Shit I want to check out is always coming out around PAX, when it's not really actionable for me - that is the norm. The most recent incarnation of this dark tendency is Cereza and the Lost Demon, which I guess is technically the subtitle. The first part of the name is Bayonetta Origins, and it looks like a watercolor storybook so Gabe is losing his shit. It's one of those games where each analog stick controls a different character, so it's also testing him - mind and body.

Now that my body is handling VR much better I am back into sim racing in a big way. I had been using an ultrawide monitor for my racing display but VR is SO much better! My lap times are more than 5 seconds faster in some cases. That’s huge when winners and losers are often determined by fractions of a second. 

I remember playing the original Dino Crisis, apparently they made a bunch more, but after we'd seen a velociraptor come through a window in precisely the same way a zombified dog had come through a window previously I felt comfortable moving on to something else. Also, I kinda like dinosaurs. I like them just as much as I did when I was, like, eight. I honor them. I guess they're birds or something now? I'll ask Abby Howard at PAX, she'll know.

In what must certainly be the most clever, most wicked of techniques, Wizards is making a single, special version of the new One Ring card. There'll be thousands of the normal one, but the fancypants version will be foil and emblazon'd with the Black Speech, which seems like a dangerous business all on its own before you start thinking about the ramifications. Also, I want to warn you before you click: this strip features disturbing anti-me imagery, fashioned into a cruel barb by my best friend in the entire world. I wish someone had warned me.

Lando Norris is like the rest of the F1 Pantheon, creatures of myth I only know about because of a show on Netflix. It's a fascinating show even if you aren't into racing - in fact, it's entirely possible you will catch this strange disease merely by watching a cool show. The other day when Gabriel was in his rig, actual real-life racer Lando Norris started streaming also, literally on the same course. It's the sort of comparison one might not actively seek out, juxtaposed thus with a demigod, but they're demigods! Whatcha gonna do.

Apparently, Gabriel has spent so much time with racing and VR separately now that he can endure, even when those prized realms are commingled - which is a good thing, because he's committed to an hour long charity shift situated deep within Virtuality. As someone who developed the hobby and then some fairly significant skills behind the wheel during Quarantine, he's got some fucking sauce now. Back when he was first learning, I used to register as his spotter and set up custom cameras so I could help him plan his lines, but we spent a lot of time in the fucking dirt back then. The track he was practicing today - Sebring - hosts an event called 12 Hours Of Sebring in the real world, a team race that is also simulated in game - that's where Gabe will be taking his shift. We used to spend a lot of fucking time in the dirt. Turns 17 and 7 especially, just severe lawn damage. He used to say that he was just looking at real estate in the area, but I knew.

Now look at this mothertrucker! Holy shit.

This is one of those "ripped from the headlines" strips - as devastating as that might seem. He'd never actually cast the spell before, and it works differently than he thought. By default, it puts one of the portals by you - so where you target the spell is actually the other end.

There is a powerful redemption arc, though. The very next game he served as a kind of quantum valet for the party, delivering us with his sorcerous skills directly to the exit, key in hand. But the first time, when I saw the two portals, like… adjacent, I thought maybe there was something fundamental about the game or perhaps even reality itself I didn't fully comprehend.

I know Ronia used to emerge from the VR Version of Dance Central exhausted, so it's not super crazy that Gabriel's cyber excursions into the delicious Pistol Whip deposit him on the couch - damp, yet also greasy. It's essentially Jazzercize circa 2023, which probably explains his getup. I went pretty hard on Nike+ Kinect Training back in the day, about as hard as you could, its witch eye testing and judging me.

Finding me wanting.

Don’t worry about my dog Gracie, she got walked IRL yesterday and I did not put her in VR. Honestly it would be a waste. A dog’s limited ability to discern color would certainly make them incapable of appreciating the luminous OLED screens in the PSVR2. Also, that’s a lot of money to spend on a dog. 

I've been pretty clear on how I feel about cards. So, imagine how I feel about this:

My existing VR headsets have always had some kind of foam around the porthole - the aperture which enables mere meat to traverse the digimal realmz. There are even people who add more foam, as though we weren't in the kraken's-grip of a global foam shortage! The PSVR2 has a kind of thin, rubber accordion between the screen and your face which is legitimately crafty because it's always the right size. It was so good at its job that I wondered why it isn't more common. And then I very quickly discovered why. Gabriel asked if I wanted a wet wipe for it, and I asked for a dry wipe instead, which I think is just… a towel.

It's true! Gabriel The Younger has been accepted into DigiPen, where he will hone his already prodigious skills even further. As his erstwhile uncle, having the opportunity to watch this young man become himself has been a profound honor. I would like to have a talk with him in greater detail about the mutton chops. You know? I'd like to go into that a bit. But, beyond that: exemplary teen. Full marks.

He's out here going wild - potentially even hog-wild. He has the Wildness of the Hog about him. When he situates the mind-cap, he begins to travel at great speed through a grip of trackless no-wheres. PSVR2 did not need to be as strong as it is. The last one, as I have suggested, wasn't anywhere near state of the art, even at release. Now this Devil's Instrument it has you merely looking at something to kill it, heretofore the sacred domain of the Gods:

Here’s a look at REZ using eye tracking, it’s wild! pic.twitter.com/MfXVzCjiCX

— Gabe (@cwgabriel) February 27, 2023

I’ve spent the last 6 days putting the PSVR2 through its paces along with the rest of my family. I played as many games as I could and I figured I’d break down my thoughts on the hardware and tell you about the games I really liked. 

It turns out that Gabe is fucking obsessed with PSVR2. The improvements to the overall experience - and a certain amount of personal curation of the game library based on his shameful weaknesses - mean that he is going hog fucking wild on games like Rez, even though already owns it everywhere it's ever come out, but now he can live inside it and blast target chains with his literal eyes. Gran Turismo in VR is the apotheosis of some desire in him, made manifest initially through iRacing, but elevated here through GT7's well understood "auto-eroticism" and the Logitech PRO Racing Wheel he got from Logitech because people are always giving him shit.

I think that I initially thought of it as a joke, a Magic x Hot Pockets collab, but it's not! It's a real thing. There is a picture of Gideon Jura on a box of Meatballs & Mozzarella Hot Pockets, and I think it might be stock art or something, but the way they're presented on the box he is looking at these flaky snacks with wicked intent. Or just… maybe he's just hungry, which in this case probably ends much the same way.