(The tl;dr video companion to this article):

The art of crashing out with respectable tact is a talent reserved for those of us with only the mightiest of constitutions…


…or untempered mental health issues, whatever you got in your tool belt, really.

While being able to take a break from writing is fine and dandy, the inevitable return lacks the same, quaint distinction that represents the piece of mind that comes contingent with the solitude and silence subsisted upon. Even for all of my regular creative fumblings within the realm, the use it or lose it mentality rears its bothersome head, and one must shave the rust off of the imaginative girders before a true sense of metaphysical manifestation in the guise of wordsmithing can truly take place. Comes with the territory however, and I’ve regularly been a firm advocate of one not shying away from their own “becoming”, as it were, by self-negating their own efforts in the process, and an idea worthy of a much fuller extrapolation in the form of a Words of Wisdom…perhaps by next Monday, I will be refreshed with enough energetic verve to conjure up some much needed perennial wisdom with which to illuminate my own better sense of self on the matter, which I gladly share with you for your charitable investment of time in humoring my twisted thoughts and wayward writings.

As it ain’t always 100% on the level here at ATE…

In reference to my last post weeks ago, which involved the finale of a finale in the form of beating MGS4, which recently came out in the Metal Gear Solid Collection: Volume 2, I grappled with the notion there was more to say about the title, but for the life of me, failed to locate the thoughts I desired to espouse about the experience writ large. There yet lies dormant some bountiful insight I have yet to extract from the inner recesses of my own mind about MGS4, and I may still have to bide my patience in coming to the truth of the matter. One of the only worthwhile thoughts I’ve had since then is that the entire game is truly held together by Snake’s pedigree; the super glue holding an insane diorama firmly in place…without him, the entire game positively flounders helplessly. Perhaps we need look no further than MGS2 in seeing some truth in that reality, even within acknowledgement of the metanarrative switcheroo that Raiden represented. Which reminded me of the notion involving Konami continuing to bide their time, in the understandable concern of bringing out a brand new Metal Gear experience (of the stealth variety), in favor of easy stress relief with instead finally doing some kind of follow up of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Slick as fuck action games always seem to be en vogue, and the genre choice would likely let off some pressure of delivering the same kind of narrative and dialogue one likely expects from a mainline MGS game, and they can only remake the old games so many times before people will become impatient at the lack of new content: see Halo….amongst the litany of options to choose from.


Remember folks: if you’re going to remake a game, be sure to remake the whooooole thing, and not to forget 50% of the most important content of its legacy (multiplayer, lol amirite?)

Pokémon Pokopia continues to be a slice of heaven, and I would be genuinely shocked if it wasn’t at least nominated for Game of the Year from some of the more serious outlets, considering the hype the game has generated. Even a nomination for such a prestigious consideration would do wonders in cleaning up the absurdist baggage that some seem hellbent on associating with the genre, though these dissenters may in fact be an irrelevant minority that is in dire need of some ample grass touching, going a long way to put into perspective their salty ways of living. I do wonder if Nintendo is going to have to cultivate a release schedule, if they are to release Animal Crossing games in the future with Pokopia now in the mix, as I feel as if both games would do quick work of cannibalizing each others sales. Even though Stardew Valley is a much heartier game in many respects than AC is, since I’m usually playing one of them as my go to cozy sim, I tend to push others in the genre away, which has always left me at odds with only a smattering of experience with Stardew Valley. I wonder if such awkwardness will persist with Pokopia and Animal Crossing; as there is only so much time in the day after all, and I need every last minute of it to be used in spending time with my new best friend, Ditto Lapras.


This is what Game of the Year content looks like, folks

I have renewed my efforts in getting all the achievements in Rare Replay, which is now more than a decade in the making. I wrote about such matters in the twilight days of ATE 1.0, and should go to show you how long my time away from the collection is, in spite of being such a fan of Rare in their heyday. I think I’ve finally broken through a ceiling of productivity of sorts, so I’m looking forward to finally closing the book on this one, as it represents one of those weird obsessive splinters that has been lodged in my mind for an absolutely ridionculous amount of time. I’m just about out of their 2D era, which will be one of the last final humps gone before an endgame momentum picks up. I was thinking about writing something about my painstaking experience in beating Battletoads last week, but I think I’m still in recovery from what a horrifically grueling endeavor it represented.


Battletoads just straight up sucks; its comedically cruel in its machinations, as every level is a setup to an elaborate joke, and your eventual demise ends up being the bittersweet punchline

I wanted to include at least one “new game” I had started in this write up, so there was some news from the front I could share with you, and that has taken the form of starting Vampire Crawlers, which is a sequel to Vampire Survivors, another game I’ve gone on about in the past. There is a bit of tonal whiplash with this follow up, however, where as the first game was a hot and heavy auto-battler that saw you taking on hordes of enemies like some kind of 2D Dynasty Warriors, Vampire Crawlers takes the form of a first person, dungeon crawling deck builder game, which is really fucking bizarre. Normally I like to predicate myself on more flowery prose or a greater sense of gravitas in handling my extrapolation of any given video game experience, but sometimes the sardonic, working class cynic bleeds through the more mild mannered demeanor in favor of keeping it real, cause shit like this is just fucking wild to me. Not that the game isn’t fun; in spite of a complete genre shift, it somehow maintains similar vibes during moment to moment gameplay, though I’m guessing it will be a long time (if ever) that this game catches up with the sheer breadth of content the first title had, as it possessed an insane amount of expansions, which helps put into perspective why so many devs these days build gaming platforms instead of singular video games, as when one builds on a concept long enough, any follow up will be a guaranteed less than disappointment, no matter how many pints of blood, sweat, and tears one pours into the crunch hours to perfect its offerings.


Vampire Crawlers carries a surprisingly similar energy as its predecessor in spite of the complete genre over haul, though I’m wondering if the radically different visual approach is going to be a total buzz kill for the die hard adrenaline junkies of the first game that swear by their creature comforts

With that, I conclude what has been my first article in near a month, and quite predictably, a warm-up article if there ever was one. But as I said…self-negation is the bane of all creatives, and one can obsess about perfection till the cows come home, but between an actualized, albeit imperfect effort, and a purely imagined, flawlessly executed concept in theory that never finds its way to completion, it pays to settle on the here and now instead of the impossible tomorrow that never comes.

~Pashford