The Ancient Gaming Noob

The Site I have been looking through my WordPress achievements again.  That I earned these two is probably no surprise. Perfectionist and Time Traveler These two likely go together because while I usually press the publish/schedule button too early… everything is a first draft here on day one of it being published… so I do often go back and tune up or fix my more awful mistakes when I spot them. …

Potshot and I were out exploring, seeking out the place where the next of our quest update points was marked on the map and… I kept dying.  A lot.  Like an embarrassing number of times.  I was snuffing it with a regularity that was becoming a hindrance , getting knocked off in nearly every battle with more than two opponents. Windrose – in Early Access I was really feeling it too.  I was hitting…

We are at the half way point for the 2026 season.  It is all down hill from here… though some say it has been down hill since the 90s.  But what can you do about it? Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games Having reached the turn-over point, we were looking to have two titles show up this week.  But first, where we left off with the scores. Week 25 Scores With that we…

It is Saturday, but I wanted to get the Steam Summer Sale post out yesterday and didn’t really have another post queued up for today… well, I did actually, but I’ll save it for another time.  Besides, I’ve done Friday bullet points on Saturday before.  Some stories from the wild that caught my eye. Grand Theft Auto VI will be $80 Ars Technica – Grand Theft Auto VI will cost more than other AAA…

The Steam Summer Sale started yesterday and will run through until the morning of July 9th.  This post is a bit late compared to previous years. Steam Summer Sale 2026 There was a time when I was in a rush to post about it soon after it started.  There was a time when knowing about the sale right away because there used to be daily, or even hourly special sales.  That, however, that fell by the…

One aspect of playing Stardew Valley with our daughter is that it is not just me seeing things for the first time in the game.  We were trying to figure out when I bought her a copy of the game, because much of her experience appears to pre-date the current 1.6.x release which added some new things. Stardew Valley Splash Screen Everything is new to me past a very early point in the game and when…

Back to Forza Horizon 6, which I will admit I have not played much of recently due to the fact, as noted back on previously, that I seem to be playing a lot more games than usual.  There is only so much time in the day to play and/or write. Forza Horizon 6 There is also the issue of having something to say.  My previous post about the title was devoted to its open world nature that continues to…

The ValveBox or the GabeCube or whatever people have been calling it up to this point… though I think we’ve known the real name for a while now… has arrived. Behold the Steam Machine And by “arrived” I mean you can now queue up to be on the randomized-order list of people who will get to buy one whenever they are available.  But to get in on that first group you need to go there and sign up by…

A week or so back I posted a Friday Bullet Points post where I mentioned that it sure looked like layoffs were coming over at the XBox Games division. I mean, when Asha Sharma, the new head of XBox Games, wouldn’t commit to the $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition being a good thing… that was a sign. Sad AI Slop Xbox Games logo generated by Co-Pilot because that is what MSFT is really…

Welcome to the week twenty-five round up, here on the summer solstice and what is “Father’s Day” in the US, which has only really been an “official” thing here since 1972, so I am old enough to remember the before times when pops didn’t get a freaking day.  But, also, did he really need a day?  Do I need a day, father that I am? Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video…

I tend to believe that, among other things, Steam and its regular pattern of seasonal sales has driven others to follow their lead.  Some, like Paradox, have direct sales that coincide with the Steam sales, where you get the same price at from them or Steam, but if you buy direct they don’t have to cut in Valve. Then there are companies who try to get in early, ahead of Steam.  Steam’s Summer…

When I bought the Switch 2 just about two weeks back my immediate goals were pretty clear; I wanted to be able to read text in Stardew Valley which, for a few reasons, was not working out for me on the Switch Lite. (small screen, low contrast, poor font choice)  And, mission accomplished!  That was solved by me buying a brand new upgraded console. Who says money cannot fix things? And the money…

I will admit here, up front, that when my daughter suggested playing Stardew Valley together my inner monologue was less enthusiastic than I was in my outward expression.  I have owned the game since I bought it during the Steam Winter Sale of 2016, but haven’t played it all that much. Stardew Valley Splash Screen This is largely because it struck me as a nice little farming and social simulator,…

As previously noted, I have given up covering the the monthly economic report, mostly because it is a job to do it and it seems to garner very little interest.  Even I don’t find it all that interesting when I go back and look at them for month in review posts. EVE Online nerds harder But every once in a while there is something about them that makes them worth something more than a passing…

I mentioned last time around that I dove into The Swarm expedition after letting things cool down for a week. No Man’s Sky – The Swarm First I used my main save, then when that was… complicated… I turned off multiplayer and started a new save for just the expedition. Game mode selection, with expedition in the lower right That ended up not being the huge difference I thought it would be, so…

I have been playing Windrose with Potshot this month, but I haven’t been blogging about it that much for a few reasons. Windrose – in Early Access First, while it is my top title for time played so far this June, I am kind of playing at least five titles in rotation and my bandwidth for playing and blogging is generally about three titles deep… and one of those has to be EVE Online which, after…

We rolled into week twenty-four once again expecting only a single title to release, but also waiting on the back half of the news from Summer Game Fest and the ship dates that were announced with it. Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games But first a review of where we left off last time around. Week 23 Scores With that set… not much happened.  As the week opened up…