#oneaday Day 240: Fair and Balanced Critique

Hello! First of all, here:

That's the first of the two videos I recorded this weekend. Please enjoy a full playthrough of King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne on Atari ST.

Part of the reason I'd felt inspired to play this (and Space Quest) this weekend is because I've been watching the videos of a channel called Space Quest Historian. This is a chap who absolutely loves adventure games, but had little experience with the King's Quest series prior to a donation drive on his Patreon, where he said he would play through each and every King's Quest game for reaching various donation milestones. He also doesn't really like "fantasy" as a genre.

I have been absolutely loving his entertainingly scathing teardowns of the King's Quest games, and I adore those games for the most part. And I've been racking my brains trying to think why I'm enjoying these vids so much when sometimes I feel oddly upset and defensive when someone is negative about something I love.

And it all comes down to intent. Space Quest Historian isn't malicious about these games at all, even when ripping them a new one for their more absurd elements. Instead, he's inviting us to be in on the joke; inviting those unfamiliar and existing fans alike to come along on a ride where he entertainingly points out all the ridiculous things in these games. And, to be clear, as a fan of King's Quest, I can quite happily admit that there are a lot of ridiculous things in those games.

Where this differs from, say, reviews of Japanese stuff that have upset me in the past, is that Space Quest Historian is not being mean about these games, nor is he being mean about the people who like them. He's not suggesting that you are a bad person for liking the games, nor is he suggesting that you are wrong for liking the games; instead, he is simply providing some light-hearted commentary in a series of videos that it should be abundantly clear from the very opening seconds should not be considered serious critique or analysis. And he's often the first to say as much.

Compare and contrast that approach with, say, reviews of Japanese games that outright call people who like them paedophiles, or suggest that people who enjoy a particular series are sex pests, or that they only like anime women because no real woman would ever want to touch them. That crosses a line. That's mean, and uncalled for. All of the games I'm thinking of with those examples have plenty about them that can be poked fun at, but without it being at the expense of those who genuinely love them and have found meaning in them.

It can be a fine line, of course, between being hyperbolically nitpicky about something and the audience feeling like you're attacking it. And indeed, some commenters on Space Quest Historian's channel feel he veers too far in the "bad" direction. But as someone who is normally quite sensitive to this sort of thing, I've been really enjoying his work, and I'm looking forward to seeing more. It doesn't stop me from enjoying the King's Quest games; in fact, I probably find these videos funnier precisely because I recognise all the things that he's discussing.

Anyway, just fancied saying all that — and sharing my King's Quest II playthrough above. Please enjoy!

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.

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#oneaday Day 239: Two Quests in one day

I recorded some videos earlier. I really like doing adventure game playthroughs, so I decided to play through both King's Quest II (I've already done the first one) and Space Quest, the latter of which I've never played all the way through by myself, but which I've fallen asleep to Dan from Game Grumps playing on numerous occasions.

I was hoping to get The Dagger of Amon Ra done also, but it turns out playing and beating three adventure games in one day is just a little too ambitious, so I've settled for just the two mentioned. The Dagger of Amon Ra is still on the list, though; I found The Colonel's Bequest far too interesting to just leave Laura Bow hanging like that.

I mostly enjoyed the experience of these two games. King's Quest II is a game I have fond memories of playing as a kid, though I'm not sure I ever actually beat it when I was younger. Space Quest was mostly a pleasure, also, save for two truly awful and mandatory sequences you have to endure: a "skimmer" race where you have to dodge incoming rocks, and a slot machine sequence where you need to earn an obscene amount of money using a purely luck-based system. (If you're playing a later revision of the game, there is a cheat to bypass this sequence, but sadly, the ST version I was playing was not said later revision, so I had to do it "the hard way".)

I always find it fascinating to go back to adventure games, because when I was younger actually making it all the way through one seemed like a literal impossibility. Particularly if we're talking about Sierra games, which most certainly are not afraid to kill off the player regularly, or leave them in a situation where they forgot an item earlier in the game that is mandatory to progressing later. King's Quest is probably more notorious than Space Quest in this regard, but as it happens, of the two games I played today, King's Quest II was probably the gentler, fairer of the two, while Space Quest had several opportunities to miss important objects and completely screw your entire playthrough over.

But no. Those games that seemed impossibly huge and insurmountable as a child are almost laughable in their length today. Actually, no, I don't mean that; both King's Quest II and Space Quest (annoying bits aside) are just the right length to be satisfying, so far as I'm concerned, but I do feel like if a modern equivalent of both of these was released today, they would be quickly review-bombed by entitled Steam kiddies whinging about "lack of content" and "no updates, abandoned game".

For me, though, it's nice to be able to power through a game like this in the space of a couple of hours — possibly even quicker if you know exactly what to do and the best order to do it in. I certainly enjoyed recording these two videos today — and I'm looking forward to publishing them over on YouTube over the course of the next few days. Now, though, it's 1.15 in the morning and I should probably go to sleep. Adventure is calling, but an adventurer also needs his rest, to be sure!

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#oneaday Day 238: The Sims is still good

The rumours were true! Just ahead of the series' 25th anniversary, EA dropped rereleases of The Sims and The Sims 2 on their own storefront and Steam earlier today, for the eminently reasonable price of £34.99 for the both of them. Considering they both come with all the expansions (well, I think The Sims 2 might be missing the IKEA "stuff" pack, but that's about it), I'm perfectly happy to pay up for them both, particularly considering The Sims has never had a digital release, and The Sims 2 has been unavailable for a long time.

"But you can get them both for free!" the entitled corners of the Internet shout. "They're abandonware, and that means you can legally download them for free!" Well, firstly, one, no it doesn't, because abandonware isn't actually a thing, legally speaking, and two, it is important to support official rereleases of stuff like this, because it gives a thumbs up to companies making a commitment to actually preserving their history and making it available to everyone, even those who weren't there for it first time around. It's no good carrying on about "preservation" if you don't support actual attempts to do that. Piracy is all well and good if there is no other way, but official preservation efforts should be supported. Yes, even if they're by EA.

Both rereleases have been updated so that they work just peachy on Windows 10 and 11, and The Sims is able to run in much higher resolutions than it ever has before, and in widescreen. Okay, the game could arguably do with a UI scale option when playing at 1080p or higher, but it's not unplayable by any means, particularly if you're playing on a big TV as I have been.

I've spent a few hours revisiting The Sims this evening by making a rough recreation of my original "Hartley Family" save file, which featured me and the other members of my hall of residence flat at university struggling to survive. I am reminded that the original The Sims is actually surprisingly challenging compared to some of its follow-ups; thus far, keeping on top of six people's needs has been quite difficult, particularly with a lack of substantial income. Things will get easier once some of them start getting promoted and bring in a bit more money each day, but for the moment it's very much in "scraping by" territory.

Also one of them has died already after burning down the kitchen, but I managed to "Plead" with the Grim Reaper quickly enough for him to be able to return as a zombie. I have made a promise to myself that I'm not going to save scum at all, I'm just going to deal with the consequences of everything that goes on as it happens. Emergent narrative and all that.

I'm interested to spend a bit more time with the original The Sims, as back when it was current, I had a lot of the expansion packs, but not all of them. I don't think I had Superstar, Unleashed or Makin' Magic, and those are three that have some substantial additions to the gameplay — the pursuit of fame, pets and the ability to cast spells using appropriate components respectively.

At present, I've got one of the six Hartley family members equipped with a magic wand and (thus far) the ability to turn someone into a toad, and another who keeps slipping off to the "Studio Town" area to go and sing karaoke badly (earning a whopping 5 Simoleons per performance at present) but so far, it's a struggle to keep their mood high enough to be able to truly take advantage of those features. Much as with real life, getting a solid and stable income stream is important if you want to start doing anything out of the ordinary.

So that's that. The Sims and The Sims 2 are both available on Steam and EA's own storefront right now, either separately or in a bundle together. You also get a "free" copy of The Sims 4 with them, but since that went free-to-play a while back anyway it's probably best ignored unless you want to get into DLC hell. The rereleases of both The Sims and The Sims 2 are complete, meanwhile (aside from the aforementioned Ikea pack for The Sims 2) and should keep you busy for a very long time indeed.

I'll probably write more about one or the other or both at some point, but for now, I'm happy. It's been a nice bit of nostalgia to revisit The Sims — and a reminder that as cynical as people got about the series over the years (not without good reason), it's still just a damned fine game at heart, too.

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#oneaday Day 237: The library is open

A number of things occurred today that I could potentially talk about: some positive, some not so positive. In the interests of… (gesticulates at all this) everything I'll focus on probably the most positive one, because it's something I'm really excited and happy to see.

Those of you interested in video games as a medium may be aware of the work of the Video Game History Foundation. They've been working as a charitable organisation chronicling the history of the medium for some time now, and they're responsible for the figure you may have seen bandied around that "87% of classic games are not available".

Something they've been working on for a while is providing a means of public access to their library of materials, which includes not only old computer and gaming magazines, but also development and marketing materials as well as some thoroughly fascinating bits of miscellanea, such as a gamer's hand-drawn maps of two early Zelda games that found themselves among a donation of other bits and pieces.

Today, the organisation launched the library for "early access", presumably meaning that there might be some kinks to work out and that it will expand over time, but already it's clear that it's going to be both a valuable resource and something that is just interesting to explore.

There are two main components to the library. First of all is the main catalogue at library.gamehistory.org, which is a catalogue of the materials that the organisation holds. This is interesting to browse through and see what's in their collection, but isn't of that much use when researching things. For most, the real attraction will be the digital archives at archive.gamehistory.org, which include digitally preserved material — scans and other digitised content, in other words.

At present the archives only contain a fraction of what is listed in the main catalogue, and the organisation notes that there is some material that may never be digitised for public access via the Internet for one reason or another. But what's there already is plenty to get stuck into. There's a library of magazines, for example, including 33 publications at the time of writing, including complete or near-complete runs of well-known mags such as Game Informer, Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro, plus early attempts at gaming media like Electronic Games, a spinoff of Video magazine's Arcade Alley column.

Right now there is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a US bias to things (and as I type this, the site has crashed under the weight of day-one demand so I can't check what non-American stuff they have, if any!) but there's a significant chunk of gaming media history to explore here; the aforementioned publications all played an important part in shaping video game fandom at one point or another, and the digitally available collection will only continue to expand over time. I'm particularly excited to see the archive of Electronic Games there, as this is an incredible resource to see how early consoles (like the Atari 2600, Intellivision and suchlike) and 8-bit home computers were covered by a fledgling enthusiast press.

But it's not just about magazines. There's also stuff like an archive of the CDs GamePro had that contained press materials, from the days before press assets being distributed via the Internet. There's production materials from games, some of which never made it to market, like SimPeople (what would subsequently become The Sims). There's development materials from a wide variety of sources. And tons more.

I'm really looking forward to exploring this library of stuff and seeing how it expands over time. It's going to be an absolute boon to anyone researching the history of video games and how they were covered by the media of the day, and I can't wait to make use of all this material when composing videos and articles.

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#oneaday Day 234: The return of The Sims?

Supposedly The Sims and The Sims 2 are getting the rerelease/remaster treatment at some time around the end of the month. It is the 25th anniversary of the series this year, and it appears that EA is actually listening to people for once and (supposedly) bringing back two of the most fondly regarded entries in the series, neither of which have been available for a very long time — and I don't believe the original The Sims has ever been available digitally, since it came from that dark and mysterious time where you had to go to a shop to buy PC games. (Yes, I miss it. I would be much more of a PC gamer if it was possible to have a physical PC game collection.)

I used to really enjoy The Sims. The original game came out at an absolutely perfect time for me: while I was at university. As someone who had previously enjoyed the SNES version of SimCity (aka the best version… apart from the bugs) and Sim City 2000, I was intrigued to see creator Will Wright doing something a little bit different. The idea of a "life simulator" was something that had captured my imagination from around the 16-bit age; Activision's Little Computer People existed, but I wondered what something with a bit more "game" to it might look like.

Something really enjoyable, as it happened. The Sims, just in its base form, was an absolute revelation. Not only did I have fun with it, but everyone in my flat at university enjoyed getting involved, too. I'd made virtual versions of all of us, and everyone liked to check in every so often to see how we were all getting along. Because I rather overdid the size of our house when I started playing, we all had to sleep in recliners in the large communal living area for a while, but as everyone got jobs and started bringing in the Simoleons, we were able to live a rather luxurious life.

The Sims is interesting to think back on, because it's from a time where you could release a "sandbox" game and it wasn't anything unusual. Moreover, these games didn't need anything like achievements, daily quests or other engagement-bait to get people to enjoy playing them. They were enjoyable just because… well, because they were good. I'm actually rather interested to revisit the original The Sims just to see how well it holds up today. Obviously the graphics will look a tad dated, but I bet the gameplay still has it where it counts.

The Sims 2 I remember owning, playing and enjoying, but I don't recall playing it quite as much as the original for one reason or another. It certainly wasn't because I didn't like it or anything — I recall picking up several of the expansions for it — but for some reason it doesn't stick in my mind quite as much as the original. I know it's an especially fondly regarded entry in the series, though, so it might be fun to have another look at.

I really enjoyed The Sims 3, even though that was really the point that EA started truly taking the piss with the number of expansions and "Stuff" packs — something which has been taken to a frankly obscene degree with The Sims 4, which I've never played. I had a lot of fun with the World Adventures expansion in particular; I really liked the "dungeon crawling" subgame that added to the mix, as it made you make use of the game's mechanics in a rather different way.

I'm normally loathe to give EA money, particularly as they seem all-in on the AI fad right now, but I might make an exception if they don't fuck up the ports of these games — which is, of course, a distinct possibility. But we'll see; sources seem to reckon we'll see them by the end of the month, and there ain't much left of the month. Further reports as events warrant!

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#oneaday Day 233: Rearranging

This weekend has mostly been about Rearranging Things. I was getting to a point where I was out of room for new games in the living room, see, so something had to give at some point. And, this weekend, that something has well and truly given. I haven't quite finished the entire process, but the net result is that I will have a lot more room both in my study upstairs and in the living room, giving the game collection a bit of room to continue to grow in the near future. Assuming Switch 2 continues to be as good for physical releases as the current Switch, that will most certainly continue to happen.

Here's a rundown of what I've done, if you care:

Packed away the vintage computers (Atari ST, Atari 130XE). As much as I love them, whenever I'm "doing something" with either Atari 8-bit or ST, I'm doing it via emulation of some description, primarily so I can record the process. Recording the real ST and/or 8-bits isn't out of the question, but with stuff like The400 Mini and Hatari so readily available, there's really little reason to keep the old stuff out for the moment.
Packed away a significant chunk of Atari ST software. I've kept the games out because even if I'm emulating them for a video, it's nice to have the packaging and manuals available to use — plus those shelves make a nice backdrop for videos. The stuff I've packed away is all either educational, productivity or music/audio software — stuff that I really have very little reason to make use of.
Packed away all my big box PC games. Realistically, if I'm going to play one of these games, it's going to be via GOG.com/DOSBox or eXoDOS. It would be nice to have the boxes and manuals available on hand, but there are plenty of solutions available for doing that "virtually" if required.
Moved all the stuff that was just taking up space in the cupboard in my study into a "to go into the loft" pile. Most of that was vintage computer stuff, and if I'm packing the main vintage computers away there's little reason to have, say, an Atari ST monochrome monitor knocking around.
Moved a chunk of PlayStation 2 games from the living room to the cupboard in my study. There's a Billy bookcase in there that I can now reach now all the crap's been moved out of there, and I've put PS2 games that I don't want to get rid of or which won't be worth very much in there, keeping the PS2 shelves downstairs for stuff I might still want to play on the big TV. This has freed up a bunch of extra shelves for the collection down here to expand into.
Moved all the Evercade stuff into my study. Since I work up there, it makes sense to have it all up there — plus if I want to make videos on Evercade stuff, it's much more convenient to have them on a shelf next to me rather than downstairs, as much as I enjoyed displaying the collection with pride in the living room.

I have not yet rearranged the existing Switch games to fit the newly available space, but I basically have about four full shelves available to use that I didn't have before, which is nice. I'm glad I was able to do this without having to throw away or get rid of anything; while I know putting stuff in the loft can seem like a death sentence for some stuff, at least I know it is there if I do want to get it back for whatever reason — or if we eventually decide we want to move to a bigger place. (I'm still holding out for that lottery win… it hasn't happened yet.)

Anyway, all that's really left to do today is to get a binbag and clear all the crap away from my actual working desk in the study so I can use it for, y'know, working tomorrow. That can wait until after dinner, though. I need a sit down now!

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#oneaday Day 219: Getting it done

I finally managed to muster up the motivation to make some YouTube videos today. Three of them, in fact; they'll be up on the channel over the course of the next week or so.

To be clear, I wasn't putting off making these videos because I didn't want to make them; I was primarily putting them off because I had a cold in mid-December, and it's left me with a really annoying cough but no other symptoms. (I went to the doctor to see if it was an infection or anything, and it seems there's nothing to be concerned about; I just Have A Cough for a bit, frustratingly.)

I didn't want to start recording videos and collapse into a coughing fit partway through, so I'd been putting it off, particularly as a couple of weekends ago I started trying to record a The Dagger of Amon Ra playthrough and had to stop because my throat wasn't up to it.

My cough is still here — mostly in the evenings, and especially annoyingly when I lie down to go to sleep — but I managed to hold it at bay for the duration of three videos earlier, which is nice. Those three videos are kicking off something I want to be doing throughout this year: exploring a variety of home computer stuff, including Spectrum, Amiga and C64 stuff as well as the Atari 8-bit and ST stuff I've primarily built my channel on.

It felt good to finally get them done. While I have no real "obligations" towards my YouTube channel and could just… stop making videos at any point with no real consequence, it would feel like a great shame to do so. I have somehow made 1,303 videos so far since I created my channel in 2007 (but didn't start Being A Creator until to any vaguely serious degree until 2017) and my channel has shown very slow but steady growth, particularly over the course of the last five years or so. I don't have any grand designs on Being A YouTuber as a career, particularly since the sort of stuff I do isn't exactly algorithm-baiting, but it is nice to be able to sit down, play some games, talk about them to an empty room and feel like at least a few people will, eventually, listen.

In some respects, being able to do that with YouTube has almost been a substitute for being able to spend time with friends talking about this stuff. Pretty much all of my friends who used to be into gaming to any degree have drifted away for one reason or another, and it really sucks to be enthusiastic about things and have no-one to share that with. So by handling my YouTube videos the way I do — as if I'm sitting playing it with the viewer there as a friend beside me — it at least helps a bit with that side of things, if not all of the loneliness I feel at times.

Anyway, like I say, those videos will be coming out over the next week or so. There's one Spectrum one, one C64 one and one Atari 8-bit one; I'm not necessarily going to do all that every week (at least partly because I want to do some ST and Amiga stuff in there too) but it's a nice spread to start the year with. And it's onwards to a whole new year of exploring classic home computers and the myriad weird and wonderful games they played host to!

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#oneaday Day 210: Making some video plans

I was hoping to make more videos over the course of December for "DOScember", but a nasty cold with a cough that's been lingering for a while (and still is a bit) put paid to those plans. I was really hoping to play through both The Dagger of Amon Ra and the spiritual successor to the Laura Bow series, The Crimson Diamond, but that hasn't happened. I did start trying to record a The Dagger of Amon Ra playthrough, but my throat gave out in less than ten minutes, so I abandoned that plan.

I mean, there's no reason they still can't happen, they just won't be "DOScember" features any more. And that's fine. So I think I may well still go ahead with those, 'cause doing adventure game playthroughs is always a lot of fun.

I've been pondering other things to do along the way, too. One thing I definitely want to do is spend some time exploring other microcomputer systems alongside the Atari stuff I've done a bunch of to date. There was some interesting discussion on Bluesky earlier today about how the overly "Americanised" canon of gaming history has a habit of erasing stuff like the European microcomputer scene, so I want to spend some time redressing the balance there a bit. I've obviously done a lot of Atari stuff already, and I intend to keep going that because it's a personal passion, but I also want to make some use of the C64 "Maxi", TheA500 Mini and The Spectrum that I have, because those are all thoroughly lovely machines.

As good a place as any to start with those would be to work through the built-in games on each, since that's actually not something I've done to date for anything other than The400 Mini. So a cautious plan I have is to spend a bit of time exploring each of those systems' built-in libraries, then onward into some other stuff on each of those platforms, just like I've done with the Atari 8-bit.

Assuming my voice holds out, then, I think that's what I'm going to try and make a start on this weekend, along with maybe a bit of The Dagger of Amon Ra.

I've also reached a conclusion I think I've known all along: I am absolutely not cut out for streaming. I just can't be arsed with it. It's a lot of setup and effort to get going, it's a pain to promote (particularly given my potential audience is all over the globe and thus there's no "good" timezone for it) and the number of viewers I get (both live and on the archived version on YouTube) is crap compared to my standard videos. I know that's something that improves with time, but this is supposed to be a hobby, not work, so I'm just going to stick with what I know and enjoy, and which works well — which is YouTube.

I'm not ruling out occasional "special" streams for events, charity drives and suchlike, or occasional chats with my buddy Chris in a quasi-podcast format. But I'm not going to make it a regular part of my routine. I know several people who want desperately to "make it" as a streamer, and they seem to spend a lot of their lives being miserable, and I have no desire to get into that situation. I do this for fun.

So, amid a bit of game room reorganisation that may be happening this weekend, I'm going to make a start on another year of retro computing fun. Broadening my remit will be an interesting journey for me to take, and it may well bring some new people to the channel, too. I know from previous times I've done this that there are a couple of people who get a bit sniffy when I cover non-Atari stuff, but y'know what? My channel, my rules. I am interested in gaming and microcomputer history, and while Atari stuff will always carry significant personal meaning for me, I want to know more about the other parts of this side of things, too.

So that means C64, Spectrum and Amiga stuff! There's a huge library of things for me to explore on all of those platforms, and still plenty of Atari material I haven't covered, either. So I certainly don't think I'm going to be short of things to play and talk about this year. Now I just need to make the dang videos!

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#oneaday Day 206: Impending reorganisation

The living room, which is wall-to-wall video games of all descriptions, is fast approaching a point where it needs a Big Reorganise. I'm conscious of this because 1) my wife keeps bugging me about it (which, to be fair, she's entirely justified in doing), 2) because my Switch shelves, by far the most "active" in my collection, are approaching capacity, and 3) because at some point in the not-too-distant future, there's going to be a Switch successor and, assuming all the reports about it being backwards compatible are true — that better include having a cartridge slot and not just be a digital affair — that part of the collection is only going to continue expanding.

I dislike having to think about this because it involves making some tough choices. I'm disinclined to get rid of much stuff completely, largely because a lot of the stuff I own I either want to have on hand to be able to play, or wouldn't be worth that much were I to drag it all down the local CEX and trade it in. (The stuff that would be worth trading in from a financial perspective is all stuff I want to keep readily accessible.)

That leaves the main alternatives being seeking somewhere larger to live, which neither my wife nor I really want to do, or going through, being a bit "selective" about the stuff that is kept readily accessible, and squirrelling away the less "important" stuff up in the loft. This latter approach is looking like being the most practical and/or desirable thing to do right now.

So the big question is: what stays down here and readily accessible, and what goes in the loft?

Right now I'm thinking the following, from all the stuff that is currently on my shelves both in the living room and in my study upstairs:

Big box PC games, presently in the study, can go in the loft. I have nothing with which to read that original media, and any of those games I do want to play I almost certainly have on GOG.com, Steam or the eXoDOS archive.
Atari ST games, also presently in the study, I am a bit torn on. While putting them up in the loft would free up a lot of shelves for other uses, I like having them on display, because they're my childhood. Also, while I'm still making videos about Atari home computers, it's nice to have them on hand to be able to look at the documentation and packaging. So they're a "possibly stash away if I really need the space".
Atari hardware, currently filling up the closet in my study, can realistically go in the loft. As much as I adore the original machines, I do the majority of my Atari-related stuff on The400 Mini for Atari 8-bit, and Hatari running on my mini PC for ST. Freeing up some space in that cupboard would be a huge benefit.
Nintendo DS and 3DS games, presently on one shelf in the living room, can probably be organised and stacked a little differently to take up less space. This consideration is of increasing concern as the Evercade library, which is presently on the shelf above, expands, as it's nearly at the limit of the one shelf it's on.
PS1 games can stay down here. I don't have a lot of these and they don't take up much room.
PS2 games I think I can go through and strip out a big chunk of the collection I'm unlikely to spend a lot of time with any time soon. I have a lot of "interesting curiosities" in the PS2 library that I'm loathe to get rid of (and which, as outlined above, probably won't net much in a trade/sale) but which I'm unlikely to spend a lot of time playing in the immediate future. Once I've gone through and picked all these out, I can probably trim the fat of the PS2 library quite considerably and pack the rest away to get back out if we ever move, or if we figure out some form of alternative storage solution.
PS3 games can stay where they are. I don't have a lot of these.
Likewise PS4 and PS5. Of the three, I have the most PS4, and there are also a lot of games among the PS4 library that are on my "to-play" list for the near future.
Wii games can probably undergo a "trimming the fat" session like PS2. I don't have nearly as many Wii games as PS2, but still a good couple of shelves worth, some of which likewise falls into the "interesting curiosities I want to keep but am in no hurry to play" pile.
Wii U can definitely have the fat trimmed to those games that haven't been ported to Switch, and those games which have been ported to Switch that I haven't (yet) bought the Switch port of.
Original Xbox is slim pickings so can stay as-is.
Xbox 360 can undergo a PS2-style fat-trimming process, for exactly the same reasons.
Switch can stay as-is.
The Limited Editions I have on display, taking up quite a few shelves, can probably be organised a little differently or more tightly, freeing up a bit more room.

That sounds like a plan to me! I'm sure that was of very little interest to any of you reading, but I feel better having got a rough plan down on "paper". I'll be tackling this once the Christmas decorations come down, so not for a little while yet, but I'll be sure to share the results once the process is complete!

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#oneaday Day 205: Last weekend of 2024

The last hours are ticking away on the last weekend of 2024 as I type this. I have two days of "work" (and I use that term loosely during this ever-curious interstitial period between Christmas and the new year) and then a day off for New Year's Day, and then it's back to normal existence.

I have enjoyed the Christmas break, overall. I haven't done very much with it — the fact I have nearly beaten The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will attest to that — but the period of just straight-up rest and relaxation has been good for me. It's easy to just sort of "tune out" the stresses of everyday working life until you take a step back from them for a little while, and it's most definitely been nice to be away from work social media and the never-ending moaning that goes on there.

We've got an exciting year coming up at work. We've got some great licenses in the pipe for Evercade, one of which (SNK) we've already teased, but there are several more lined up and ready to go, too. I'm looking forward to revealing these at the appropriate times (you won't get any clues here, sorry!) but not looking forward to, once again, revealing something cool and being immediately hit with a torrent of "you should get [x]" comments. I swear, a significant number of people involved in this hobby don't actually care about the thing itself, they only want to know "what's next".

I was actually thinking about this quite a bit towards the end of the working year. Evercade cartridges are super-cool and good value because they collect together a bunch of interesting games in one place, but this unfortunately means that reviews of them tend to suffer. When you get maybe 150 words in a publication like Retro Gamer to cover a cartridge with multiple games on it, there's not really any time for the reviewer to talk about anything in great depth. And online review sites aren't much better, either; inevitably, when we get a cart reviewed, it'll be a general overview of the whole thing without really going into much detail about any of the individual games.

This is a real shame, I think. If I wasn't working for Blaze directly, I'd be wanting to do comprehensive reviews of each cartridge, covering each game in detail. In fact, as it happens, I may be doing something along those lines for both the Evercade blog and YouTube channel in the new year — we want to celebrate some of our back catalogue as well as the most up-to-date stuff, and there's a lot to talk about at this point.

I know "company that makes the thing writing about the thing" isn't quite the same as a professional review, but honestly, a lot of the reviews out there aren't really providing much in the way of helpful information. What I strive to do in my articles and videos for Evercade is provide some decent quality research, some historical and social context for the games — and just an outline of why they're cool, y'know?

So more of that in the new year. In fact, that's what I might just fill my days with on Monday and Tuesday this coming week. While there's not much in the way of "production" stuff going on, I may as well get ahead of the game with writing some bits and pieces, no?

I didn't intend this post to be so work-centric when I started, but, well, that's happened now, and it's not as if I had much else of note to write about, really. I mean, I could write about Echoes of Wisdom, but like most gaming-related things, I'm going to save my conclusive thoughts about that for MoeGamer once I've actually beaten it — which will be in the next couple of days, I reckon, possibly even tonight, depending on how hard I can resist looking at a guide to find the last few Heart Pieces and Might Stones.

Anyway. If you, like me, are back to work for a couple of days tomorrow, I hope you've had a nicely restful holiday season and that those two straggling days aren't too stressful. 2025 is yet another opportunity for a "fresh start" for all of us, and while many people around the world are staring down some significant challenges (I'm glad I never made it to America at this point, frankly) we can all just take each day as it comes and see how things go.

For now, more Zelda.

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