1. This was a lovely weekend. Glorious, brisk autumnal weather; met up with friends every single day, both old and new; had one of the best bloody marys I’ve ever had in my life; really, the only way it could’ve been better is if all my sports teams hadn’t decided to collectively shit the bed at the same time. I’ll credit my new head meds that I didn’t take that too much to heart.
2. I will not be watching the debate tonight. I mean, look: my mind was made up a long time ago, and tonight’s shitshow is going to accomplish nothing beyond raising my blood pressure beyond acceptable limits. If this infograph below doesn’t spell out how absurd tonight’s playing field is, I don’t know what else to tell you. If “smile more” can seriously equal “stop lying” in terms of importance, then this nightmare will never end.
3. I tweeted last night:
If we’re never gong to get another Burnout game, I think I can be ok with regular doses of Forza Horizon.
— Jeremy Voss (@CouchShouts) September 26, 2016
I meant to follow this up with some further observations, but I couldn’t put my controller down long enough to type them out. In any event, Forza Hoziron 3 is wonderful. I think the thing I appreciate the most is that it’s genuinely and sincerely interested in me having fun on my own terms. Indeed, the game’s earnestness and sincerity encompass almost every facet of the game’s design; even the cheesiness of the “narrative” seems well-intentioned. Unlike other “car culture” games whose hyper-machismo bullshit gets incredibly irritating after just a few minutes, FH3 is inviting and welcoming and friendly. I have no idea if car festivals like the one Horizon is attempting to recreate actually exist; I have literally no interest in car culture or anything beyond making sure my own car is gassed up and not falling apart. I am very content to simply drive around and explore FH3’s vision of Australia, and the game actively encourages this sort of behavior. In a way, I’m actually kind of glad that the Xbox One’s screenshot capabilities are so clumsy, because otherwise I’d be taking pictures nearly every other second. At one point last night I was driving in the outback, and the in-game sun had begun to set, and suddenly the stars started to appear… and kept appearing… and suddenly there were, like, millions of them, and it was so breathtaking that I could barely keep my car on the road.
4. I may have hit the wall as far as Picross 3D: Round 2 is concerned. I’ve seen the credits roll, I’ve unlocked all the stamps, and so all that’s left are some brutally difficult puzzles, and I’m the sort of perfectionist that needs as few errors as possible or else I automatically restart, and I find myself accidentally selecting the wrong color (which I still can’t believe I’m doing after all this time)… the short version is that I’m getting more frustrated than anything else. So I think I’ll take a little break from that. At least – I won’t bring it into work with me anymore.
5. The Nix continues to be amazing. There’s a chapter right in the middle of the book that takes the form of a Choose Your Own Adventure, and it’s one of the most brilliant things I’ve read in ages.
I think that’s all I’ve got for the time being. I’m hoping to get my hands on XCOM 2 for console later this week, as my PC did not meet minimum specs when it was released there earlier this year; I’d like to post some impressions of that, though it’ll be tough to get FH3 out of my mind.
Shouts From The Couch 