I started playing Cyberpunk 2077. I have a lot of thoughts about the gameplay (as some of my friends have seen or heard) and even more about the themes of the game, all of which ignores the various controversies of the game from long before it came out, as it was expeirence the last few delays, and then as it crashed and burned during launch. I need to play the game way more than I have to really talk about the first two and the last bit has been written about so much already that I really don’t think I have anything to add (though I will link an article that sums up my feelings pretty neatly without going on a long rant about proper testing and the state of AAA gaming today). What I have to reflect on, a day after discovering that my computer CAN run the game for two hours without an issue when I forget to close it after going to make myself dinner and fold laundry, is how it has made me feel about the idea of open-world gaming.
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The Slow, Onerous Grind of Change
(Another brief reminder that I write these a week ahead of time and while I hope nothing drastic has happened since I wrote this, it might not be an immediate reflection of the day it gets posted).
The past few days have been exhausting. Reeling from all of the expected but still devasting decisions by those sitting atop the judicial branch of the US government, I still had to go grocery shopping, clean my apartment, make myself meals, do laundry, and navigating a draining social situation that was one of my biggest anxieties which I’d been coping with by telling myself it would never happen. Because it’s not like my life grinds to a halt the instant something terrible happens in the world. I still need to pay bills, feed myself, maintain some kind of social connections, and take care of myself even when I’m trying to figure out how I can respond to the horrible things happening in the world around me.
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