Ah, I thought recombining GameSpite with Anatomy of Games would mean daily updates here again at long last, but I keep overestimating my ability to deal with the ever-growing stresses and duties of life. It’s the thick of fall review season — this weekend consists entirely of me playing Assassin’s Creed — so… yep. Kicking off the Retronauts crowdfunding campaign (which is nearly at the “send Bob and Jeremy and Ray somewhere for a live presentation” level now) also ate some time. And then there’s that whole “real life” thing, which has been unusually stressful lately.

I always find myself wondering how I used to have time to blog so frequently. Then I remember it’s because I wasn’t in a managerial position while also trying to produce content while also doing loads of work on the side to support two people. It’s times like these where I feel pretty dumb about that liberal arts degree. I coulda had a soul-crushing office job in finances!

I also used to post more frequently because I was content to publish, um, less than sterling material. Sometimes I want to travel back in time to scream at myself. I’d say it’s cool that I’m slowing down in my old age because people prefer quality over quantity, but we all know that’s not the case on the Internet. Based on trends over the past five years, I can predict at the end of this site, I will be writing exquisitely heartfelt and comprehensive articles of prodigious length for an audience of one. Hi, Mom!

In all seriousness, though, I appreciate those of you who continue to stick around as I continue my determined march toward irrelevance. Anyway, here were my attempts at quality over quantity this past week:

Gaming Auteurs: Akitoshi Kawazu — a sort of companion piece to the Final Fantasy Legend video from last week, I finally put my mancrush on Square Enix’s most iconoclastic designer into words.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection review — speaking of heartfelt, this analysis of an anthology of pulpy sci-fi shooters turned out to be much more personal than I expected. I guess I should have a glass of wine before every review I write.

An RPG Shotgun Wedding — I keep applying my interest in the workings of game systems to mainstream games writing yet for some reason they keep not firing me. I wonder how long that will last?

Shogi — I learned to play Shogi to record this video, and then it didn’t matter because most of the video consists of the CPU straining to make a single move. Insert comical trombone sounds.

Capcom’s 8- and 16-bit Eras — I felt a little unfaithful using the name Retronauts on a site that isn’t 1UP. But you know, I buried her a year ago. It’s time to let go and move on with my life.