twiztor

100% boneless. definitely not trying to put in more work than i have to. i am having a hard time imagining a soup that has meat with bones in it. sounds awful.

my record player is made by Crosley. i picked it up at Target ~10 years ago because it had the look of a vintage radio, and i really liked the aesthetic. it puts out surprisingly good sound for its price point, so i've been exceedingly happy with it. has gotten tons of use over the years. my record collection sits right about the 500 mark. the top tier stuff resides on the record player shelf. this can be either high dollar stuff or just personal favorites. i constructed the shelf a number of years ago. i found plans online and built it out of a single sheet (8'x4') of plywood. that shelf is solid and obviously is doing its job of supporting all that weight. my sweet spot for vinyl records is classic rock, so that is the huge bulk of my collection. anything from the 60s to the 80s is fair game, although i think a few 90s releases have snuck in. i never buy nee records, only pick up used- i'm less concerned about crystal clear sound (i always have digital for that!) than i am an aythentic experience. obviously condition matters too, but i'm not overly picky. a point of pride is that i inherited all of my mom's records, and all those from both of her siblings. it helps that they all have a good taste in music, but it just adds that sentimental value. i recently picked up a part time job at the local record store specifically to fill in some of the gaps inbetween. i pick up a new record each week. it has been awesome so far.

what kind/era of music do you generally listen to? vinyl has seen an enormous resurgence in the last ~10 years and i would struggle to identify any genre that is sufficiently lacking in availability. @TDIRunner cool pic with all of the cds. i only have a single drawer of them (mostly my collection of stuff i bought in my teenage years that i can't part with yet). Also, is that a box of 45s on the bottom shelf? i like the look of that box.

i have about 500 records, almost exclusively '70s and '80s classic rock. will post pics sooner or later. my father in law, a big music fan, would constantly try to knock my preference of digital music. He swore, time and time again, that vinyl records produced a "warmer" sound, and that if you looked at the wavelengths, vinyl records would output a broader range. to that effect, he shared an article he found online that PROVED his point. The article started out saying how nostalgic that vinyl records were for the writer, and that he preferred them and wanted to find evidence to back up his opinions. i read the whole thing. it was well-researched and well-written. The writer's final conclusion is that digital music put out a FAR wider range of wavelengths and depths than anything that could be produced by scratching a needle over a slab of vinyl. so much so that there's a huge chunk that can't even be registered by the human ear. obviously my FIL didn't read the entire thing.

good writeup, and very similar to my experience a few years ago. I knew that the castle flipped at one point. Played through the game, ended up looking up what i needed to do to get the "true ending" or whatever. And i fully agree. Once you invert the castle, it's pretty straightforward and you can just blitz basically everything. i had this realization a bit sooner. I was playing the game with my wife (she's not really a gamer but this game hooked her) so progress was exceedingly slow. One weekend, she was out of town, and i booted the game up. Beat the majority of the whole thing. She was pissed (rightfully so), so i started a new save file to get us back to where we had been. With all the puzzles and secrets fresh in my mind, i breezed to that point. it's not a hard game whatsoever. even without doing all the upgrades (i basically never buy weapons/armor from shops and just wait for equipment to drop).

this song's catchy. i suppose it's fun to dance to (if you're into that sort of thing..... i'm not). i like it enough but it's not nearly one of my favorite from MJ. i'll go with 6.5 and round up to 7.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong 4: Mini-Land Mayhem. i felt like there wasn't much to this. i'd have to look back over what i wrote for the other entries in this series, but it felt like a game whose entire existence can be summed up by just saying "more of...". no new concepts, just new levels in the same vein as what came before. that's not to say it's bad. i had a lot of fun and found it addictive. but stick with Donkey Kong '94, and then the first Mario vs Donkey Kong. #2 was pretty good as well. #3 and #4 were both decent if unspectacular, #5 was inconsistent.

cross Mighty No. 9 off my list. i was not a KickStarter backer and bought this on the cheap knowing full well its reputation. and i can honestly say that most of it is earned. the graphics are 2000s made-for-tv cgi ugly. the voice acting is pretty decent, but it's played over what amounts to static images in the cutscenes. just awful. the story is clunky and obvious. it plays like the Mega Man knockoff that it is (yeah, yeah, i know it's the brainchild of Mega Man's creator. doesn't make it any less of a bad copy). most enemy weapons are 100% useless. the level design is just all kinds of bland. they find a way to go from very sparse areas to overcrowded screens that cause slowdown in the same areas. certain stages are just LITTERED with one hit deathtraps. made for a playthrough that was frustrating and annoying, but never gives you that sense of accomplishment to balance the scales. it did have a Mighty No. 9 themed rap song in the credits, so that was at least neat. anyway, just play any of the actual MM games. this just doesn't measure up.

funny story. Like 10 years ago, this commercial came out: i thought it was amazing and showed it to my wife. She thought it was good, but was confused why they were gearing ads with 90s nostalgia to people like us. She said "shouldn't they aim that more at like parents?" then it hit her.

for me the answer is Mario is Missing for SNES. i bought it WAY back in the day and was excited to play a game where Luigi was the main character. Had no idea it was an 'edutainment' game. and use that -tainment suffix extremely generously here. I hated that game. i know the whole game is only like 2 hours long, but i was fuming the whole time. But i forced myself to finish it so that i would never be tempted to try it again. To double down, I WROTE THE FINAL LEVEL PASSWORD ON THE CART WITH A MARKER. Just total contempt for it.

i am very interested in these TMNT snacks. what are they? are they something only released in one part of the world? i don't see anything like them on Amazon or eBay. @Masterofzelda

whoa, whoa, whoa. it's totally different. Here's the word from the Ice Man himself: this song is awesome. easy 10/10. i love it unironically. it is my go-to karaoke song. Have seen V-Ice live a few times and they were all good performances. Met him one time when he was high as a goddamn kite and i got his autograph. It is a giant scribble.

7/10. Zeppelin took me a long time to appreciate, as the high pitched vocals always sat wrong with me. But you can't help but appreciate the guitar work. It has been played to death, but it's still a solid song to listen to in a vacuum. as for best versions, this is my favorite:

Final Fantasy 7. it is the only game where i've played a vast majority of the game and didn't want it to end. So i make it to Disc 3, unlock everything and do a bunch of grinding and powering up, and then decide not to play through the Crater.

haven't seen any of these in years. coincidentally just bought a box set a month or two back. Haven't rewatched yet, but i remember enjoying them. from memory, i'd probably give the first film a 7. the last one i saw (3? 4?) had Jack Sparrow losing his mind, and there being a whole island full of Jack Sparrows? something like that. i didn't really get that part of the film, and it kinda turned me off from revisiting. I fully expect i would like it quite a bit more on a revisit. definitely haven't watched #5.

rented this as a kid since i'm a big superhero fan. found it to be bad. the only thing i really remember was flying through the rings, but found it boring and frustrating. i'll be generous and give it a 2 since i have no memory of non-ring stages or missions.

first clear of the new year! Wario Land: Shake It! for the Wii has been conquered. While this one had the best look of the series (it really leaned in to the cartoon graphics), it was probably my least favorite. I would also say this was the easiest of the line. Mainly due to how straightforward everything is. Each level has mini puzzles to solve to progress, but none of them are particularly challenging or really make you ponder how to move forward for very long. Again, the boss fights are where this game shines. While they can devolve into 'avoid everything until the boss gives you the only opening to attack', more often than not they make for a fun ending to each world. I would recommend Wario Land (Super Mario Land 3) on the GameBoy as the best entry point of the series, but you couldn't go wrong by starting with this one either.

and, to cross one more game off before the end of the year (and to kickstart my 2024 backlog), Wario World for the GameCube has been conquered. the move to 3d had its ups and downs, and this game is an example of both. this game returned to a base of exploration, but also went with the then-current trend of collecting as many sets of things as possible. That has its appeal, and with the relatively short duration of this game, i don't think it was a bad thing, but it can also tend to water the core gameplay down. Again, i think this game found the right balance, but it is certainly 'of its time'. this game retained its quirky boss enemies, and that is definitely a plus in its category. the difficulty was never unfair or too infuriating (although some of the jumps within that final level left me cursing) and felt like it ramped up at a good pace. Overall, not a perfect game, but i'm glad i played it.

i mean, counting digital and compilations, i probably have close to 1000 games. I've beaten 150, maybe 200 of them? I'd like to have the opportunity to play/beat them all. So my total backlog of ALREADY PURCHASED games is like 800+. You start adding new games, or new-to-me buys, and the list is unending. That's actually what i really like about these threads. it gives us a reason to focus on specific titles, or in my case, a certain series or set of games. it has done wonders for getting and keeping me invested for more than a day. i also enjoy seeing how everyone else makes their list. certain sets? random challenges? sheer volume? i love the variety presented by everyone.

ah, ZeldaFreak! i believe you were my Santa a couple years ago too. You're great and i appreciate what you've put together both times for me. Thanks again. haha, i only even mentioned the Hawaiian shirts to give an example of quirky things i like, had no idea that somebody would even consider buying one! (IMO you're always safe to run bigger on Hawaiian shirts since they can flow loosely. But, for the record, generally XL)

haha. why? who? it's Xmas and i'm trapped with family. if that's the biggest error i made, it's a win!

not sure why my Secret Santa was, but super happy with what i received. two games from my list, plus an amiibo that i'm missing. can't wait to dive in and add these to my backlog. i really dug the first Bomberman R despite its reputation, and have been curious about Starfy for quite a while. thanks again! and @AverageOliver98, glad you enjoyed your gift. when i saw that you were a fellow Mega Man fan, i knew i just had to help your collection with that series.

i almost dropped off the forum just so i didn't have to give it up or deal with the guilt. not really, but i did love having it hanging by my games for a year. i can fill the gap on my wall but i'll never fill the hole in my heart.

i refuse to put deep thought in to this, so here's my lightning round answers. best: Goldeneye 007 (n64) worst: Street Fighter: the Movie: the Game (psx)

probably an unpopular opinion, but my answer is Cuphead. it is as gorgeous of a game as i can imagine. i love animation, and with this looking and feeling like 1930s cartoon, it should have been a slam dunk. but pretty much the whole game is an endless series of boss fights. that's my least favorite part of games! i was hoping for a better stage/boss balance. luckily, the game plays excellently, so i can still find frustrating enjoyment in small doses.