Hello fellow human.

I’ve been quite busy this week, I’ve been focusing a lot of my free time on modding, making changes to an existing game, of a newly released game which I’ve been pouring a lot of time into given how good it is (I’ll mention it later on).

Today will be a little less formal (that’s just a nicer way of me saying that it’ll be a little more half-assed than usual). In the text below, I’ll talk about the first ever video game I played, my favorite game I played this year, a game I’m currently playing and, finally, my favorite game of all time (thank you to the person who posted these questions, they were fun to think about).

First ever video game I played ¶

The first video game I ever played was either Diablo or Doom on my family’s computer. I could barely reach the keyboard and mouse. With the help of a bar stool, I overcame my first obstacle, of many, in my pursuit of being an avid player of video games. I was hooked.

At four years old, I was a slayer of devils and demons and I loved it. At the time, I had a hard time connecting with other people given that I was mostly surrounded by people who spoke a language other than my own.

Early on, video games allowed me to temporarily escape from a lonely life. Eventually, video games became my way of connecting with the world and the people within it. From shooting demons in Doom by myself in a basement in the late nineties to shooting demons in Hunt: Showdown on Discord with some friends today; times have changed.

These days I’m less interested in FPS games and in action RPGs. But I fell in love with video games with Doom and Diablo and, more than anything, I’ll never forget how banishing the forces of evil back to Hell made me feel.

Favorite game I’ve played this year ¶

Out of all the games that I’ve played this year, the one that really sticks out to me is Ace Combat 7. A few years after becoming a slayer of demons, I became a jet pilot in the original Ace Combat game on the PlayStation.

At the speed of sound, Ace Combat 7 brought me back through time. Little me sitting cross-legged in front of a big CRT television cradling the iconic white controller in my hands.

I heard people raving about Ace Combat 7 incessantly for months on end until I caved in and started playing it. I shouldn’t have been so reluctant, there’s not much in life that’s more exciting than moving at the speed of sound in a fighter jet in a near future sci-fi universe.

There’s something to be said for a game series making sequel after sequel after sequel and, finally, perfecting a formula that has been decades in the making. That’s Ace Combat 7 in a nutshell.

A game I’m currently playing ¶

After sinking a couple dozen hours into the newly released Crusader Kings 3, I can safely that I’ll be playing it for hundreds of hours to come.

Compared to its predecessor, Crusader Kings 3 is a tremendous improvement all across the board. User experience, game mechanics, depth; name any aspect of the game and I can tell you that it’s better.

There’s nothing quite like Crusader Kings 3 out there. Paradox Interactive have been working on their so-called grand strategy games for decades now. Each time they develop and release a game they generally improve on the core mechanics and the simulation that most of their games share.

Paradox Interactive has a monopoly on the grand strategy game genre and it shows. Crusader Kings 3 takes everything that was good about all their previous games and combines it to make the best game they’ve made yet.

In these UNCERTAIN TIMES™, I welcome a game that’s all about feasting with your friends and, sometimes, only sometimes, going on a crusade for Jerusalem with your buddies.

Favorite game of all time ¶

I’ve played a bajillion games. Picking only one is tough…

I could easily name dozens of my favorite games. Games that fundamentally impacted the way that I live my life. Games that helped me cope with suffering of all kinds. Games that allowed me to meet great people through common interest. Games that made me cry and made me laugh, sometimes at the same time.

But, I have to pick one and only one.

I choose you Rocket League! It is easy to learn yet hard to master. It’s exhilarating. It’s competitive. Its skill ceiling is through the roof.

I love it. The feeling of flying through the air just the right way at just the right time, hitting the ball just right and seeing it fly right into the opponent’s net feels AMAZING.

In my first hour of playing Rocket League I was playing one game and in my three-hundredth hour I was playing a whole other game. So simple yet so deep, Rocket League is my favorite game of all time.

The End ¶

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hit me up if you want to talk about games or even play them.

Either way, I love you and I hope you’re doing swell wherever and whenever you’re reading this.

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