It's been quite here; I am aware of that. You know that I am still gaming like crazy if you keep track of my Twitch channel, but outside of that, life has been somewhat busy, and I am dealing with some personal issues as well. That's life for you. One day you realize you are here, then you suffer, then you disappear. Sorry, things are somewhat frustrating right now but I'm doing my best. I have been livestreaming my official recaps for my gaming activities across platforms this year. I want to post those videos here. This article will be updated with more videos as if there are more to add. 2023 has been a busy year personally, especially since it involved a very exhausting move for me back in June. I just want things to settle down so I can enjoy my life a little more. Maybe in 2024. Hope your 2023 has been great and that it will be better next year.
I know that it has been rather quiet here on this website. it's just that things have been a little bit busy in life. I haven't stopped my gaming livestreams however since it is a much easier thing to do compared to writing. But hey, here's something new. It's that time of the year again when there is an uptake in turkey consumption - I don't know why, they are so dry - and Steam gamers get to splurge on game purchases while nominating titles for The Steam Awards! Here are my selections. Please drop your nomination links in the comments section, I would love to see them!
The Steam Deck is great. Let's get that out of the way. Personally, it's a cool portable Personal Computer that I can carry with me when I am going to be away from my home for a while. The fact that it is basically a small form PC outside of its gaming capabilities makes it such a useful tool for everyone. What the Deck shouldn't be, however, is a litmus test for every single game being released on Steam. The problem is, like all good things in life, there are plenty of people out there apparently who is now primarily gaming on the Steam Deck and thus, bringing some delusions and malcontent into the celebration. The Deck is not supposed to be the ultimate gaming rig. It can act as a gateway, especially for console owners or Switch fanatics, to dabble into PC gaming. It's certainly a point of envy for Sony who recently announced their PlayStation Portal streaming tablet - yucks - when you can already do that with Steam Remote Play on any old tablet and controller. Steam even has a certification process on the playability of a game on the Deck with a classification system. The fact that the device is indeed a PC, it still doesn't stop people from trying and experimenting on games that are not officially supported on the Deck, which is fine. It becomes a problem when the said individuals then take their frustrations onto the Steam store, writing horrible reviews for games just because they are not playable on the Deck, even though these games are not verified to be played on the system to begin with.
Lies of P, the new action game from Neowiz, does have a really strange title. Well, the whole game is uh, crazy? It's the delirious retelling of the Pinocchio fairy tale? I guess we will see if it makes any sense at all when I finally get to play this game soon. What's more interesting though is the representation of P's face. It looks like recently, the developer has updated P to look more masculine. When I first heard about this game and looked at the close-up of P on the cover art, I really thought P was a lady. I didn't even know that P stood for Pinocchio at that time, I just thought those crazy non-native English speakers were just trying to find intriguing ways to title another one of their games. I know we are all used to the Final Fantasy series by now because it's so popular, but you know that title doesn't make any bit of sense in relation to any of those games.
I can't believe it. Radiant Silvergun is actually making its way to Steam, courtesy of Live Wire. Which is pretty funny, I suppose, since Treasure brought Ikaruga to the platform but they are just so unwilling to put in the work to publish Radiant Silvergun by themselves. This could mean that ESPgaluda II may also arrive on Steam in the near future since Live Wire released that game alongside other Cave shmups on the Nintendo Switch.
I am still working on completing my Game Room Ver. 5.0 and this is on top of getting the whole house ready, mind you. The new Game Room is smaller, thus similar to what I had to do with the previous 2 versions, a bunch of my gaming stuff are being stored elsewhere. All of my Hatsune Miku figurines have found themselves being moved to the master bedroom, right next to the bed.
There are a lot of meme and copypasta user reviews on Steam. As I have mentioned previously, the Steam review section is probably the worst part of the service, compared to the dignity and professionalism accomplished on Epic Games. A majority of these reviews, though stupid, are mostly there to garner immediate attention from others in an attempt to achieve some kind of 5-second Internet fame or accumulate Steam Points from the gullible. Sometimes, though, you find something more sinister. Like the one below:
I know, it has been a while. You could probably guess what happened during the majority of my absence last month - Yes, I was moving to my new home. As stated previously, it was a long, arduous process. I got to my new home around the middle of the month. The delivery of my belongings was delayed by a week or so. I wanted to write and post some updates here back then, but I also discovered that the website was heavily attacked by some bot. I contacted Google multiple times, but I didn't get any assistance, so I turned off public access to the site. The bot seemed to calm down now so I thought I would sneak in a post and monitor the situation. So yes, I survived the move, though I am still physically and emotionally exhausted, and I have been working on Game Room Ver. 5.0 slowly but surely as soon as I got my greedy little hands on my gaming stuff again.
If you are a gamer who is a current Amazon Prime member, I am sure you must have noticed that Amazon has been releasing a lot of SNK games for free through their Prime Gaming program. For those who are not familiar with this, basically, you get to claim a number of free games every month that you get to keep in perpetuity even if you decided to cancel your Amazon Prime membership at a later time - unlike rental programs like PSN Plus and the likes. These SNK games I mentioned earlier are titles from the golden era of the arcades and though you can get most of them in some form or another out there in the gaming marketplace, it's nice to see that Prime Gaming is seemingly focused in trying to get all of these titles available through their digital distribution service, for free nonetheless for Amazon prime users.
Sure, the Point system offered on Steam is cute and fun. But what it's missing is real monetary value. Of course the Steamoroids will always find something wrong with any other digital distribution platform on the Personal Computer, but Epic Games is once again showing us that they can be a step more advanced than Valve's digital storefront. Today, they introduced the Epic Rewards program alongside their month-long Mega Sale a.k.a. we really, really want you to spend money event - and I have seen some truly incredible discounts!
Packing up all of my physical games had me thinking. Is it still necessary for me to hold on to these things? Sure, they are worth quite a lot to me. I have played a majority of them and as the saying goes, you can't take it with you, and in this rapid digital age, physical game ownership just feels quite limp, quite vapid. I know it's probably the exhaustion talking - I dare you to pack around 3,000 games and smile at the end of the process - but I want to entertain the thought seriously for a minute. Do I lose anything if I let go of these games at this point in my life? Sure, the void can be felt with such a drastic measure, but I have a majority of my games digitally these days, thanks to the fully evolved Personal Computer gaming distribution. Let's just pretend that I am willing to make this change in my life as a gamer, will I miss my physical games? I mean, once they are shelved, it's not like I caress them every single day, and it's not like I actually play them often. I get a lot of digital games nowadays, so it's not like I am ever going to run out of things to play before my eventual death. So then why are they still here? They are causing me a lot of headaches because I have to ensure that they are well taken care of both when they are stationary and when they need to be transported somewhere. This move involves a long, fantastical, epic, dangerous(?) journey that in itself will take a lot out of me - I am already feeling the effect of it - and it just feels like perhaps it's just not worth all the pain and hassle of taking these along with me.
Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2
As a small-time video game streamer, and as someone who knows and embrace his own unpopularity on the modern streaming platforms, I do feel a bit small sometimes when there's hardly anyone stopping by my channel. I'm only human, and I can't escape that self-inflicted negativity sometimes. Believe it or not, for as much persistent, perhaps incessant, livestreaming contents I provide on twitch.tv, and then later preserved on YouTube, there were many times when I just felt like I want to stop doing it, when I just wanted to forget about making myself accessible out there knowing that I am unable to bring in any new audience. Every single time that happens though, I would take a deep breath, shake off the feeling, and turn on my OBS to do it all over again. At this point, I know that all of the streaming I have done is only beneficial to me, and me only. Nobody cares, and that's okay. I just wish that I can keep that reaffirming thought in my head all the fucking times. Self-doubt is not only a exclusive feature of being as a small-time streamer, it also means that I get to experience weird interactions with the little number of viewers I have. And I am not talking about the typical stuff out there, like people who would only watch me when I play a specific game, or people who would spout racial epithets on top of other rude comments and then leave immediately. No, these are the more "special" occurrences. I don't think the things these guys did to me would fly in a chat room that goes up 300 lines per second, so these individuals like to target smaller channels. Let me invite you to 3 sordid tales of strange Internet behaviors that can only be experienced by the loneliest of lonely streamers. The names have been changed to protect the silly but the stories are real:
TALE ONE: The Artist
A desolate artist looking for work in a desolate place. Art by the Microsoft Bing.
Trying something new here: I want to start writing about the games that I inducted into my Game Library during a significant sales event, for example, the recent Steam Spring Sale that occurred from 03/16 to 03/23. This is a great exercise for me to reinforce my connection to these games and to appreciate them beyond typical gameplay time, since the latter is a fiercely competitive field for these games. The process of selecting these games during a sales event is a complex one. I don't just go down my wishlist and easily select a number of games to fit into a certain budget. Unless there are games that I really, really want - I would usually just get these games outside of a sales event - it would normally take me at least two days to stew the selections in my cart before they are ready for purchase. The process can be fun and a bit stressful as well. As you will see, there is a story to every one of my game inductions, whether tragic, mundane, or filled with magic. All of them hold a special place in my heart.
I have been using an air purifier in my Game Room for close to 2 weeks now and I am pleased with the results. Thought it doesn't completely eliminate the existence of dust in here, bear in mind that I went for a cheap unit, it does seem to slow down the overall accumulation of dust in the room. I didn't get to vacuum the space before I have the unit running, so maybe that has something to do with it. I will probably notice this air purifier's overall effectiveness eventually in the long run. So, things are looking good in my longtime struggle against dust but now, Yoshi's nasty fur has emerged as a new threat as it sets its eyes on my Steam Deck after constantly stuffing itself inside the lens hole of my mouse.
Valve just released new "Startup Movies" for both the Steam Deck and Big Picture Mode in the Points Shop today. I have been dying for them to present new ways to spend my Steam points and this got my very excited. What is a "Startup Movie"? It's the intro sequence when you boot up the Steam Deck or when you switch to the Big Picture Mode on the desktop. The consoles have one too, the two best examples being a cube falling to the middle of the screen, stamping a path that became the letter "G" on the Nintendo GameCube and the orange dot bouncing and spiraling on the Sega Dreamcast.
3 beauties, coated in black, dripping with desperation and forever left behind by Personal Computer technologies. These are our current generation consoles. They are usually referred to by their incorrect pronoun of "next-gen" when in truth, all new consoles are immediately "current-gen" the moment they are released, and as stated above, forever behind in terms of raw power because these consoles are usually announced way in advance to get potential buyers drooling. Let's face it, if a gaming device can't be upgraded and doesn't support old releases - measured in the console world as previous generation forever hopeful of being "backwards compatible" - it's just bad design. Nevertheless, I am getting too distracted because we are actually here to determine the winner of "The Sexiest Current-Gen Consoles" award. Here are the results!
Ah, I remember around 25 years ago when my Game Room, and overall game collection, used to be small. Let me think, yes! I only had the SegaSaturn, the Dreamcast, the PSOne, and the Nintendo 64 hooked up to my entertainment center. Back then, I would lightly feather dust the whole entertainment center every day in the morning. The entertainment center used to always be spotless, compared to how things are these days. I now have a three-tier tempered glass entertainment center - I used to have one made of hardwood that could house a lot more of my gaming platforms - and it's so easy to see when the surface is dusty. I just did the much-needed dusting of it yesterday and it was such a big mess. My gaming stuff are not dust collectors so it's time to combat all of this with the help a machine in the form of an actual dust collector.
Well, here we are. I am at 10,002 games. *Faints*
How do I celebrate this? Is it even possible to celebrate this because having all of these games is already a celebration in itself? I am feeling excited and somewhat overwhelmed. I mean, 9,000 was a lot but 10,000 just feels, insane? I personally think it's a cool thing, but I have gotten some hate before for my huge Game Library size, so I am sure this is going to fuel the fire on that end. I feel quite accomplished as a gamer. I have successfully built up a gaming collection of my dreams and whatever comes next is just a deck for the Steam client, or in layman's terms, an icing on the cake.
Okay, so it looks like the new Bing AI Chat is finally available to me and of course I didn't waste any time to ask it about... me, of course. Here are some of the responses. I was laughing and chocking on my phlegm as I was capturing these screenshots - I am sick at the moment. Enjoy!
There's time in one's gaming life when one has to decide whether one should buy a game directly on Steam or an official third-party retailer. I normally would pick the latter as long as there is a decent price gap because, well, I have gotten so many games directly on Steam that at this point, I will never run out of Steam Points. Yes, the introduction of Steam Points in 2020 is the only reason why this is a dilemma to begin with. I have unlocked all of my Steam profile features using Steam Points and Valve is really, really slow in giving us more things to do with this clever but underdeveloped currency system.
I'm getting old. This, I understand. It's inevitable, I suppose. Lately, I have been having a hard time remembering names of games that I was attempting to reference during my livestreams. Heck, sometimes, I even have a hard time remembering the names of the characters in Heroes of the Storm mid-match! Is this all caused by our new dependency on machines to tell us what we need to know at any given time? Or is my brain just reaching that point that I cannot expect to remember things anymore. It's probably a combination of both seemingly. I say this because I can recall vividly, for example, details about the games that I have in mind but for some reason, I would have a hard time pinpointing the actual title. Last week, while streaming Hogwarts Legacy, I was trying to recall the name of that game involving android rebellion. I could see the important scenes in my mind. Specifically, when the androids gathered together and marched on the city streets demanding their independence. I was also able to remember the dramatic prologue involving a negotiator android who was trying to save a little girl being held captive by a deviant servant android. Yes, the memories from me playing the game were clear as day but for the life of me, I just couldn't extract the name of the game.
It finally happened! For a while there, I thought that I'd end up having to pack everything away again before I could finish this project. I am so happy right now, but I am also a bit exhausted because I used up everything I had in me to complete this during the final stretch. The Game Room feels so peaceful and organized, though it is not even close to being perfect. That would involve moving some things to the storage room and I am unable to do that right now even if I wanted to. Still, I feel accomplished and now, I can game in peace.
It is kind of scary, but it is also kind of exciting. I am inching closer and closer to hitting the 10,000 titles mark for my Game Library. That is 10,000 games at my fingertips. Seems like too much power for a gamer to wield. But is it really power? Or a curse? I know that to some segment of the gamer population, this seems to be a bad thing. As I have encountered too many times, the knowledge about my library size usually sends some people to some sort of frenzy where they immediately go on the defensive, as if I was trying to compare my dick size to theirs. But of course, I have been welcomed with a more positive, friendly reaction. Look, I am not actively trying to get my library bursting at the seams. It just kind of happen. I am a full-fledged gamer. I like playing games and I like getting them. Both of those things make me happy in this life and I am going to participate in them unapologetically. The nastier reactions take me back to the olden days when video gaming was at its infancy. Gamers were perceived as weirdos back then by the normies, and the last thing I wanted is to have gamers themselves make me feel that way again.
My recent Game Room revival project has lifted me up emotionally so 2023 is off to a good start. At the start of this process, I could barely move around the room because I had to unstack the many large boxes and placed them individually on the floor to access their contents. I am getting closer and closer to regaining my virtual reality space after clearing the area as I continue to empty these boxes. In terms of actually playing my video games, that has been quite satisfying and productive too.
It only makes sense. Who doesn't want to make easy money? We can tell each other all about our dream careers or professional aspirations but at the end of the day, doing less work but getting more money will always triumph everything. This is perhaps the allure of pursuing the path of an "influencer" on social media, like Twitch. I mean, who wouldn't want to be able to just sit and play video games while racking in thousands of dollars each month even if just pretend to enjoy the process or gaming in itself. Alas! Being a financially successful Twitch streamer is not easy. So perhaps, we need to aim a tad lower and find a more, uh, creative approach to funneling that sweet Twitch money our way by becoming... the manager of Twitch streamers?
