unaffected)
While those are nice-to-have, none of them are must-have and even if they were, would they justify the $29.99 price tag? Not really. You can get a whole set of Zelda NFC cards off of eBay for about the same price or less, or make your own for even cheaper. I’m not suggesting you go and buy such a set; it’s not something I would do personally but given a choice between the two in these uncertain economic times, if I had a meager budget I know which choice I would most likely make. Especially considering how much more expensive everything related to the Switch 2 is going to be now.
And it seems the general Nintendo fan feels the same. Newly release amiibo would sell out quickly and the unlucky ones would have to wait weeks and months before being to find them online or on store shelves at MSRP without resorting to scalper prices. But as I write this all of the new amiibo that were announced alongside the Switch 2 are still available for preorder. That $29.99 price might be past the tipping point of what fans are willing to pay.
This price hike may seem insignificant especially if you were not an amiibo collector before, but it serves as a microcosm of just how stupid the tariffs are and they’re impact. If nobody buys them at the higher price, they’ll hit a sale or a clearance price eventually making it more affordable to get. But Nintendo might look at the low sales figures and think that amiibo are not worth making anymore because people weren’t buying enough of them.
Job or no job the price of these things are ridiculous. It is unpredictable if the tariffs will be lifted. And if that happens it doesn’t necessarily mean the prices of these things will go down to normal level. Which, if that ComicBook.com article is to be believed would have been $19.99. I understand things can’t always stay cheap forever. A gallon of gas is longer under a buck, a comic book can’t be found for .75 cents, and a pack of gum is no longer a quarter. Prices rise for everything. amiibo would have eventually hit $29.99 and still seem affordable and reasonable, but we are not there yet. I like my amiibo collection, but I’m going to have to wait a while to get any new ones.
* The Street Fighter 6 amiibo is a whole other level of crazy stupid. That ComicBook.com report says that the original intended MSRP was $29.99 but now they are listed as $39.99. Is the extra ten bucks a Capcom tax that players have to pay? Thankfully, you can buy the Street Fighter 6 22-card amiibo set featuring all the Year 1 characters for the same cost as a single figure, $39.99.
I think most shiny hunters would tell you that the smart way to go about this hunt is the Masuda Method but I can’t think of anything more painful than hatching eggs in the Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon games. The reason why egg hatching would be recommended over SOS battles is because of Dhelmise’s low call rate of 3. That is frustratingly low simply because it doesn’t call for backup very often, and when it does, there’s a low chance that help would arrive. I mean, 3 is not zero, but I’ve done SOS hunting with Pokémon who have a call rate of 6 and that was way more tolerable than this hunt. Still I tried and failed a couple of times. I’ve accidentally fainted it twice and one time it ran out of moves before being able to harvest a Leppa Berry in time. By my fourth attempt and after weeks of trying, it finally popped after 52 SOS calls. In total, maybe 350 to 400 calls. I’d be lying if I only went with the 52 call number ’cause I am not that lucky.
Of course the only logical ball to try and catch it in would be a Premier Ball:
Shiny Dhelmise 178/393
I only had 3 in my inventory but it was all I needed!
I used Shiny Weavile because it had the ability Pressure and moves that were super effective against Dhelmise, both of which slightly increases the chances that a SOS call would be successful. My Weavile was low level when I started, so I used Sylveon at the start for Sand Attack and beefed up Weavile with X-Special Defense, X-Defense and Speed potions. Then I purposefully tried to get a Dhelmise lower than level 18 because at that level it knows Metal Sound which lowers a Pokémons Special Defense. All the prep work made it extra satisfying to catch, especially in my last Premier Ball. It was such a rush.
I had my first ever nervous breakdown last week, a morbid life milestone checked off of a bucket list I never wanted. I’ve been stressed, beyond stressed. Job hunting these days is fill of pit falls and landmines where it seems 1 out of every 10 or 15 recruiters is legitimate. I’ve been out of work since last October. I had a very short stint as a contractor earlier this year from mid-January to mid-April but unfortunately the phase of the project I was brought in on ended and the client wanted to re-allocate their budgeted hours to other resources they felt they needed. So my contract ended and here i am stressing out about my family’s income.
A couple of things I learned while under this duress is that the anxiety and stress is paralyzing. Just trying to remedy one bad situation is exhausting enough but pile on family responsibilities and unforeseen issues made a bad situation worse. I thought 2024 was bad with the wife getting and being treated for breast cancer and the loss of my job, but man 2025 is giving last year a run for its money let me tell you. For anyone reading this that has lived a couple of decades you know that life happens in phases: school, weddings, babies/pets, and then sickness and death. The people older than you and even those around you start dying. My aunt-in-law suffers from dementia that came on rather suddenly. My uncle-in-law soon after she came down with it and he might have been the closest person I had to a father figure. he took care of my wife and her family when her dad passed away at a young age. it happened so suddenly. Life sucks.
I’ve had a couple of interviews, but I don’t do well in them. I get nervous and freeze up and my brain stops working so when a technical question comes my way I stumble through my words. I got rejected for a job I kinda didn’t want. It was east coast hours (I’m on the west) and the pay cut I would have taken would have been drastic, but I still felt the sting of it. I shouldn’t have been too bothered to be passed up for consideration but it would have been nice to turn it down on my own terms instead of being rejected for a perceived lack of skill. I don’t blame them though. I have a couple more interviews so I’m not completely without hope. But man the anxiety…
And then dealing with trying to get my own healthcare hasn’t been easy. All of that culminated late last week and I had my breakdown. I’m exhausted but still trying to stay positive and hope that i can find gainful employment soon. I posted once or twice earlier this year; or was it late last year? I can’t remember but I had every intention of posting regularly. I had to get this off my chest and I apologize if this is not the kind of thing you expect to see on here. Or maybe it is I don’t know anymore. I try not to follow any preset notion of what should or shouldn’t be on this page anymore, just what feels right. But I had to get this off my chest and writing it down seemed to be the best idea. I’m not into journaling so this is the next best thing. Now that the panic attack has passed, I feel like I can try this blogging thing again.
The image used in this post seemed like a natural fit. It was lifted from this NPR article about its origins and the artist, KC Green. I was originally going to use this AI generated image below, because it too felt apt.
To quote Lester Holt, Take care of yourselves and each other. Mental health is so important. I am actually looking forward to getting back into the swing of things now that I have some time.
To the person who reached out to me the last time I wrote a post like this, I may not have responded but your note meant a lot.
Nintendo revealed an announcement trailer for their next generation console, the Switch’s successor, called the Switch 2. And of course, I have reactions. But first, in case you haven’t watched the trailer, you can see it right here:
First off, the name, Switch 2, I think they missed an opportunity to use the Super adjective and call it the Super Switch. Perhaps this is the beginning of numbered console generations for Nintendo as they’ve never had a numbered successor in the past. Will we see a Switch 3 in another eight or nine years? We’ll have to wait until my last kid graduates high school to see.
It doesn’t look fundamentally different. It has two removable joy-cons that are magnetically attached to a screen, and a dock to charge and output the display to a TV. Gone are the brightly colored blue and red joy-cons and instead we get basic black that matches the rest of the console. The only indication of color is the recessed area around the thumbsticks. We’ve seen what Nintendo can do with special edition units so I can’t imagine they’ll change that approach for the Switch 2.
Everything is larger too. The screen and joy-cons seem like they will be much more comfortable and easier to use. The screen also boasts a USB-C port on the top which is a welcome addition for tabletop play. For the current Switch you had to use a special kickstand adapter in order to keep your Switch plugged in in tabletop mode.
And speaking of kickstand, this is what the new one looks like on the Switch 2:
It seems flimsy and a major step back from the OLED’s full-width half-panel kickstand. The original Switch’s kickstand was a complete joke, this one is a step up from that one but a downgrade from the OLED version.
Not gonna lie, the Switch 2 is giving off some Wii U vibes. The Wii U failed because people couldn’t really tell what the differences were between it and the original Wii despite the Wii U having a giant screen controller. Gamers knew but even that wasn’t enough. The Switch 2 looks so similar to the original, kids asking their parents for the upgrade will be hard pressed to justify it.
The reveal trailer also showed what I can only assume is Mario Kart 9. There weren’t any announcements for launch games and there plenty of rumors floating about, I have my own wishlist of launch titles but I think to really drive sales of the Switch 2, Nintendo has to come out swinging with Switch 2-only games. When Breath of the Wild came out, it was available for both Wii U and Switch and that might have been to placate Wii U owners as an apology for investing in a failed console more than anything. At least that’s my theory. The launch titles need to be absolute bangers to really drive sales. I’ve long held a theory in my head that Metroid Prime 4 would be a Switch 2 launch title, and that may still be true. I can’t imaging it being released for both.
Other than the Switch 2-only must-have launch titles, the hardware specs need have a serious upgrade over the Switch. Developers need a reason to make games for the Switch 2 that they just can’t do on the Switch. Nintendo fans have always held their ground that graphics don’t matter as much and it’s all about gameplay. It also helped that Nintendo has managed to create some gorgeous looking games despite their hardware limitations compared to other consoles. But I think its time now that Nintendo catches up.
Anyways, that’s all I got for now. Obviously, we’ll have more commentary once more details are officially revealed. Don’t believe any of the rumors out there. You’ll just set yourself up for disappointment.
What a crazy, whirlwind year! For those of you who’ve stuck around through 12 months of very few posts…thank you. I can’t speak for Ace or Nick, but FBTB is an important site for me and really informed my earliest brushes with LEGO and video game fandom. I’m grateful to you all, even if this is your first time here.
What have I been up to? Well, this and that. My life is in a complete different place than it was a year ago. I left my job and started a new career. Fell in love. Moved apartments. Learned guitar. Bought a car. 2024 has been a monumental year for me and my personal growth. It’s been hard, but hard is good. Hard makes diamonds.
But: my media consumption has dropped. Gone are the days I could spend hours playing video games. My list of movies to watch is ever-growing. I haven’t watched any long-form TV this year. But from what little I have consumed, there are some real gems.
⋅ 10333 BARAD-DÛR ⋅
I am sure that somewhere on this site is an article of me bemoaning missing out on the original wave of Lord of the Rings sets. I got two and no more because I A.) was a child and B.) had no disposable income. Well, those are no longer true!
So I bought a big tower.
Like, big big. This thing is almost three feet tall. I put it on my bookshelf so that Sauron peers down at all my guests and makes them really uncomfortable.
A lot of large LEGO sets look cool but are God-awful to build. Repetitive. Mind-numbing. Not Barad-dur. Every bag is something new.
There are so many references to LOTR in here, tucked away in secret spots along the tower. I will never see them again once the tower is built, but that’s okay. They made me smile while I was building, and that’s plenty for me.
This is the largest LEGO set I own and one that I am completely satisfied with.
Is it worth $459? For me, 100%.
⋅ SIFU ⋅
I broke my pinkie finger playing this game. Seriously. I got so mad at this game that I punched the floor.
On paper, Sifu is simple: five levels, five bosses. When you die, you give up years of your life to continue. Get too old, you restart. Simple.
But not easy.
As you play, you will unlock a bunch of moves and combos to the point where you’re flicking around control sticks and punching buttons at the speed of light.
Palm strike into flurry of blows into leg sweep into a face punch – OH! – someone throws a bottle at you so catch the bottle and throw it at someone else then kick a stool and knock someone over then parry another attacker and take his sword and…
You get the point.
Only Sekrio: Shadows Die Twice can compete with this game for its combat flow. When you are in the zone, you are in the zone. When you’re not…you break a pinkie.
⋅ SLY COOPER ⋅
In the third level of Sly Cooper, I said, out loud: “They don’t make games like this anymore.” The PS2 was perfect for action platformers like Sly Cooper. It easily sits among its peers Ratchet & Clank and Jax & Daxter.
Every level introduces a new mechanic, and every level includes an unlockable move (or upgrade). No points, no shop, no skill tree – just find all the hidden bottles and open the safe.
It’s so perfect in its simplicity. So much of the fat is trimmed away, save for the last few levels, which is when I said, out loud, in a different tone: “They don’t make games like this anymore.”
Annoying hitboxes, janky physics, and awkward camera controls.
Do those damn Sly Cooper? Not one bit. It is an absolute treat to play, and a refreshing break from the graphics-pushing, mechanics-full games of today.
⋅ RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 ⋅
Perhaps the above sentence is a criticism of RDR2. Perhaps.
I should hate RDR2. It is sluggish. Slow. Obtuse. I’ve never been motivated by graphics or story. If the game isn’t fun, why would I play it?
I…don’t know. I wondered that often. I wondered that while sitting at a campfire and carving notches into my bullets, one at a time. I wondered that while turning through magazine pages looking for a holster. I wondered that while dying in combat time after time because the aiming…sucks!
It’s badass to be a cowboy. It’s badass to fight off a bear. It’s badass to build a house for your wife and son. Simple as that.
It ain’t gotta be anything more.
⋅ LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL ⋅
I’d like to thank my girlfriend for introducing me to some really great horror movies. Late Night with the Devil stands above all of them.
It’s a failing late-night talk show where the host decides to bring in some supernatural types to spice things up. And spice things up they do. A little too much.
You know going in that things will go wrong. But you can’t wait to see it unfold.
Almost everything in the movie is played straight, like a live broadcast of, say, The Tonight Show. You’re seeing what viewers of the show would see.
The core concept is so fun, so engaging, and so unique that you will be glued to the screen. It’s a wild ride that any horror movie fan needs to watch.
⋅ THE HOLDOVERS ⋅
This is a Christmas movie that I watched four times this year. None of which were in December.
I really cannot say more without saying everything, and that would take up a lot of space.
If you want to have your soul warmed and your heart broken, then you need to watch The Holdovers.
Just trust me. It’ll change you.
⋅ CARRIE ⋅
Is this the only book that’s been on one of these year-end lists?
I avoided Stephen King for a long time. To me, he was the book equivalent of Quentin Tarantino: the director all the annoying kids at my film school lauded.
But then I read Stephen King’s book Carrie and I got it. Turns out that King’s fame is not overrated. Turns out this guy know how to write a really damn good book. I know, the popular writer is a good writer. Surprise.
The most unbelievable part of Carrie is that it is Stephen King’s first novel. His FIRST! King has such confidence and conviction in his plot and setting that you’d think this would be his magnum opus.
But nope. Most lists don’t even put it in the top 5.
Amazing.
2025?
Usually, here I’d talk about my predictions for the next year: the games, sets, and movies I’m looking forward to. But, to be honest, I’m not sure what I’ll have time for in 2025. Life changes fast and hobbies ebb and flow. Perhaps I’ll play the newest, hottest games. Perhaps not. Either way, I’m excited to see what unfolds.
So… I wrote this whole thing about a year ago and never got around to posting it. Here we are, at the end of 2024 and I’m working on my current year and so little feels like it hasn’t changed. So my 2024 review makes sense, I’m going to just post this and go from there. Below is the unedited post that I’d more or less wrapped up back in February. Look for this year’s “year in review stuff” soon, likely on New Year’s Eve. But who knows. I’m scheduling this to post at the start of December and a lot can go seriously wrong between now and then.
Also, it’s just sad how much of this is the same, except worse.
2023 can * bleep * right off. I don’t think that’s honestly a controversial opinion. Sure, 2020 gave us a Pandemic, and 2021 gave us it’s terrible sequel year. 2022 was the year where things looked like they were improving a little bit, but not really, while 2023 is where everything started to come apart at the seems. Not sure about you, but it’s the year where all the inflation caused by unchecked corporate greed, legislative inaction, and decades of tax breaks that benefit the .01% have made everything vastly more expensive than it has to be.
Not gonna lie, this last year was absolutely brutal for me. I have scaled back my posting over the years just because… you know, life and what not, but this year there are a few more things pushing that. (Not at all) fun fact… I learned this year that long-term general anxiety can develop into full-on depression. You can probably guess how I learned that. So here we are, in mid-February, and I’m finally getting around to writing about last year.
There’s a whole bunch of talk of “the economy” being good, except that honestly doesn’t feel true for the middle class (where I’m firmly seated). Where I live in Texas, houses went from “scrimp and save” to “you’re never gonna get one of these.” Groceries bills have more or less doubled, because that’s a spot where inflation has hit the hardest. So many companies that I like(d) or have purchased from have gone from “companies are not your friend” to “actively trying to destroy the world.” Oh, and obviously… Texas.
So a lot of 2023 was spent treading water and spinning plates, desperately trying to keep them up… and by the end of the year, I’d mostly failed at that in the end. I won’t dump a whole lot here, that’s for when I talk to my therapist (seriously, y’all, therapy can help – it’s not a cure, but it helps)… more just saying why this list is what it is. There were also fun things like the vicious cycle of weight loss and gaining a lot of it back, some skin cancer and surgery to remove it (thankfully all gone), money troubles because of unexpected expenses, and working in technology when unchecked greed and corporations start laying of thousands for fun.
It wasn’t all bad things, though, there were some legit fun things. I did more stuff this year in my core hobbies, and even may have purchased a toy or two for myself. Or one very expensive toy that 3D prints toys.
LEGO Sets
Wait, what? Since when do I get LEGO sets? True fact, I have a bunch of sets around that I need to take pictures of for reviews. Most didn’t come out this year, and my paralysis at getting things done has made some of them kind of pointless, since the sets are no longer available.
LEGO Icons Atari 2600
This is one of those reviews that I need to get done, because this might have become one of my favorite sets of all time now*. Which… is honestly saying something. The Atari has a weird place in my life… I never had one, but had a cousin that did. I was supposed to get one for a Christmas back in the early 80s, but my dick of a father decided to return it after I found the poorly hidden gift since it was “no longer a surprise.” Which, you know, is just a great thing to do to a five year old. Funny what memories you can remember despite it being several decades ago. Can’t remember what I did six months ago, can remember that as one of my earliest memories.
While the Nintendo was a more formative part of my childhood, the Atari is what defined it early. I remember that ugly 2600 box and being blow away by the massive pixels of the machine and playing games with my cousin.
More than that, though, as a LEGO set, this was simply a joy to build in a way that the Nintendo Entertainment System just… wasn’t. I still need to get the review done, but there’s so much to this set, so many little wonderful things, that are just fantastic. While I rated the NES highly, and love the set… the biggest knock on it was that it was more about the engineering than getting the little bits and touches. Fixed buttons, a cartridge insert that barely worked, and one Easter Egg that you wouldn’t ever see unless you knew it was there.
This set, by contrast, is just dripping with those little touches and Easter Eggs. This set is designed as a celebration of the the set, rather than an engineering marvel of being able to turn a screen. There’s still some of that, with “working” switches and power buttons, but first and foremost, it’s about just being a beautiful celebration of when Atari wasn’t a shell of a company that just hawked its brand.
This is a review i need to finish before the set gets retired, but since Icons stuff seems to hang around a lot longer than normal sets, it’ll likely stick around for some time.
*For the record, I’d say my top five sets of all time are (in no particular order):
Of course, if I had to build this list a week from now, it’d probably be full of different things. But those are sets that I have that get rebuilt and displayed occasionally, and I won’t ever get rid of.
The Worst of LEGO
It was very much a mixed bag for me in this little dabbling of LEGO, because honestly, most of them were just… not all that great? Either the set or the experience, or both. Most Star Wars and Marvel sets feel like “let’s throw this together and hit a price point” rather than builds that feel thought out and loved. The ones that are, like things in the UCS line, command prices that are just absurd and I wish no one would purchase at this point. The price escalation of LEGO overall should have killed it three or four times over, but they’ve strangled out so many other things, or hidden in a marketplace where people (i.e. adult nerds) have just started to accept forever escalating prices with less and less value.
Marvel Collectable Minifigures Series 2
This is another article that I never finished, but if you’re on our Discord, you know why I have a particular grudge against the CMF lines at this point. I stopped collecting them years ago, before i dropped other LEGO sets, mostly because the system was just… gross. It’s gatcha products, and they tie up too many interesting things
Okay, so, I had a whole article that I never got around to finishing, about how bad my experience was. Spoiler for that article… but I bought 20 figures at a Target around me and got… four different minifigs in them. One of them was unique, the rest were repeats of just three figures. Clearly, it had been picked over or something like that, but they had just been put out on the cashwrap area when I got them.
When these came out, there was a whole stream of articles for people who were buying up small portable scales to go and weigh the different boxes to figure out what’s inside, and clearly, I got the end result of that. I’ll go into this more in the article, but let me say this… if you’re an AFOL (or more likely a scalper) who does something like this – f*** you. Just, f*** you. You and the other “bag fondlers” that go through an entire store selection to strip out figures and leave the leftovers are a blight, and you’re no better than the people who buy up every set to sell on the aftermarket or parting them out so no one else can get them. In fact, people who go and strip out the minifigs are probably worse.
I’m and adult and was buying these for myself, but I can easily imagine a parent getting a few figures for their kid while checking out. When said kid opens three of them and gets the same figure, likely someone they don’t even know… that kid’s day is kind of ruined and they’re never going to get another figure like this again. If I bought these for my kids and saw this, there’d be an outright “no, those things are a ripoff” line ready every time I saw a LEGO polybag.
That there were honest discussions about bringing a scale and measuring these to find out what was inside, and that so few stepped back and asked themselves “wait a sec” is an indictment of that whole flavor of AFOL and the product in general.
For my part, I completed my set after collaborating with someone in our Discord to get the ones I was missing after another trip to a different Target with fairly similar results. But those were the last CMF figures I will ever buy.
Movies and Streaming
Unlike last year, where I didn’t actually watch any new movies… I watched at three four* new movies this year. Okay, so, movies still aren’t really by thing to me anymore… most of my time is spent rewatching the old things I’ve always liked or just watching streaming shows or YouTube.
*I forgot that I also saw Spider-Verse, but how about I don’t go into the fact that it was 90% awesome and 10% worst thing I watched all year.
Super Mario Bros.
This was always going to be a movie that my family was going to see. My son loves Mario, and has loved him for a few years – though his favorite character from the series is Princess Peach, and his favorite Hot Wheel Mario Kart is Bowser. He was dressed as Mario for Halloween back in 2022 (he went as a Pokemon trainer this year)… owns a Cappy, and asked for a Mario-themed birthday party. So yeah, we were always going to watch it.
It was surprisingly enjoyable… not saying that it’s going to win an Oscar or any real awards unless the Kid’s Choice Awards are still a thing (or a Grammy, cause, you know, Peaches).
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
This is the first of three times that D&D is going to show up on this list, so I’ll save the “oh my god, Hasbro, you suck” for a later section. But as a thing, D&D was a sandwich wrapped in a layer of thin crap, with a terrible start and a terrible end to the year with some wonderful things in the middle.
The D&D movie, Honor Among Thieves, was one of those things that should have just been awful. D&D as a whole hasn’t exactly translated well to… anything other than video games, really. The last D&D movie was… just god awful, and followed up on a cartoon from the 80s that’s remembered fondly for just how terrible it was. So when a new one was announced, everything was stacked against it.
At the same time, though, there were some actual big names tied to the movie. Chris Pine was set to star, along with plenty of other big names. It also didn’t look like it was going to be a straight-up lowest effort movie, with actual effects and an existing setting. Honestly, a lot of this has been driven by stuff like Critical Role being genuinely good and loved, and D&D having gone firmly mainstream compared to the other efforts. Still, like most video game movies, the chances of this being awful were high.
So when I watched it in the theater, and not only was it fun and entertaining, it could be called legitimately a good movie. It’s not going to win any awards, and it was full of all the tropes and so many things that are just inside jokes and fan service… but it still was just fun. They managed to create a movie stuffed to the brim with those things, yet could be watched by anyone and still be fun. The story only was enriched by knowing all the jokes, but not required. Unlike anything Marvel does, you didn’t have to do homework in order to watch the film.
Barbie
I’m too “old man” at this point to have cared even a little bit about the whole Barbieheimer or whatever happened this summer… so I saw this when it came out on Max a few weeks ago. I knew I’d like it, and I did. It certainly had a message, one I was perfectly fine with, and it was funny as well. Not perfect, but still pretty great.
The Not So Good
Obviously, I’m not the person to ask about the latest movies coming out. When I can count the number of movies I’ve watched – not just went to in the theater (though that number was two), but new movies in general. Most of that is driven by the fact that I’m just… over a lot of stuff. I’m not going to put Ahsoka on this list, because I’m not really tired of Star Wars, per se, I just don’t feel the need to immediately watch anything that’s not named Andor.
All things Marvel and DC
What I am tired of is basically everything Marvel and Disney are doing in that space right now. I haven’t watched anything this year, and don’t really plan to. The last thing I watched through and enjoyed was Hawkeye… so that’s two years or so where I just gave Marvel a complete pass. They aren’t helped by the fact they waited until the very last minute to drop a known abuser, waiting for an official court verdict, because obviously that’s the thing that a private company needs to do.
Beyond that, though… it’s just honestly not interesting. The last thing I watched and loved was Peacemaker, something I’ve rewatched a couple of times. Gunn, now lording over the DCU and killing the things that are interesting (Henry Cavill clearly needs a hug after losing Superman, and I enthusiastically volunteer to be the one to give it to him; don’t feel bad though, he’s got 40k now) but needed help.
Comic movies, as a genre, are basically gone. The next and likely only thing I’ll watch will be Deadpool 3, mostly because my wife and I will go and watch it together. Oh, I guess I did watch Spider-Verse, I was supremely disappointed in the ending and the fact that the movie didn’t bother to wrap things up before just… ending. It pissed me off then, and pisses me off now. That turned a movie that was a 10/10 into a firm 5/10, because it undermined the whole movie.
Revivals of Old Things
I never watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull… Last Crusade was a wonderful way to end the story and it always felt “done.” So when another movie in the series was announced, I wasn’t enthused. In fact, I’m still not, and haven’t watched it.
If the previous decade was all about reboots, the current era seems to be much more about “restarts.” Shows that had been off the air for a decade or more were getting additional, often terrible, seasons. Frasier wasn’t ever my favorite show, but oh my god, the new one is so terrible that it’s just replacements of the old characters with new ones. I made it through one episode before I just noped out and wouldn’t watch it.
Same with “That 90s Show,” which was a new season of “That 70s Show,” something I did like… and oh my god is was as bad as Frasier. I couldn’t finish the second episode, because it was about as funny as anything Aston Kutcher has done outside of the original show. The Futurama “uncancelled again” season was hit-or-miss, with the real highlights coming towards the end and some real awful things in the middle.
Nostalgia is already a dangerous thing to play with, and it seems to be the only idea going for a lot of things out there. Which is odd in a year where we got the best adaptation of a video game ever, and other new shows that are legitimatelyfunnier than just revisiting the old things.
Video Games
I’ve probably played more video games this year than I have in more recent years on record. This was bolstered, in part, by the fact that my daughter, officially a preteen now (which, WTF, time, stop it), has also gotten into games in a big, big, way. She’s also too smart for her own good and snarky, so, she takes after me in a lot of ways – though she’s probably smarter. Not all of them, though, I can’t get her to watch Star Wars or Star Trek.
Vampire Survivors
This was my game at the end of last year, when it came out, and dominated the start, middle, and end of my year as the new DLC came out. I’m not a huge fan of roguelike’s, and yet… this game just does all the things for me.
There were multiple patches and DLCs put out in 2023, including a surprise crossover with Among Us in early December. It also landed on Switch in 2023, added free content, and continued to be worth every single cent you put into it. It was my game of choice on the Steam Deck, and I strongly suggest everyone get it. It’s just that good.
Baldur’s Gate 3
The second major highlight of the D&D year was arguably the best game released all year. Don’t trust me though, the Video Game Advertisements gave it an award too – but didn’t let them stay and talk about a team member who died because there were more trailers to show! Fun fact, apparently 41.5 minutes of the nearly 4 hour show was spent on award announcements and speeches. In other words, the Video Game Trailers Show sucks, Geoff Keighley is a pandering sack of shit that doesn’t care about video games, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the best games ever made.
The original two games, and the spinoff Neverwinter Nights series, stand as some of the greatest RPGs ever made. The game Planescape: Torment, often tops the list of greatest ever, and arguably so (my personal top is Final Fantasy VI or Fallout New Vegas). It was simultaneously under-the-radar, while also being hugely hyped up, because as it got closer and closer to release, what was being said just became more and more bonkers.
You know, like the bear sex.
When the first reviews started to hit, the hype only increased, because people were overwhelmingly in love with the game. Part of that excitement is that Larian Studios made a game that didn’t have any microtransactions, day-0 DLC packs, or all the other crap that modern games “have to have.” It was just pay the money and you get to play the game, all of the game, and enjoy it. That aspect was so refreshing as to seem revolutionary, which is sad, because it’s how things used to work.
That being said, the game itself is awesome, the hype is absolutely deserved. It’s a giant, sprawling, beautiful game. How you can play is unique almost every time, because there’s that D&D aspect of “rolls” tied in to checks, where you can be overpowered and still fail, or underpowered and succeed gloriously. Every quest had multiple, sometimes non-obvious, ways to solve and resolve them… better yet, sometimes, you could just fail and the game let you go on. The story was good and interesting, the companions were legitimately great and wonderful, and the gameplay managed to feel like D&D even with necessary changes to make it… not suck.
And, of course, bear sex*.
*Spoiler for this joke: it’s a druid companion you can romance, not an actual bear
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
I didn’t get super far into this game, but it basically controlled a few weeks of my life, and currently dominates my daughter’s life. Discussions with her right now are 2% what’s going on for an eleven-year-old and 98% talking endlessly about Zelda. I get to go full “god, I’m old” in response and point out that “yes, I know, I played the original back in 86” when it comes to Zelda lore.
Much like Baldur’s Gate 3, it was a complete game, not split off into a lot of cosmetic loot box or mini DLC nonsense. Of course, for a lot of Nintendo (but not all, their mobile offerings are pure gacha garbage) games that’s normal. It didn’t fix most of the fundamental issues I had with Breath of the Wild – a great game but by no mean’s perfect. There was still terrible direction-setting of what to do and a flow of the game, weapon durability is still a garbage mechanic that serves no real purpose other than to annoy people, and it’s just as incomprehensible as any other Zelda game.
Yet… the loop is so satisfying and it’s still a Zelda game. More than that, the biggest marvel, is that the game is just huge. More than triple the size of the original game, with new modes of play and unique things to it that make it so, so satisfying. There was so much to it that just… works. It also pushes the switch to the absolute max, making a legitimately gorgeous game on a console that was old and out of date when it launched.
Bad Video Games and Worse Companies Making Them
2023 was a garbage year for video games, despite the great stuff I listed above. Layoffs and studio closures dominated the industry, often not even for failed projects, but perfectly successful ones where the company needed to make a nickel and couldn’t dare cut CEO salary or stop doing stock buybacks, so they instead laid off thousands of workers.
Even with that, though, there were some things that just stood out as games.
Starfield
I’m sure some people in our Discord knew that this game was going to end up here, because I was pretty vocal on all of my problems with the game as I was playing it. Which I did, a lot, because it’s a Bethesda game and they have some things that I genuinely like. Maybe. Or maybe not…
Maybe it’s time to just acknowledge that Bethesda make kind of crappy games that rely on the community to make not suck. Skyrim was not a good game, but you could make it good. Honestly, think about it… how many of you that have played it can explain what the plot of Skyrim is? Or those who enjoyed it have memories you enjoy that are related at all to that plot… or was it all the other things you could do?
It pains me to think that, because I like games like Fallout 3 and 4, but they’re also… you know… not good. Fallout 4’s main plot was infamously bad, the companions were memes, and the best parts of the game had nothing to do at all with playing the story. It was little side quests, building, or doing weird and random things. Fallout 3’s ending was so bad they had to program and charge everyone for a DLC to write a better one.
An aside, but the last act of Baldur’s Gate 3 was much weaker than the first two, and a lot of players were unsatisfied with how some stories wrapped up. Larian listened to player feedback and… patched in new stuff to fix that for free. Bethesda on the other hand screwed over Fallout 3 players more than a decade ago by charging for DLC to undue the stupid ending.
So this was a chance at redemption, to prove they could do something great… and they really didn’t. Starfield is their first new IP of this century (or as my daughter liked to twist the knife when I made my ’86 comment and pointed out that was “last millennium”) – and it was hyped for years, first being teased with a single title screen eight years ago.
The end product is a devoid, lifeless, mostly boring husk. Remember how No Man’s Sky was overhyped and ultimately disappointing? This is worse, because that was just a small studio that clearly overcommitted… this is a major AAA company backed with Microsoft money who underdelivered and made a repetitive and pointless game.
I should do a whole review of it, in fact I was planning on doing it, but ultimately couldn’t get the motivation to do it. So much of the game is just examples where things were quarter-assed to stick in, with clearly too many ideas and not enough refinement of them, and it all comes together as a jumbled, unfun mess.
The worst part, for me, was coming to this game right after playing Baldur’s Gate 3. A game so full of choices and personality, with interesting and fantastic companions who were all distinct and unique, and a story that drew you in while not sitting you entirely on rails. Yes, one is an “open” (and empty) world game, while the other is a structured linear experience, but they are the two biggest RPGs of the year and couldn’t be further apart in underlying execution and quality.
You legitimately build, grow, and earn trust with the people around you in Baldur’s Gate 3. It goes to great length to make you the “hero” but not call you the special. In fact, at one point, you find out that a good portion of your companions are getting the exact same “special one” things you are… you just happen to be the one that the game is centered on as POV.
In Starfield, you’re immediately just trusted (or hated) by everyone. Strangers on the street, on a planet you’ve never been too, walk up and give you life details or quests. The intro is quite literally “here, take my ship, you’re the hero now” and that’s it. And often, there are clearly multiple ways something could be done, but because they didn’t design it that way, you only have one choice to make and one way to go. The only time you have options are when it explicitly gives you more than one.
Which is all to say it’s a bad game that has already been mostly forgotten. But hey, their first big update will be adding “new ways to travel” between pointless planets where you can accomplish nothing. Maybe it’s telling that the best game in any of the modern Bethesda settings was the one not made by Bethesda.
I spent a lot of hours in Starfield, even “beating” the main story, trying to find the good game. But it’s just not there. Also, before anyone jumps in that you have to play it “such and such” way, or play it for so long before it gets good… those are both things that terrible games do.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
It’s weird to put a game I play daily on the bad list, but I’ve talked about how this is a game with a satisfying loop and little else before. They put out a needless version this year of what was a hacked-together story no one remembers at this point, and the same fun multiplayer loop. Cheating is still rampant, there is both too much and not enough to do, and it’s stuffed to the gills with microtransactions.
Really, it’s here because there was no reason for this to come out. MW2 was a solid game that was fun to play. MW3 was rushed and adds nothing of value overall. But still commanded a $70+ price tag supported by absurdly expensive cosmetic micro-transactions.
Tabletop
This will be a little bit different from the other sections, because my good and my bad for this category all stem from the same general places: Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, Games Workshop, and Asmodee. Those are the three biggest “gaming” companies out there in the tabletop space, and the makers of the games that I deal with.
Games Workshop Games
I’ve been a player of almost everything that Games Workshop has done for years now. I’ve written about it here, covered it in depth with the calendars in 2022, and it’s been my primary hobby for several years. It started with Necromunda all the way back in 1996, which fun fact, I bought while I was traveling to Texas (I lived in the northern US back then) to visit a friend in the Army and drop off a car. We’d stopped off at a hobby store while going through Oklahoma City, saw it on the shelf, and figured it’d be fun to play with our friend while down there.
That was a very expensive path to start down. That spiraled into Warhammer Fantasy, then Warhammer 40k, and I’ve taken several breaks over the years, but back in 2020, got back in, and play Necromunda (again, the new version), Warhammer 40k, Age of Sigmar, and several other games. Kill Team, and slow-planning an Old World army for when I see my friend again that I used to play Fantasy way back when.
That being said… Games Workshop can be an absolutely infuriating company to be a fan and customer of. While a lot of their “fans” ascribe them to be some kind of sinister cabal and empire, they’re often the epitome of “don’t ascribe to malice what could be chalked up to incompetence.” They’re firmly stuck in the past, for better or worse, and they make decisions to protect their bottom line and sales.
Capitalism sucks, and they are a company – not a friend, which means they will make decisions that will piss people off. Like releasing rules for free for 10th edition, which happened last year, only to start pulling them as books get released. Or constantly releasing and “patching” the game as they lean harder and harder into the more competitive modes of play, neglecting the casual and narrative players that make up the bulk of their player base.
Here it is in storage:
And here is its summary:
It’s so beautiful! And I had to use the Master Ball, natch. ‘Cause a color-matching Pokéball is the best Pokéball. I’ll eventually transfer it to Pokémon Home via Pokémon Bank. But I first need to get me a Shiny Shaymin.
