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2024 Endless Backloggery

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vladgd:
Ham on Rye



New year new GAME...what no...this isn't a game.

I read stuff, I have "books" but mostly gaming books or artbooks or tabletop rpgs or whatever. To connect the dots here...cyberpunk 2077 > cyberpunk 2020 > thinking about bladerunner > buying a copy of neuromancer because I hear it inspired bladerunner > aquire several other books including this one because "I'll get to em eventually" > year later no books read see dune spice wars is on sale > impulse buy game > interested in dune and impulse buy it at barnes and noble > buy another random sci fi trilogy of books > don't read any of them and finish this book in a week.

My brain goes places, but maybe now I can finish a book every now and then.

Quite depressing read, very vulgar, disturbing in places, humor in others. Can't recommend to an adolescent, but I think I will seek out "post office" which takes place after this one. It's got an interesting perspective and uses words you don't often hear by civilized decent people. Stupid to admit this but this is the first novel I have read in my life, on my own, for entertainment. Better late than never? 

Of all things, a book about growing up in the great depression from childhood to early adulthood? I literally seen what a miserable human being Bukowski was on youtube, seeked out one of his books, and now I know the man was god damned miserable. I'm used to the whole "protagonist, antagonist, beginning middle and end" and this 280 page book is 58 very short chapters of events that are just there. Then it ends and kind of just...ends. No big sendoff, no happy ending, just...done. Fitting, really.

Games to come later, currently casually playing various monster hunter games.

vladgd:
The Three-Body Problem



"buy another random sci fi trilogy of books"

Uhh...this is that. Actually finished this last week on the 24th. Was half way through and couldn't stop till I finished, but haven't had time since then to log my thoughts.

This whole book thing, it's different.

Not to spoil anything so a few thoughts. Starts off in 1960's china, cultural revolution, part of history I am not at all familiar with. Chinese author, chinese point of view, it's different. Takes a while to get going, doesn't start off feeling like science fiction. When it gets there...it do get there, and I only hear it gets more crazy in the next two books.

I have no real perspective when it comes to literature, as to what's good or bad, what's interesting or generic, so...all I can say is once it got going, I had a hard time putting it down. Interesting stuff and I do look forward to the next one, which will come as I have time.

Still "novel" to me, no pun intended...but actually sitting down to enjoy one of these things is like ingesting a season of tv or something. I don't really into tv or movies anymore, so these could fit that niche. We'll see if I keep up with it or end up dropping it, but for now there's enough interesting things I want to get to that'll keep me busy a while.

vladgd:
The Dark Forest



I AM GOING TO PLAY VIDYA...I swear...Tekken 8 is pretty good but not really "beatable" in a sense of where I'd want it on my list.

This is one of them, show this to me 10 years ago and I'll say NOPE too big...but I got the trilogy and..the next one is 100 pages bigger than this one which was 200 pages more than the last one.

Three body problem is like the setup, the dark forest...yknow it's also kind of a setup...but it's got a LOT going on. Finally starts getting into "cool future sci-fi stuff", with a rollercoaster of ups and downs.

Hard to talk about books without spoiling them outright, but the ending of this one really just makes me want to jump into the last one. I do need a break, spent nearly 12+ hours of my weekend reading. Novelty of actually enjoying the act of reading not worn off yet, it really is like engaging with a movie or tv show, except I have minimal interest in either of those two mediums anymore. Good way to fill that gap.

Again to stick with the "this is still novel to me" as I keep saying. There's a whole, as to not directly spoil what it is, james bond/mission impossible ass scene that I didn't even need audio or visual aids to enjoy and have a clear concise picture of what's going on. I've been missing out.

This is pretty cool stuff, always was a sucker for sci-fi but it's reach in tv and videogames is limited. But there's a whole ass expanse of it in the literary space.

vladgd:
1. Metal Gear (MSX)



I BEAT A VIDYA IN 2024...finally.

Last november? Mario RPG, then december...season of discovery was cool then I remembered raiding is the reason mmo's are lame. Monster Hunter randomly got a surge of popularity due to sales + influencers so that was fun to get back into until Tekken 8 came out.

Work, tekken, reading, occasionally trying to get out, didn't have time/motivation to beat vidya.

Then I watched a random Aris (avoiding the puddle on youtube), video where he was playing the original MSX metal gear...and I Impulse bought the master collection for ps5 and...yeah.

I am (was) a HUGE metal gear fan, but kind of fell off after 4 and me skipping ps3 entirely. Played a little 5, enjoyed it, didn't beat it. But mgs 1/2 as me in high school, some of my favorite gaming experiences ever.

Anyway I knew metal gear with the NES version, which is a horrible game. It's like street fighter 1, it eventually turned into something truly great, but the start was...poor at best.

However, watching someone play the MSX game, it LOOKS similar...but it's a lot more polished. The NES game was a port done by different people, the MSX game is the original. Actually there's quite a few places in the game where if you play this, and mgs1, you can see that mgs1 is almost like a remake of this game, in 3d, except it's a canon sequel. Even the beginning of the msx game has snake infiltrating the base via coming underwater, just like in mgs1. The NES game throws you in the middle of some jungle that isn't even in the original game as a filler segment.

Almost zelda like in feel, with obvious metal gear trimmings. "open world" get items to get to places you couldn't get before, some mandatory back tracking, yadda yadda. Not a super long game, my ingame timer after credits said like 2h40m or something completion, but alltogether probably over 3...maybe 4 hours to beat. I did eventually use a guide, I recommend a guide, this is an old game and you CAN accidentally make the game unwinnable if you say kill a hostage without knowing any better or something.

Enjoyable playthrough, cool to beat the first in this franchise of which I forgotten I had been a huge fan of. Might give Metal Gear 2 a shot later, now THAT game I remember seeing and thinking (wow it looks like an 8 bit version of metal gear solid). But apparently when I think to zig, I ZAG this year so I got no idea where my impulses will take me next. There is a pretty obvious zig at the end of the month that I intend to indulge in though...

...but that'll be for then. Metal Gear, msx version, thumbs up.

vladgd:
Death's End



So that new vidya that everyone is playing...decided to polish this series off.

Hard to talk about books without spoiling anything. So to be vague, longer than the last two, has highs higher than the second book, but overall I think the second one was better.

Good read, ends on some interesting notes. Main character Cheng Xin was a bit...frustrating at times given the opportunity to do something productive her answer is to just...not when it matters. Luo Ji probably the best character in the series. Most of the interesting stuff doesn't have anything to do with characters anyway, mostly universe/scifi stuff they go into caught my interest. Reference Carl Sagan flatland and I will be very interested.

Thinking on the trilogy as a whole I'd put dark forest > 3bodyproblem > deaths end.

Deaths end has some of the coolest ideas, but falls short on the main character just fucking things up being the weak part of the story.

In the meantime I aquired...like 20 more books so...I guess I got work to do, and the vidya...and warhammer...and...life and stuff.

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