When everyone loves a game this much you gotta give it a try, right? I had never played a Dark Souls game prior, but when this one had made the rounds and showed up on a bargain on Boxing Day the year of its release, I added it to my collection. I can’t say that I have made much progress since.

Call it a philosophic puzzle, call it a walking simulator, or call it a weird science fiction action video game. Whatever you call it, Death Stranding caught my interest a couple years ago and when I can stomach the rollercoaster of low action walking punctuated by moments high adrenaline horror action, I am super curious about the mechanics of this one.

What more is there to be written about Skyrim that hasn’t already been written? I have bought this classic RPG at least a half dozen times in the last decade-plus and so installing the Special Edition for yet another play through seemed almost… inevitable.

I never really thought of myself as an enthusiast for goofy simulators, but I’ve found myself playing at least five editions of this cult hit.

If you has told me that I would be hung up on a roguelike poker crossover game that would suck me into a dopamine rush, I never would have believed you. Yet, here we are.

The console edition of the Ubisoft attempt to take on the city builder genre, building mid-industrial empires on islands is my new jam.

As cornball as it might seem for some suburban dad to spend his time pretending to drive a tractor around a virtual farm, there is a real zen-like business management strategy woven into the Farming Simulator series that makes it easy to listen to a podcast or audiobook while you harvest a virtual crop.

A kind of surrealist-slash-parallel realism story of a world without the internet but inhabited by a society fascinated by little robot pets called “cures” which stand in as kind of a metaphor for social media, technology and addiction, the story is told through the eyes of the mentally ill Belt who owns the worlds oldest cure.

The vibe of SimCity from the old days, except slam it into some VR2 motion sickness inducing fun and you have Little Cities: Bigger.

As far as hard science fiction goes, the story of Bob Johansson’s journey from twenty-first century tech bro to sentient and sarcastic Von Neumann probe populating and defending the known universe through his technical prowess and Trekkie knowledge leans into the lighter side of fictional fare.

Based on the short run graphic novel, this was a four season Netflix show that debuted in 2019 and concluded with some finality in 2024.

In 2024 the latest tweaks to the current edition of the manuals and rulebooks for the classic tabletop role playing game were published, and I took this as my cue to finally jump into this universe. May as well get the freshest rules hot off the presses, huh?