My brain can remember useless throwaway things from 20 years ago but frequently forgets why I came downstairs and opened the fridge.

Song lyrics that keep running round and round in my head: From John Moreland’s One Man Holds the World Hostage: “why do keep feeling like a soldier in a holy war that I never signed up for” I feel like it perfectly encapsulates the state of online discourse right now on pretty much any subject from politics to books to video games. It honestly gets exhausting. [www.youtube.com/watch

It is funny how life shakes out. I was very much a Sega/Sonic child, but I definitely lean more towards Nintendo/Mario as an adult.

People on the internet keep saying what a crap time it is to be a gamer right now, but here I am in my 40s and I am actually enjoying gaming now more than I have ever done in the past. Yes, I do have nostalgia for gaming on the Commodore 64, the Mega Drive, the PS and the PS2; but I think I can honestly say I have never truly enjoyed gaming more than I do at the start of 2026.

I have restarted my libro.fm subscription (great service, would recommend) because I want to get back into audiobooks this year.

Mindset shift: It’s not “failure”, it is “data collection”

People are freaking out about Level-5 using genAI in game development. I don’t know how extensive their use is or what they used it for, but what I do know is that they released two excellent and beautiful games this year (Fantasy Life i and Inazuma Eleven) so clearly they did something right.

I have been pondering new year resolutions and I think I have settled on 3. The first is more audiobooks, less YouTube. 2025 has seen me become more and more frustrated with the direction of travel on YouTube towards low effort rage bait slop and a massive growth in AI generated content that is of no value to any topic. I have reduced my YouTube time a bit over the past year and I plan to continue that into 2026, and replacing it with audiobooks seems like a solid plan.

Some things I have learned gaming in my 40s: Single player is your friend most of the time Following on from 1, organising multiplayer gaming in your 40s is hard so if you have a regular group you like to play with maintain that relationship. Games that require me to “git gud” can “git out”, easy mode all the way. Drop in/drop out, pick up and play games are fantastic.

Steam sales Wallet cries in pain, Clicking ‘buy’ with wild abandon— Digital dust piles.

A haiku about Christmas in my house Tinsel tangled mess, Cat bats at the shiny tree— Chaos under pine.

If Die Hard is a Christmas movie then The Division is a Christmas game

Between PS5 and Steam I have almost 1000 hours in FFXIV and in have only discovered the ocean fishing expeditions in the past couple of weeks. I am so bad at games. They are still fun though.

Something a bit different. I made some beef shin (criminally underrated cut) and vegetable soup. Cheap, tasty and healthy. Easy too, very important. Just put the shin in a pot, bone included (very important for flavour). Add some leek, carrots, celery, potatoes and parsley along with some barley soup mix (basically pearl barley, lentils and split peas). Top up with water and season with salt and black pepper then cook over a medium heat for 2 hours.

The mark of true intelligence is an ability to take very complex ideas and distill them down to language that anyone can understand. Using big words to obfuscate ideas or parts of ideas is not intelligence, it is manipulation.

I’ll be into my 50s when Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, won’t I? (I’m 42 now)

Peak gaming is laying on the sofa or in bed with a MSI Claw 8 AI+, PS Portal or Switch 2 propped on one’s ample belly.

Arc Raiders is an evolution of the dark zone concept in The Division, just better balanced between PVE and PVP which forces players to cooperate much more often. I can see hardcore PVP players complaining that Arcs should be nerfed but honestly I hope the devs don’t listen to them because the game is more interesting for that balance.

I find it pretty funny that for all the online outrage about the price of the Switch 2, it is still the most affordable entry point to gaming when you look at the price of the PS5, Xbox consoles (and Gamepass) and of the various handheld PCs that are releasing.

People still keep saying compromise is a sign of weakness but I say it is actually a sign of strength and maturity.

Watching an older gamer playing Cyberpunk 2077 is oddly mesmerising. The attention to detail he brings to his play through is quite impressive. It’s almost as fulfilling as watching a licensed therapist play through Clair Obscur Expedition 33.

A contentious subject where people have very strong opinions is the subject of cover songs. Some people insist that no cover can ever hold a candle to the original; I am not one of those people. Having said that I do prefer cover songs that interpret the music in a way that is unique to the artist doing the cover as opposed to just a straight karaoke like cover. A good example of this is Heather Nova’s version of the Journey classic Don’t Stop Believing which is to this day the best cover of the song that I have ever heard (and there have been a few)

“Don’t do what I did, Hadrian. You’re still a young man. Take my advice: live your life to the fullest. Breathe the air, taste the wine, kiss the girls, and always remember that the tales of another are never as wondrous as your own. I’ll admit I was, well, concerned about this trip. No, I’ll say it truthfully—I was scared. What does a man my age have to be afraid of, you wonder?

It was a great show, and the portrayal of the sisters as young women in their 20s still holds up today as being really quite progressive and extremely nuanced. They were sexual, career driven and empowered; yet they were also flawed, vulnerable and self doubting as all women (humans really) can be. They came across as real women and not just vehicles for a shallow female empowerment message. TV writers today could learn a lot about the portrayal of strong yet deeply human women.

Console launches are always marred by ragebait and toxicity and criticism. It happened with the original Switch, it happened with several Xbox and Playstation consoles. It’s just pointless noise in the ether, but people who just love great video games will always see past the narrative of the noisy minority and see the joy that comes with a new console generation. Don’t let anything spoil your excitement for video games and the hardware that lets you enjoy them.