So this is, apparently, my 500th post here at Shouts From the Couch. True, some of them are imported from the old Blogger URL, but still – 500 random acts of blathering under one brand name!
I wish I’d known this was coming a bit sooner than I did; it wasn’t until shortly after I finished the last post that I looked at the number in the WordPress dashboard and actually recognized where I was, and I’d have liked to have done something special to mark the occasion. (It doesn’t help that I was listening to Marc Maron’s 500th episode of WTF at the very same time I made the connection.)
The most popular post I’ve written here is this little thing I wrote earlier this year about collectibles, which blew up only because it was a response to Patrick Klepek’s tumblr, which he happened to retweet. That post received more traffic than this entire site did in all of 2013, to give you some idea; indeed, the traffic I got the day after his tweet was still larger than anything I’d ever gotten before.
The second most popular post is this one, and I’m guessing that the only reason why it comes up so often is because a lot of people do Google searches for “god mode dark souls”. This is hilarious, because I’m obviously all for god mode, and yet the whole point of the Souls franchise is their extreme difficulty. What is the point of playing those games without the challenge?
Still, all the same, I’m thrilled that you’re reading this, that you’ve been here with me for however long you’ve been here, and that you’ve read whatever it is I’ve had to say. Writing about games – especially as an amateur – is a weird experience, and I’m trying to get better at it, and I’m grateful for your patience as well as your patronage.
Next week I’ll have some expanded thoughts on my Gamemoir column that’ll also be going up on Monday, and I’ll also talk about Wolfenstein: The New Order (which I finished last night), and Watch Dogs (which I’ll hopefully have played a little bit more of). Watch Dogs made an absolutely horrific first impression on me; now that I’ve seen a little more, I’m getting a better grasp on it – well, rather, I’m recognizing how similar it is to Assassin’s Creed, so I at least have some context with which to explore. Still, I’m a lot more sour about it than I’d wanted to be, and that’s purely on a mechanical level. I’ve seen almost nothing of the plot, but if this amazing, absolutely vital Cameron Kunzelman piece is any indication, I’m probably not going to feel much better about it.
Once again: thank you so much for being here.
EDIT: yet another milestone fell down today; SFTC has officially crossed 10,000 pageviews. !!!
Shouts From The Couch 