Some (belated) games I played in 2020

Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 7:11 pm Comments (1)

A phrase that’s been on my mind this past year is “use your words”. Whether it’s interpersonal communication or trying to get a point across, it’s a good mantra to remember. They might not be good words, but so long as there’s an understanding and a back-and-forth to bang those words into shape, then we can learn more from them than just saying nothing at all.

It’s on my mind a lot because so much of my website work lately is dry documentation: researching publication dates and stuff that’s cool to know and hopefully helpful to others, but a bit of a bore to write. That (and other petty reasons) have been why the Bomberman and Metal Slug sites have been lying dormant — there’s plenty there I’m eager to do, but just documenting guff is deadly. I wanna talk long-form, go on bizarre tirades about nonsense, or whatever — I wanna use my words!


My first step towards acting on that is fawning over Bowser’s various 3D models, so maybe that wasn’t a good idea. I’ll let you be the judge.

It’s months old by now, but I also finally cranked out all eighty-something-thousand words of thoughts about the media I absorbed last year. If ever there was a time to get needlessly verbose about Mario Party Advance, or try to understand the decisions behind the Mortal Kombat cartoon, it was last year, apparently. That sounded more pithy in my head.

Dinosaur Hunter Diaries has a little crappy hub page now, and I also updated old Kirby fangames post to include a couple of games that I was previously unaware had been archived — and also the fact the site is now operational again, rendering the whole post a bit moot. Oh well!

So… because I’m using my words so much, let’s file a status report.

My computer gave up the ghost back in March! Seemingly a corrupted boot sector, blaming the lack of NTOSKRNL when it gets stuck at startup. Dumbass me has three portable hard drives but used them exclusively for hoarding comics and anime rather than making backups of any sort. That was a dumb move!
I’ve thankfully been able to salvage my stuff, with only a few minor losses that the rescue software* couldn’t grab. Still, bloody nuisance regardless, if just because I’m still coming to grips with my replacement machine and its quirks three months after the fact.

* In my boneheaded panic I threw $20 at the first solution that presented itself, which was EaseRE, on account of it astroturfing itself across all the search results. It claimed to be a one-stop solution to all boot errors… and was very much not, because it solved precisely zero boot errors.
What you’re actually paying for is a bunch of UNIX(?) freeware in one easy-to-burn disc image, its operating system running entirely from the CD drive. The PCmanFX file explorer was essential to my salvage operation, even if it took forty hours to transfer.
EaseRE was handy if just for ease of use, able to quickly burn it and run without having to teach myself how to mount UNIX to disc under duress… buuuut it’s not exactly the surefire solution it presents itself as. Which should’ve been obvious to anyone who didn’t just fling money at the first possible solution, but I repeat myself.


Despite the harsh reminder to backup my stuff, it was a fun excuse to look through my files and see just how much junk I’ve got. Random Hoo Haas weighs in at a hefty few gigabytes, partly because of junk that’s stuck in notes and research, though largely because of uncompressed reference images.
My scans took a hit, losing scattered files and folders, so resuming my progress on that front is going to be hard until I confirm whether or not those lost files are truly gone. I wanna do whatever it takes to not have to fully re-scan all those game magazines…!

But it was a reminder: I oughta do something with all this stuff! Seeing some of it again was inspiring, and while transferring them across I was quite jazzed to make a home for it all on the site, to finally just splurge on various scrappy research or reference pages — nothing fancy, just whatever it takes to give these things a home.
Heck, there’s notes and rough material for at least five potential shrine sections; it’d either just be me cataloguing rare merch that’s otherwise only documented on ephemeral social media feeds, or finding thin pretences to gush about the things I like about them so much. Either way, it’s content!
Of course, now that I’ve forgotten what it was, it’s just as easy to let it sit and gather dust again. Whoopsy doopsy.

Dinosaur Hunter Diaries finished its first phase! I’m glad it’s made a splash with some folks. The next phase will cover the video games and the various other Acclaim nuttery, which might draw more eyes towards it. Who knows! Doing things for views is not my thing, as might be evident by talking about Turok comics in the first place. I’m eager to dive into it again, but I’m also enjoying being a lazy bum, too.


On my YouTube channel I’ve recorded enough backlog that I’ll be putting out a gameplay video every Friday until the end of the year, and maybe beyond, who knows. Mostly Mario fangames interspersed with indie stuff, from Klik ‘n’ Play to XBLIG, but if anyone’s got a neat request, especially if there’s no completed playthrough of it already, feel free to share. Making a hub for these on the site is still on the cards, hopefully with tips and tricks and other wordage to make it worth its while; I wish I could write commentary for every video, but there’s only so much I can possibly say about ’em…!

As always, there’s other doodads I’d like to do, or even just give the site another spring clean again. I keep forgetting what a frightful mess the General Writings page is. Why is it still using Times New Roman?! This is a no-serif zone.
But all I can do is what I can, and “what I can” is ignoring the site for months at at time, usually. You don’t read Random Hoo Haas for a timely or coherent experience, so thanks for sticking with us.

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One Response to “Some (belated) games I played in 2020”

  • SteamyJ says:

    Glad to hear you survived your computerpocalypse. I try to back up my files at least once a month. I should do a backup though. I’m one of those people who just lets the computer choke and get a new one lol.

    The way you write is entertaining in a sort of neurotic and passionate way. Its like you’re having fun and punoshing yourself at the same time. Would love to hear more from you.

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