2023 in Review

ThisLast year was full of ups and downs. One of the ups was retiring, possibly For Realz(TM). One of the downs was a serious one. Specifically, my mother became terminally ill and I spent a chunk of the fall caring for her during her passing. This affected me way more than I expected and I don't think the affecting is over yet. Nothing is coloring my worldview more. Hug your mother if you can, kids. Life is short; play hard.

Painting

It was another big year for painting as you can probably tell from the shot on the right. I pushed through some really sticky points in the last quarter of the year but still managed to exceed the fig-per-day for the year in addition to hitting all my other goals. You could argue that the "quality paint jobs" could have been more quality which is fair. I still haven't pulled out all the stops for a single fig yet but I've thought about it a lot. Someday. Maybe. And maybe someday my photography will improve, too. 

A couple more milestones rolled by in 2023, too. All my vintage figs are painted now and I've hit five years of painting. I'd meant to write a thing to commemorate it but I didn't get to it. Dunno how many 365+ painted years I'm going to have moving forward as it's awfully grindy, especially when working through large volumes of characters. Without one of the outstanding kickstarters fulfilling soon, I'm nearing the end of the reasonably easy batches and don't foresee purchasing anything army-like in the near future.

RPGs

I ran two campaigns most of thislast year like I been doing since 2019. Neither of them finished even though both could have. The bi-weekly in-person one will be the last game we play in this world/era and it ties up a five and a half season meta-campaign that started in 2020 but you'll have to wait for it to finish to see how it turned out. I'll probably do a larger write up when I can get my head around it.  

Video Games

Starcom Nexus: *** (2019)

I forgot I played this game thislast year since I played it mostly at the very end of 2022 home sick with covid. It was...interesting. The story itself isn't anything to write home about but it had its moments. The big thing the game has is a "construct your own ship" mechanic where you bolt different components on a frame and away you go. I thought this was pretty cool until I realized that basically the only thing that mattered was speed. If you had firepower too, great, but after a point it wasn't a strict necessity. It's worth checking out and done by a single indie dude IIRC. 

Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries: The Rise of Rasalhague: ***** (2023)

Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries: The Dragon's Gambit: ***** (2023)

Pretty sure I said somewhere that I'm a sucker for anything Battletech and this year more or less proves it. At this point, Pirahna Games will pretty much get a tithe from me every time they release a new DLC. Rise of Rasalhague added some new mechanics which I liked, an unusually difficult mini-campaign, and some new mechs which are always good. In particular, they added a "these mercs roll here" spaces and randomly they will attack you or help you on your mission. There's a whole set of rewards for those. Fun. They also added a "these guys aren't strictly bad guys but might not be friendly" which I liked a lot, too. I don't think the second DLC added any mechanics but the mini-campaign was good and I ended up playing through the rest of the game anyway. Next DLC or Mechwarrior 6; I don't care. Take my money!

Fantasy Wars: ** (2007)

Fantasy Wars is not a great game but Steam tells me I spent not quite 24 hours with it. There are some serious design issues in it, particularly, some of the missions were overly-scripted and under-specified which led to many Throw the Controller Moments(TM). I also dislike games that have failure spirals. Example: if you squeak by losing most of your units, you're at a serious, serious disadvantage for the rest of the game since a) you won't have the cash to rebuild your army, and b) even if you have the cash, they won't be upgraded enough to see you through the later parts of the game which are brutal. The last mission in particular is a real mess but I gritted through it and despite all that, the game does have  a charm. I enjoyed it some but can't really recommend it. 

Shadowrun: Hong Kong: ****(2015)

NGL, I have a love/hate thing going on with Shadowrun Returns and despite what I said in my 2020 in Review post, I did wait...like three years. The writing is pretty good and I liked the characters a lot but at this point that's really table stakes. The system still sucks, tho, and they made decking not just worse but way worse to the point that I never wanted to do it. Sad news: you have to in some places. I would have liked to import my character from the previous versions of the game but neither the story nor the system really allow for it. I didn't play the follow-up mini-campaign and would have liked to, but I am dumb and played a modded version that supposedly fixed a bunch of bugs and would have to play through the game again. While I did like it, I don't know that I liked it that much. 

Ember: **** (2016)

I played this late in the year and honestly didn't have high expectations. I don't even remember when I bought it--almost certainly on a Steam sale at some point. Ember is a charming and solid RPG inspired by some of the Old Skool(TM) RPGs that I remember fondly. Is it a AAA offering? No, it is not, but it's a steal at the price and does a lot of work to not overstay its welcome. Steam tells me I completed it in about 15 hours but I didn't complete everything and haven't (and probably won't) playthrough for other endings. I would like to see a sequel, expansion, or another game from this studio on this engine someday, tho, and that's saying something. 

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition: *** (2015)

In the waning days of thislast year I went rumaging through my list of Steam games to play and since I'd been on a RPG kick, I picked this one. I kickstarted it a decade (!) ago as a big fan of Larian's other games. As per usual, I started playing it way after it cam eout in late 2018 only to promptly get sidetracked by, er, probably Battletech? I'm far too lazy to go look it up. I started a brand new game and was immediately reminded of why it wasn't hard to put it down to begin with. The game is full of very vague puzzles which I hate and one-shot-kills which I also hate and later in the game they added "guys that can't be hurt at all" which I also also hate. If you're noticing a trend here, well, that's not coincidental. I don't have the patience I had when I was young and this game really tested my resolve. I get being Old-Skool(TM) but, jeez, the 80s called and they want their game design back. I liked most of the combats and some of the writing but there really was too much of it. They tried to throw a couple twists in there but IMO they didn't sell. Ultimately I suspect I'll remember this as a very grindy and painful game and I immediately uninstalled it when I'd finished mere minutes before typing this. I'm told the the sequel is better and I really hope that's the case. Will it be another three years before I get there? We'll just have to wait and see.