That explains everything.

…way to screw Tibet, you monster!

…sure, but which nation? Doesn't he live in New South Wales?

I don't have a Switch, either, and don't plan on one for a while (next Spring?).We will continue with MK8 on the 8th and MK8DX on the 18th for the forseeable future!

Congratulations and Bienvenue a Jaques Station!

How are you managing to age slowly?! I'm rapidly declining like I drank from the wrong Grail. ;-)

At least Hutton Orbital was a little over an hour in one sitting, and getting "back" was effectively instantaneous (because we never really left).

There are a couple of places right now to at least find each other, but if something catastrophic happens, we will need something singular and stable, I think…

This is where Jaques the bartender was introduced in 1993's Frontier: Elite II:

I don't have a mid-summer game, but Animal Crossing: New Leaf is my end-of-summer game - as the days get longer but the trees are still green, hanging out in my town is the perfect way to mentally prepare for the big Wind-Down.

I learned of Jaques twenty years ago in Elite II's "Stories of Life On The Frontier" and popped in to see him before he left for Colonia… it's neat to see the lore get fed back into the gameplay, and they hold true to their roots.

Wish you would have told me that last bit first!

Week three of DL's Double-Down Summer (3DS) meant another game finished! I completed Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, and I enjoyed it almost as much as I did the new series: I thought they were both entertaining and had good production values, if not without their shortcomings that I'm willing to…

Whether you have a person to share it with or not, try Affordable Space Adventures. That game uses the Wii U GamePad as a console screen to guide a little ship through caverns. It's funny, charming, and has some great puzzle and skill elements to it. Even better with a second person (at least). It's an experience…

Early console games were so thin on narrative; a couple of paragraphs in an oft-ignored manual or a skipped and forgotten opening sequence, that by the time the game was put away out of frustration, there was no story left other than the "find this key/beat this giant monster". That became the entire experience, and…

Wow. For those long hops, you're better with long-form sound. I'd recommend that album when you're doing fam hops around Colonia or back "home" in the bubble.

This is going to sound really weird, but please give Speed: Songs From and Inspired by the Motion Picture a try. It may seem trite and too heavy for a place so majestic and grandiose, but there are solid themes of desolation ("Million Miles Away" - Plimsouls, "Go Outside and Drive" - Blues Traveler), exhaustion ("Hard…

As someone whose Castlevania experience comes from borrowing Adventure on the Game Boy, almost finishing Aria of Sorrow, and just last weekend having finished Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, I never really got "zany camp" out of the series. Sure, there was a giant flaming lion-head wheel, roasted turkey laying…

I think with ARMS and Splatoon, they have creativity bubbling from the next generation, with the perspective the modern environment brings.

For me, when I'm depressed, Animal Crossing gives me a "happy place" to which I can imagine escaping. Being able to simply think of an entire world inside a box, and living in it, distances me from what troubles me, while also letting me do basically nothing. Sip a coffee. Pick weeds. Sit on a bench and watch the…