The Last Laugh

Life is a highway…


Use your fucking turn signal and make sure to stay
in your own god damn lane

A bit of a strained metaphor on that attempt at positing some wisdom, but I think there’s still a salvageable message somewhere in there. Shifting gears here, as someone who spends most of his day centered around gaming, whether it be thinking, reading, writing, playing…I still have trouble keeping up with most of the industry. I’m not sure if I’m within my rational means to accuse this hobby of being either a younger man’s game, or a medium that demands one has a lot of capital in order to enjoy what is on offer, but I definitely question who, outside of people employed within the industry, don’t feel utterly lost in the shuffle in attempting to keep up with the reality of the everyday of video gaming. To wit: I keep forgetting we are deep in the midst of award season, and no matter where I look, the majority of the titles nominated for any given award shindig are ones I haven’t even played yet, and I’m getting down on games everyday.


Mostly figuratively now a days, but engagement is engagement

This particular award ceremony was the 2025 Game Developers Choice Awards, so a bunch of the industry’s devs got together and gave their two cents on which titles were the cream of the crop. As previously mentioned, even though I am somewhat familiar with the games discussed, the fact of the matter is I haven’t even played most of them, which leaves me scratching my head as to what I was doing all of 2024, but I digress. I did (and am still) playing Balatro, which dominated the award ceremony, by taking home not only Best Debut, Best Design, and Innovation Award, but also claimed the top prize by winning Game of the Year.


The Joker steals the show again, but what else is new?

What I find maddening about this is what I must be missing about Balatro, cause it’s very obviously some key element that makes the entire experience so heavily praised, so what I’m not “getting” about the little card game that could baffles me. As I recently addressed in an article, the game doesn’t seem to be overly compelling to me as I sift through it’s simplicity and try to understand what it has to offer outside of some slightly spruced remixing of what appears to be a basic card game prominently featuring The Joker cards as strategic fulcrums that help win the day.This really could be a moment of different strokes for different folks, with my penchant for being totally repelled by anything even remotely resembling a table top game front in center. Whatever “it” factor that Balatro possesses that seems to elude me aside, game of the year is mighty impressive, so congrats to the Balatro devs for what they accomplished and for being recognized for their work. I’ll continue to contend with the title to see if I can make heads or tails of the experience, but uh…I might just not be of popular opinion on this one, even if obvious quality is staring me right in the face.


What I feel like when attempting to analyze what
makes Balatro so Balatro-y

~Pashford

Words of Wisdom: Scheduling Sanity

As others have already acknowledged, 2025 is looking to be crammed full of awesomeness.


Not pictured: The insomnia this release schedule
will induce

Just a quick post today, as I’ve found if I don’t force myself into enjoying some more leisurely moments in my busy week, my enthusiasm levels go directly into the shitter. Which bring me to my words of wisdom that I share with you now: make sure to have a sane schedule for the sake of your own mental health. Try not to over stuff your days with an absolutely insane roster of activities to get to, and to make sure your eyes aren’t bigger than your schedule is open, as trying to stuff every minute of everyday with some thing to do, gaming or otherwise, is a sure fire way to burn yourself out without even trying. While the gaming universe is usually chock full of enjoyment to be had, make sure to schedule in some downtime for yourself on a regular basis, lest you drown in a sea of strained productivity, and end up dooming yourself to woofing down a big old bowl of regretti speghetti.

Happy gaming.
~Pashford

Pressing On The Shoulder Buttons Of Giants

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.


Some even love setting records in that regard

An even more morose notion within the confines of historical perspective is losing it entirely, as is the case with those who fail to preserve it. A broadly problematic issue, though one that has a specific citation within the world of video games, with an ever increasing issue where preservation and archivist standards are concerned. Which is why moments like The Strong’s Video Game Hall of Fame are absolutely essential in reminding people of old titles, the virtual experiences that helped to cultivate our past, and the celebration therein of our history as gamers as a collective…every single one of us.


Except whoever made this

Which is why I was delighted to see that public voting was still open to help decide which of the games nominated as a potential inductee to the Video Game Hall of Fame for 2025. The titles are all worthy entries, as each and every single one has represented either a cultural touchstone in the world of video games, or helped elevate the entire medium in some regard, with some true heavyweights to pick from. The list of nominees are twelve strong, and are as follows: Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Defender, Frogger, GoldenEye 007, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, Quake, NBA 2K and Tamagotchi.


A beautiful chunk of nostalgically based gaming excellence right there

Having played all of the titles, and beaten the respective ones that have a conclusive ending, the roster is truly one of endless priase, even though some of the entrants are of a sports variety, which I’ve never been extraordinarily fond of, it’s still hard to eny the staying power of the 2K series, or even the underrated contributions of what Mattel Football and Tamagotchi helped to add to the cultural zeitgeist. Running in line with my recent musings of the Rare variety, it was hard for me not to go with Goldeneye, as the game represents a turning point for FPS games the industry over, beating out Quake slightly in my opinion of cultural influence for what it accomplished in shifting the needle on how massively the game impacted the perspective of shooters on consoles moving forward.


Four person free for all on Facility in Goldeneye: talk
about a core memory unlocked

Voting will remain open to the public till March 13th, so be sure to make your voice heard and help celebrate a piece of our virtual heritage proudly.

~Pashford

Inanity, thy name is video games

The struggle is real.


Who I’m envisioning as the mascot for 2025

At least, it feels real in regards to not just the complete insanity that 2025 has already launched with, but keeping up with the craziness enough with the same kind of “DON’T PANIC” vibes I advocate for on the regular. That obviously complicates my day to day, including finding time to sit my ass down and write with any regularity whatsoever. I always desire to have more fleshed out ideas for articles in this space, to elevate Active Time Event above just another gaming blog, but alas, to quote a prescient prophet of our cosmic time, if wishes were horses, we’d all be eating steak. With all of that said, I feel as if in a constant state of flux truth be told, in always feeling as if I need to “start again”, as if reigniting the fires of creativity in some kind of conceptual grand gesture to imbue my meager efforts with some well needed feelings of gravitas to frame the whole affair with. Keeping that in mind, I’m not quite sure the number of times I’m essentially going to refer to my own writing endeavors as a “soft reboot“, but I’m speculating the number will indeed be too many, and simultaneously, not enough at the same time. I did make my return to the writing space about this time last year, and while the first half of the year dragged a bit in terms of consistent content, the couple of pieces I did get out were decent pieces of dynamite, setting the stage for a second half of the year resulting in a wild stream of content every day for months on end. A stream of content I may add which eventually ended in November for, uh, tragically disappointing reasons many of you were confronted with as well.


November 5th forced me into doing a perpetual Steve Harvey face for the rest of the year, ngl.

As I made mention recently, this time of year is always devastating for me, as both seasonal depression and related moments of destructive tendencies that are contingent on said moods tend to drag me down to the depths of despair and debauchery in the most nefarious of ways. In those ever present and unrelenting times of melancholic torture that attempt to drown me in chaotic malaise, I seem to catch a serious case of the fuck its I just cannot shake, and the lack of motivation and complete abandonment of what I view as my duties that follows is one of absolutely brutal and insurmountable malcontent that is nearly unrivaled in bloodshed and misery.


Nearly unrivaled

That’s kind of the abhorrently abysmal hole I’m still attempting to crawl out of, on some metaphorically psychological level at least, but this year has been one of the most promising springboards of regeneration coming from a point of stability in recent memory. I’ve at least maintained a decent day to day of gaming and an ounce of respectability in terms of writing about them, far more so than basically any point around the same time in the last 7 years combined in retrospect, which is worth saying. Perspective is everything, and if you’re use to test flights ending with the entire vehicle engulfed in flames and crashing into a side of a mountain, merely having a rough landing where a wing gets bent or a wheel falls off should be marked on paper as a successfully executed colossal undertaking.


Someone made a PS2 about similar subject matter
if my memory isn’t betraying me…

So yeah. Still enjoying my new Xbox Series X, still don’t have a PS5 (work in progress), still somehow enjoying games on my launch Switch, a system which is in extraordinarily dire stakes, with the back cracked in half, the poor damn thing randomly vibrating, and on it’s fifth set of joycons mind you, but still trucking non the less. I somehow still haven’t beaten Echoes of Wisdom, in spite of the title being both a Zelda game and getting in weekly play sessions on the regs, but I’m always enjoying about 7 games at any given moment, so playthroughs tend to take a second. I’m also schmoozing the competitive Smash scene and admiring Animal Crossing up close and person everyday, but I don’t have much in the way of interesting ideas floating around about either at any given moment. This could be do to the notion either feels like an old relationship of some kind, where it’s become more of a way of the everyday then a conscious effort, akin to the nutrients vicariously but unconsciously absorbed that keeps one breathing. A lack of inspiration involving writing ideas could also be predicated on that notion I just know to stay in my lane and realize I’m not within the authority of exterior design to speak with any gravitas on the matter, or wish to give some succulent trade secrets of the Smashing persuasion, but I hold my tongue appropriately when I feel as if nothing of value can be imparted to ye lucky crew of readers and onlookers alike. I suppose I’ll dig deep and attempt to offer insight on both Smash and AC simultaneously for you now.


Love what they’ve done with their village layout. They
have trees and everything. Also, Smash Protip: Don’t
fall off the edge.

See? Rubbish.

I’m continuing to give Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 a shot, even though I feel as if I know me and the game have no real shot of longevity together. The campaign was fine enough, though the multiplayer does feel like it lacks a certain crisp quality involving that bespoke 30 seconds of fun (of Halo legend) needed for any gaming experience to stay relevant for long in this hyper competitive market this day and age. However, I muster the courage to continue my college effort in my affairs with the title, giggling still as I play, watching the big bologna men run hither and thither doing big bologna men like things whenever I play Space Marine 2, wondering who in their right mind takes any of this seriously, but that may be one of the only things keeping me invested in my bologna man space dystopia adventures, so it’s really the small things that count.


A screenshot of one of my more intense
matches playing Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2.

I did also finish getting all the achievements for Castlevania, Order of Ecclesia, the final cheevo involving beating Albus mode, which is just where you go back through with an optional character and rebeat the campaign with an unlockable character after the credits roll, in the memorable style of Symphony of the Night. I do chuckle thinking about the comparative nature of Albus as a character vs others in the series, as while he is relevant to the main story of Ecclesia, he is essentially a dude with a gun in a story involving legendary vampire hunters and demonic entities born of myth and fury. Still, Dracula still has a mouth that one can fire bullets into, which contributes in meaningful ways to dislocating his ass from this reality and then launching his bastard ass directly into hell with relative fucking gusto.


Pictured: a conceptual representation of Any Castlevania
progatonist by the end of their respective game. Not pictured:
Dracula’s immense frustration with being evicted by the
Belmonts every god damn century

On the PS4, I’m largely just focused on Elden Ring, having finished the DLC Shadow of the Erdtree about a month ago. I maintain a pride in having played through both the vanilla portion of the game and the DLC without having used any external help whatsoever, be it guides, videos, walkthroughs etc, and even pushed myself not to summon any player help to fight any of the bosses, which I consider to be a stubbornly bullheaded endeavor of herculean proportions that I’m happy to have seen to it’s bitter end. Though the playthrough of both the title and it’s add-on did put things into a stark perspective, and that is I can’t sacrifice a year of my life to a single game all of the time, as it just simply isn’t sustainable. I realize not every experience is going to be as demanding as a souls-like is, but the truth remains that in this day and age of hyper busyness, combined with a ridiculous slate of games coming down the pipeline, on top of my general desire to have hobbies and passions outside of gaming, I’m trying to remind myself it’s really okay to ask for help and or take a shortcut every now and again, or else one would surely get consumed by the madness of struggle, and drown in the endless sea of everyday inanity in a moment’s notice.

~Pashford