S1E43 - The Holidays AND Final Fantasy XV - “An ambitious mess that I love”

The Holidays AND Final Fantasy XV


In this episode:


The holidays are stressful, and it’s hard to get your geek
time in when you’re constantly juggling family responsibilities,
the time changes, the darkness, the seasonal depression, the gift
buying, decorating...well, you get the picture.

For us, we have different mechanisms to help us cope with all
this. Beej plays mindless adventure games and MMOs to escape the
winter doldrums, as well as reading a lot more. Ebooks are
especially good, as are digital comics for road trips. Cozy
scented candles and meditation in low light also keeps him evened
out.

Void only has a few weeks off during the year, so he uses his
extended Christmas break for some quiet time and extra reading.
He also tends to power through games and spend lots of time
gaming with his family. Being able to sit down and play games
with his kids are incredibly soothing, and it’s good quality
family time, too.

Most of us have multiple family meetings, and geeking out can
be hard to do when you’re forced to be social. One suggestion is
to be social during the most obvious times, but then excuse
yourself to be alone and read or play whatever games you want to.
Most family members understand we all need a little time to
ourselves.

Mobile gaming is great for car rides, as are handheld
consoles. Audiobooks are an easy way to catch up, and they really
help keep with our routines. Most of us have our daily routines
that get messed with during the holidays, and being able to sneak
our content digitally whenever we have a few minutes (even if
it’s in the bathroom at a relative’s house or in line as you buy
last-minute gifts) can help ease stress and give us time to
decompress.

We discuss working on side projects, and how the holidays
give a good boost to our creativity because of the lack of our
primary jobs.



Final Fantasy XV


Void has finished FFXV, and he talks about it in depth It was
originally a touchstone topic for Weekly Geekery, but he goes
into a full-on review (and we tell you about spoiler zone, too).
He discusses why it’s one of his favorite FF games overall, what
kind of nits he has to pick with it, and why Chapter 13 is
horrible enough that SquareEnix has already announced a patch to
make it more bearable.

Void discusses how it’s a Final Fantasy game that gives
veterans and newbies something to love, and he discusses the
combat and open world. It is a very thorough review, and you can
see his entry into the Final Fantasy Project here.

He talks about the story and how it works, and how the game
feels like it spent a decade in develpment hell, but at the same
time does a lot of things well and a lot of things haflway and
still comes across as a fairly cohesive game. If they do
additional content patches, there are lots of places to put in
new zones (Beej likens what he wants to Dawnguard for Skyrim) and
quests, which would increase both playability and replayability
and end-game content.



Holiday present for us… rate and review in iTunes!


They help more than you know. Just look for the podcast in
iTunes and hit the review tab (yes, like you’re looking for it
for the first time, not in your subscriptions.)



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Book Recommendation: The Martian. Probably one of the best
audiobooks either of