New Video: Song of Songs

 

This is my third remix of Song of Songs. This time, I rerecorded all the vocals because they were clipping bad on the previous mix. I also added another vocal part on the chorus, as well as remixed the guitars. The final result is probably the best I'm going to get. This is the definitive version of my grungy rocker. The video was filmed all around my house, taking advantage of Aurora's abundance of creepy, dilapidated structures and woods.

Pointless Venture's Best Games of the Year 2023

 

Baldur's Gate 3 is my favorite.

2023 was a stellar year for gaming, surpassing any recent year in memory. The year started off rough, with a few unpolished PC ports, but it finished strong with one of the best RPGs ever made, along with many other titles of interest. Let's take a quick gander at what I played this year. An asterisk notes a single-player title played to completion.

Deadspace (2023 remake)*

Shadow Warrior 3*

Half-Life*

MCU (Master Chief Collection)*

Hi-Fi Rush*

Prodeus*

Atomic Heart (15 hours before I gave up)

Star Wars Jedi Survivor* (over 90 hours spent!)

System Shock (2023 remake)*

Red Dead Redemption (over 20 hours, still pick it up from time to time)

Starfield (abandoned after 6 hours)

Baldur's Gate 3 (still going after 120 hours, will certainly play to completion)

Lies of P (18.5 hours, will probably finish)

That's thirteen titles, with some substantial time spent in Jedi Survivor and Baldur's Gate 3. I usually don't play so many new releases (7 this year), but 2023 was so stacked, and there were so many titles that I didn't get to that I might have in a slower year (Resident Evil 4 remake, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, Diablo IV in particular). Here are my favorites in various categories.

Best Remake: System Shock versus Deadspace

 Citadel Station from System Shock.

System Shock was quite the experience to play. An update of the 90's classic, the remake keeps the basic labyrinthine design of the original, while adding a few quality of life updates (the recyclers; cyberspace is different). There is little direction, no markers telling you where to go, no quest log. Initially, it's thrilling to be placed in a vast space station with little idea what to do or where to go, but after a while, you might find yourself consorting a walkthrough lest your playthrough end early because of lack of direction. I found the resource management to be a little harsh on normal difficulty as well, and the combat wasn't always interesting. Yet System Shock wins points in my book by being a playable time capsule of a 90's shooter/immersive sim forerunner, and you have to give Nightdive credit for delivering on their promises.

Deadspace was clearly influenced by System Shock (as well as Resident Evil) and although I didn't play the original, the remake apparently also keeps things pretty similar. Combat is fun and vicious, and the necromorphs are suitably nasty. The graphics are a real highlight, with much attention paid to lighting, and performance was great maxed out on my Ryzen 7 5800x, RTX 3080 powered rig. The only complaint I really had was a slight frame-rate stutter that seemed to appear every time you entered a new room.

Deadspace

Winner: Deadspace. It's more fun and it looks great. Still, props to Nightdive for bringing back a defunct series. I hope they get to develop System Shock 3.

Best Surprise: Hi-Fi Rush versus Lies of P

Neither of these games were on my radar, but I've played both on Gamepass, justifying my subscription. Hi-Fi Rush is one of the best rhythm games I've ever played, and it has a humorous story and stylized graphics. Lies of P feels like a Fromsoft game, albeit one that performs well and looks great. While I'm still playing the latter, I think Hi-Fi Rush gets it for coming out of nowhere and being something I wouldn't normally play (not a huge fan of anime or rhythm beat 'em ups. 

Hi-Fi Rush

 

Winner: Hi-Fi Rush.

Biggest Disappointment: Starfield versus Atomic Heart.

I wasn't excited about either of these games, so perhaps it's incorrect to call them disappointments, yet they were, nonetheless. Atomic Heart looked cool, but after 15 or so hours, its bullet-sponge enemies and boring puzzles led me to abandon it, even though it was delightfully weird (the line "Choke and die, you fat turd!" delivered by protagonist P will live with me forever). Starfield was pretty much exactly what I expected. The internet is rife with videos shitting on Bethesda's outdated game design, but really, they've been making the same game since Oblivion. I knew gameplay would consist of various loading screens, managing a constantly encumbered inventory, potato-faced npcs, and quests that boil down to "kill everything and get the loot." Other than the characters, I did think the graphics were good, though.

Winner (or loser?): Starfield. While certainly not a flop, I don't think Starfield will have the same legs as Skyrim, and most people will likely forget about it very soon.

The moon in Starfield.

Best Game of the Year: Star Wars Jedi Survivor versus Baldur's Gate 3.

Jedi Survivor

Jedi Survivor has a lot going for it. It has a great story with some compelling twists and turns, great combat that's expanded from the original, gorgeous graphics and cool locales. While only being about a thirty-hour game, the fact that I played it over 90 hours is a testament to its quality. Really the only thing holding Jedi back is that it's a really bad PC port (console versions had issues with frame rate and image quality at launch). I experienced weird texture bugs, large frame rate drops that couldn't be fixed by adjusting settings on my high end computer, constant stuttering in the Koboh region, and no support for upscalers besides FSR (DLSS was eventually added months later). Even after 7 or so patches, Jedi still stutters all the time, and performance with ray-tracing is unplayable. I paid 70 bucks for a beta, and I let that horrible piece of malware known as the EA Launcher install itself on my PC. Never again will I knowingly purchase a game this buggy and broken.

Baldur's Gate 3 has its share of bugs and performance issues, but it's a competent PC game. After 120 hours, I'm still hooked. Some on the internet claim that Act 3 doesn't measure up, but it's been my favorite so far. I've infiltrated a vampire sanctum and let my companion enact his revenge. I've bested a multitude of Sharran cultists with Ice Wall and Call Lightning. I just kicked the ass of a devil in the House of Hope, utilizing a mix of summons, the Hold Monster Spell, and Lae'zel's general ass-kicking abilities. This game lives up to the hype. It's the best RPG I've ever played, and I can't wait to finish it so that I can do another playthrough.

Winner. Baldur's Gate

It can be pretty frickin' funny, too.

So that's it for 2023. Not much is on my radar for 2024, but I'm sure something will appear. Maybe I'll just play Baldur's Gate 3 all over again.

This Christmas, Buy A Ford F-150 Big Dick Edition

 

This Christmas, compensate for your tiny penis by purchasing a sixty-thousand dollar Ford F-150 Big Dick Edition pickup truck, the best-selling vehicle in America for ten years running. If you're a red-blooded American male who needs to feel better about having a penis that is at best an inch shorter than average, then you need to put down the cash and get comfortable with an auto loan that resembles a mortgage. Just think about how all those ladies will turn their heads when you rumble by in your jacked-up monstrosity that can't fit in a normal parking space. You need to move something? Good luck putting a futon in that four-foot bed. At least you'll have plenty of room in the cab for your slong, which will have magically grown a full twelve inches due to your gross display of financial and practical incompetence. YOU ARE A MAN; YOU NEED A TRUCK. You ever seen Real Man get out of something like a civic? Have you ever witnessed a guy with any masculine virtues hop out of a PT Cruiser? Get outta here with your baby-man cars. Here at Ford, we don't care if you flip burgers at McDonalds or manage a Target--you need a truck, and your penis will shrink if you don't pay a massively inflated price for one. This is pretty much American law at this point. Who cares how expensive gas is? You'll be watching that fuel gauge tick downward with satisfaction as your newly-inflated sweene strains against the inside of your pants. Dump a load in your brand new Ford F-150 Big Dick Edition! It comes with a pile of socks and Ford F-150 branded lotion, as well as a special console for you to hide your shame with discretion and class. Purchasing a truck is about feeling good about yourself no matter the cost to your wallet and the environment. So buck-up, buttercup. It's time to become a Real American. Buy a Ford F-150 Big Dick Edition this Christmas, and finally obtain a penis that'll take you from weenus to Jesus. Amen, brother.

Weightlifting: 250 for 8 Bench Press; Yearly Recap

 

This used to be my six rep max about seven months ago.

I haven't had a training year like 2023 since I first started lifting weights a decade ago, and it's all down to my PR everyday strategy that I stole from John Phung and Redditor Your_Good_Buddy. Pick a couple variations of your main lifts. For me, that's the touch and go bench press, the paused bench press, the close-grip bench press, the beltless paused high bar squat, the beltless low bar squat, the belted low bar squat, the sumo deadlift, the conventional deadlift, and the barbell row. Try to hit a personal record one of those lifts every time you train. To do this, you have to keep track of your PRs from a 1 rep max to a 20 rep max. You can even add more variations if you like, but I like the simplicity of three per lift. Warm up, hit a PR, do a back-off set if you like, and then move on to bodybuilding movements in the 10 to 12 rep range. This is meaningful training, and the dopamine hit you get from continually progressing motivates you to train even harder. At thirty-eight years of age, I can't blitz through an hour-long workout anymore, so I usually training 5 to 6 times a week, albeit for about thirty minutes at the most. Even though I'm PRing, I'm not drained the rest of the day, because I didn't do five sets of eight squats at 75 percent of my one-rep max like so many programs will have you do. Most of these programs are written by genetic freaks for competitive athletes. You have to figure out what works best for you. I think after ten years of lifting weights, I finally know what I'm doing.

Another thing I have to mention is that I've cut way back on my alcohol consumption. The last couple of years, I've probably been drinking two to three beers a day. There are numerous studies that show how alcohol affects your testosterone levels. Since I've cut back to a couple beers a week, my lifts have increased, my weight has increased (from 197 to 202) while keeping the same body composition, and my libido has also been affected positively (hah). I love beer, but too often in our culture we rely on alcohol to reduce stress, while it likely has the opposite effect. Cut back, especially in your thirties.

My favorite PRs of the year: A 300 lbs paused bench press, a 405 for 9 conventional deadlift, a 315 lbs barbell row, and my 270 for 5 touch and go bench press.

Rather than count all the PRs I've accomplished this year, I'm posting my chart from June, followed by my current PR chart. Try this shit out! Click on the links in the first paragraph to find a more detailed explanation of the PR everyday method. It's not complicated!

PR sheet from June:

	1RM	2RM	3RM	4RM	5RM	6RM	7RM	8RM	9RM	10RM	12RM
Low Bar Squat	415	380	365	350	360		340	320		315
High Bar Squat	390	365	350	345	340		315	320		300
High Bar Squat (Paused)	365
High Bar Squat (No Belt)	365	335	325	325	330			285		250
Bench Press	315	280	275	265	260	250	245		240	225	225
Bench Press (Paused)	290	260
Deadlift	510	460	455	425	410	405	410	390	365	360
Deadlift (No Belt)	455								365	340
Sumo Deadlift		405	405		385
Close Grip	290	275	250		255	215	225	215		225

Current PR sheet below. It's bigger because I added the low-bar beltless squat, as well as the barbell row.

	1RM	2RM	3RM	4RM	5RM	6RM	7RM	8RM	9RM	10RM
Low Bar Squat	415	380	365	350	360		340	320		315
High Bar Squat	390	365	350	345	340		315	320		300
High Bar Squat (Paused)	365		315		275
High Bar Squat (No Belt)	365	335	325	325	330			285		250
LB SQ no belt	380	350	335	330	315	315	310	300	295	275
Bench Press	315	290	280	275	270	260	255	250	245	235
Bench Press (Paused)	300	280	265	255	250	240	245	230	230	225
BB Row	315	305			275
Deadlift	510	470	455	425	410	415	410	390	405	360
Deadlift (No Belt)	460		450			400	405		365	340
Sumo Deadlift	455	435	425	420	410					315
Close Grip	295	275	270	265	255	250	245	235	235	235