In isolation, Metroid Prime, rainy days - W23

This week went by in a flash, I don’t even know what to put on my weeknotes here. I was just playing Metroid Prime Remastered.

Okay I remembered a few more things I guess, here we go!

• 🧳 My parents went on a trip for medical reasons (everything was fine!) and I stayed home alone once again. It was a rather chill time and all I did was go to work, come back, and play Metroid Prime, everything else is a bit fuzzy in my memory.

• 🚗 I saw this car that was like, super pretty and classic, and I had been saving up for quite a while… I know I just got into bicycles lately and I understand why they are a better sort of transportation, but… I could not help myself. I am now the proud owner of a Hot Wheels Toronado from 1966.

• 🎁 I received an early birthday gift from Wouter, who recently released a physical version of his website, containing ten years worth of selected blog posts! I shared the post about this in the last section of these weeknotes. I was actually confused at first because I rarely order stuff from Amazon, and I didn’t realize until a couple hours later that it was a package for me!

• 🌧️ This week has been full of rainy and cloudy days! It has been fun and very nice to see the temperatures lowering for a bit. It’s crazy that we are already in June, midway through the year. Life’s going so fast! See also my post on the bike commuting I did this week

• 🎮 I’ve been cleaning up my room more and recently recovered an old shelf that my parents were going to throw away. It now houses my collection of Nintendo Switch games! I had to do quite a bit of organizing in my bedroom, and I also took the time to sort the games in alphabetical order, it’s kind of great. Should I make a post about my physical collection…

Gaming

I actually did not expect to see my commitment to the Summer Game Challenge actually working out. But after beating Hades last week, I immediately jumped into Metroid Prime Remastered, and I was greeted by one of the most impressive videogames of all time, running excellently on the Nintendo Switch.

This game looks absolutely gorgeous, with basically zero compromises. It is what a remaster should look like! I have had so much fun, jaw-dropping visuals, wonderful performance, the world design is awesome, and the way every power-up carried from the 2D games to the 3D and first person perspective is literally perfect.

As a game originally made in 2002, that saw basically no changes to its world layout, there are definitely a few things that may annoy a modern day gamer. But after playing through two Resident Evil titles—and many other retro games over the years—this just feels like the sweet spot to me. I’ll save any complaints for my review—very few anyway.

For now, I am just finding a some last upgrades—I don’t plan to 100% the game so just those I figure out myself—and will head for the final battle soon enough.

Another game I played, this time with friends, was Minecraft! We are building up things on our server, but I must admit I’ve not done a lot myself. I really need to focus on it, but I am currently busy with other games, as you may be able to tell.

Lastly, we played Full Metal Furies for another bit, this time we completed three levels! After upgrading some abilities and getting stronger on it. As fun as ever!

Reading

Because of all the gaming I did this week, my reading suffered a bit, I didn’t even get to finish Tiamat’s Wrath yet, but it’s okay, I’ll get it done for sure this time.

• Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse #8) - Up to chapter 42. This week is it, I am going to finish this book and I am going to like it a lot! I hope, at least, I am a bit scared about what will be accomplished by this ending and how things will turn out. I guess we’ll see!

• My Wife is from a Thousand Years Ago - Up to chapter 285. Decided to return to this rom-com after quite a while. It’s still quite funny hehe.

• Blue Lock - Up to chapter 348. After the France vs Japan match, we switch completely to a different place and characters doing their own practice and getting ready to become better strikers.

Around the web

Blog posts

• The Archivist In Me Turned This Blog Into a Book - This is the blog post where Wouter announced his new book! I got my copy, you should get yours as well.

• Updates Recently - Oh hey! Orbital made a post for once, and he shared a few cool things going on with his website and other things he’s been doing.

• Chat community for web writers? - James wrote this piece and I couldn’t help but send an email. We have not talked much before until then, now we are in contact and that’s super cool!

• I want my friends to have blogs too - Daniel decided to write for once, and he came up with an absolute banger of a post. I wish everyone had a blog, here are some reasons why. Beautiful piece.

YouTube

• Why Does GTA San Andreas Still Feel Bigger than GTA 5? - I never really thought a lot about how map design helps a game feel bigger than it is. I don’t play much GTA, but the PSP ones and San Andreas were my childhood.

• Why Does Everyone Think “1984” Agrees With Them? - This was an incredible video essay with a question that I’m sure you’ve asked yourself too. Give it a watch, absolutely worth it.

• When Games Want You to RUN - Enemies that surpass you in every way are a very interesting game mechanic. I was familiar with a few mentioned here, but some characters like Nemesis from RE3 were missing! Still a great essay though.

• Stop Trying to Fix Genre Names (You’re Only Making it Worse) - A bit of a ramble on a thing that I’ve noticed myself. It’s just a Metroidvania, don’t try to force a change!

This is day 77 of #100DaysToOffload