2022 In Games

December 13th, 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!

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Games, History | Comments Closed

View-Master

December 10th, 2022

The View-Master is a device that allows a user to view stereoscopic (‘3D’) images. It was introduced in 1939 and reached the peak of popularity in the 1960s. The viewer above is a modern version I bought maybe a decade ago, and is essentially identical technology to the original release. Over the years there have been dozens of different models but they all work the same way: each eye views a slightly different image from a circular reel, and this creates a 3D picture when they are viewed simultaneously.

I’ve got a motley collection of reels, some new and some old but since the technology has never changed they still work in modern viewers. The majority of reel sets – especially before the 1970s – are pictorial views of tourist sights in various countries and US states, and the reels were often sold in souvenir shops as a sort of 3D scenic postcard.

The above are from the mid 1970s, and are typical of the sorts of sets based on TV and movies that made the viewer popular amongst children during that decade and gave View Master a sort of ‘second wind’. Each set comes with three reels showing pictures from a single episode of the tv show, and a booklet describing the story of the episode.

That’s the Happy Days cover and pages from the Six Million Dollar Man book. The writing is fairly advanced; I imagine parents would read these to kids as they viewed the scenes from the show through the viewer.

I tried to take photos of the images on the reels as best I could, and the above show some examples.

It’s subtle and hard to see the difference between the left/right images when viewed separately. Can you see in the photos above that the sakura branches are in slightly different positions with respect to Fuji? When these two are viewed simultaneously through the viewer the 3D effect is striking, and the blossoms seem to float close to you with Fuji far away in the distance.

Disappointingly some of the newer reels – including all the examples that came with the viewer when I bought it – are not in 3D. The best feature of the View-Master isn’t even used!

Some of the older sets I own include this order form, which is itself quaint today since it reminds us of buying things ‘mail order’ before the internet. The prices – circa 1974 – are absurdly cheap, and the selection of available reel sets is massive with a focus on the tourist examples.

Interestingly no one really knows how many reels exist. View-Master never kept a master list, and there are many unlicensed releases. The list would include the many reels made for non-commercial use, such as a series for the US military so soldiers in WW2 could identify planes, or training reels for corporations, or even reels used in restaurants in place of picture menus! It is known there are more than 4300 different series though, which suggests over 10,000 or more unique reels! These days you can even have custom reels made, and a friend did just that using wedding photos as souvenirs for his guests.

Some reels and viewers have value today, and some sets (usually based on sci-fi or fantasy properties) can reach many hundreds of dollars on the secondary market. But when I see reels in antique stores they’re almost always the scenic tourist types and rarely priced at more than a few dollars, which is where I got the small collection I have today. It’s a fun nostalgic item, and even today the 3D images look as impressive as they did back when I was a little boy 🙂

Posted in Miscellaneous, Retro, Toys | Comments Closed

Fang Rock

December 8th, 2022

I’ve been on a crafting bender recently, digging into my supply of unopened kits. Last weekend, it was time for this:

I got this guy several months back, and since I’d always said “I wish LEGO made a lighthouse” I’m happy they’ve made such a nice one.

Assembly was easy and fun, and it goes together literally from the ground up. The rocky base hides a combination power-supply and motor, which both powers and turns the lamp.

Oh and this is surely the simplest LEGO assembly step ever:

There’s loads of little details in this model that aren’t immediately obvious, such as a secret cave in the base that hides a pirates treasure chest (and the switch for the power), detachable walls/roof for play purposes or that the interior of the house is fully furnished complete with glowing wood stove:

As a child I would have loved playing with this set!

For the lamp LEGO created a fresnel lens element, which focuses the light from an led. It works very well, and in a darkened room the lightdoes produces a bright and somewhat directed beam.

All told it took me about five hours to build and as with many other recent LEGO kits I continue to be impressed by their skill at creating convincing – and in this case working! – models of real life structures. To have done it at minifigure scale is all the more impressive.

This joins the Medieval Blacksmith as one of my favourite LEGO sets of all time. I don’t think I’ll be disassembling this one any time soon 🙂

Posted in Crafts, Science, Toys | Comments Closed

Chocolate House

December 4th, 2022

Kristin made this yesterday:

It’s not a gingerbread house, it’s a holiday chocolate cookie! But is this really a ‘cookie’?

Here’s what was in the box:

Immediately it was clear the quality of this product was leagues beyond the usual ‘make-your-own-gingerbread-house’, which was to be expected considering it cost several times as much!

The first step was to cement the pieces together using the icing. As you can see they all fit more or less seamlessly and it’s well supported by the base.

The icing is the longest step. It took her maybe 30 minutes to complete it. Since the icing is meant to be snow, it hardly matters – in fact looks better – if you go outside the lines a bit!

Then it’s time to decorate. In addition to the pieces enclosed she put a few gumballs on top of the chimney. Don’t the little golden pearls look good?

And here is the completed cookie! Doesn’t it look great?

We’re going to try to keep it around Christmas. Will it still be edible then? Will it even last that long? I guess we’ll find out! 🙂

Posted in Crafts, Food | 1 Comment »

Postcrossing 750!

December 3rd, 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 🙂

Posted in Blog, Postcards | Comments Closed

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