Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 156)

In this volume of my Favourite YouTube Videos, we go through the five steps of trauma, remind ourselves just how awesome we are and then get dirty fighting about video games.

• First, Dael Kingsmill, illustrates the trauma that is a broken Internet connection. 
• Second, Pomplamoose is the shit, and they have been right since the very beginning.
• Finally, The Gaming Historian walks us through the rise of Tengen and the war of Atari vs Nintendo.

Blog: Video Games of March 2017

Breath of the Wild hit in March. It's good. Like really outstandingly one of the best games of all time. Somehow I also played some other games, but really it was in an effort to get back to Zelda.

My top five games (by play time) for March were:

1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - The fact of the matter is that any time a new Zelda game comes out, it's extremely likely to be the game I played the most that month. So you shouldn't be too surprised that I played 40+ hours of Breath of the Wild, but even then you'd be underestimating just how really good Breath of the Wild is.
   
   
   It's so good that, really, I don't want to say too much about it because the more you discover on your own as you play it the better it will be. The game is intended to refresh that childhood sense of going on an adventure and it does it beautifully, taking you on a truly epic journey through the Land of Hyrule. Each time you see a new vista you get a chance to see a new amazing thing in the world, and the game constantly takes your breath away.
   
   If you can get your Hands on Breath of the Wild, play it, as soon as you can. You will be well rewarded
2. Marvel Puzzle Quest - As usual, I've mostly checked in on MPQ when I've been on the bus, play for 20 or so minutes. The game is still great and I definitely miss when I haven't played for a day and it's certainly something to do while you're getting back to Hyrule.
   
   
   
3. Hearthstone - Again I haven't played too much Hearthstone and largely when I've needed a break between jobs or on the odd occasion when I couldn't get back to Hyrule.
   
   
   



4. Pharaoh - I like city walker games, and this one especially. It's also a game with a lot of nostalgia and coming back to it years later I'm enjoying being actually good at it. It definitely has some flaws and could stand for a modern recreation, but it's still great. ... and I played it at least partly so that I didn't burn out on Hyrule.
   

   

   From - GameFAQs User yutjrtf76

   
   
5. Mario Golf: World Tour - Mario Golf is great. I play it at lunch. I tell you this a lot. You know what the world needs: Breath of the Wild Golf. Get on it Nintendo. Meanwhile ... Hyrule.
   

   

   From IGN

Here's my total play time for March 2017:

And here's my play time chart:

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 155)

In this volume of my Favourite YouTube Videos, we lament the passing of small local video game zoos and celebrate just how cool modern engineering can be.

• First. Dave Bulmer, sings a song that makes him very happy. About Donkey Kong. And how he doesn't have a zoo any more. And it's a real song even!
• Next, Destin from Smarter Every Day discovers that the cupola shutters on the International Space Station work by turning a rod stuck through the side of the space station. You might think this would let all the air out, but, because engineering is cool, it doesn't.
• Finally, The Engineer Guy breaks down the way aluminum cans are manufactured, which is a very complex process for something that happens within a second or so.

Blog: Video Games of February 2017

February was a pretty unfocused month for games for me. I played a bunch of stuff, but definitely didn't have a dominant theme and I think that shows in that a lot of the easy, short play time games are at the top of the list again.

My top five games (by play time) for February 2017 were:

1. Marvel Puzzle Quest - Again a little bit each day put MPQ up at the top of my list. As always it's lots of fun, it's easy to play and it makes playing for 5-15 minutes a day pretty rewarding or playing for a couple of hours too.
   
2. Kerbal Space Program - I think I largely got back into KSP, because I keep some screen shots from the last time I played in my PC wall paper. There's just something about looking at some of the cool space ships of my past and thinking, I should play more. I played quite a bit back in 2012, but never really got to landing on other planets or building crazy interplanetary-ships and it all just kinda built up.
   
   
   It's a bit interesting since it's been a long time since I played, a lot of things have changed. It's taken a little bit to pick up again, but generally I've had a lot of fun with it.


3. Hearthstone - As with MPQ, I've been playing a little bit of Hearthstone at a time, but it's built up. (It also took over "lunchtime game" for me this month.) I'm feeling at a pretty good spot, I didn't get that many cards from the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion, but it seems that they aren't too critical to (my part of) the current meta. Also I still love my Paladin Murloc deck and overwhelming people with Murlocs just makes me happy some days.
   
   


4. Earthbound - I'm still enjoying Earthbound, but it's a touch tough to get started playing some times. It's a little bit slow (ala all SNES RPGs) and it can be kinda hard sometimes. Still, every time I play, I feel rewarded. And Mato's Earthbound book is still really great (so I have to keep playing).
   
   


5. Rimworld - Rimworld is ok. It's even getting a little better than it was last year. It's also still in pre-release, so the fact that it's any fun at all (which it is) is fine. The problem with Dwarf Fortress-likes is that they tend to suffer from a lack of depth. With Dwarf Fortress it might take you two or three months to learn how to farm but once you do and you can reliably not kill all your dwarves (by starvation) then there's plenty of other things to turn your mind to (and an incredibly deep (literally) world to explore).
   
   
   Rimworld has a number of complex interacting systems, but it doesn't seem to really take them anywhere. I think the different types of "game narrator" AI will help with that, but the world still feel constricted to me and I'm not sure why I want to build a settlement.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for February:

And here's my play chart for the month: