It’s been 84 years.

Not quite 84 years, but if you told me it had been 84 weeks since my last post I would not be surprised, while life has been busy (ok, it is mostly me going squirrel and not staying on track) I have continued to be on top of amiibo releases which sadly, for the time being, appears to have concluded. Perhaps Totaku will fill that void but I am still waiting on figures I pre-ordered 6 months ago to show up at my local store so that has been a frustrating experience.

In my absence from posting, I was busy completely redoing the audio stream server and thankfully it has remained stable for a couple months now. This is currently handled by an audio server-specific distro on the Raspberry PI which was prompted by my interest in using low powered computers as servers instead of the Power Edge servers I had been using previously which generated tons of heat, noise and had high electric consumption.

Similarly, I am using another PI to run both Pi-hole and to seed torrents released by The 16-bit Audiophile Project (which you should check out). I have even moved any locally stored videos we stream via Infuse on our Apple TVs to a hard drive connected to our wireless internet router and surprisingly with the ATV hard-wired (gigabit network) they are able to stream 4K movies as large as 60-80 gigs flawlessly.

On the gaming side of things I am behind on the latest WOW patch, 2 expansions behind on Destiny 2 and still have not completed the current DLC for Forza Horizon 4. Doh… I am however enjoying Dragon Quest XI a lot and just started digging into Animal Crossing New Horizons. There is always way too much to play and not enough time dedicated to actually enjoying them, something I have improved so far this year but I still find myself constantly behind.

In the coming months with our daughter moving off to college, we will be shuffling some rooms around a bit to relocate our game room to a larger room in the house, as that happens I will be posting lots of pictures of the new setup.

Random acquisitions!

Finally an update both on what I have acquired recently as well as what I have been playing which isn’t much as I have been out of town for a week and have been busy with multiple projects. Here are some pictures of games I have picked up in the last few months, all taken with my brand new Sony A6400 camera which despite my terrible photography skills is amazing. For the most part I have been utilizing it for video on other hobby projects but I do plan to take more photos to help round out my ability with the camera.

Super Mario Maker 2 really needs no introduction as the second game in the amazing series, tons of new features have been introduced (still no Mario 2 mechanics!).

I would like to see them add Mario 2 mechanics as well as the Game Boy games to the series, maybe something we will get in DLC or the next iteration?
Back in The Groove is a sequel to the cult classic series on the Sega Genesis, I have not had the chance to play this one yet but it looks to follow the spirit of the original so should be good fun.
This was on sale through Amazon for $14.99 and while I have yet to play my brother seems to be enjoying the game!
Another on sell grab at $19.99!
As a fan of cart racers this was a must pre-order, I have put about 1-2 hours into it and while it is clearly a remake of an older game (engine feel and all) they did a fantastic job in sprucing up the graphics. Lots of fun!
Another cart racer but this being an original release it is not bound by some of the oddities of the above from an engine/mechanics standpoint. I am also 1-2 hours into this one and am enjoying the team work mechanics the game introduces, being able to hand off power ups or otherwise play interference for team mates ads an interesting twist to the cart racer genre.

Of course I have been playing other games, the usual suspect World of Warcraft is still in my top played list as well as the amazingly well done 198X and Forza Horizon 4 to round things out.

The latest patch has brought new life back into the game, the new island which is reminiscent of the Timeless Isle from Mists of Pandaria has been lost of fun so far.
A teenage coming of age story centered around 80’s arcades and gaming, while short at only 2 hours the first chapter to this story has been fantastic so far with my favorite “classic gaming” segments of the game being the 2D shmup stage and the 3D dungeon crawler\turn based RPG stage.
Forza Horizon 4 while not having as amazing of an opening as it’s predecessor is still really good in its own right and with the recently released Lego DLC there is more to do than ever. I am having a lot of fun in my Lego Ferarri F40 (not pictured) while listening to the “Radio Awesome” station EVERYTHING IS AWESOME. 🙂