The Bog

Haven't been posting much here but it's pointless to apologize every time I fall off posting, so I won't.

The Game Awards were tonight and for some reason I watch them religiously every year, even though I couldn't possibly care less about most of the games mentioned. It's somehow fun to complain about it with my friends, and in a weird way it makes me feel great about video games in general. Somehow seeing a whole bunch of bloated-budget garbage helps me remember how many incredible games there are out there -- games that were made with love and joy and talent. So many I couldn't play all of them if I spent the rest of my life doing nothing but playing video games. Thoughts include:

-- Congratulations to Okami fans
-- Games which were robbed include: Unicorn Overlord, 1000xResist, Mouthwashing, Animal Well, Nine Sols, probably Prince of Persia: the Lost Crown which I haven't played but everyone I know who did seems to love it
-- Watching them give an award to a guy essentially running damage control for sweeping layoffs was unbearable
-- I have seen so many trailers for Infinity Nikki and not one of them has showed the dressup interface, which I consider a bad sign
-- Creative director for Warframe was onstage and the only person with any fashion sense
-- I don't know why I'm so resistant to Arcane, I guess it's got that League of Legends grime all over it
-- Congrats Balatro
-- I really just cannot get into games with realistic graphics sorry. I need my games to look like somebody made them.

Incidentally I've been playing insane amounts of Unicorn Overlord. I cannot say enough good things about it, honestly -- it's SO good. Pretty much the perfect evolution of the formula set out by Ogre Battle, a formula which so very few strategy games have looked to. I could spend hours micromanaging all my little guys and their equipment and their detailed tactical loadouts.

Unbelievably, it contains a sad blonde prince named Gilbert. Two nickels, etc. He didn't bail on the royal title to go wander around incognito, but his brother did, so I guess it's just a blonde RPG prince thing generally.

I had Alain marry the erstwhile brother, who might be my favorite character? There are a lot of characters but dang it you cannot expect me to resist a dashing swashbuckler who is secretly a prince. He randomly brought up Gilbert while they were exchanging rings, though, so IDK maybe Alain is gonna have to marry both of them. Hope he's open-minded.

I'm encroaching upon the end of the game, though, so I'll need a new RPG to play (probably Romancing Saga 3 or Ni no Kuni 2).