Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Spring breaking

Last week was spring break on campus, so I decided to have my own sort of spring break as well. That meant taking a short hiatus from writing on this blog and not doing any of my usual studies. After coming home from work I basically just chilled and played video games. Wasn’t that the dream of a young Healy anyways? Make money to play videos games all the time. It was as hard core of a gaming week as I’ve had in probably a decade.

And I really don’t know how gamers find the time to play so many games! These open-world role playing game take absolutely forever to finish. I’m still in the midst of playing Ghost of Tsushima, and I’ve only barely gone into act three (of three) after nearly 50 hours of play time. At this rate I’ll be done by end of April. Then I’ll finally move on to another title. I’m not the type of gamer who can juggle multiple games at once, especially of the storytelling variety. I reckon I can make an exception for sports titles.

Nevertheless, it’s back to regularly scheduled programming this week. I’m excited to finally start reading Pachinko, right on time for the TV series that’s coming out on Apple TV+. It’s nearly one year since I started learning the piano, and there’s still plenty of work to do on that multi-year project. Perhaps taking a week off from the keys was not the wisest decision in relation to finger familiarity. Playing the piano is definitely not like riding a bike. Too much dexterity involved with the upper extremities.

But we all need a break from our daily routine from time to time. Spring break was a great opportunity to not do anything. I did get a tremendous amount of sleep, because I’m not waking up early to type out a blog post before breakfast. Good timing, too: I think I’m completely adjusted to the clock moving one hour forwards for daylight saving time.

Back on the rocks, baby.

Weekend exercise.

All about games

This past weekend I spent a cumulative 10 hours playing Ghost of Tsushima. Not since beating Gran Theft Auto 4 on the PlayStation 3 have I spent this much time playing video games. For those familiar, that is a very long time ago. I forgot how addictive all of this is! The royal you would delay going to the bathroom or making dinner just to keep going. No wonder it was easier back when we were kids: mother cooked the food!

As interesting as Ghost of Tsushima is, I am not playing it on weekdays. That’s the difference of being an adult: we can exercise self control. Sacrificing sleep for video games? No freaking way.

Anyways, the major gaming news over the weekend is that the review embargo for the highly anticipated Steam Deck expired. All the major players put out reviews for the new portable gaming device from Valve. From what I’ve read, the verdict so far that the Steam Deck is an incredible piece of hardware for the price, but the thing still need more time in the oven to be truly great. Electing to run the operating system based on Linux - rather than Windows - seems to be a major hurdle yet to overcome.

But it’s incredible to see PlayStation 4 level performance in a handheld device. Computing power vis a vis packaging size have reach a point where that is possible. It made me ponder: perhaps the moment is right for Sony to make another PlayStation Portable. I had a second-generation PSP and I absolutely adored playing MLB The Show on it. Seeing such demand for the Steam Deck - and the utter popularity of the Nintendo Switch, I think the market is there for Sony.

I’d certainly buy one to pair alongside my PlayStation 5.

What you want to see.

Back to gaming

It’s been about a month since I lucked into buying a PlayStation 5: I just so happened to catch a stock release on BestBuy’s website. It remains baffling that you still can’t simply walk into any BestBuy or Target and buy one of these next-generation consoles. But whatever; I got mine!

And yet I only started to play games on the PS5 this past weekend. Why the delay? Well, before buying the console I already had set routines and hobbies to attend to. It took a bit of time for me to carve out a space within my schedule to dedicate the few hours per week towards gaming. Much like the few hours I allocate weekly to reading, studying Korean, and piano practice.

The days of playing games with every hour of a spare time is absolutely over. Those days (read: college) was awesome. But back then I wouldn’t have been able to drop $500 dollars on a gaming console at a moment’s notice. Nor would I have been able to pay nearly $2,000 for a television to go along with it. Having an adult income is very nice, though that comes with having adult responsibilities as well that takes up your time.

Anyways, the first game I’ve decided to play on the PS5 is the director’s cut version of Ghost of Tsushima. Having recently read James Clavell’s Shogun, I was in the mood for some feudal Japan action. The game is absolutely stunning: the fictional Japanese island of Tsushima looks utterly fantastic, no matter what the in-game time of day it is. Of course, it helps to have a 4K OLED TV. The last time I consistently gamed, it was on a PlayStation 3 hooked up to a run-of-the-mill 1080P TV (playing Gran Theft Auto 4). The 4X jump in visual fidelity is kind of breathtaking.

I’m going to finish Ghost of Tsushima before moving on to another game, whenever that may be. One game at a time, instead of buying a whole lot of games and jumping around.

Come one come all.