I was about 10 seconds away from running to the restroom in the middle of Marty Supreme when the bathtub scene happened. Holy shit. Glad I waited!

Thank you, Peter Weller.

Inspired by sardoose’s comments on this one during their stream about their favorite games of the year, I started playing King’s Bounty on the Genesis yesterday and I love it! Just look at these little freaks!

All the cancellation talk today reminds me that people sure had no problem last year turning their noses up at the Sex Crime Guy’s cyberspace legacy sequel while simultaneously gushing over the race car film for dads starring the guy that abused his wife and kids for hours at 20,000 feet.

Mediagenic-tier rebranding.

Also, a bit more context from the time FWIW. I’m not saying that this means Mike is squeaky clean or that his personal beliefs maybe aren’t the best, but I think it’s fair to say that he maybe didn’t know enough about who exactly he was in bed with at the time.

Your mission today, should you choose to accept it:

David Rosen, who helped create Sega and changed the coin-op industry forever, has passed away. www.replaymag.com/segas-dave-r... An absolute titan in video game history. May he rest in peace.

We’re doing a “26 games in 2026” thing in one of my friend groups this year, and the first game up was God Panic (PC Engine), which I’d never played before. At the risk of becoming wildly unpopular, I kind of didn’t like it? Humor is more on par with Toilet Kids than Parodius or by beloved Keio.

Weird question, but has anyone experienced a temporary infrared dead zone with their various remote controls? I had two different ones that absolutely would not work for me from my usual couch spot this morning, but worked fine within about a foot of the devices…

Missed opportunity TBH.

Surprisingly, this wasn’t that hard to pull off once you get the special radar. It took me maybe an extra 50 minutes to go from 100% to 200%. No changes to the ending, just unlocks a few things in the gallery.

Finished Hard Mode. While I enjoyed occasionally having to think outside the box to win, it’s really not worth it beyond bragging rights. Lots of bits just feel poorly balanced and designed to waste your time more than anything else. The Sylux fight takes around 30 minutes.

I’m doing the Varmis fight on Hard difficulty on Metroid Prime 4. I can’t finish it. Why? Because I assumed it would drop at least one Power Bomb during the fight to let me finish the job, but nope! This was preceded by me driving around the desert for 15 minutes without a single drop. Garbage.

Oh wow, there’s a Free Aim option in Prime 4 you can toggle that automatically targets other weak points by just tapping L/R on the R analog stick? I wish I’d known this during my Normal runs. It’s pretty much essential on Hard.

(1/) I don’t really have the energy to do a full writeup on my Best/Worst Games Beaten in 2025, so I’ll just do a quick summary. I wound up playing through around 58 games this year, brand new and very old, mostly great, a few of them terrible. 24 of these were ones I completed for the first time.

Happy New Year to those of you who view time as a linear construct.

(1/) I don’t really have the energy to do a full writeup on my Best/Worst Games Beaten in 2025, so I’ll just do a quick summary. I wound up playing through around 58 games this year, brand new and very old, mostly great, a few of them terrible. 24 of these were ones I completed for the first time.

The only acceptable form of this would be a ghost avatar of Matthew Lesko where all he does is yell “It’s FREE money!” as he points towards every blatantly obvious in-game currency pickup.

Purchased some midtier PC Engine goodness to close out the year. I found out about this thanks to @randomstranger.bsky.social ‘s fine video on it; the fact that I still chose to get it *after* watching the vid tells you everything you need to know about my taste in video games.

RIP to the last decent television network. 44 years is one helluva run.

Okay, which one of you did this?

Every single enemy in a Metroid Prime game on Hard.

I was once in a hurry and bumped right into Louie Anderson. He put his hand gently on my wrist and told me, "take a key for coming in". He was the sweetest person. Before he left, he winked and said, "this story is happy end." I'll never forget that.

Pen Pen TriIcelon motivational account that just posts the “We’re rootin’ for ya!” voice sample over and over again.

Your moment of zen for today. youtu.be/LafMgjmBV2k?...

Spanky with the good advice

Okay, getting better! I’m curious what the record time will wind up being for 100%. Under 10 seems questionable. Even under 12 seems tricky.

I just found an optional lore statue in Metroid Prime 4 that might not be widely known (green hex on the map). I’m not going to tell you how to get it, but it requires a somewhat novel approach to reach. Completely optional, but it’s neat that it’s in there. (I wonder if there are more?)

We now know that this was a very, very, VERY bad thing (One-Punch Man S3).

The Pitt coming back in two weeks precisely one year from when S1 premiere should be a wake up call that you can, in fact, still produce a season of a very good television show once per year, especially when it’s 8-12 episodes.

Content

When the dasher drops off my order from KFC.

Anyone else notice that Metroid never got her bike back after that dragon swallowed it whole?

I’m the wrong age for it so I’ll likely never watch an episode, but I’m still fascinated that they did such an awesome remix of a Pac-Mania track for that Pac-Man CG cartoon from 15 years ago. youtu.be/VBvdp4IdrD4?...

Random gaming memory surfaced last night, and I’m curious if this is correct. In OG Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast, isn’t the Unsealed Door quest effectively impossible if you’re playing solo as a HUcast?

Don’t believe the lies on the box for this BTW: It does include alternate red letter stickers to help you recreate the era of the superior 3-button pad. (It even includes a Mega Drive sticker if you’d also rather rebrand it for use overseas)

That’s a wrap on Metroid Prime 4. I wish I liked it more than I did. Seems weirdly rushed and cobbled together for a game that took so long to get out the door.

I already have 30-35 Genesis pads. Why would I need another one for Christmas!?

Okay, you win this one, game. TBF, I was well into the Rampage segment (film #3) when I finally reached 100%.

Today’s challenge: Can I finish collecting crystals before this year’s Christmas BOTW ends on my second screen?

Okay, I can’t be the only one who reached 100% armament collectibles in Prime 4 only to be stuck harvesting crystals for the next couple of hours, right? And this is with going out of my way to slide into every pile I’ve come across. I dunno, feels really bad, man.

Whoever designed that one segment in the Flare Pool in Metroid Prime 4 needs to be shoved in a locker. The visual language here is just wretched.

Also, lest I forget to mention it: I enjoy Genesis variants in general, but Phantasy Star II is one of my absolute favorite games on the console, which is why I care so much about tracking its variants down. I would not be jumping through these hoops for Combat Cars or Bubba ‘n’ Stix.

(1/) I forgot to share this one, but here’s my latest Sega Genesis variant find that I’m overjoyed to finally have in my collection: The manual for a later (second?) printing of Phantasy Star II. What’s the story behind this? And why only the manual? Read on…

Between this and also putting Presence on his Worst of list, Debruge is clearly vying for the coveted Armond White Award of Bad Taste.

Got a hint for anyone struggling with that Omega Griever boss fight in Prime 4.