Hope you all are doing good today!
My blogs have taken a bit of a hit lately due to being sick, other projects I need to work on, as well as general life stuff. But, I’m glad to be back and hope to get these out on a more consistent schedule!
I initially was planning to write out some more thoughts I had from the Sony news from last week regarding the loss of physical discs in 2028. It’s an important topic to me, and one that I could talk about all day.
I’m not going to do that for today though, just because everyone has already talked about it for days now and there’s nothing else I can really say without parroting others at this point.
However, I want to talk about another side of physical media in gaming: magazines, gaming guides, editions, and books! These other aspects of physical media have been around for much of my life, and I think it’s important to highlight them too.
Let’s jump in!
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I’ve been doing a lot more reading this year, and have placed a focus on buying physical books as much as I can.
The look and feel of something I can hold is a big inspiration for today’s blog. I love seeing some of these pieces of media up on my bookshelf, and I love flipping through them. As someone that favors visuals, I find that I can gain so much inspiration when I can easily pick up a book or magazine and really immerse myself in it. I’ve already shown some of the gaming art books in the past, so I’ll focus on new things today!
Before all of the Sony craziness went down, I was reminded about this topic a few weeks ago when Chris (90s and 00s nostalgia) posted up a Note here on Substack about the Metal Gear Solid novel that came out in the 2000s.
It not only reminded me of this topic, but also reminded me that I have both of those books!
As I mentioned previously in a follow-up Note, I enjoyed those books for the most part. They’re definitely shorter reads for such expansive worlds, but I think they’re worth checking out — at least once. More so though, I love the way they look up on my bookshelf!
There are so many quality books based on games out there. I’ve read some of the Witcher books in the past, and I’ve been meaning to start reading the Mass Effect books in the near future.
Do you have any books based on games (or games based on books!) that you’d recommend? Let me know down in the comments!
Continuing on with the Metal Gear Solid games, I also have a few guides that I’ve picked up over time. This series was one I was really into back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, so I remember picking up these guides over time, as I often enjoy flipping through them, seeing all the artwork, and reminiscing on old memories!
Fallout is another series that I’ve played a ton of. While I often write about Fallout 4 and mention that here on The Saved Game, I’m pretty sure I’ve actually played Fallout 3 more than any of the other games combined!
Way back in the early 2010s, I was obsessed with Fallout 3. I couldn’t believe how expansive the open world was, or how there were all the choices that your character could make. I fell in love with the Capitol Wasteland, and played through that game so many times.
I’m not sure when I picked up the guides for both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but I loved seeing all of the different quests and options that were available. Each of these guides also came with a large map too, though I’m not quite sure what I’ve done with those.
Beyond just the gaming guides, I also picked up the Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition on the PlayStation 3 that came with a lunchbox and other items. I love flipping through the artwork book it came with, and I used to have the bobblehead displayed on my desk. There’s also a variety of other bobbleheads I ended up with at some point, which were designed a lot better!
I still haven’t talked much of it on here, but I also love both Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5! I came across this guide for Persona 4 years ago and picked it up, and it’s one that I love to flip through. I plan to pick up the one for Persona 5 in the future. I also have the animation on DVD, and it’s one I would highly recommend too!
One of the other things I wanted to point out are magazines too. I used to have a subscription to Game Informer while they were still partnered with GameStop, and I would often get them in the mail. They were a favorite of mine to flip through, though I ended up losing quite a bit of them over time. However, I did save a few of the recent one that I ended up with before they stopped making them (prior to their reorganization). At some point in the future, I would like to resubscribe, and I’m glad they still make physical copies!
You can view all of their archived magazines here at this link.
There’s more that would make this post way too long, but I guess my main point in highlighting these various books, guides, and magazines is to showcase the impact that physical media has in gaming beyond just discs.
I love having these and many more pieces up on my gaming shelves. They serve as reminders for the games I loved, the virtual worlds I’ve been to, and many of the memories I have from simpler times. In no way would they have the same impact if they were just loaded onto my computer or on a tablet to read.
I’d definitely encourage you to take a look at some other forms of physical media to collect too! It’s fun to find new (or old) things, and I think it’s well worth it to uncover pieces of gaming media that will last you a long time!
My gaming has been all over the place for the past month — and I don’t mean that lightly!
On my last blog, I mentioned that I planned to play more of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on the Switch, but I just haven’t had the time. While I still want to play it, I’ve had to put it on the back burner for now. From what I have played so far though, it’s been very fun!
While writing my last article on Dante’s Inferno, I ended up playing it a bit! It’s a very fascinating, but dark game. I definitely learned a lot about that game while researching its background for my article. It’s always amazing what can be learned from watching developer commentaries and uncovering old news articles on the Wayback Machine!
I did take a bit of a break one day and added some spine sleeves to the cases of my Switch games! I don’t have too many Switch titles, but I loved coming across the r/SwitchSpines subreddit! Now, my default cases look a lot better, and I honestly feel excited to look for more physical games now for the Switch. Nintendo really should’ve stepped it up to make their cover art look better in the first place for Switch games (and even for the 3DS), but I’m glad I was able to get this done!
Over the past month, I demoed some indie games during Steam’s Next Fest, which I talked about on Dusty Gamer’s latest piece! They were fun games, and I absolutely had a blast. If you haven’t seen that article yet, then you can check it out here and read up on the games I played and would recommend you to check out!
During the Summer Sale on Steam, I did pick up a couple more Quantic Dream games: Beyond Two Souls and Heavy Rain. I plan on playing these at some point in the next few months, though I mostly just wanted to snag them for their $2 price tag while they were on sale.
ROP was kind enough to gift me Bastion on Steam! I played some of it to make sure it ran on my older PC (which it did), and it’s really cool! I played Supergiant Games’ Hades a bit last year, and it was alright. However, I really enjoy the atmosphere and controls for Bastion so far, and I plan on finishing it up soon. Thank you again ROP!
Lastly, I picked up Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective on the Nintendo Switch while it was on sale. I haven’t had the chance to take part in Sey’s monthly Gaming Club he has on Good Game Lobby yet, and I figured this was a good chance to jump in!
There’s still plenty of time to jump in for this monthly Gaming Club! You can join in on Sey’s GGL Discord server (link here in Sey’s latest post), along with chatting with a lot of awesome and familiar people that hang out there!
If you are a subscriber and would like to take part in my next collab article, please take a look at this Substack Note for details:
I’d love for you to participate! The deadline to submit your piece is July 23rd!
That wraps it up for today! Thanks for checking out today’s blog, and I’ll be working on my next article that is slated now to come out on Thursday, the 16th!
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to chatting again soon!
See you all next time,
Joe
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