Well, it’s about a week later. I made some bold statements about what I would be doing with all of my time off during the holiday week. PS4! Steam! Switch games! And the always ambitious “I’m gonna beat a game” claims!!

Here’s what really happened:

Yes, I played video games. But some of them were not the ones that I expected. (Some of them were.) However, I also found myself doing other things that I finally had time to do, like coloring in my Tarot by Design Workbook! I did a holiday tarot spread as well, helping me to get in touch with my inner self. I finished reading a new book club book too, but I’ll save that review for a future blog post! Another thing I finally had time to do was hook up the dusty old Wii U to the living room TV so that my nieces could at least play it, since it’s been doing a lot of nothing for quite a while.

My niece was thrilled to play Mario Kart 8 on the TV with the Wii U, but even more excited about playing on the GamePad. I gave her my old blue 3DS XL as well, and a bunch of my old games that I haven’t been playing, like Mario Party Island Tour. It’s so fun to see someone experience an old forgotten game for the first time – it’s all exciting and new for her! Now that she has a 3DS XL, she can let her little sister play the 2DS… I’m officially helping to create the next generation of gamers here!

And what Wii U game did we end up playing the most? Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, of course! It’s great for groups, yet one person can pretty much run the whole show (my niece) using the GamePad, and the game uses the dozens of Animal Crossing Amiibo figures that have been piling up my room. Plus I gave her all of my spare ACHHD Amiibo cards that I forgot that I still had… my sister was wondering where they are going to keep all of this new gamer stuff! lol

Side bar – she also really liked Little Inferno on the Wii U. Simple, no major reading involved, just burning things. Therapeutic or pyromaniac? You be the judge.

When I did have time for gaming on my own, I did force myself to sit down and play a PS4 game. But that’s just the thing, I really had to set my mind to do it, otherwise I would have been just as happy doing some other activity. I don’t feel that GOTTA PLAY NOW urge to play anything other than my Nintendo games. I think Nintendo is like crack to me. Handheld, candy colored, smiling cartoon faces… I crave it! lol Anyway, so I spent some time playing Red Dead Redemption 2.

I have a new ‘video game chair’ which is less for gamers and more just a foldable seat that feels like an uncomfortable bus cushion that I post up right in front of my TV so that I won’t have any trouble reading the tiny instructional popup text that seems to be in all PS4 and Xbox games. Feeling like a kid sitting right in front of the TV to watch Saturday morning cartoons (pretty sure that’s not even a thing anymore), I was ready to play RDR2! First I tried out the online beta, and spent way too much time creating my character. Then when it came down to really doing an online mission, I chickened out and went to story mode.

From there I progressed in the story mode and completed a couple of missions until the snow thawed and the wagon train finally made it to Valentine town. That’s when I truly realized that this game is basically GTA with cowboys. Nothing wrong with that, and I intend to keep playing. But I don’t think it’s quite as mind-blowing as the reviews made it out to be… not so far, at least. Yes there are some cool cinematic scenes and I enjoy the 19th century ‘photo effects’ but I think BotW was just as beautiful when it comes to design, if not more so.

The missions in RDR2 are fun, I will say that. There was a hunting mission and I also helped with a train heist, which was pretty intense! Then in Valentine I got my ass kicked in a fist fight and stopped playing. Hmph. I’ll be back. Got up to 7% completion in story mode. Not quite ‘beating a game’ is it?

So I thought to myself, is there a game that I could presumably beat this week? My latest Switch games, Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu and Smash Bros. Ultimate come to mind. But in Pokemon, I already beat the game, and now it’s just the really hard post-game trainer battles left to complete. That’s not happening lol! So I turned on Smash’s ‘World of Light’ single player game and played through the whole map, collecting as many Spirits as I could find. I made it all the way to the end of the world map, where Galeem had been shielded but was now finally reachable!

*SPOILERS COMING – AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU CARE*

After two attempts, I won that intense battle with Galeem. I’ve been playing as Kirby the entire way, because World of Light is basically Kirby for grownups in my opinion lol! It’s up to Kirbz to save the world! Anyway, I beat that super villain light orb and guess what? A new cinematic scene unfolded, revealing a NEW baddie and… an entire new world map to uncover and play through.

Are you kidding me??

So nope, didn’t beat any damn games this week! But not for lack of trying! 😅