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December 2024 is in the books so let's take a look back at the blog over that month.
Blogger stats for Dec: 23,527 visits
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| Note: this is the last 30 days graph as of 1/2 so off by a day or two |
In other metrics:
For December I was back in New World smashing faces in 3v3 arenas and outpost rush matches. I've also spent some time hitting the winter event to get some of the rewards I've not gotten in the past (skins; gotta collect 'em all).
Marvel Rivals was a surprise hit this month for me and I've put in a good number of hours. I really enjoy the game. I am not sure its a long term game as hero shooters wear me out and there is not enough with Marvel Rivals to separate itself from that trend, but for December it was a big hit in my playtime.
I gave Brighter Shores a few minutes of my time and this Monday Screenshots post is all you are going to get out of it.
I also took a moment to try out Deltaforce and if you told me I was playing Battlefield 2042 I'd of believed you. It is a literal clone of the game to the point the UIs look almost identical. I was going to make a post about this but it is not worth the time and effort. I do find it sort of crazy how the community is giving Deltaforce a pass
December 2023 marked a momentous "gamer dad" moment for me as we gifted my oldest son his very own gaming PC components and I got to watch him put it together.
The Finals surprise launched and I recorded my first win.
Groundhog Day had me thinking about modern storytelling in video games.
Dec 2019 was in the 'not a lot of blogging' era and nothing comes to mind.
In Dec of 2014 the biggest event recorded was that I upgraded my GPU.
In Dec of 2009 Borderlands (the original) was the hot game and I wrote this review.
I also decided to go back to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) and give it 10 more days of my time. You can check out my "10 Days of WAR" posts by starting here. To no surprise I was done playing the game, again, after the 10 day experiment.
Technically I have 21 named years on my sidebar (since I am posting this in 2025), but mathematically December 2005 was only 19 years ago.
In Dec 2005 we were speculating the Draenei were the next race coming to to World of Warcraft which eventually turned out to be true.
Oh and I became somewhat of an early viral celebrity with an article I wrote for the Gamergod (now defunct) website discussing why MTV was doing a better job at games journalism than actual games media. I was mentioned in a GU Comic (now defunct) about it (which I used the wayback machine to go nab a copy of to include here and in the original post). You can also use the wayback machine to read the forum thread for the comic.
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| "a guy" = me |
Packers scored more points than the Vikings but the refs decided to give away 3 points to end the first half and thus the Packers wound up 2 pts short of pulling off the comeback. The Packers are now 0-5 against the top teams in the NFC; the teams they will face in the play offs. Sigh.
The Green Bay Packers shut out the injured New Orleans Saint and damn it felt good!
I scored back to back MVP nods in Marvel Rivals over the weekend. One playing The Punisher and the other playing Hela. I wanted to share the MVP screencaps and some thoughts on each hero.
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| 15 kills / 2 deaths and a clutch quad kill |
The Punisher is the first hero that Marvel Rivals players get to experience in the tutorial and I pretty much fell in love from that moment. He has both range and close up potential as he sports a machine gun and a shotgun. He also can deploy a stationary turret that he can use to mow down the enemy. To help him get in place he can deploy ziplines and use smoke grenades. His ultimate ability turns him into a pumped up machine gunner with shoulder rockets firing down on targets.
The biggest downside to playing The Punisher is his lack of mobility. While the zipline grapple can sometimes get you out of trouble it is far too unreliable to be a consistent escape mechanism. It is far better to use the zipline to get in a better position against the other team. If another duelist or a tank gets in close to me while playing The Punisher it doesn't end well most times but there is something I've gotten better at that helps.
The Punisher has a second weapon with his shotgun and I see many new players overlook this. It is a strong close range weapon and can delete soft targets up close but is slow between shots and even slower on reload so you have to hit your shots. The shotgun is also a remarkable tank killer. You won't win a 1v1 with a tank but if you are pushing an enemy tank or trying to finish one off there is no better weapon to get the job done.
A few things I'd like to see the game fix with The Punisher:
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| EZ PZ 18 and 2 match |
Hela is probably the strongest duelist (aka DPS) hero in the game. She is sniper-like with her throwing daggers/swords and has outstanding mobility as she can shapeshift into a bird to escape or reach a perch from which to snipe from. She also gets a stun orb and can float slowly down instead of falling. Her ultimate boosts her health and launches her to float above the battlefield while she unleashes bombs.
I honestly only started playing Hela after getting repeatedly wrecked by her in many matches. There is also a lot of feedback in the community that she is overpowered and after playing her a bit I would have to agree. She is easy to play and get kills with. She can lock down areas chokepoints and almost always escape danger with her stun and shapeshifting. She is also very strong against tanks and if you can land headshots she is the "tank killer" most competitive team comps rely on.
She needs a nerf.
The Packers excised some demons last night at Lumen field and beat the Seahawks.
I had a burst of inspiration and put together a video with some music and a highlight from Marvel Rivals. Enjoy!
Who knows what the future of AI will look like, but for now, I am having a lot of fun exploring creative possibilities that were once beyond my personal talents, resources, and time. One such pursuit is music creation.
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| An AI generated image of an old(er) video game blogger creating music. Sort of not at all what I look like. I prefer my jeans NOT ripped. |
These unexpected shifts can lead to more interesting results. When I got stuck, the AI came in with clever solutions. A perfect example is the line "every post he writes erupts," which the AI suggested when I was struggling to incorporate blogging into a verse.
Rhyming has been particularly fascinating. The AI's skill at creating unexpected rhymes—like "alien sand"—has been a delightful surprise. Of course, there are moments when I simply insist on keeping certain lyrics, rhyme or no rhyme, maintaining my bit of control over the process.
The song I lyrics I ended up with:
[Verse]
HeartlessGamer plays all night long
Virtual worlds where he feels strong
Pixelated lands where he belongs
Chasing dreams with epic songs
[Verse 2]
Blogging tales of heroes grand
Defeating foes with just one hand
From dungeons deep to alien sand
He conquers all with a fearless stand
[Chorus]
HeartlessGamer is his name
In the digital realm he stakes his claim
No heart to lose no love to tame
In pixels and code he’s got the fame
[Verse 3]
Keyboard mouse like a knight’s sword
From level one to final boss
Strategic plays no room for loss
He’s the legend and the lore
[Verse 4]
Loading screens and power-ups
Collecting lives and winning cups
Every post he writes erupts
With cheers from fans they fill his cups
[Chorus]
HeartlessGamer is his name
In the digital realm he stakes his claim
No heart to lose no love to tame
In pixels and code he’s got the fame
Lyrics in hand it was a lot of trial and error with different music styles and combinations. What resulted was a few different versions of the song. Personally I have a wide ranging music taste. You can catch me listening to everything from Lean On Me by Bill Withers to Mad World from the Donnie Darko movie to my teenage years dominated by music from Korn. I tried to mix many of those genres and musical styles into the prompting, but ultimately the style that worked out best was rap and electro-pop.
The two song outputs worth sharing are:
I had written Marvel Rivals off as a Marvel cash grab, but then I saw the game had breached 400,000 concurrent players on Steam so I had to check it out. What I found was an enjoyable hero shooter with a spot on super hero feeling. One of those heroes happens to be the cutest darn land shark you've ever seen. Meet Jeff the Landshark!
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| Hi Jeff! |
Jeff is a support hero that focuses on healing and powering up teammates. He does this in adorable fashion by rolling around and then going underground to do his "land shark" thing. Every-now-and-then he turns on his back and flipping a fish snack up in the air to reload his healing power. Once charged up his ultimate shark attack swallows enemies and teammates alike and either can be spit out or better yet, for the enemies, is to just swim off the map with them.
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| The land shark can also climb walls! |
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| Who's the cutest MVP? Jeff! |
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| Jeff Jeff Jeff! MVP MVP MVP! 6 kills, 1 death, 25 assists - top healing, assists, and a 4 KO ultimate |
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| The stats so far; not a great win rate but still a ton of cuteness! |
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| Oh and did I mention Jeff can ride on Groot's shoulders for a team up moment? Bad screenshot but you get the idea. |
Playing like garbage in the first half and then making it a close game in the second half against good teams; not a winning strategy for the Packers this year as they come up short against Detroit. There was a sliver of hope that Jordan Love would get the ball back for a chance to come back in the end but Dan Campbell gambled and walked away with the house instead.
