After nearly three years of staying in my Steam Library, I have dove into the acclaimed Her Story, an FMV game about a woman being interrogated by the Police for reasons unknown to the player. It's up to you, gumshoe, to figure out what exactly is going on.

I am currently at 3 hours clocked in and I still am piecing together what is happening. The one thing that I am coming away from it so far is how much it makes you feel like a detective. The main gameplay aspect (other than pointing and clicking) you'll be using is a video search engine where you'll type in keywords and small clips from the interrogation of the main character pop up. There are also other programs on your desktop such as a video counter that displays how many videos you have seen, how many are left, and where you left off at.

As you watch, you'll catch words or phrases she uses and then type those in and a new crop of videos show up and so on. For as simple as it is, it's very engaging and I like how you learn the story through these scatter snips of video and piece them together as you go along.

Other little touches such as a CRT filter on your screen add to the vibe the game is going for and I appreciate that...though it does kinda wear thin and just eventually turned it off completely. But I appreciate it!

I don't know how far I have left to finish Her Story, but regardless I am really digging it and glad I'm taking the time and really absorbing it all in. As someone who didn't own a computer in the 90s (my first was in 2004!) it's opened the doors to play more click and point games that I have missed. If you have any reccomendations, let me know in the comments.

-Armando

This is really just a list for me to look back on years later and go "Oh, I did play that game. Hmm."

1. Resident Evil 7: BioHazard (Xbox One)

I absolutely loved RE7...until the second half of the game. I felt that the different setting, the first person view, and the Bakers are the most interesting villains ever in any Resident Evil game. I loved everything up until it became more like an RE game. Not going to spoil things, but if you play it you'll know where it veers off the cliff. That being said, RE7: Biohazard is one of my favorite games of 2017 and hope Capcom can keep up the momentum in future installments.

2. Flinthook (PS4)

I am not one for nearly impossible, difficult, throw the controller at the ground and curse like it's going out of style kinds of games but Flinthook feels different than the others because of how much fun the game actually is as oppose to other games where the difficulty feels more important than the game mechanics themselves. You play as a bounty hunter, looking to steal the loot of other bounty hunters. Pretty straight forward stuff. The challenge? Each time you die (and you will die ) you have to essentially start all over again to get to the boss in each level. Your progress saves over, so you'll never lose anything you collect and you also progress through a level system where you can get more slots to upgrade your health, abilities, power-ups and the like. Every time I died, I became frustrated. Naturally. But it never felt like the game was throwing too many enemies at me, or the game cheated in any way. It was and will always be your fault and that's what I love about it. The gameplay is nearly flawless, and it keeps you coming back for more. To learn and observe before you react. That right there is the recipe for a game to remember for all the right reasons.

This list will be updated as the year goes on....now that we are halfway into it. Oh gosh. My life.

With the opening week for the NFL coming to a close tonight in a double header on Monday Night Football, here's what (I think) I learned after Week One:

• • Don't give Dallas the ball with the game on the line
• The Dallas Cowboys pulled out a gutty win against a New York Giants team that had them on the ropes for the majority of the second half. There were many factors that the Cowboys took advantage of during their comeback such as the Giants offense completely stalling out, but the final drive for the Giants defense and how out of position most of the coverage was in was tough to watch. Dallas did not go unscathed though: they will be without star WR Dez Bryant for the next 4-6 weeks with a fractured bone in his foot. The Cowboys next 4 opponents include the Eagles this upcoming weekend and the Patriots on October 11th so it's going to be interesting to see how they mold the offense going forward. As for the Giants, they definitely need help defensively after that collapse. That was their biggest concern coming into the season and they haven't really addressed it this past off-season. Their next 4 opponents include a Falcons team that looks great offensively but shaky on defense, a Bills team that just got done demolishing the Colts, an inner-division matchup against a banged up Redskins team who lost WR Desean Jackson to an injury and a depleted 49ers team. The road isn't too difficult for the G-Men, but going forward they need to shape up on defense or it's going to be more difficult for them to come out of a packed NFC conference.

I guess go for the pass on 4th and 1?

What were the odds that Seattle would be in the same position that ended their SB dreams this past February on the opening week against the Rams? While not for the biggest prize in Football obviously, they were clearly looking to get passed the call that may (or may not) haunt Pete Carrol for the rest of his career. The thing that bugged me was calling for a shotgun HB draw on 4th down, I don't know if they were trying to fool the defense in thinking that Russell Wilson was going to throw or not, but clearly the Rams defense stuffed the line no matter what, not even thinking about calling an audible and it paid off. Nick Foles played outstanding for the Rams, giving them some stability at QB, which they haven't had the past 2 seasons with Bradford suffering season ending injuries and having to scour their bench to find a starter. St. Louis next 4 opponents will test them on both sides of the ball with games against the Packers, Steelers and Cardinals coming back to back to back. I'm not too worried about Seattle since they came back during this game down 14+ points, but you should keep your eye on the situation with Kam Chancellor and whether or not they are able to get him back on the field. While I don't think having him out there during this game was going to change the outcome much, going forward they are going to need as much of their reliable players as possible. They have Green Bay coming up on Sunday Night in a rematch of last year's NFC Championship, with the Lions & Bengals being their next tough opponents in the next month.

ALL ABOARD THE MARIOTA BANDWAGON~!

I love overreactions like that. But it's difficult to not be impressed by how well Marcus Mariota played yesterday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With all the hullabaloo over whether or not he can play in a pro-style offense or how long it would take him to transition to the NFL he sure looked pretty good yesterday. Tennessee has an interesting schedule these next 4 games, one including an inner-division game against the Colts who will look to bounce back after a terrible start against the Bills, who the Titans will see in week 4 at home closing out against a Dolphins team with a stout defense on October 18th. The Bucs shouldn't see Jameis Winston's first throw as a pro go for a pick six (I think Favre did that when he played for the Falcons years ago) but clearly their defense, which was going to keep them into most of these games as Winston gets settled into his role, clearly collapsed and ended up giving the Titans a 28 point lead at halftime. Their schedule isn't going to get any easier with games against New Orleans, Houston & Carolina coming up and a favorable matchup against the Jaguars on October 11th.

Those were some of the things I learned on Opening weekend. See you next Monday!

We have all (probably) tried one or many 30 day challenges. If you don't know what they are, it's trying something new or different for 30 days. It could be cooking something you have never eaten before every day, or working out consistently for 30 days, etc. I have been wanting to get into writing for a while now and I have done a little in the past. I wrote a couple of reviews, became news editor at a couple of websites, and had the occasional blog here and there but never consistently written anything for quite a while now.

Until today.

This month's blog entries will be just me giving my thoughts on different subjects. They are going to be all over the place I'm telling you now but I see it as a way of getting my feet wet again writing. I will be following the same style of blog as Good Ol' JR. Oh, and go buy some of his BBQ products. They are worth it.

For as much doom and gloom that we were getting about the WWE Network numbers, they weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. Sure, they could be a hell of a lot better, but man I was expecting worse numbers than what they actually got. I got the Network as soon at launch and aside from the first couple of days of playback error, it has run smoothly ever since and that includes live PPV. I don't have much to gripe about it other than WHY ISN'T WCW MONDAY NITRO ON THE NETWORK!

...ahem...

One of the problems the WWE Network seems to have is there isn't enough content for the casual viewer to convince them to pay $10/mo or $20/mo. For as much value as I see the WWE Network having, they don't. They will watch Raw and catch the occasional "Big" PPV and seem more than content with that. The $20/mo seems to be the plan that they will most likely look at and say "Hey! For $20 I can watch Summerslam/Survivor Series/Wrestlemania/Royal Rumble and not pay the $60+ normally! And I can cancel at any time! I'm in!" (This fake person is really excited btw)

With the roll out soon to International markets will certainty help, and I think in a couple of years it will be fine. Will WWE be patient enough to wait that long? Probably not. But they don't have a choice.

How great has NXT been consistently since...probably the last year or so. There will maybe be one or two episodes in a month where it just comes and goes, but more often than not each episode has good wrestling and it's awesome to see these guys grow up right in front of you (or in front of your TV, or monitor, or tablet, or phone). Last night's show was another good episode that is building toward's the next (NXT?) live special on September 11th with a fatal four way for the NXT title between Sami Zayn, Tyler Breeze, Tyson Kidd & current champion Adrian Neville. My brother and I were talking about NXT and the discussion soon led to who would be called up next to the main roster and I was dumbfounded when He replied that he feels Breeze will have a hard time on the main roster because his gimmick is done (to a very vague certain extent) by The Miz and Dolph Ziggler (who wouldn't want to be compared to Ziggler!) and he does have a point...somewhat. While I think he has a high hill to climb, he has the athletic & mic skills to hold his own and really shine under that gimmick. I mean, the man sings his own theme song! If you sing your own theme song, you're solid gold baby.

Charlotte is doing fantastic as champion, and I don't see anyone talking the belt from her for a long, long time.She's light years ahead of everyone on that roster (and the main roster as well). She's gonna be something when she gets the call up.

I don't like The Ascension. That's all I got.

Say what you will about Adam Rose, but he & Tyson Kidd had a great main event match on this show. Seriously. I never not liked Adam Rose, but when you give him 5+ minutes in a throwaway match, what do you expect? Trust me, if you don't think he has the skills to hold his own in the ring, watch this match. Tyson deserves alot of that credit as well, but Rose brings it.

PlayStation Now went into public beta yesterday and while the promise of streaming games is good and all...the prices are not. I'm more than positive that the prices will definitely change once PS+ is integrated into all of this, but I don't know anyone who is willing to pay for only 90 days of usage. If all of the games are available in a subscription plan with unlimited play, then PlayStation Now will succeed. Until then, this will be a nice idea but no one will buy rentals when they can just purchase the games at cheaper prices.

With the news of TNA potentially losing their TV deal with Spike, it seems like the end for the promotion is near. Which makes it even worse because last night's show was good. The Wolves vs. The Hardys was fantastic (that finish though...ouch), seeing Low-Ki in the ring will always make me a happy viewer, him winning was a plus as well.

What are they doing with James Storm? He was a pretty good wrestler but lately he seems to be the mentor o Sanada since he turned on The Great Muta. If Sanada decided that having James Storm as your mentor would be more beneficial to his career than The Great Muta, you ain't gonna make it kid. It's also stupid.

The Dixie Carter/Bully Ray stuff is what it is. I mean, I get it and it's all leading up to her getting power bombed through a table on next week's show (don't worry about me spoiling it because TNA did just that by showing snippets of it at the end of the show yesterday. I mean, why not at this point right? )

Samoa Joe back in the X-Division? Sure. Seeing Homicide back was cool as well, I always enjoyed his work. I hope this is the beginning of a resurgence for Joe. It's been too long since I've said "Samoa Joe is the best wrestler going right now".

The main event saw Bobby Lashley retaining the World Title over Austin Aries in a great main event. Lashley has come a long way from where he was in WWE to now. I'm not saying he's a great pro wrestler but he can certainly go. Aries did a fantastic job selling us that despite the size difference, he was going to win the world title. Superb work from both guys and definitely recommend you watch this match, and this show.

I'll end this blog entry with something a little bit personal. I will be attending college for the first time in my life next Monday. Unfortunately, it's not at Greendale (although if my Community college was like Greendale I would be more than happy to be the Troy to someone's Abed). It's been quite the journey for me academically, I've gone through grades where I've done fantastic (I once had a 4.0 in 7th grade) and some where I have not (HS Senior year in particular) but I've always put my best into School despite the struggles I may have had. It'll be the first time in 8 years that I have been inside a classroom and I'm excited & nervous for it. I don't know what to expect, but I do know that will give it my all and in the end, that's all anyone can ask of you.

Thanks for reading.

Until next time.

- Armando