#oneaday Day 667: Happy Easter

A happy Easter to anyone who happens to be floating past this page on this day. We don't really celebrate Easter in a particularly meaningful way — though I did buy us a couple of chocolate eggs to enjoy — but it is nice to have the extra-long weekend from Good Friday up until Easter Monday. Time with no commitments and no obligations is nice.

We're having a day off the diet today to celebrate the return of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus H. Christ, then back on it properly tomorrow. Technically speaking we also had yesterday off due to HeroQuest being accompanied by party food, Pringles and some dangerously addictive little cake bite things from Tesco. But yes. Tomorrow it is back to counting the calories and doing things properly, because it seems to have been working for the both of us.

I've not done much of note over the last couple of days, as I was in need of just a break from everything. It's been a really hectic, chaotic time at work of late, and being able to just step away for a bit is exactly what I needed. The end result of all this chaos is going to be well worth it; it's just been a lot of stress getting to the point we're at so far, and I suspect there's more still to come. But we're ready for it and we're going to kick it's ass.

We had all our windows and exterior doors replaced this week. We've got a new front door that is much sturdier than the old one (the entire front fascia would bend and flex when you used the old one!) and patio doors that open like doors instead of slidey doors. Andie's also finally finished the catio to add a little tunnel from the cat flap in the back of the house into the catio proper, so once the cats figure out that the cat flap is there (which I suspect will take a little while) they will be able to go outside when they please without having to get us to open the doors for them. I suspect they will still ask us to open the doors, but it will be nice for them to be able to go outside on their own initiative.

Anyway, we're currently awaiting our 7bone burger for our Easter dinner treat. Then I might give Resident Evil 7 a go in VR after dinner… I am totally brave enough, yes I am.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 666: Togetherness

I sometimes wonder whether I should try and get "into" a multiplayer game. All the positive buzz around Marathon at the moment has me mildly intrigued, but at the same time, it's an extraction shooter; a type of game in which the main point of things seems to effectively be bullying other players, and thus I'm not convinced I would actually enjoy it.

There was a bizarre piece on Rock, Paper, Shotgun earlier desperately attempting to convince fans of single-player games — and particularly stealth games — that they should give Marathon a go. I found it rather unconvincing. While I sort of get the core conceit — that you can play solo, and that you can treat the other players as if they are particularly intelligent "enemies" — it just rang hollow to me, and it bothered me a bit.

Thing is, I often tend to find I like the idea of multiplayer games more than the actual execution of them — because more often than not, I've found that out of necessity, multiplayer games have to cut out things that I specifically like about single-player games, like, say, lengthy story sequences. Final Fantasy XIV eventually had to make certain cutscenes non-skippable to prevent impatient players racing ahead while others were trying to enjoy key story moments, for example — and many other multiplayer games simply eschew ongoing narrative altogether, lest the people you're playing with get bored waiting for you to watch a cutscene.

I just haven't found a game that really clicks with me, other than my early years with Final Fantasy XIV a while back. And so many of them are designed to be timesink "lifestyle" games that are desperate to be the only thing you play. Battle passes, experience levels, lootboxes, all that junk — all of it's designed to keep you playing that game and that game alone, and honestly, I get to a point where I find repeating the same thing over and over again, which is what you end up doing in a lot of multiplayer games, to be rather tedious.

And yet I still feel like I would enjoy playing something together with a like-minded group. I still feel like it would be nice to have a group of online friends that I can enjoy something alongside. I just don't really know what that game would look like at this point, because I suspect the sort of thing that fulfils what I'm looking for — something reasonably social, not based on bullying, and which doesn't demand you make that game your entire personality if you want to have a good time with it — doesn't really exist.

Oh well. It's not as if I'm short of single-player things to enjoy. It'd just be nice to find something I enjoy that would help me make some friends — or indeed be able to have fun with my few remaining existing friends.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 665: Restlessness

I'm having one of those days where I feel, I don't know, restless and sort of dissatisfied with existence. It's a long weekend, and times like that tend to be prone to such feelings, because when you're given a nice block of time off from the day job, the natural thing — for me, anyway — is to wonder how (or whether) you can spend that time in a vaguely "productive" manner, doing something that adds some sort of "value" to your life.

This is not necessarily a good way of thinking about things, of course. Obsessing over whether what you're doing is "worthwhile" can lead to grindset nonsense, and those people are soundly mocked by well-adjusted individuals with good reason. But all the same, I do, at times, feel myself wanting to… I don't know, it's hard to even express. Achieve something, I guess?

I've had this conversation with myself before. I do achieve things in my daily life and with my day job. My contributions to my workplace are a critical part of the entire process of bringing actual physical, tangible products that are worth money to market. Shouldn't that be enough? Isn't that enough of a "legacy" to leave behind?

Well, perhaps. But I'm sure many of us have had grander plans in the past. Plans to write a book, make a game, compose an album of music, all those sorts of things. And, as we get older, it becomes easier and easier to tell ourselves that we "don't have time" to do those things — when, in fact, many of us probably have pretty much the same amount of free time as we did when we were younger.

I think with me, a significant part of it is loneliness. When I was younger, I would fill many of my days spending time with friends and enjoying the things I loved together with them. I can still sort of do that via the Internet, but enthusing about something over a chat application is a very different feeling from having them in the same room with you, reacting in real time to the things that are happening, discussing things as they happen and, you know, laughing and having fun with one another.

I guess I'm a bit sore because it's coming up on my birthday, and for several years I hosted an event with friends around that time where we got together, ate food, enjoyed drinks and played games together as a fun little competition. Last year the response I got to such an event was rather rude, and it upset me a great deal, following a few other things that had frustrated me in past years (including one occasion where I bought a prize for the event and ended up with it returned to me), and I've not heard a peep out of the people involved for nearly a year at this point, so I guess that's that.

Still, at least I have a game of HeroQuest to look forward to tomorrow, and a trip to The Cave towards the end of the month (around my actual birthday date!) so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Now I think I'll go see if I can finish off Resident Evil 6, and stop worrying about whether or not I've spent the bank holiday "correctly".

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 664: Visual novels!

I've been getting back into visual novels of late thanks to Path of Mystery: A Brush With Death (which I wrote more about over on MoeGamer recently, if you'd care to check it out) — and it hasn't taken me long to remember exactly why I enjoy this type of experience so much. I have been once again trying something that I did a while back with some success, which is to replace watching a TV show or YouTube videos over lunch with a visual novel on auto-play, and it's a fine way to enjoy the unfolding story. In fact, I've often found that the bit of time I get to enjoy some of the story at lunchtime makes me more inclined to want to continue after work in the evening.

Following Path of Mystery: A Brush With Death, I've started a VN that's been on my shelf for a very long time, but which I've not yet got around to. It's called WorldEnd Syndrome, and it's by the same company as Path of Mystery: A Brush With Death. In fact, it supposedly unfolds in the same narrative "universe", though exactly what that means is so far not clear; the main setting and core cast are different, so I suspect it may just be a case of the two games having a similar overall vibe.

One of the things I really like about visual novels is the fact it feels like you're really getting to spend some quality time with a (hopefully) interesting cast of characters — characters who you will doubtless have an initial reaction to, and may well change your opinion of over the course of a complete story that involves them. This was certainly the case with Path of Mystery: A Brush With Death, which has an excellent ensemble cast who have a lot of chemistry with one another, and plenty of interesting things to learn about them. The only unfortunate thing is that the concluding hours of the story are very much setting up a sequel and possibly a larger series of multiple games, and so I was left rather wanting more at the end of proceedings!

As someone who has often suffered loneliness, and who has difficulties with self-esteem and confidence when even contemplating socialising with real people out in the real, three-dimensional world, visual novels have always provided a certain sense of comfort. By their very nature, they include you in a close-knit group of people, and give you a sense of "belonging" — even if the way their narrative is constructed makes it clear that you are not the protagonist yourself; you just happen to be riding along in their head, able to hear their innermost thoughts.

A lot of visual novel writers are clearly wise to this particular appeal element of the medium, too, as many of them are set up with characters designed to be varying degrees of relatable, dealing with real-life issues that anyone can understand — and that is comforting. Although the people involved are not real, knowing that someone is aware enough of feelings that you have had to be able to compose a story that involves and acknowledges those feelings — and perhaps even provides some suggestions on how to cope with them (or how not to cope with them) — is reassuring and, in its own way, helps counter some of the loneliness the modern age brings with it.

I'm looking forward to seeing how WorldEnd Syndrome unfolds. I'm only a short way into it so far — still in the introduction, very clearly — but it's already intriguing, and from what I understand, this one does some interesting things with narrative structure. So I might just go and read a bit before bed, now…

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 663: Ten of my favourite Evercade cartridges

I've got a relatively ambitious Evercade-related project in my mental "to-do" pile, but I haven't yet found the time to kick that off. So in the meantime I thought I would spend some time talking a bit more about the thing I spend my days working on.

There's a weird sort of culture a lot of people have about not talking about where they work. I understand it to an extent — if people know where you work, that can open you up to harassment as a result of something your workplace did or announced, plus people can (incorrectly) assume that anything you post on a personal account or site is you somehow acting as a "spokesperson" for that brand. In less enlightened workplaces, too, management can spy on the things you do in your free time and inevitably make the least charitable interpretation of the things you say possible so that they have ammunition to treat you like shit at work.

Thankfully I have not suffered the latter for a good few years now, and I am using this paragraph to make abundantly clear that although I work for Blaze on the Evercade project and related products, this post is my opinion only and does not, in any way, reflect the opinions, values and anything else about my employer. I am writing this post 'cause I love Evercade, and have done since I took a chance and splashed the cash on that "All-In" bundle back in 2020.

Anyway, what I want to do today is pick 10 Evercade cartridges I particularly like and share them with you. There may be some cartridges in this list that are no longer available due to the expiration of licensing agreements between Blaze and the license holders, or all manner of other circumstances, and I make no apologies for this; something good doesn't stop being good just because you can't buy it as easily any more.

With all that in mind then, let us begin:

Namco Museum Collection 1

Although both Namco Museum Collection cartridges for Evercade have not been available for a while due to Namco deciding to be extremely weird about releasing their stuff on physical media these days, they remain highlights of the Evercade's launch lineup — and since they formed the part of several launch bundles, there are a fair few copies out there to be found relatively easily.

I have a tough time picking a favourite out of the two, but on balance I think it has to be the first one, which features some all-time classics and favourites, plus some interesting curiosities. On the classics front, you have good versions of Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Xevious and Mappy, while on the lesser-known front you have the excellent (and surprisingly accessible) strategy game, Metal Marines, plus the awesome space sim Star Luster. And this is just my personal favourites from the cart; there's also Mappy Kids, Libble Rabble, Battle Cars and Quad Challenge, too, making it a well-rounded and fun collection.

Data East Collection 1

If there's one cartridge I feel like I plop in the Evercade more than any other, it has to be Data East Collection 1, for two main reasons: Burnin' Rubber and Midnight Resistance. Both are truly excellent games for very different reasons, but they do have one thing in common: great music.

That's not all that Data East Collection 1 offers, though. There's the beat 'em up action of Bad Dudes and its spiritual sequel Two Crude Dudes, a good version of BurgerTime, the excellent (if totally unrealistic) pool game Side Pocket, the manic puzzler Magical Drop 2, the colourful platformer Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics and the one-on-one fighters Karate Champ and Fighter's History. All of these games have something worthwhile to offer in 2026.

Jaleco Collection 1

Jaleco is one of those publishers I feel people often forget about, but when you look at their library of stuff you realise they've actually put out a lot of bangers over the years. Jaleco Collection 1 features some stars from their console lineup, including the beat 'em ups Brawl Brothers and Rival Turf!, the firefighting action-adventure The Ignition Factor, the sci-fi top-down run-and-gun Operation Logic Bomb and more.

I don't think I've ever loaded up Bases Loaded but I believe it's a relatively well-regarded baseball game from the 8-bit era, and likewise for soccer with Super Goal! 2. Super Earth Defense Force is a solid scrolling spaceship shooter, Astyanax and Totally Rad are decent 8-bit platformers, and City Connection is a really fun arcade-style game that only really suffers due to its excruciating music. There's not a bad game in this bunch, so I come back to this cart frequently.

Gaelco Arcade 1

The two Gaelco Arcade cartridges are some of my all-time favourites from the Evercade library, but I think the first one just about has the edge in terms of the number of games I keep coming back to. My personal standouts are the brilliant World Rally, which has possibly the best handling of any isometric racer of the era; the unusual gameplay of Glass; and the wonderfully silly run-and-gun action of Biomechanical Toy.

If you're unfamiliar with Gaelco — and I'd forgive you if you are, since I'd never heard of them prior to us putting this cart out — this is a great way to get to know them. Expect polished visuals, challenging gameplay and some truly excellent digitised guitar noodling.

Renovation Collection 1

This one won't come as a surprise to anyone, as it's an oft-cited favourite from many longstanding Evercade fans. Featuring an extremely cool range of 16-bit games, many of which have an awesome anime style about them, there's a ton of value on this cart. Highlights for most are Valis and Valis III, El Viento and Arcus Odyssey, but there's plenty more to enjoy here, too.

Gaiares and Sol-Deace are good (if very tough) shoot 'em ups. Granada and Final Zone are great multidirectional shooters. Dino Land is a fun and quirky take on pinball. Traysia is a solid RPG if you go into it with the appropriate expectations (it's channelling Ultima, hard). Beast Wrestler is the weak link for many, but I bet you can find some fun there if you try hard enough.

TheC64 Collection 1

In the absence of some good Atari 8-bit cartridges — we haven't yet got a commercially licensable Atari 8-bit emulator we're happy to work with just yet — I will have to satisfy myself with its great rival, the Commodore 64. Fortunately, the three C64 collections we've put out to date include some of my all-time favourite games, and while I will always prefer the Atari versions in most cases, the C64 versions are good, too.

My personal highlights in this collection are Lee (originally Bruce Lee but now not for hopefully obvious reasons), Jumpman and Gateway to Apshai. There's a really broad mix of games in here, including some real legends (Impossible Mission!) — plus the two "Games" games are great with friends. I know home computer games are a hard sell for some people who grew up with consoles, but honestly, the three C64 collections plus the Thalamus cartridge are a great in-road for the curious.

Duke Nukem Collection 1

It felt like we'd finally hit the big-time with this cartridge. Duke Nukem is a huge license to land, and the fact we got the excellent Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered as an exclusive was, for me, the moment we had really got a proper "killer app" for Evercade.

Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered is, of course, great, and probably the best way to play these shareware classics today. Duke Nukem 3D: Total Meltdown has its detractors, particularly as there are more recent ports of Duke3D that run more smoothly and control a bit more elegantly with a controller, but it's one of those things where if you take it on its own merits and consider that it was running on a platform that, despite having a 3D focus, was still just a little underpowered, is actually perfectly competent and enjoyable. The exclusive levels are a hoot, too — if extremely tough!

Sunsoft Collection 2

Sunsoft is one of those developers that, again, I suspect few people would count among their absolute favourites, but they have a really solid back catalogue of titles to draw upon. This second collection of their games is my personal favourite, primarily due to the presence of the excellent Ufouria: The Saga, which is a truly great exploration platformer.

I'm also a big fan of Pri Pri Primitive Princess!, which is an interesting puzzle game that very much feels like it may have been a home computer game at some point in the past. By this I mean that it's clunky but creative, and if you come at it with the right mindset you'll be well and truly hooked.

Toaplan Arcade 3

I knew I wanted — no, needed — to include a Toaplan Arcade cartridge in this list, and after much deliberation I settled on this third one, primarily for Batsugun and its variant, Batsugun Special Version. Out Zone and FixEight are a hoot, too, Truxton II is just as punishing as its predecessor (but fun once you get into its groove), Ghox is a weird but cool take on Breakout, and Vimana is probably the company's most accessible shoot 'em up.

Toaplan's arcade games are among some of my favourites in the Evercade library, and this is an excellent cartridge full of some of their best titles.

The Turrican Collection

Despite being a home computer gamer in the '80s and early '90s, Turrican is a series that completely passed me by. I always saw gushing praise for it in magazines of the era, but never actually got around to playing it myself. I don't think I ever even played a demo for it. This is a shame, because with The Turrican Collection I've discovered that I like Turrican a lot.

I've also discovered that, unsurprisingly, those who criticise it for having sprawling, meandering levels in which it's easy to get lost were exaggerating somewhat; there's always a clear path forwards, and whether or not you go exploring for goodies is up to you. Plus as the series goes on, it settles into a more "Japanese-style" linear formula, culminating in the technically gorgeous Super Turrican 2. Absolutely banging soundtrack, too.

And there we are. Ten of my favourite carts. Ten of my favourite carts. They might not be yours. But they are mine. And, honestly, if you asked me on another day, I could probably pick out ten more favourites, and repeat the process many times over. In fact, I can find something to love on every single Evercade cartridge — and I'm not just saying that 'cause I work on them. I really am thrilled to do what I do — and I hope that comes across in my contributions to the products in question!

Now after all that, I think I'll go boot one of these up and have a nice retro evening…

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 662: Nexus announcement day

I get to talk a bit about the day job today! I say "get to" like someone hasn't been allowing me to do so. What I mean is: we had a big announcement today, and I'd like to talk about it!

That announcement was for Evercade Nexus, a new Evercade handheld featuring a much bigger, brighter screen, significantly louder speakers, dual analogue sticks and a host of other cool features. You can see the trailer here:

Evercade has always been a platform that plays a wide variety of retro games — the library actually covers six different decades (from the 1970s up until today) — but Nexus has been designed with a bit of a '90s flavour, hence the somewhat different look and feel to the new trailer. The dual analogue sticks are designed to complement 3D games from the 32-bit era that we already have in the library (and have planned for the future), as well as our upcoming brand new native ports of 64-bit legends like Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, and these games all hail from the '90s, so it makes sense for the branding to reflect that.

You can still play classic Atari games on it as well, though, (plus, of course, all the other classic consoles the Evercade library covers!) and the bright colours found in your average old-school pixel art title will look lovely on that screen — plus with the all-new extra-loud speakers, you can subject everyone in the vicinity to the sound of Pitfall Harry and/or Lara Croft falling to their death for the umpteenth time.

I've said it before, but I'm super proud to work on Evercade. Ever since I first went for the "All-In" bundle of the original handheld back in 2020, which came with the first 10 cartridges released for the platform, I knew it was something special — and hoped that one day I would be able to be part of it. Well, now I am part of it — I have been for some time, and will hopefully continue to be for a long time yet — and it's a delight to be able to look at a product like the Nexus and think that I played a part in that, along with every cartridge release we do.

It's an interesting feeling to have lived long enough to remember these games from first time around vividly enough to still be excited about helping rerelease them on a new device. I never stopped loving games like (Bruce) Lee, MegaMania, Checkered Flag and myriad others — it's a genuine privilege to have been part of making official rereleases happen. Right now I'm working on the Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie double pack that is bundled in with Nexus, and it's hard work, but also immensely rewarding when I think about how good this release is going to be when it's finished.

And there are many more exciting games coming down the road — including a bunch more of my all-time favourites. I can't wait to share them with you all, and if you're new to Evercade, I hope you'll consider jumping on board with Nexus or one of our other devices! Preorders for Nexus open tomorrow — you can find out more here.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 661: When people would gnaw off an arm for a freelance writing gig, using generative AI is unforgivable

In the last 18 years, 4,535 posts and 3,263,700 words (yes, really, I got a plugin to count them and everything), I have never once felt the need to outsource my thinking and creativity to a machine. There are two posts written by "guest authors" (which, spoiler, were actually both me in a cunning disguise!) and there are a couple of posts where I perm i tted drunken friends the opportunity to contribute a sentence or two to a post I was writing while out and about, but the remainder is all me, scooping out the contents of my brain and plopping it onto the page for no other reason than the fact that I enjoy doing so, and occasionally find it helpful.

Today, this notice appeared in the New York Times on a book review it had published:

Editors' Note: March 30, 2026:
A reader recently alerted The Times that this review included language and details similar to those in a review of the same book published in The Guardian. We spoke to the author of this piece, a freelancer reviewer, who told us he used an A.I. tool that incorporated material from the Guardian review into his draft, which he failed to identify and remove. His reliance on A.I. and his use of unattributed work by another writer are a clear violation of The Times's standards. The reviewer said he had not used A.I. in his previous reviews for The Times, and we have found no issues in those pieces. The Guardian review of "Watching Over Her" can be read here. (link)

This, to me, is unforgivable. Supposedly there are plenty of writers out there who are doing this — or something like it, anyway — but to me, it is unfathomably awful. To be a writer, someone who cares about one's craft, you have to give a shit. And absolutely nothing says "I don't give a shit" quite like relying on generative AI so heavily that your article has to be pulled because its plagiarism was too obvious.

I mean, when you think about it, it's obvious that this would happen, given the way generative AI works and is trained — if it's pulling all its wording from existing texts that it has absorbed (without any compensation for the original authors) from around the Web, then of course it's going to come up with some of the same things, perhaps even the exact same phrasing.

You'd think it would be obvious, anyway — and that any writer worth their salt would not, as a result, rely on it — but apparently this is not the case. Much how the above-linked Wired article should really result in all the authors named being blacklisted from every freelance writing pool, effective immediately, this incident should be the end of Alex Preston's career. There should be no second chances. To quote the old Batman meme, this is the weapon of the enemy; we do not need it; we will not use it.

Believe me, at this point I've heard every pro-AI argument there is — some, like the nonsensical "back in the '90s some people thought the Internet would be a bad thing!!" one, more than others — and none of them stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. AI does not make you a better writer. AI does not make you a writer. The only thing that makes you a writer is, quite simply, writing. And if you are not sitting down and writing something for yourself — whether that be through putting pen to paper, tapping away at a keyboard or dictating your words verbally — you are not a writer. And no, "writing" your prompt to get the bot to churn out a thousand words for you does not count.

Humanity's written languages have survived for thousands of years — albeit with plenty of evolution — through people being taught how to use them. It is, today, a fundamental part of your early socialisation process to learn how to read and write; yes, some folks have specific learning needs that make it harder or even impossible for them to do so, but even for them, generative AI is emphatically not the answer, as we have plenty of assistive methodology and technology that can allow these people to thrive that does not rely on the odious fad that is presently bleeding the planet dry.

So I'm sorry, I have no patience left whatsoever for any incidents like this. The people involved in the Wired and New York Times articles above deserve to be kicked out of their career. Because if they have no respect for writing as a craft, why on Earth should any readers be expected to have any respect whatsoever for the shit they've churned out through the bots?

There are myriad people out there who would chew off their own arm for an opportunity to have a byline beneath a prestigious masthead — and every one of them who relies entirely on their own writing abilities, rather than outsourcing their creative process to the planet-burning chatbot, deserves those opportunities a million times more than those who clearly have no respect for themselves, their peers, or their readership.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 660: This one particular type of headline is very annoying

Did you click on this article? Probably not, because statistically speaking most of you read posts from the site's front page (where the full posts are published) or in your email inbox. (The really cool ones read via RSS, of course.) I don't feel the need to clickbait on this site largely because 1) it's my personal site and I don't really care if anyone reads it (though it is nice) and 2) I have always found clickbait incredibly annoying.

I don't know if I'm just in a bad mood right now or if there really has been a rise in clickbait headlines of late, but I feel like I'm noticing it a lot more of late. I'm talking about stuff like this:

That's a piece from Kotaku about LGR building himself a warehouse. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone reading Kotaku on a semi-regular basis does not know who LGR is, so to deliberately obfuscate his identity in the headline just feels like it's being annoying on purpose.

One could argue that this headline has been written appropriately, however; it gets the broader point across in a way that is accessible to all, regardless of whether or not they know who LGR is. So I will begrudgingly give it a pass.

I do not give the following (from GameSpot) a pass, particularly because they "spoil" it in the accompanying image:

Just say Hercules. We can see it's Hercules. Also I'm not 100% sure Hercules counts as one of Disney's more "iconic" movies. I guess it was in Kingdom Hearts.

GameSpot is very fond of this sort of shit right now:

Yeah, fuck off with that. Just tell me what it is.

Double fuck off for this being based on a "rumour", something which I was always discouraged from reporting on when I was working the news beat in the games press. If your headline has "could" in it, just stop.

But let's not pick exclusively on GameSpot.

Let's also pick on GameRant, which, to be fair, is part of the odious Valnet group. This headline can get right in the fucking bin. (It's Elder Scrolls Blades, if you gave a shit.)

This one can, too. (Horizon Chase Turbo in this case.)

Look, I get it. If you're on the endless churn and trying to juice your site's SEO results in order to maximise your KPIs for men in suits who don't know what video games actually are, it's easy to feel like it's necessary to pull this shit in order to "get people curious enough to click". But people are savvy to it now, to such a degree that it's a practice that gets routinely mocked.

Just say what the article is actually about rather than this bullshit playground teasing ("I know something you don't!") and if the story has any merit, people will click through to it anyway to find out more details. Those "more details" someone clicks through to find out more about should not, repeat, not be the name of the subject of the story.

This sort of thing is rarely the fault of the individual reporters — although I'm sure there are a few out there who love pulling this little stunt. No, it's inevitably an edict from on high for the reasons just stated. With the general health of video games media being deep within the "critical danger" territory, the suits want quick solutions that, in theory, get results.

Only I'm not convinced this sort of practice does get results any more. Like I say, people are wise to it now. I refuse to believe that I am the only one who simply won't click on an article whose headline is a deliberate cocktease.

Look at it this way: why should I give a shit that "a Switch game is being delisted on June 1"? There are thousands of the fucking things, many of which I don't care about. "The eShop is full of crap" is a meme for a reason. I do, however, own a copy of Horizon Chase Turbo, and thus would be interested in hearing why that specific game is being delisted. (It's stupid, by the way. And you can blame Epic for it.)

Anyway, that has been your nightly grump. Please write meaningful headlines, especially if you want the few remaining dregs of the video games press to be taken even a little bit seriously.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 659: Justice for RTS: achieved... again

I realised I never followed up on RoseTintedSpectrum's recent YouTube woes that I posted about a while back. Chances are if you're familiar with Rosie's work, you already know that there was, thankfully, a happy ending to the situation: he got his YouTube Partner Program status back, which means he can get paid again, with the only unfortunate news being that there would be a month or so's delay before he would be able to get what was owed to him during the demonetisation incident.

If you're not familiar with Rosie's work, however, I thought I'd take today to highlight some of the great things he's been doing, because he's a hardworking lad who makes consistently entertaining YouTube videos on a variety of subjects. He shot to (relative) stardom when he decided to cover the questionable classic UK TV show GamesMaster, and, having previously been a channel primarily about old games (and longstanding GamesMaster rival-though-not-actually-that-similar show Bad Influence!), he decided to lean into what had brought him some success, and cover old TV instead.

GamesMaster is still a recurring feature — his most recent video covers the legendary "Dave Perry Super Mario 64 Incident" — but he also looks at old kids' TV shows, too, and offers commentary that is both hilarious and insightful, and without dropping into either dry, boring quasi-academia or just straightforward summaries of the shows accompanied by occasional "oh my God, you guys, I can't believe they did that" reactions.

Anyway, here's some of my favourite videos from him. I recommend subscribing to his channel and giving them all a watch — many of them are on the long side by the very nature of covering entire series at once, but he punctuates these with short videos about fluff like Rainbow and Rosie and Jim if you want something a bit shorter.

Here's the aforementioned video about GamesMaster and The Dave Perry Incident. It's worth watching the prior videos in the run-up to this, as it's interesting to revisit the show and contemplate how it evolved (and not always for the better) from series to series, but this one, which many of the newer members of Rosie's audience have been eagerly awaiting for some time, represents some of his best work to date.

California Dreams is not a show I remember ever seeing back in the day, and having seen Rosie's retrospectives on it, I'm not sure whether or not I would have been into it. It's undoubtedly rubbish, particularly when viewed from a modern perspective, but it's also a really interesting show to explore, and Rosie's videos on the subject do a great job of explaining why. You won't come away from them desperate to watch the series as a whole, but even if you never saw it back in the day, you'll feel like you have a better understanding of its existence and its context.

Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House is another show I don't think I ever saw, and I'm not sure I would have watched it when I was a kid even when it was on. However, like his retrospective on California Dreams, Rosie manages to make a look back on the subject compelling, interesting and frequently hilarious — as well as pointing out the weirdly dark nature of a show about stop-motion animated toys, in which the title character is, by a significant margin, the least important character in everything that unfolds on screen.

And finally, from his earlier (pre-GamesMaster) channel, a video on Xenon 2, and how the reality of a game that was popular back in the day can differ quite significantly from the critical consensus on its original release — and how people who cling relentlessly to the latter can make it quite difficult to talk about something.

Rosie's a good lad who puts a ton of effort into his videos, and I'm happy to see he's enjoyed so much success over the last few years. His recent woes with YouTube — along with a similar, but worse situation back in 2024 — are an unfortunate reminder that this sort of success can be worryingly fragile through no fault of the creator. So go give him a view or two, and if you like what you see, consider becoming a YouTube member or a Patreon supporter. Good work — particularly when it's achieved without the usual manipulative "influencer" tactics — deserves to be compensated, or at the very least, appreciated.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.

#oneaday Day 658: A random selection of pieces of music that make me smile

It's getting late and I haven't thought of anything to write and I'm full of curry, so let's do a MULTIMEDIA POST, shall we?

I'm partly inspired by a discussion I had earlier in a Discord that I'm a member of, in which we talked about things we liked from creators who clearly just made things for the joy of creating them — not in the hope of "going viral" or making a living out of them. I'm talking about stuff like Badgers, Badgers, Badgers and its ilk — although as it happened, a lot of those works did end up going viral and doubtless making their creators a fair amount of money. The point is that they weren't created with that in mind from the outset.

Funny, silly comedy songs and animations aren't the only thing I want to talk about today, though. More broadly, I just want to share a few things that always make me smile. Not always because they're funny, but because I just find them uplifting in some way. And where better to begin than with the irrepressible Hatsune Miku?

I'm not sure what exactly caused me to hyperfixate on this piece of music from Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S so much, but make no mistake; I most certainly did hyperfixate on it, as for a significant portion of my time playing the Picross-esque puzzles in Logic Paint S, I had set the in-game playlist to be nothing but this track.

I think I like this just because it's undeniably cheerful, bouncy and upbeat. It feels like it fits Miku nicely, and it's a good accompaniment to doing some puzzles — or just for when you need a bit of a pick-me-up.

My first encounter with Cave's classic bullet hell shoot 'em up series Dodonpachi was on iOS devices, where there was an excellent version of Dodonpachi Resurrection. One thing which still stands out about the mobile version of this game is that it features an exclusive game mode that not only has its own mechanics, it has a completely different soundtrack to the game's regular, rather more moody score.

People like the standard Dodonpachi Resurrection music a lot, and to be sure, it's good. But there's something I really like about these completely new tracks from the mobile version — and particularly this one, which accompanies the opening level. It's got that real adventurous "we're setting off on a brave, bold mission!" feel to it that I really like; it's full of hope for the future, rather than a bleak sense of submission to the endless horrors that await. And I think we could all do with a bit of that right now.

I maintain that Inti Creates' Gal*Gun games are some of the best games that no-one will admit to playing because they're about making girls collapse in euphoric ecstasy by pointing at them. All three of them are really solid rail shooters, each with their own distinctive mechanics and story to follow, and they all have great soundtracks, too.

This track, used for a lot of the regular levels in Gal*Gun 2, is a short but sweet track that really sums up the game's energy. There's not a trace of maliciousness anywhere in any of the Gal*Gun games, and their music never fails to make me smile.

Right, time we had a silly one. I remember coming across this one for the first time and absolutely pissing myself laughing. It still always makes me chuckle now… particularly the "Cock!" break in the second verse.

This sort of thing is very representative of what was going on in the Badgers, Badgers, Badgers-adjacent space on sites like rathergood.com, b3ta.com and Weebl's Stuff back in the mid '00s to the early '10s. The thing I like is that although endearingly lo-fi, particularly in the vocal samples, the whole thing is very well put together and works as a standalone song. It's just better with the animation.

Regrettably, the original animation for this piece is no longer available. It used to be that you could type in "2204355" into Google Search, hit "I'm Feeling Lucky" and it would take you to a technicolour Flash animation featuring a pixelated dancing guy from an old KFC advert and this delightful chiptune remix of the theme from ALF. Thankfully, the person behind the music came forward and published the music in its full glory on YouTube some 15 years ago, so even though the Google trick doesn't work any more, we can, at least, still enjoy the tune.

Side note: this blog is old enough that I blogged about when I first found this. It was, it has to be said, a particularly dark period in my life, when I had just split from my first wife and was at the lowest I've ever been. I happened to stumble across this one evening and found that it drove the darkness away for a few minutes at a time, so I watched that stupid animation over and over for hours. Thank you, mystery 2204355 creator, and thank you, Zalza, for helping me in my hour of need, even if you have no idea that you did so.

I wrote a bit about Sbassbear the other day, but I can't not mention their most recently published Game Grumps remix, as it's one of their best yet. Once again, this is a video I just keep returning to because it makes me smile.

Actually, to hell with it, there's another Sbassbear one I love also, and I can't pick between these two, so you're getting both:

I love BEANS because it's just so chaotic and ridiculous. But I love Shnigedy Ding Dong because it encapsulates the feeling you get when playing Tetris Effect Connected — and specifically, the wonderful mode where three people team up against another player, every so often bringing their independent wells together into one giant superwell, accompanied by a massive crescendo in the music and… as Dan says in the video, "ohhh, I love it so much!"

Right, that's enough. Off to bed with me now.

If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.