Category: Blog

2022 In Games

December 13, 2022

Another year, another look back at my game purchases…

2022 was an interesting year, and unique amongst all the years I’ve been buying games (since arriving in the US), in that I only bought games for a single system. Yes, this means no charts this year since there would only be one entry: the Switch! In total I spent $1286 bought 43 games for the system for an average price of $30. This is my third lowest ever total amount spent and number of games bought. The reason for only one system is we have not yet replaced our PS4, mostly since we have never seen a PS5 (or replacement PS4) for sale. However since the Switch has more than enough great games and the PS5 is – in my opinion – lacking compelling software, I’m in no hurry to buy one.

This is not to say my game playing saw a decline in 2022 – quite the opposite! There were some important releases this past year, and coupled with the fact we consume more and more media on our iPads, this meant lots of evenings playing the Switch and watching shows at the same time 🙂

Before to my usual ‘best of’ list, I’ll add that I made a third game sale this past year, a bit smaller than the previous, parting with my NES/SNES/N64 and Gamecube collections. I’m now down to about 1100 physical games and as with the previous chunks of my collection I sold, I don’t regret it one bit and am sure that one day I will sell more.

So, what did I enjoy most this year? No prizes for guessing the top spot:

Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak (Switch)

This was a massive update to the base game that introduced several new monsters, loads of new weapons and armour and an entirely new difficulty level (what we used to call ‘G Rank’), and it was amazing. As with every MH game I devoured this, playing 16-hour days during Spring Break and reaching the endgame very quickly. The new fights were so much fun, and the added complexity of gear (especially creating sets around the vast amount of skills) was very satisfying. Looking back on Rise/Sunbreak as a complete game, this is without a doubt my favourite Monster Hunter ever, and I can only imagine where the series will go from here.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)

The third (or fourth…) game in this beloved series also came out in 2022, and once again it hooked me quickly and didn’t let go until about 150 hours later. With well-written characters, an engrossing story and a massive world to play around in this was another triumph of an RPG. This series is known for leaving some questions unanswered, but I’ll say the finale of this third and final game left me with a warm feeling. Now can we see a port of (or sequel to) Xenoblade Chronicles X?

Dungeon Encounters (Switch)

This was a surprise! I bought this one from Playasia since I wanted it on cartridge (it’s digital only in America), and didn’t open it for a few months. When I did I found a super old-school dungeon crawl in the Wizardry vein, only the dungeon is viewed from above and looks like a simple drawing on grid paper! Combat is turn-based and employs a simple gimmick involving two types of attack (physical and magic) and defense and at first everything seems a bit sparse. But very quickly the depth of the game becomes apparent, and 75 hours later when I beat it I knew it had become one of my favourite RPGs of all time. It’s very hardcore and certainly not for everyone, but I hope it does well enough for a sequel since it was absolutely my sort of game 🙂

Last year I wondered if 2022 would have brought a PS5 into our house and the answer was no. But I’ll make a prediction: 2023 will. I’m sure I’ll keep buying Switch games as well, but I think this time next year we’ll see both more games and more systems played in the annual round-up. Come back and see!

Postcrossing 750!

December 3, 2022

I’ve been a Postcrossing member for a little under four years now, and recently received my 750th postcard! I still love using the service, and every card received is a little treasure in my PO Box. It’s been about a year since I passed 500, so here’s an update about the recent arrivals.

That’s my top 10 countries, sorted by received cards. As usual Germany dominates the service, and collectively German users have now sent over 10 million cards! Russia on the other hand will probably eventually lose the second spot, since cards from there have all but ceased this year due to the war.

These are the countries from which I’ve only received a single card. Can you point to all of them on a map? There’s a longer list of countries from which I have not received any cards, and it’s always a nice surprise when I get the first one from a ‘new’ country.

Card images are anything you can imagine but I’ve been getting a larger percentage of animal cards recently. I suspect the reason may be that ‘tourist’ cards are becoming rarer so people are buying generic cards online. The above are three of the better animal cards received, but by far the weirdest (even perhaps disturbingly so) animal card I’ve got this past year is this one:

Is that a real life Mr Snuffleupagus?

The above are some ‘Postcrossing meetup’ cards I’ve received this year. These are cards printed by Postcrossing users and shared at gatherings. These seem popular in Asia, and the above are from China, Taiwan and Singapore. Very often multiple people sign the back of each, and you can see the back of one of them below.

This is a card featuring the art of ‘Tom of Finland’, a famous Finnish artist known for his gay art. As you can see the sender also used a stamp of the artist that was issued several years ago. Cards where the stamps match the front are very rare and always appreciated.

The stamps continue to impress, and the above is only a small selection of the hundreds I’ve received this past year. Russian stamps seem to be getting bigger every day, and Chinese and Japanese ones more colorful. Some stamps were particularly notable…

The Finnish stamp at top left is not just circular but also die-cut so that the country is removed! The top right stamp is the new German Postcrossing stamp released only a few weeks ago. The bottom left shows a lenticular Olympic stamp from The Netherlands and the bottom right is a selection of several vintage stamps a Japanese user sent me. I was so impressed with her doing this I sent a response card – my first one ever – blanketed with vintage American stamps. She was suitably pleased 🙂

This was probably the most unusual stamp: a braille stamp from Hong Kong! The dots (which read ‘good morning’) seem to be plastic adhered onto the stamp.

The above shows the backs of two cards. People write all sorts of things, from interesting to mundane, but occasionally go to impressive levels decorating or making the back unique. The one on the right is one of the meetup cards, and I’m impressed by the rubber stamps some users have!

From the 250 new cards since the last update, what were my favorites? It was a hard decision, but these three bubbled to the top:

The left one was from Japan and the sender said she bought it in a ‘big bookstore in Tokyo’. If I find this same card for sale, I’d buy it too! The middle card is a vintage card from France that is embossed and has glitter on it. And the right card is just a lovely photo of a man and a baby. There’s nothing on the back explaining the photo (not even artist credit) so we can only imagine who they are.

These days I can send/receive 25 cards at a time, and am averaging about that amount per month. So it may take a little under a year to get to the big 1000 cards received. When I do, I’ll post another update 🙂

Gumball Machines

November 10, 2022

As a child, no trip to a grocery store was complete without a coin spent on a gumball machine, usually near the exit. The same was true for visits to the mall or cinema or any other place where the machines could be found.

There were two types of machines: those that vended lollies, and those that gave toys. Usually the lollies – almost always gum – only cost 5 or 10 cents. Toys cost more – up to 50 cents! – and we’re usually either ‘super balls’ or a motley collection of plastic trash.

As far as the lollies were concerned, I always preferred the standard gumball, and would often spend the coin mum or dad have me on one. Sometimes a machine would sell a (child’s) handful of tiny gum pieces, and since these seemed to be better value for money I could never resist them. As I grew older the gumballs became more exotic – some even had fizzy crystals inside – and I occasionally bought them all the way up until I left Oz.

As mentioned the toys were usually dreadful: cheap tchotchkes from China that would have cost the machine owner considerably less than 20c apiece! But as a kid I hardly cared, and one type of toy in particular I loved: the tiny rubber car. These were about an inch long, molded from hard unpainted rubber, and usually quite detailed for their size. If ever I saw a machine that sold these I always had to get one, and as a young boy I had a small, prized collection of them. Coming home from grocery shopping was always more fun with a tiny rubber car in my pocket!

Recently I’ve been paying attention to the gumball machines in our local shops, and all the photos in this blog were taken these past weeks. There are fewer machines than there used to be – Covid killed many it seems – but they’re remarkably similar to the ones I recall from my youth. The stock of machines is remarkably similar to what I remember from my youth, and still contains mostly gumballs, super balls and disposable ‘toys’.

The above was the closest I could find to the rubber cars of my youth. These are about the same size, seem to be made of similar material (or perhaps a flexible plastic) but as you can see are painted now, which gives them an extra dash of sophistication. At $0.75, I couldn’t resist buying one…

I reckon I would have loved this tiny rocket as a kid. It’s probably the ‘worst’ in the machine, but it’s also the one that my young imagination could have easily thought of as an alien spaceship. For me, that would have been enough 🙂

Robot Claw