Great list, Rorie. Hope life calms down for you and the GB (and Gamespot) crews.
Haven't seen or played a lot of these, but Andor might be the thing to eventually get me to subscribe to Disney Plus. I like the Star Wars universe at large but I'm well and truly burned out on everything needed to be joined to the Skywalker hip, and this sounds like more of what I'm looking for.
I haven't read anything fantasy in years and I need to. Glad to see Daniel Abraham is putting out new stuff. I think the best books I read all year have to be Craig Johnson's "Hell and Back" (Wyoming cowboy sheriff wakes up in a literal ghost town - Johnson's writing is damn near poetic and he's one of the best mystery writers out there) and Jason Pargin's "If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe," one of his John Dies at the End novels. Both good stuff. I can't believe I haven't gotten around to Emily Mandel's latest, since she's a favorite, but I will, eventually.
I would kill for a proper new Might and Magic game that recaptured the magic of VI. Somone's going to say, yeah, it exists and it's called Morrowind, and okay, fair. But that game was well beyond its time, and every bit of it was a joy to explore, bugs and all.
@arbitrarywater: I honestly thought this might be the last year I game on anything but my phone and my Switch and tehn I bought a Steam Deck.
But to my credit, that's my favorite console/handheld thing ever. Not even close. It's amazing and it was worth the two months of neglecting my body of vegetables and good food (no it wasn't, I'm insane, don't listen to me).
So there's a lot I love about Club Dead's craziness (especially early Ron Swanson hamming it up), but it comes with a massive caveat that A) anyone interested in playing it should probably just look up YouTube videos instead, and not just for the technical reasons but also because that game's puzzle and death system is very much of that era, and B) big spoilers ahead - it has a dumb, potentially hurtful trop in that the villain is a "crazy transgendered person."
But it really is fantastically weird and well worth the two or three hours it'll take to watch all of it.
Also, completely agreed with your assessment of Zork. That game is well worth a look too, mostly as a curiosity of the era. I really wouldn't mind a Zork retrospective of some kind either on Giant Bomb or Nextlander (which is where it probably belongs, let's be honest). It's a fascinating series.
Anyways, good read, Zeep. I may not comment as much but I'm always enjoying your blogs. Have a great New Year!
I need to start a list of all the Warhammer games I need to play, because as it stands, I think I've only played two, and if you're recommending a tactics game as being the best squad game since War of the Chosen, then I damn well need to play it.
Also, good list. I expect that's all I'll be able to say for most these this year as I've played all of maybe three games released this year, but it's a great read as always. Hope you have a good 2023.
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