This is not going to be my normal review. I'm going to review the past year. Ill try to stick to entertainment issues, because that is what this blog is all about. Entertainment - be it movies, games, books, anime, tv, and all the other things that entertain.
So here goes.
2013 in Video Games. This year so a limited number of new game purchases for me. I picked up Resident Evil 6, Tomb Raider, and Tales of Xillia all for the PS3. I nabbed X-Com Enemy Unknown and Simcity for the PC. I bought nothing for any portable system. I did buy a few expansions for games like Civ V. I received a few PS4 games for the holidays, but they are so close to the end of the year I can barely say I've played them (though Need for Speed Rivals is entertaining me). The high point was probably X-Com Enemy Unknown & Tales of Xillia (which I have yet to review because I'm still on my second play through and trying to get the platinum trophy, which will not be hard). Together the only game that rivals them in time consumed would be Mass Effect 3 (and maybe Tales of Graces F), and I've still got at least one Shep to finish the game with.
Let us take a small aside and discuss the consoles of the Eight Generation. I acquired a PS4 quite recently and have hooked it up to my brand new, 4 HDMI, 5.1 surround system receiver. Now I've only played a few hours on the thing so far, but I can say this. The interface is smooth and clean. I have not checked out the PSN on it... but I expect it is as clunky as the new one on the PS3. What I can say is this. The PS$ dualshock controller might just be the single most comfortable controller I've ever used. Ever. So props for that Sony.
2013 in Movies. Oh man has this year been fun for Science Fiction. It's almost been a rebirth of the genre, and it has certainly felt like a resurgence. Oblivion in April, Star Trek into Darkness in May, Pacific Rim in July, Elysium in August, Ender's Game in November, Thor the Dark World also in November... and a score of ones I either did not review or did not see or own on DVD and have yet to see... Let us not forget the second chapter of the Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug. I've had fun a theater this year. I can only hope that somehow 2014 is going to entertain me as much with film.
2013 for Anime. Not every series I watch this year came out this year... my anime backlog is extensive and several on going series such as Bleach and Naruto automatically go to the top of the watch pile the day I get them. Let me just hit the hights and lows of what I watched. The low point was definitely Elfen Leid. I think that might have actually been one of the worst anime I ever sat through, it was just bad, and yet it remains so popular. I have to wonder why, perhaps because it was edgy? It was junk, I no longer own my copy. Now on to the high points.
There were some excellent anime I watched this year. I'll just list some of the ones I really enjoyed.
- Mysterious Girlfriend X
- H.O.T.D.
- Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
- Guilty Crown
- LaGrange - The Flower of Rin-ne
- Haganai
But let us not forget the single most enthralling anime of the past year, well that I watched, Attack on Titan. Absolutely amazing. Utterly thrilling. I could gush for hours over how much I loved that series... and how much I am eagerly awaiting the second season. More, I say! More! I've even started to read the manga just for more world details. The manga is definitely not as gloriously drawn, but it appears to be either the first or one of the first manga that the Mangaka penned.
2013 in Books.
This section makes me sad. I did not read enough this year. I recently finished up a masters thesis, and during the course of that work I read so many heavy books that I burned myself on novels, both fiction and non-fiction, for a while. I've been living on Audiobooks. I've listened to some of them more than once this year. But I did read a few novels. I read the final book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light. I also read a shorter novel, Fabler's Legend, which was just not nearly as good. In WoT I know the characters by how they act, think, and feel. I can barely tell you what motivates most of the characters in Fabler's. I listened to the Harry Potter audio books for the first time. I listened to the first book in the Stormlight Archive, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, the man who finished the Wheel of Time for Robert Jordan after his death. I am so looking forward to the second book which is coming March 2014.
It was a good enough year in entertainment.
I'm looking forward to 2014 and its promise of Dragon Age III, the next Hobbit chapter, and the next book in the Stormlight Archive, Words of Radiance. What other entertainment surprises await me, I do not know. Perhaps in the coming year I'll expand this blog to cover my miniature wargaming hobby as well. It too entertains me.
Here's to 2014! May it entertain you as well as me!
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