Well, it's been a full month since the CoVID lockdown started, and a year of me working from home. Not sure how I feel about that, honestly, so let's distract ourselves from the fact that this month was LOADED, with a whole bunch of great games I played and replayed.

Just in case you're new to this series, I generally write an article every month recording the new (and old) stuff I’m watching, playing or listening to, and I’m doing it in a series of monthly articles. I’ll write some quick notes about the old stuff I went back to in the first section (Repeat Value), before getting into the new stuff (...The New Stuff).

It's all games this month, because I'm still going through that goshdarned mental block. Hopefully I can turn that around sometime in April.
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Welcome to State of Media Consumption: January + February edition! I missed out on writing the January edition last month because there were a lot of things going on and I had other articles I had wanted to write, and February was mostly spent playing a single game. 

Just in case you're new to this series, I generally write an article every month recording the new (and old) stuff I’m watching, playing or listening to, and I’m doing it in a series of monthly articles. I’ll write some quick notes about the old stuff I went back to in the first section (Repeat Value), before getting into the new stuff (...The New Stuff).

Because a lot of it ends up being games, I think I'll split the article by medium from now on, to avoid direct comparisons through ranking.
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​This is an article I've wanted to write for a very long while.

Outer Wilds is a 2019 video game that I finished in 2020, and towards the beginning of 2021, I was listening to a podcast episode specifically dedicated to the experience of finishing this game. Austin Walker, one of the hosts of Waypoint Radio, talked about how, once he finished it, he immediately has the thought of being sure that this was his favourite game of 2020. This thought continued, though, and he had to ask himself - was it more than just that?

I related to this sentiment a lot, and I had some thoughts of my own knocking about in my head since completing it. I had one specific experience I've never had with any other piece of media, and had never thought I'd feel after watching any movie, reading any book, or playing any game. I've tried to put this experience into words for a long while, and I've decided to finally write it out and release it as an article.

So, this is the story of how Outer Wilds, the space exploration adventure game, gave me an existential crisis. This isn't an article I could spin into anything positive, so apologies in advance.

Some major spoilers are present in the article, and while I won't mention anything in the endgame, I do spoil some mysteries that you might want to figure out by yourself if you were looking forward to playing this game sometime in the future. This is a game about discovery, so if you haven't played the game, I'd recommend you read this article only if you don't plan on playing it.
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We're at the last monthly summary of this year! I've discovered so many amazing things this year, and going through the previous articles blows my mind with the amount of good things I've discovered. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep this pace after this pandemic ends, but let's see.

If you haven't checked the previous articles in this series, I highly recommend you check them out.  A  quick refresher, just in case - I’m recording the new (and old) stuff I’m watching, playing or listening to, and I’m doing it in a series of monthly articles. I’ll write some quick notes about the old stuff I went back to in the first section (Repeat Value), before getting into the new stuff (...The New Stuff).

This month has a bunch of games and an album - I decided to find a bunch of small stuff to finish up, and it's been a fantastic experience.  There's no Repeat Value this time, because all the stuff I went through this month was new.

 We've got five articles in a row in this series!   Work's been heavy and this month's been bad, but I'm glad I got this month's article out, even if it was slightly delayed.

If you haven't checked the previous articles in this series, I highly recommend you check them out.  A  quick refresher, just in case - I’m recording the new (and old) stuff I’m watching, playing or listening to, and I’m doing it in a series of monthly articles. I’ll write some quick notes about the old stuff I went back to in the first section (Repeat Value), before getting into the new stuff (...The New Stuff).

This month doesn't have as many games as usual, mainly because everything I played took a long amount of time. That being said, I think there's stuff here you might discover and enjoy anyway.