Words On Wednesday

“ Half-Life ” is a first-person shooter released on PC in 1998. Both Half-Life and its sequel Half-Life 2 have long been considered legendary shooters and established PC superiority in the shooter genre long before consoles even had a chance. Over a quarter of a century later, does Half-Life still hold up as a decent game, or is it a relic of its generation? After I found out that my old Surface Pro 7 could emulate some PS2 games and I started leaning into Steam a little more, I started looking through Steam games that I already owned but never experienced. In particular, I bought a whole bundle of Valve games (I think it was The Orange Box ) including $115 worth of games for $5.19 back in March 2023. Man, I love Steam sales. Although Half-Life 2 is probably the game that I hear discussed more, I figured it made more sense to start with the first game in the series. Plus, with a game that came out in 1998, I figured my laptop should have no issue running it. Like... at all. Fortunate...

I'm not a huge fan of most beer, but Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy is one I'll make an exception for more often than not, especially during a hot southern summer day when the beer is ice cold. Name: Summer Shandy Source: Leinenkugel's Style: Weiss (Wheat) beer ABV: 4.2% IBU: 11 Price: $27.99 per 24 pack Volume: 12 oz Price per can: $1.166 The story behind the summer ale/shandy as a style is that an influx of cyclists through Germany influenced some bar owners to cut their standard wheat beer with lemonade. Whether this was to stretch the beer further or appeal to the tastes of the bikers seems to be up for interpretation, but the style was apparently a hit. It has since become a summer phenomenon worldwide. I couldn't tell you when I first tried specifically Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. I've enjoyed lemon-infused wheat beers for a while. Samuel Adams has a Summer Ale, a "crisp wheat ale with citrus," which I had at least as far back as 2018. And as ...

“ The Legend of Zelda - The Wind Waker HD ”  is 2013 Wii U remaster of a 2002 GameCube game. It cleaned up the visuals, introduced a few quality of life changes, and tweaked the game to make use of the console's two screen system. In 2025, it might be a struggle to decide which version to play, or whether to play a 20+ year old game at all, but I can tell you that Wind Waker HD is still a fantastic game and a great representation of the Zelda series as a whole. Wind Waker is tough to analyze from the perspective of someone who didn't live through it. It came out in North America in 2003, at which point I already had a GameCube (I'm pretty sure). I played through once, started a second play through, and put it down for a good 15+ years. On that first run, Wind Waker was... fine. The visuals were bright and cheery, a stark contrast from Ocarina of Time and Majora's mask before, as well as Twilight Princess after. Plus, the cel shaded graphics were just strange to me. Not ...

After years of cooking, trying new recipes, tweaking those recipes to make them my own, and aggregating them into a collection, I want to make a cookbook. When my wife and I first got together, neither of us could really cook. We subsisted on ramen noodles and frozen chicken strips for the most part. Over time, we started branching out with new recipes we found online. The first few met with inconsistent success, but we got better and better as we learned new skills. Now, I can throw together ingredients on the fly and make something decent most of the time. Recipes are more suggestions and riffs on a theme, rather than explicit instructions for me. For a long time, we've been collecting those recipes on Google Drive. We stuck them in a folder shared between us, so we would know where to look when we needed to decide what to cook for dinner. I grabbed a template and created a  document to copy from when we want to make a new recipe card. We've been at it for years and this sys...

“ The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion Remastered ” is a 2025 remaster (go figure) of the 2006 action RPG "The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion." Oblivion came out originally on Xbox 360 and PC, which I had neither at the time. It came out later on PS3, but for whatever reason I never bought it. Oblivion Remastered was my first opportunity to play through this classic on my own. But wait. This is a remaster of a nearly 20 year old game, the fourth of a pretty popular series. I feel like I need to roll it back and give some context on the series as a whole, in addition to my own personal context. I've often said that Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game, but that's perhaps a bit misleading. Morrowind was the first game in the series that I personally owned. Oblivion was the first one that I played, and I didn't buy Morrowind until after I had played Oblivion on a friend's 360. We were in Kohl's sometime in 2006 or 2007 and saw Morrowind for the original Xbox on ...