I'm finally free from my Division 2 hole, after over a week of going to a node on a map, instantly dying to a hidden monster closet, retracing my steps for five minutes, dying to my skills going on cooldown, backtracking for five minutes again, dying to an elite instantly running up on me and, well, you get the gist. People on the Giant Bomb Discord are weirdly infatuated with the game, still, so if you're looking to chow down on chest high walls and lost progress, then there's one happy family waiting for you there. Glory and gear score going up awaits.

This bit isn't about the measure of quality of Tom Clancy's The Division 2, however, which may or may not significantly improve if you clench those teeth for about thirty hours. Rather, I've been spending my time in Washington cataloging the objectively terrible graffiti that drenches the walls of the shoot-y apocalypse. Like an archaeologist specialized in bad taste, I went around cringing and subsequently photographing that event for every bit of first-draft-text I encountered during my time. Believe me, that's a lot of times. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I'm now passing on this knowledge in awful writing to you, the fine Giant Bomb connoisseur. Let's get dug in, soldier! Semper fucked!

The most brilliant minds once lived in Washington. Apparently, once the apocalypse came around, they were also the first to go and the only ones who were left with spray paint, were the people who were huffing it. At least, that's what it feels like, canonically, as there are still tons of people huffing fumes, but very little suits, except for the president. This is their world now, until you get your gun and shoot the world better, with bullets!

Lincoln Force never dies!

Man, it sure takes a while to go through all this hashtag content that comes up during the Game of the Year (GOTY) deliberations. I only just managed to get through it all and I like this new format a lot. Here’s to the crew thinking of us with bad memory, to give us an actual recap of what all these games, good and bad, are about. Please continue doing that, because I drank a lot and lost most of my short term memory.

As every other respectable Gamer™ in the world, I made my own GOTY list, which is the only definitive list out there and I’ll accept no substitutes! All I can say is: Y’all should play MapleStory 2, dammit. (Jan, back me up here) However, going through everyone’s lesser lists of GOTY flunkies for dumb dummies, I did also finally remember that other video games exist. I guess it’s too little too late, huh? Again: Lots of drinking.

I’m sorry, I fucked up! Have yet another list of GOTY picks to make up for it. Here’s my list of choices that would’ve totally slid into my actual nominees, if I remembered they were things that we got this year:

5. Frostpunk

Frostpunk should get to hang! It needs the comfort. It needs anything to make the people inside feel something else than the sharp, uncaring sting of a laborious existence and an inevitable death. This game looks good, too! We didn’t give it enough credit for getting the point of its misery across mostly by staring at an expanding, yet ever tragic, dystopia. The tech-punk skyscrapers, the propaganda-like flags, the billowing smoke in between it all; it’s such a stylish damn game, man. I have no idea how this game made up of mostly systems and text painted such a compelling picture, but it did. Cry. Cry at your freezing, metal mishmash.

4. Wandersong

Wandersong released a demo through that Humble Monthly bundle I subscribe to and get disappointed by every month. It’s not only one of the only not disappointing things I got in that subscription in recent times; that game itself is just precious. If you’ve been reading Giant Bomb editor lists, then you’ll know that most of them go a little something like: “Something something 2018 sucked butts.” In these trying times, Wandersong is a radiant beacon of optimism. It’s an adventure where the protagonist’s unwavering dedication to being good and cheerful simply can’t be beaten. Hell, it can barely be dented. I think everyone can use a little cheering up by playing Wandersong.

3. Florence

I bought Florence immediately after hearing Vinny talk about it in the Day Four Deliberations for Best Moment. That moment of hearing Vinny being all-in deserves a nomination in itself. No one will ever be able to say that Giant Bomb isn’t genuine. I bought Florence, despite my phone being a stale potato chip. I didn’t reach the end, before my phone overheated and died, but I absolutely agree this game is worth the buy-in. The art and sounds of Florence are instantly impactful and it marries that by cleverly asking the player to be the agent in the motions the game is going through. The game turns investment into emotion. That’s so smart!

2. RimWorld

Wait, RimWorld actually left Early Access? That means you can just bring this simulator up again and nominate it? Why didn’t anyone tell me this? I had to find out by scrolling through Steam’s sordid awards screens, which Valve uses as an extra excuse to surface big sellers. Discoverability in 2018, it’s a bummer, huh? Anyway, this game has always been great and continues doing that. Build a colony, painstakingly mine resources while half of your colonists are throwing up everywhere, stack up on guns and defenses, to then succumb to a random horde of Boomalopes just passing by. Boomalopes are exploding, flammable antelopes. Yeah, thanks for running at me and torching the entire map. It’s a bummer I couldn’t foresee that. You know what? Maybe Rimworld sucks, after all.

1. Kingsway

I bought Kingsway during the Steam Winter Sale. This roleplaying game (RPG) is another one of those clever style choices, turning an old Windows OS into the actual game. The windows and tabs themselves become the playing field, including the map, your inventory, enemies; everything! Man, I love developers who use their creativity to alter a known concept. You go east and try to save the world in a roguelike model, by the way. You know what that’s like, but I guarantee you’ve never played it like this! The structure and gameplay alterations are so clever that I played it start to finish in one sitting, across 5 or 6 hours. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that. Kingsway is so fucking good!

Now that I’ve done my penance, it’s back to playing thousands upon thousands of hours of Overwatch and PUBG for me, which I both hate, instead of playing other, better games. I’m a person of habit and that habit is hating myself with a passion. Those games are so embarrassingly bad, who could ever nominate them for a Game of the Year award? That would just be nuts.

Enjoy 2019, y’all!

We out

You do it like this.

Scream into the abyss.

Existence is meaningless, so do whatever you want. Live free.

We all die alone. Depending on others isn't a shame.

There is a certain redeeming quality to having to play Civilization V on a completely decrepit, ancient PC. During turns, it takes the bedazzled adding machine about 10 minutes to process all the other players moves, meaning there’s a lot of downtime. Of course, at first, you spend your time looking at the screen like an addicted idiot, but somewhere down the line you realize you’re wasting your life…more than usual.  So, after doing lots of productive stuff I won’t bore you about, I went back to the drawing board for a second comic.

And you know what? Having inspiration is one thing, but coming up with a fitting title is hard. Therefore, I had to slap one on, because my vision didn’t really have a name. Feel free to think up a better title. It’s a horizontal comic, so you’ll have to click the link for it to get the complete picture.
 

Click here now.

This is a continuation of this blog.

And there it is: It only took a few days for Steam's devious marketing to crack my 'strong' willpower and make me give in to their consumerist ways. What swayed me? The thing that always gets me: The perfect game.

Thanks to 2K and Sid Meier's incredible genius, I am now the owner of the 2K Complete pack, which holds too many titles indeed. When Steam had a summer achievement to try a demo a few days ago, I tried out Civilization V, just to see how it would run on my ancient rig. To my surprise, it didn't literally melt my PC, like Metro 2033 did (yeah, literally). Not only that, but it immediately hooked me back to the gameplay that Civilization hasn't really changed since its conception. To that I say: Touché, Mr. Meier.

This is what poverty combined with hypocrisy looks like.

The 2K pack came with Civ V and all existing add-ons so far, Civ IV and all add-ons ( which I already owned), Civ III Complete and CivCity Rome. That alone will keep me playing until I'm dead; but it also had some deals I thought made the 80 bucks more than worthwhile. For instance, it has X-com, all Strongholds, but most importantly it features Duke Nukem Forever. Even if it's a horrible game; that's a brand new, full price release! And then overkill it all with both Bioshocks and Mafias, but also Borderlands GOTY Edition and there's really no reason why anyone should pass this up. Especially since there's actually even more; it's somewhat mind-boggling.

It's only a shame that one can't gift a game or two from a pack to more interested souls, because why would I want an NBA franchise game; let alone 2 yearly releases? It would be nice to give away one or two games from a complete line-up, just to share the wealth. But then again, Valve would not make the billions of consumerist cash if they were this friendly; the packs alone are courteous enough.

Here's to you, shallow materialism. You have won this round and I'm officially relying on charity to eat this month. Luckily, I have games to keep me distracted from retching hunger and poverty.