The big news in the gaming world right now is the incredible The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.  It came as a total shock to the gaming world (yeah, there were rumors swirling that it was in the works, but no one knew it was coming so soon), and managed to update the game’s graphics and fix some bugs while also maintaining the legendary “jank” for which the game is so fondly remembered.

Yours portly has not yet taken the dive back into Cyrodiil (although, goodness, I am desperate to do so), but I am looking forward to the rapidly-approaching summer for a chance to dig into some classic games.  It’s been so long since I’ve really been able to sit down and lose myself for hours into a good game.  I haven’t even been able to touch Civilization VII in almost two months!

Gaming always comes to my mind during the hot, lazy days of summer, when it’s so unbearable outside, I l basically live like my home is a life support pod on Venus, only venturing out when absolutely necessary.  So it was that I booted up old SimEarth some years ago, and took a rose-tinted, nostalgia-fueled walk back to my past, when I first played a copy of the game my Indian friend copied onto a 3.5″ floppy disk for me.  Those were the days!

With that, join me on this extended walk through the past; here is 16 May 2024’s “TBT^4: SimEarth“:

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May.  It’s the superfluous final month of school.  There’s not enough time to cover any new content, but too much time to launch right into exam review.  The result:  an odd limbo in which neither students or teachers wish to dwell.  It’s the time of year when everyone is in on the game of modern education—we’d all be better off doing and being somewhere else, but we’re still going through the rituals of an industrial-era factory.

Naturally, with summer looming, I’m getting the itch to do some gaming again.  Since finishing Disco Elysium a few weeks ago, I have not played any game deeply.  I did purchase Planescape: Torment, the spiritual ancestor of DE, but only managed to get in about an hour of playtime.  One of my students asked me earlier this week about Stardew Valley, which I played religiously for about two weeks in probably 2013.  That’s a modern classic I want to dust off soon.

As for the ostensible subject of this post, my forays into SimEarth have been nonexistent since those halcyon days of May 2020, when America’s love affair with The Virus was in full swing.  Being cooped up in the house got me nostalgic for the classics, but I need to revisit the planet simulator soon.

Big plans for the summer.  If I play all these games as planned, my eyeballs might fall out.

With that, here is 11 May 2023’s “TBT^2: SimEarth“:

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