Yeah, I’m doing this one a week early this year, because why not. So let’s take a look at year eleven of this blog.
Three Most Popular / Viewed Posts
Ah, Halo, a game I love dearly. It’s always great to revisit old media and see how they hold up through a current lens. With remakes and remasters of older games becoming common, it’s interesting to see how old design choices are reinterpreted. Halo: Combat Evolved’s slick design is muddied with updated graphics, but even that can’t take away from how good a game it is.
#2: Other Car Movie
Look man, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is so much better than you’d expect and it’s delightful.
#1: Again
All three of these posts are from January, probably owing to the fact that the earlier a post gets posted, the more views it accumulates. Momentum, and all that. But maddeningly, this post feels all too relevant. Maybe that sentiment resonates for it to have bene as high as it is on this list, but maybe one day it’ll finally, finally, be a thing of the past.
Josh’s Pick of Three
#3: Fluency
Something that I don’t think gets talked about enough around games is learning to ‘read’ the game. It’s something that applies to everything, from actual jobs to watching sports (Find soccer boring? Learn how to watch it and it becomes a beautiful game). Part of getting into Armored Core VI was learning how to read its myriad menus and stats. Then the game became such a delight.
I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy over the last year (VIII, X, XII, XVI, and currently VII) and it’s offering up a survey on different approaches to game design. I love the way that games get weird with their own identity, and I do miss the shorter development times that allowed for such flexibility. Good news is, there’s definitely another one coming out at some point, and it’ll be exciting to see what’s new.
#1: Wars And The War of The Ring
I cheated; had I done my usual top five earlier, this would have been fourth. But I wanted it on this list because this is a post I love. An honest-to-Eru-Ilúvatar essay complete with a works cited page. As this blog has morphed over time into, well, a site of more blog posts than essays, it is pretty fun to, every now and then, bust out an actual essay.
And on that note, cheers; here’s to 2024.
Essays, Not Rants! 