A merry spring to you all! It’s kinda been spring down here on the Gulf Coast (more on that later) but with birds chirping, flowers blooming, and clocks flipping, this weekend makes it official. I haven’t turned any new leaves lately, so the change in season and return of glorious, constant sunlight must be what’s gotten me writing so much lately. I’ve only ever been sporadically prolific, but I get better every year at taking advantage of these sudden onset writing spells. So, I’ve been tickity-tacking away the second the mood strikes me, and a good amount of stuff for the site’s come out as a result!
New From Me
Chief among them are my reviews of MOONROT and Horripilant, two games I hadn’t planned to review or write about at all, and two games I ended up writing about for very different reasons (well, the desire to write about them struck me very suddenly as I mentioned previously, so they do have that in common). MOONROT, despite its short length and straightforwardness, stuck in my brain in a very, very good way. It’s the kind of thing with such a clear, consistent vision that you could fool yourself into thinking the developer didn’t make any decisions at all, so I got really caught up exploring that decisionmaking and the subtle little things that make it so great. Horripilant, on the other hand, is a game so convoluted I was most interested in untangling it and trying to figure out why, precisely, it just didn’t work for me.
Last but not least for writing, you may know I’m a biiig YouTube watcher, and I can be perhaps concerningly not picky at times. I always have my watch history disabled, so my recommended videos are only based on whatever video I’m currently watching — they don’t even give me a home page of recommendations anymore! Not that I mind, really. That abstraction of recommendations makes for much more varied options than I might get if the system was able to create a profile of me; and as tempted as I am to finish that sentence with an “as bad as they can be,” they can be pretty freakin’ bad no matter what. This is all to say: I get exposed to a lot of different videos that I (and other people, both like and unlike me) wouldn’t normally see due to the unknowable intricacies of the algorithm, and I’m always down to give them a shot if they manage to catch my attention. That openness has led me to some awesome creators, games, ideas, and individual videos I don’t know how I would’ve found otherwise. I guess I’m my own algorithm… Keeping it just to gaming(ish) this time, I wrote a listicle of a bunch of video essays I like!
Now: VGBees!
Tycho and The Heavy Fold is a leaner and vibier episode, and it’s a good thing we took that chance while we still had it… little did we know what this month would have in store for us… A little bit of scattered news — including the return of Poker Night at the Inventory and the pause of Borderlands 4’s Nintendo Switch 2 version — and the games we played: John on Ball x Pit, Niki on Tears of the Kingdom, and me on Titanium Court (demo) and Hermit and Pig!
Are You Strong Enough To Be My Cat w/ Charles Harte: A great eppy where the wonderful Charles Harte, a fellow ex-Fanbyte and now-Game Informer, joined us to talk about Mewgenics, which he’d already gotten to put around 90 hours into before its release. We spent a good amount of time ragging on it and its many weird idiosyncrasies and ideals of “apoliticalness,” especially to give Charles a break from his buttoned-up position as a reviewer. We briefly touched on the State of Play before heading into a murderer’s row of news: Discord’s age verification and teen council, layoffs at the studios behind the just-launched 2XKO and Highguard, and Ubisoft employees’ mass strike against the company’s latest phase of “restructuring.” John started Relooted, Niki ranked up on the Peloton and we got to see an insane motivational video about it, and I saw Markiplier’s Iron Lung. It wasn’t good! But I’m glad they tried!
Xbox Deserves This might be the best episode I’ve been on thus far, and it’s over three hours to boot! Xbox’s highest level of leadership has been obliterated, including Sarah Bond — whom the episode title comes from — in a very icky departure. Niki went long eviscerating Sony and their disastrous complacency, showcased this week with their closure of Bluepoint Games. We got some juicy tidbits, mostly from John, about the inner workings of Tencent given the news that ~allegedly~ Tencent was behind Highguard (and therefore its mondo failure). Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 got into hot water in the UK for a “haha isn’t sexual assault so funny!” ad which was subsequently banned. Oh, and the Saudi Arabian crown now outright owns the largest fighting game tournaments in the world in Evo. We also said goodbye to two industry legends: Shutaro “Curry the Kid” Ida, known for his work as a programmer at Konami and later for directing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and Hideki Sato, “The Father of Sega Hardware.” John played Overwatch and was reminded it kinda sucks; I played MOONROT and it was great!
Voluntarily Surrendering Your License To Print Money w/ Michael Higham: Another Fanbyte alum, Michael Higham, now at IGN, joined us to share his (no spoilers) thoughts on Resident Evil Requiem, which he had completed for review. We quickly went over an update of the ongoing worldwide shortage of RAM and storage as it pertains to our industry, an entirely John-validating report on Highguard, and there’s a smattering of chatter on the Pokémon Direct. The state of New York is suing Valve over their lootboxes violating state gambling laws, which feels intensely performative but would be nice to see them care about and win. Microsoft Japan is under investigation for monopolistic practices we already know they deploy in the United States, which feels intensely performative but… you get it, lol. Lastly for news, a continuation of the dumbest shit ever: Sony hates money. (Looks like this is gonna come up again on the next episode, huh? Geez…) Also, Niki and Michael both tried out Marathon during the server slam and gave us their early thoughts.
Song of the Newsletter
“Sorry For Your Loss” by The Beaches has been my tuuune for the past couple weeks. I vaguely knew about this group through their social media hit “Lesbian of the Year,” a song I think is just okay, particularly when compared to the rest of this album. No Hard Feelings is a pop rock lesbian breakup/angst album, and folks, you just love to see it. “Sorry For Your Loss” is my favorite song on there, owing to its mix of melancholy, spite, and energy, and its crazy catchy pre-chorus: “Please get well soon / If I left me I’d be lovesick too / Please, it’s the truth / Only want the best for you.” If you really wanna get angsty with it (as you do), then “I Wore You Better” is a solid second — a more lyrically dense and higher-paced track about being used by other women for your sexuality, often as they try to define their own; a lesbian tragedy common enough to become parody.
News & Recommendations
Finally… the sun is out and winter’s harsh prunings have led to vigorous growth. Everything’s greening up, growers are sharing their new availabilities, and plant sales and festivals are on the horizon. Nowadays I fall pretty firmly into the native/pollinator category of gardener, something that I’m always heartened to see is becoming more and more popular; and it’s always been a little more popular in Texas, I think, between our many different ecoregions — some more challenging than others — and famously hot, sunny, and seasonally dry climate. “Traditional” gardening here is an uphill battle you just lose. Native plants are easier and less resource intensive, and an outright necessity if you want year-round greenery (even under watering restrictions), blooms past spring, and, of course, the three B’s: bees, birds, and butterflies. My interest was inevitable — I’ve always been a treehugger, and my dad’s got one of the greenest thumbs in my entire hometown. So, I’ve been flipping through butterfly and moth books, browsing nursery plant lists, scoping out those festivals, cleaning up the balcony, and plotting for the future. It might be the most rewarding and consistently enjoyable hobby I have, especially when all that labor bears fruit (be that literal fruit, flowers, visiting caterpillars and butterflies, or the occasional bird that bothers to come all the way up here despite the lack of tree cover). You should have access to a lot of great, free resources on where to get started via your local botanical garden, independent nursery, parks, or Native Plant Society chapter (or similar, like WildOnes). Give it a go! Plant some Asteraceae!