Both companies are leaning hard on digital only sales. Between the standard PS5 shipping without a disc drive and Switch 2 cartridges being little more than download keys the physical retail market is in its last dying gasps. Steam handily has both companies beat in terms of game catalog availability and affordability. A few console exclusives might be enough to maintain steady sales, but it’s an obvious trend that PC gaming is gaining dominance with third party publishers.

So the next generation’s children will be GI Joes and Barbies. No thank you, I’d rather not have any Mattel products for kids.

They should know after having received one of these marvels back in the Cold War.

If it’s anything like the latest assassination “attempt” at Trump, with great skepticism.

The US has been the world’s bully for over a century and a half already. Latin America alone has had like at least two dozen government interventions during that time.

I once found a working NES with a bunch of games in a dumpster a few years ago. It’s sad to think of how many valuable and hard to find games/systems eventually found their way in the trash because their owners were too lazy to donate or sell them for others to enjoy.

Throat hurts too much to smoke? Eat an edible. Tolerance break averted.

Honest and direct is the way to go. Saying something else like “they went to a farm” would just make you lose credibility later.

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Depressed smoking Jesus describes recent world events quite well.

It was already way past its warranty so not much could’ve been done. Yeah the depressing story can be a bit much too but it also felt very real and relatable. We all have loved ones who’ve passed away and I swear that game made me feel that moment it happened all over again. There are glitters of light throughout the story though and that’s what made me keep going because it also does a pretty great job of emulating hope to the player. It’s been so many years since it came out but I’d be willing to pay top dollar for even a basic port of it on Steam.

There are way more factors at play here rather than a simple wage hike. The war in Ukraine caused a global shortage of wheat and a few other staple crops and fertilizer. The oil embargo on Russia also caused gas prices to climb even further.

Climate change has also quietly eroded some of the world’s farmland causing a bit more food scarcity. Japan for instance recently couldn’t produce enough rice to feed everyone which caused it to import it for the first time in a long while. I got to see this first hand with some ramen shops no longer being seen as “affordable” due to their bowls climbing above 1000 yen.

In the US we had the bird flu wiping out a huge amount of eggs and chicken, there was even a time when I’d see a 1 dollar surcharge on my local restaurant for any dish that uses them. The consolidation of the restaurant wholesale food market by Sysco and US Foods is also creating a chokehold on their prices. Trump’s fiscal and international trade policies have wrecked a lot of the economy causing huge spikes in inflation too. Besides that we have plain old corporate greed with them taking advantage of all this as a smokescreen to crank up the cost of their food.

I didn’t get to finish Lost Odyssey due to my 360 red-ringing. It’s a shame too because the story was one of the saddest since FF IX. It really explores the idea that immortality isn’t all that great when everyone you know and love will eventually die and leave you with just memories, but then end up losing those memories too which ends up being half blessing and curse. The industrial setting a la FF VI was just gorgeous with one of Uematsu’s best ever scores going off in the background. The character designs were pretty great overall too with Jansen being one of my favorite JRPG characters because of his dry witty remarks no matter what the situation is.

Everything about the game hit just right and felt like it was a proper FF title in all but name. It hurt to know Mistwalker Studios barely did anything worthwhile after that for a long while until Fantasian.

Final Fantasy has been dead for a while. XI was the first major warning that things were no longer the same as an MMO was the last thing I expected from a mainline entry. XII was okay but it got rid of the overworld map and kept an MMO style of gameplay that felt like a slog to get through. Everything after that has been a disappointment heralded by extremely long dev times.

I’ve had the Japanese version often enough to say I still personally prefer New York style, that texture clash of sweet dense cream sitting over a crunchy graham is just so damn satisfying. I wish I could try out the European varieties they seem great.

There is no war in Eurasia.

Tried it before. It still didn’t stop me from crying like watching the end of Gattaca. Must’ve been a bad seal somewhere.

Laughs in EV.

So glad I bought a cheap used one in February.

There’s a movie plot in there.

What’s the chai treatment? Giving the captured pilot a cup of hot chai and photographing him to show how humane they are?