Words On Wednesday

After getting a Steam Deck and leaning more heavily into PC gaming, I've been really eager to see my Steam Replay for 2025 and get a more meta view on what I played this past year. While the Steam Replay doesn't span the entire calendar year (it registers everything you've played on Steam "between the first second of January 1 and the last second of December 14 (GMT)"), it covers enough of the year to get a good approximation. Plus, I didn't get my Steam Deck until April, so I was still mostly playing on my PlayStation 4 before then. I did play some games on Steam that would run on my Surface Pro 7, but the time after April is significantly more representative of all the games I played. In any case, this is the first year that Steam has taken the lion's share of my gaming time. The summary image that Steam provides for social media sharing is a good overview. I played 43 games (36 of which were new) across 1,652 sessions, earning 470 achievem...

With 2025 coming to a close, I wanted to look at the results for Game of the Year, specifically from Golden Joystick and The Game Awards. I watched both events, but I've included the lists of nominees and winners at the end for posterity.  In short, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 positively SWEPT the competition. It is the broke the record for the most wins at The Game Awards , a monumental achievement on its own. The team at Sandfall Interactive had to get their steps in, coming up on stage so frequently at both award shows. It was fairly accepted that Expedition 33 would win at least a few awards, including overall Game of the Year, but that level of success and accolades was frankly ridiculous. One of the more controversial awards that they received was Best Independent Game specifically from The Game Awards. Indie games have grown increasingly popular in recent years, and anyone with a good idea can build a successful game if they put in the effort and catch at least ...

When I recently wanted to revisit the Ender's Game series, the first book wasn't immediately available in audiobook form from the library, but they did have "A War of Gifts." I'm not one to read interim novellas while I'm working through a series for the first time, but I read the first four books of Ender's Game years ago and really enjoyed it. With a pretty good familiarity of the series, I figured it might be a good time to read one of those shorter in-between stories. As I have never officially covered "Ender's Game" or its series, I think it's important to provide context there. The first book is incredible, and I would easily recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction. The second book, "Speaker for the Dead," is an excellent follow up to Battle School and showcases Ender's growth. Now... "Xenocide" is kinda awful. Perhaps it isn't bad on its own, but within the series, it is clearly the weak link. ...

“ Hollow Knight ” is a Metroidvania released on all major platforms in 2017. I steered clear of Hollow Knight for years due to its "Souls-like" description, but a recent whim turned my opinion and made me open up a bit more to the genre. It's no secret that  I hate Souls games , and as much as I love Metroidvania games, I didn't want to get frustrated by a prohibitively difficult experience. As  Silksong  was coming out around that time and the original Hollow Knight was on sale , I decided to pick it up and give it a try. You can't say you don't like something without ever trying it, and I considered that my love of the Metroidvania genre might make up for the Souls elements. After no more than an hour in, I was pretty hooked. Sure, I could see how aspects of Hollow Knight did resemble Souls in certain ways, but I didn't hate it. Benches are just like bonfires, and going back to retrieve your geo from your corpse after you die was a concept I was pretty  ...