Wednesday, 18 December 2024

Films

A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008)
[2nd watch]

The fourth and final (for now?) Wallace & Gromit short didn't blow me away as much as it did when I first saw it, but back then I watched it in isolation whereas now it's coming straight off the first three. It may not quite reach their heights, but it's damn close; in any other series, this would be a comfortable high watermark, but those others are just so good.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 18th: The Cudgeled Constable (Conclusion)

Games

Final Fantasy VII

What's this? Starting another game?! Yeah.

Well, here's the thing: I've recently discovered (or remembered, because I did know about some of these methods before) more ways of being able to play computer games (the disadvantage of owning a Mac is it's not always straightforward, though nowadays it's almost always possible; if you're machine's up to running a game, of course (I won't be playing Baldur's Gate 3 anytime soon)). And I've become more interested in gaming again since playing through the Monkey Islands (which was back in 2022 — these are the kind of timescales I operate on!) And older games are so cheap nowadays — I picked up this revered classic for under £4! New games cost an arm and a leg, I know, but diving into the back catalogue of games I've wanted to play for years (in some cases, for decades) has never been more affordable.

So that's why I'm trying multiple things out right now — different platforms; different games. And quite a few of these games I've been acquiring require dozens of hours to complete (FF7 is cited at 36–50 hours of gameplay for the main story, rising to 80+ if you're a completionist. I also recently got Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Neverwinter Nights for free via Amazon, which together are clocked at anything from 120 to 365 hours, depending on play style (and I err towards the latter, which is Completionist)), so it's a more pronounced choice which to devote my time to next (I've got dozens of games awaiting and I want to dive into them all at once!)

So, I'm not committing to 80+ hours of FF7 right now (although I did play for the best part of two hours today, mainly thanks to having to find a save point — it would've been considerably less if the game just let me save whenever I want!), but I'm giving it a go and, well, maybe.

Though, yeah, I do need to finish off that last bit of Syberia.