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February 2025 Retrospective

I'm gonna try to start a tradition of linking a YouTube video I found enjoyable at the start of these retrospectives to help forget about how World War 3 is on the horizon.

Beat Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

Citizen Sleeper was a surprise hit of 2022 so I absolutely had to play the sequel, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector. The one sentence review is still a good game, but not better than the first. The core concepts remain: its more of a visual novel, you use dice to perform actions, and you're a cyborg just trying to survive in this dystoptian space-traveling world. But while the first game was confind to a space station, the second game allows you to travel between various different astronomical bodies. While I appreciate the developer taking this leap and expanding the physical size of their game, I feel that the emotinal attachment you feel with characters suffers because of it.

Even in 2025 I would recommend people play Citizen Sleeper 1 first and if you are really into the world and game mechanics than give the second a try.

Read Boss Fight Books: EverQuest

The first massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that I ever played was The Realm. I have vivid memories of lugging a laptop to various family members homes so that I could connect to the internet via dial-up to download multiple zip files to install the game. I am fairly certain it was four or five files that only totalled 50 megabytes but it took me multiple days to download them. I also believe this was only my second exposure to multiplayer gaming, behind dialing up my friend to play Duke Nukem 3D deathmatch.

But if I had to name the MMO that had the biggest effect on me it wouldn't be The Realm. Nor World of Warcraft even though it is undoubtedly the one that I have put the most time into. The MMO that defined my childhood was EverQuest. When I first logged into EverQuest it truly felt like stepping into another world. Nowadays I am constantly connected to the Internet but back then I had to make a conscious effort to get online. I made so many friends and learned so much through this game. While editing this retrospective I remembered that I had images stored on my NAS of the forum signatures I used for EverQuest. Against my better judgement I've attached them below:

EverQuest forum signature image for the character "Warmain Majere" Edgelord EverQuest forum signature image about being a master brewer

I am telling you all of this so you can understand why I absolutely adored reading Boss Fight Books: EverQuest. If you have any interest in the history of MMORPGs I would recommend you read this book. But I suspect that it is going to hit different with those of us who played EverQUest in its halcyon days.

Finished reading The Lions of Al-Rassan

I finished the final 30% of The Lions of Al-Rassan which was one of the more painful experiences of my life. It wasn't as bad as Daemon or Ready Player Two but like both of them The Lions of Al-Rassan was a complete waste of my time. For the last 10% I was skimming paragraphs because nothing mattered. I don't want to spoil anything but I personally feel that this book didn't actually have an ending. It just suddenly stopped and I was left asking why I wasted my time reading it.

I cannot imagine what could convince me to read another Guy Gavriel Kay book in this lifetime.

Started another playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077

After I finished building my gaming PC the first thing I obviously did was use it to play a game from five years ago. Well technically the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty, came out in 2023 but regardless it is still a fantastic game. I don't think it is going to have the lasting impact as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt but Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is nearly guaranteed to be on my "Games of the Decade: 2020s" list.

Drove from Newark to Toronto in a rental car

A plane crashed at Pearson International Airport and I just so happened to be in the air on a connecting flight to Newark Liberty International Airport. By the time we had landed all flights into Toronto were cancelled and the earliest we could be reschedule was for 48 hours later. So I finally embarked on that rite of passage and drove from New Jersey to Toronto in a rental car. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. For the most part if felt like driving through the sparsely populated parts of Southern Ontario where I grew up. But I am in absolutely no rush to relive that adventurer.

Review February Goals

March Goals

#MonthlyRetrospective