hihi neoheads. Idk what I'm here to talk about today. Just felt like typing I guess. What's the deal with airline food?
no?... I swear I thought that would kill.
ok... my bad. So, I guess I'm gonna talk about video games. I am SO fucking bored with gaming lately. All the best games in the world, for my money, are over a decade old. I can't remember the last time a game came out where I thought "holy shit, this changes things." You know what I mean?
I mean, am i just old? I guess maybe yeah. Or getting there. But these games are all like, beyond incredible. I haven't ever played anything like them. The youngest of the group, Persona 5, turns a decade old in like... a week? two weeks? It's fucked up.
Now, this isn't to say there isn't good stuff. Atlus games have pretty much all been bangers, aside from Persona 5 dancing. The music was tragic in that one. P3 too. But I digress. Persona 5 strikers and tactica both ruled. Persona 3 Reload banged. Persona 4 Revival comes soon, which I'm pumped for. But none of them will be a persona 5. New platformers come out every day, but none of them will be a Mario 64 or a Mario Galaxy. New roguelites come out every day, but none will ever be the binding of isaac. Has gaming peaked? I mean, surely not. Maybe my tastes are warped? My expectations skewed? I really couldn't tell you.
Games look better than they ever have. GTA 6 is on the horizon, and it's visually otherworly. Elden Ring is a few years old now, and that game had fucking great art direction. Cyberpunk looks good with modern ray tracing and shit. But for me? It feels like there's something missing. Something ethereal, unnamable. An aura, if you will. There's just a vibe that I'm looking for, that I haven't found in a long, long time. Everything nowadays comes out unfinished, running with a live service model. They take our money for a pre-order, give us a product that isn't even done, and then sell us the remainder as downloadable content. The fact that game companies can get praised for releasing these "expansions" as "free dlc" or "content updates" is frankly sickening. We shouldn't need content updates for a game to be complete. A content update, a free DLC, an expansion, these shouldn't be completing what the game was always supposed to be, they should be adding on in new ways to give back to the community. The way Hollow Knight did it. That game and Team Cherry have all of my support. They put blood sweat and tears into making a finished, complete, beautiful piece of art. When people got their hands on it, when people loved it, the folks at Team Cherry gave them even more of it, for free. It's incredible.
Sometimes, I'm afraid I'm too pessimistic. Maybe my worldview is warped. Maybe I'm disconnected from reality. Is the state of gaming as bad as I think it is? Am I not looking hard enough? Am I being fed lies by other people with similar complaints, and mindlessly agreeing? I don't think so, but how would I know? I only know what I think I know. I think gaming isn't great lately. But I can't know if that's true. Maybe I'm just thinking on it too hard. I think the most beautiful thing about gaming as a hobby or a form of media consumption, is that it's practically infinite. Maybe I haven't found any games lately that really really call to me like the classics I've got laid out above. Maybe I don't need to find any more games that scratch that itch. I've played through Mario 64 hundreds of times. I've played Isaac for over a thousand hours. I still play those games. I'm not bored, and I'm not sure I'm even approaching boredom with them. I'm not a big reader, but movies exist in the same plane as literature, in that they are one thing, and will always be that one thing. You can absolutely re-read a book or re-watch a movie and get a new experience. I've had my fair share of obessively rewatching a movie I love. But at the end of the day, the film is the exact same every time. Gaming though, even when the code is the same, the levels are the same, every last aspect of the media itself is the same, is somehow never the same. The way I see Mario 64 is different from how you see Mario 64. Not only in the interpretation way that applies to movies and books and all that good stuff, but in a literal sense. I probably grab stars in a different order. I probably move slightly differently than any other human that's ever played. If I play through the game today, and again tomorrow, those experiences will be entirely, objectively different. Maybe the "state of gaming" isn't some declining monolith, but it's what we make of it.
I guess the moral of the story is, the real gaming is the friends we made along the way! :D if u guys want some game recommendations, here they are.
Ok, one more time, lightning round.
Ok, ok. I'm done yapping for the day. I will most likely make more posts about these games, because I deeply love most of them. I don't have toooo many hours in a few, and love them more as a form of respect, like Dwarf Fortress and Elin. But the rest? I've put some real elbow work into all of these, and could talk about most of them for a long while. Expect a multi-page write up on persona lore... sometime. Or on why super mario 64 is actually the undisputed greatest video game ever made. I will say the same thing about tetris right afterwards. This post started pretty pessimistic and dour, but honestly? I fucking love video games. They're a gift that keeps on giving. Play some games. Share them with your friends. Some people call it a waste of time, but... I mean, it's fun, right? That's what it's all about.
September 6th, 2026