biggrump - Tumblr blog

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I love listening to Odysseus chillwave mixes because I'll like accidentally leave the playlist on and then a new banger that I proceed to play 800 times makes itself known. It's how I discovered Hotel Pools and A.L.I.S.O.N. in the first place.

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Literally right when I was starting to lose faith they drop this shit and all of a sudden I'm reminded of how hyped I was when Newgrounds updated their servers and I could play week 7 for the first time :)

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Porter Robinson is cool

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Why didn't I win an Oscar, huh? Am I not good enough, huh? Is that what you're saying? You tellin me I can't win that shit? I could!

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Essenger is so cool. Didn't know he produced The Midnight's Horror Show (one of my favorite albums lol) till he released his new collab with them. After Dark is a fantastic album and is way better than the Mr.Kitty track of the same title (which is good cause Kitty is a POS)

I also love how he's super into Bionicle lore and you can kinda tell listening to some of his music that there's like a wee bit of Cryoshell influence in there, even before he collabed with them for As Above So Below

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New Mascot!

These are just so cool I can't stop talking about them. Art by my good pal C4ptianmcd3rp! Check her out on Insta https://instagram.com/c4ptianmcd3rp

Still gonna keep the Stella pic here and on my Letterboxd cause this is kinda just my space to shout into the void and isn't really related to my content (even though I post Twitch and YT links here sometimes lol)

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Finished season 1 of White Lotus (thought it was amazing) and now my simping for Cristobal Tapia de Veer is becoming more apparent. If he and Mac Quayle teamed up I don't think I'd be mentally capable of the power that score would radiate

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I have forgiven England because Utopia was made by British people and that show is baller

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Pizza Tower is my second favorite kind of pizza after the New York slice

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Recovered footage from "GlueGhost Goes to Hawaii." The original cameraman is unknown and presumed dead

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Video Games I played in 2023 (and maybe even enjoyed)

A completely unorganized list of games I played this year that I wanted to talk about because they were great.

1. Ultrakill - My biggest time sink of the year. Found out about this game about a year ago due to FUNKe talking about it a lot. Was hooked from the first level, and after beating it I replayed several levels until I mastered the mechanics, then looked for all the secret levels, then P-ranked all of Act 1 and then the P-1 boss fight several times over (Act 2 is hard to P-rank). However enjoyment did kinda dry up for a bit after I actually got good at the game but then Hakita dropped the first part of act 3 a while ago and it started all over again. Here's hoping the last 2 chapters stick the landing and keep scratching that itch (which they probably will let's be honest)

2. Metal Gear Solid series - Played all of the games aside from 4 which couldn't run on my PC (had to watch a long play for it) and Peace Walker just cause I got distracted by other stuff. The first game didn't really resonate with me on a deeper level but its storytelling, gameplay mechanics, and 4th wall breaks are amazing, especially for the time. 2 and 3 hit far harder and are some of the best games I've ever played. I could talk for hours about every facet of 2's creativity with its meta narrative and constant questioning of reality but then I wouldn't have time to talk about other games here. Just know that it is now my favorite game ever made. 3, while not quite as crazy and predictive with its plot, is just a really good story about a small group of characters that is incredibly written and told. I also really enjoyed 5's gameplay and a lot of the more subtle storytelling, and while 4 has an utterly incomprehensible plot with tons of holes, the character writing, voice acting, and graphics are phenomenal. I want whatever Kojima smokes when he comes up with these.

3. Red Dead Online - I played this with my brother and encountered a modder on my first day. Think that really informed my take on this game because he gave me a shit ton of money and I was able to use it to get a bounty license which took up most of my time in that game. We'd just queue up a bounty mission and play some Oingo Boingo and Talking Heads while we ride, do the bounty, then watch random videos while we waited till the last minute to drop off the bounty bc of how Rockstar decided to set up the system. We also met a couple people online and overall just had a great experience bein a rootin tootin shootin cowboy. Also my guy looks doofy as fuck.

4. The Artful Escape - Impulse bought this game after I watched a vid by Jexonite where he played every game published by Annapurna because the premise seemed fun and I thought it looked cool. Turns out the game does look cool, incredible even. But the art style is kind of all this game has going for it, aside from some solid voice actors (Jason Schwartzman and Lena Headey were cool and Mark Strong was completely unrecognizable). Gameplay is basically just a walking sim that occasionally tells you to press buttons to play notes on your guitar and the story took a pretty generic turn. Has absolutely zero replay value but I did enjoy playing it.

5. BPM - The first roguelike I've ever gotten into, probably because it has a guns in it. I got all the way up to the last level then died to a low level enemy and have not gotten that far in the game since. The OST goes insanely hard though and is part of the reason why I keep coming back to it. It's also insanely addicting so be warned.

6. Hotline Miami - Probably holds the record for the game that pissed me off the most this year. An insanely fun and fast paced shooter game where your reaction timing is everything and that every nerd with a YouTube channel has already picked apart. Even though some of the AI is complete jank it is so satisfying clearing rooms in this game. The art style is also quite good and the soundtrack introduced me to a ton of new artists. Also is a strong case for environmental storytelling needing to be more prevalent in games. I can figure out what's going on I'm a smart guy.

7. Katana Zero - A very Hotline Miami inspired game aka a game with a pixelated art style and a synthwave soundtrack where the goal is to clear rooms and you die in one hit. I feel a bit more mixed about this game compared to Hotline honestly. I really liked the time slowing mechanic, the mobility, and the way you can reflect bullets with your sword. I also like how the enemy AI actually stays consistent through each run of the level, whereas with Hotline there were some enemies who could move erratically and fuck everything up even if you plan a solid route. However, I think because of how the story was told I don't think it had as much of an impact on me. I can't really remember a lot of the important details but I can remember that a lot of plot threads were left unresolved. Also, while I do like the combat a lot, I feel like it's missing the sandbox approach that Hotline had. Honestly not a game I would necessarily come back to, but if the dev made a sequel I would buy it (especially if we get to play as Dragon more he was cool as fuck). I'll also give the game props for actually having an OST unlike Hotline.

8. Undertale - What could I say about this game that hasn't already been said by the entire population of South Dakota? It is very fun and I am glad I finally took the plunge and played it. Now I just have to finish the other routes at some point lol

9. Lethal Company - I played this game with multiple friend groups and it was incredibly fun but also terrifying. If you haven't played yet, the best advice I can give is to just go in completely blind and figure shit out on your own. Also, try to actually go into the buildings instead of staying in the ship like a goo goo ga ga dingus.

Other stuff I played worth mentioning (Smaller stuff or games I revisited/haven't finished a full playthrough of):

1. A Hat in Time DLC - Played the original game late last year and loved it, but didn't get the DLC so I didn't play it for some time. Played it this year and had a blast. The Nyakuza Metro level is so detailed, you can really tell the devs poured their heart and soul into making this game look as great as it does. Made me rediscover my love for the base game.

2. Titanfall 2 - Not my first time playing it but replayed the single player on PC for the first time (played on Xbox before) and realized the characters and level design were way better than I remembered. I then started pestering everyone I knew to play it and the ones who did seem to like it too. I also popped off multiple times in the multiplayer so it was nice to have a multiplayer game that I'm good at.

3. The Magic Circle - Played for a few hours and then stopped, but the premise is quite fun and I am eager to revisit at some point in the future.

4. The Looker - This one was just funny idrk what else to say. (I have not played The Witness)

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More people should watch interstella 5555

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Does Disney like contractually require that if you write a Star Wars thing you need to put a droid or some other marketable character in it so you can make toys out of it? Like seriously every single new Star Wars thing I've seen has like a funny droid or a Grogu type character and all I can think is "oh wow look at those toys"

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Some Ultrakill gameplay I recorded last night for no particular reason at all

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Was gonna stream Cine2Nerdle tomorrow but Hakita decided to drop the new Ultrakill update tomorrow so excuse me while I avoid contacting anybody for at least a day

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I have like a backlog of shit that I want to eventually make videos about but I am genuinely convinced that if I made a Mr. Robot video it would be one of those multi-hour videos that everyone on Twitter shits on for being too long.

I'm sorry but I'm not actually that show is so fucking cool and if you disagree your mind is full of soot and poo

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Why tf is this still getting attention this is my most like C-tier post ever lmao

hbomberguy's videos are always so entertaining because I see the title and I'm like "oh wow this seems like a cool topic" and then like 2 hours later I'm left with a burning hatred for somebody I didn't even know existed lmao