the background noise

'I'd say we're looking up a dead horse's rectum Norm!' Presenting the first of an infrequently updated series where I pay tribute to the very best finds found upon the DVD shelves of charity shops wherever I happen to find them. Films loaded up to the gills with pure cut-price testosterone. Films where men are men and production values are low to middling at best. The great value quality aisle of the action movie world. Those humble titles that just don't get no respect or enough appreciation for their distinctive DVD box art.  Not saying this will be a showcase of quality action cinema mind you but let's see what we have here...

A moment of appreciation if you will for the humble giant robot, mecha or walking tank. Playing a lot of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries lately, a 'war-em-up' set in your standard grim future of near total conflict across, between and beyond the stars. Why it's been a good long while since last I played one of these. In fact there was no less than a nineteen year gap between this game and MechWarrior 4 . not entirely certain that was the game I played then or whether it was perhaps a budget release of MechWarrior 3. Regardless that's o ne nine years  I tell you! Sure there's been mobile and online games in that time but by and large this is a series with some serious underexposure in my humble opinion. Shame really, because when it's firing on all laser cannons, it satisfies that ever eternal need to pilot a giant bipedal tank through a future battlefield whilst wrecking all what you see. I'm having a lot of fun with this game is what I'm saying...

I've been playing Metal Wolf Chaos XD , a special kind of crazy. A game in which the US President wages war on an attempted coup d'etat against America by taking on the villainous forces of his Vice President armed in a ridiculously, implausible mech suit. He may be wearing a war machine but his true power is the love of his country. 

Presenting the first of an infrequent series where I showcase my all time favourite video game music, starting with this little gem from Deus Ex ...

Hello 2023 , it's nice to have you here! Yes I know we're a full month in, nonetheless it's a new year, a new day and a new blog post. New games as well, well not new games as such but possibly more recent games than I've been playing as of late, newer games shall we say? Newish? That's a word right? Yeah let's go with that, this is the internet after all. Tallying up my games played last year, I came to the rather startling, nay troubling conclusion that I played something like fifty games across the entirety of 2022. Nearly an inexplicable game per week by some nefarious tampering of space and time.  Not sure how I accomplished that if I'm honest, a single minded sense of purpose perhaps? A stubborn refusal to engage my time more productively? Whatever the answer, I've been left with a lot of games to reflect back upon. Lots of good times with an ample selection of the less spectacular to choose from as well. See my previous blog entries for individu...

Okay then, time to wrap up this wrap-up. I think I've made my point and that point is that I have played a lot of games this year . When I restarted this blog all the way back in February , I was very much in the mindset that I was going to actually some of these games I always buy when the sales are on and boy did I get busy on that front. Looking back it doesn't feel like I had a wealth of free time to fit in all this gaming, but by golly I did. Mission accomplished! I may even get around to playing games from this very current decade on a regular basis next year but naturally I am making no promises there. For the last time this year, to the games...

So it came to pass that another twelve month period was at its end and lo they did say, it was good, bad or indifferent as whatever the case may be. 2022 was quite the year for a whole host of reasons but for the purpose of this blog post i am going to zero in on the old gaming habit. All those games I finally got around to clearing from the backlog this year as well as a few picked at random because spontaneity is not entirely dead yet. Not all of the games I played will be featured here of course, why if you want to read previous tales of the games I completed in the first half of the year then please divert your eyes to this post and this post . Yes its the blog entry so prolific it's arriving in four instalments. To the games... No wait, Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Now to the games...