We’ve come down to the end of another year, and with that end, it’s time for another year in review! I’ve done a lot of thinking, both about my life and about the blog’s direction, and I’d like to share some insight into that thinking.

I am always looking to get out of the proverbial box, because I’m not one dimensional. If people wanted me to review, say, the new Fortnite update or talk about Call Of Duty or something every 2 weeks, I wouldn’t do that. I prefer to let ideas show up organically, and if it’s a good enough idea, I’ll develop it. And I like to think I’ve developed enough as a writer to want to do this for a living someday. Because, I have finally figured out my vision for what I want to do with this. The Muppets posts were emblematic of this branching out last year. They allowed me to be free and not constrained to talk about any one topic, something that was awesome to be able to do. This year, it was the Daft Punk post, something that was intensely refreshing and invigorating to do. You can read it here.

It felt good to do research, to listen and channel my inner music critic and get a little bit of an insight to basically how and why they were so successful, and how their music has influenced my own work and life in general. I want to take that style of doing research and critical review and mash it up with my own personal experience. If I can do that in a post, then the post will be among my favorites! That’s partially why I take so long doing these (the other part being that I am now busy with college and don’t have as much time). That post was the culmination of almost three months of on-and-off writing, in between classes or just when I had spare time. But in between that post, there was one more preceding it which was unexpectedly thrown into production and thrown together hastily. It’s story time, because additional context is needed!

February 10th, 2021. It’s around 12:00 PM. As is custom around this time, it is Sony Direct queue time! They’ve taken to giving people advanced notice (usually around a half hour) and having a waiting period until the queue officially opens. I get into the queue almost immediately, just a few seconds after a restock account’s tweet was posted. And I wait. And wait. And sit in Zoom class and wait. When the queue officially opens, I get the usual “Your estimated wait time is: over an hour”. And I wait, and prepare myself for disappointment, yet again. But then it jumps to 45 minutes, and a few minutes later it jumps again to 14 minutes! I’m hoping against hope that this is it. I take a few deep breaths, as I get into the purchase screen a few minutes later. I add to cart, my hands are shaking from excitement, but eventually, I secure the PS5. I definitely screamed, something so loud my sister heard it upstairs when she was doing whatever she was doing! All that was left to do was wait…

While waiting for February 15th, I wrote this piece about my experiences with the PS4. I bought NBA 2K21 Next Gen, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Planet Earth 2, and The Dark Knight on 4K UHD Blu Ray. Unforeseen weather (a snowstorm to be more specific) delayed the package by one day, further complicating my anxieties. I had read about drivers stealing packages containing PS5s and I wanted to be sure that the same fate didn’t befall me. Around 3:30, there’s a knock at the door. It’s the UPS guy, and he’s carrying a box. In the box is a brand new PlayStation 5

I spent the next few months getting acquainted with all the features of the console and published a review of it in May. You can read it here.

I published a straightforward review MLB The Show 21 which can be found here. I then published a survey for my “Game of the Year” for the past 5 years, which you can read here. But I found that the most fun thing, the thing that I enjoyed most was doing these longer “spotlight” pieces. The first one, on NBA 2K21’s MyCareer mode, was really fun to put together, and I’m happy to announce that an MLB The Show version is coming soon. You can read that here. My last post of the year was one that I had wanted to put together for a long time. I love my PlayStation 2. The games I had for it when I was a kid shaped my intense interest in sports, both collegiate and professional. But with these new 4K TVs, and with the PS2 not being an HD console, it is not possible to hook it up to my TV, that is, not without a converter! My brother bought one in October, and I earnestly set to work building my favorite post of the year. If you recall, I mentioned at the top that the most fun post for me to work on is something that’s part critical review, part personal experience and part me doing research! Yes, they take longer, but they’re rewarding to do, even if the view counts don’t reflect the effort I put in. Which is another thing that I want to get better at. Promotion is something that I struggle with at the moment. I just don’t know where to start or how to break through. I’ve reached out to more people for freelance opportunities, and I found one with Nick at NerdEcon, for which I wrote about the economics of Animal Crossing. It can be found here. I want to do more of these spotlight pieces, and more straightforward reviews, and maybe conduct an interview of a developer next year, but all of those can’t happen without time, and adequate promotion of my work. And I don’t have much of either of those at the moment. School is taking up most of my time, though I have a backlog of posts that I still want to get through, as well as some new ones that I have ideas for. It has become abundantly clear to me that this is what I want to do, because I love doing it. I love writing, about a hobby I love, and I hope that shows in each one of my posts! I’m not going to be doing a Game of the Year this year, because I don’t feel I played enough new games this year to reward a winner. But I will be doing a list of things that I enjoyed, perhaps early next year, and I do have ideas for more posts in the future, as usual. Because I enjoy doing this, even if it’s only for me, and I haven’t found my niche or audience yet. It’s an opportunity for me to do what I love and get better at it, and explore new avenues with my writing that I haven’t yet. I’ve enjoyed working on this for you guys and I hope you’re ready for more, because we are nowhere close to being done!