I can no longer consider myself a Star Trek fan.

Here's the short-ish version: I'm a diehard fan of The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and the first ten movies (The Motion Picture through Nemesis). After several years of agonizing over the damage they did to the franchise, I can enjoy 2009's annoyingly titled Star Trek and its sequel Into Darkness as poorly written but well-executed sci-fi popcorn flicks that coincidentally borrow some ideas from The Original Series. By association, I can't accept Beyond as canon, but it's the honorary eleventh Star Trek film of which I'm a diehard fan.

I gave Discovery a generous nine episodes before my outrage and disgust got the better of me. The show was visually, tonally, and narratively incompatible with what I knew as Star Trek; and the gore, infighting, mistrust, incompetence, contrivances, and pessimism in those episodes made the show unpalatable to begin with. Moreover, I felt it was bad form to reboot the franchise in 2009 by returning to Kirk's era, only to re-reboot the franchise in 2017 by returning to Kirk's era in a different timeline. This franchise was boldly going out of its mind.

To wash the taste out of my mouth, I followed every episode of Discovery with an episode of The Orville—which, despite its imperfections, captures everything I love about Star Trek, from the broad strokes (eg, social commentary disguised as sci-fi) to the little details (eg, long, luxurious establishing shots of ships and planets).

I was wary of Picard, because I wanted the franchise to start looking forward rather than backward for inspiration, and because I fully expected to be outraged and disgusted again. The first episode of left me in tears—tears of joy, because for the first time in over a decade, Star Trek actually felt like Star Trek. Different, yes, but unquestionably welcome.

The rest of the season failed to live up to that standard. Despite how much I liked some of the concepts, and despite one truly superb episode ("Nepenthe"), I had so many problems with the planning, pacing, characterizations, gratuitous violence, and wild fluctuations in storytelling quality. I could suspend my disbelief just barely enough to accept it as canon, but I didn't really want to. I also wish I hadn't watched the Short Trek "Children of Mars," which gave me Discovery flashbacks and diminished the impact of Picard's second episode.

I was disheartened by the teaser trailer for Lower Decks, and I was unimpressed and then traumatized by a preview of the first 90 seconds of the first episode. I'm on board with a series featuring a diverse new crew with no apparent ties to any previous series, set sometime after Nemesis, with a unique slant that adds something new to the franchise (in this case, focusing on people other than the bridge crew)—however, this particular brand of humor is a hard sell for me, and I am not on board with sudden, unexpected gore. That makes three series in a row where my squeamishness, which was previously only relevant for a few specific episodes across the entire franchise, is a deterrent to watching Star Trek at all.

What's worse is that there's no end in sight. After Lower Decks, there's Section 31, Strange New Worlds, Prodigy, another season of Discovery, another season of Picard, and at least one yet-to-be-revealed series that I'm aware of, not to mention an R-rated movie originally slated to be directed by Quentin Tarantino. I'm still recovering from the fun but exhausting 11-year journey to Avengers: Endgame; I don't have it in me right now to invest in what is effectively another Marvel Cinematic Universe, let alone one so violent, disorganized, and averse to continuity despite being hung up on nostalgia!

It's reached the point where I physically can't keep up with my favorite franchise, nor do I want to. That is a no-win scenario. My little ship, the USS Fanboy, is in no shape to keep fighting, yet I can't retreat without feeling guilty. So I'm setting the auto-destruct and leaving the battle on my own terms.

Whatever Star Trek is right now, it is not for me. And as difficult as it is for me to admit this, that's okay. I've spent too much of my adult life arguing about what's authentic Star Trek, forcing myself to watch things I knew I wouldn't enjoy, and suffering at the hands of what is supposedly my favorite fandom. I don't need to do that anymore. In fact, I never needed to do that.

There are countless books and comics I haven't read, several games I haven't played, and a few fan-made productions I've been meaning to watch. Even if I ignore everything created from 2009 onward, there is no shortage of new Star Trek for me to experience. I don't have to rely on modern cinematic television, which I often don't enjoy anyhow, to get my fix.

They say all good things come to an end. But perhaps they don't have to. Perhaps what brings you joy is more important than what is canon. Perhaps your vision of a franchise—a vision you believe is in line with that of the person who created it—matters more than the vision of whoever happens to be calling the shots right now. Perhaps, in a universe where absolutely anything can happen, there's still a chance for the undesirable elements to redeem themselves.

I crave optimistic, collaborative, and philosophical stories that are reasonably believable and don't make me want to throw up. I don't mind if stories get dark and serious, as long as those elements serve a greater purpose than just making me depressed. I value the kind of narrative continuity that makes it easy to forgive or explain away the little mistakes and oversights that inevitably occur over the course of several decades. I like cool starships, futuristic gadgets, creative alien civilizations, and relatable characters.

For a good long while, Star Trek was exactly my kind of fiction. Now it isn't. It hasn't been for more than a decade, and I have no reason to believe it ever will be again. That means it's time to move on.

Live fast and prosper, Star Trek.

"Neelix, would you tell me another story?"

"Why, Naomi, I've already told you so many stories tonight. Don't you think it's time to sleep?"

"I can't sleep. I'm too scared. I want to see the stars again."

"Well, Naomi, you're not alone. I think everyone on Voyager wants to see the stars again. Captain Janeway says it's going to be dark outside for a very long time. If you want, we could paint some dots on the windows and pretend they're stars."

"I don't want to pretend. I'm scared, Neelix. What if the Borg attack us? Or the Hirogen? What if we run out of dilithium and get stuck here in the void?"

"We always make it through, don't we? Voyager is a tough ship, and the crew is even tougher. In fact, Voyager is a lot like another ship—one that went through something far worse than a patch of empty space. One that went through a war."

"Do you mean the NX-01? You promised you'd tell me about the Earth-Romulan War, but then you jumped ahead to the founding of the Federation, and I'm pretty sure you started making things up. That last story didn't make any sense."

"You're a tough critic, Naomi Wildman. But a lot of people don't like the adventures of Captain Archer, so I thought we'd skip the Earth-Romulan war."

"I'm not a lot of people. I wanted to hear that story. Things were just getting really good."

"Maybe some other time. I'd like to tell you a different story this time. A story about when the Federation went to war against the Klingons."

"Another war? You told me about the Xindi, and the Temporal Cold War, and about what's happening in the Alpha Quadrant with the Dominion—and I liked those stories, but it's hard to hear about war all the time. Especially when Voyager keeps making so many enemies. If you won't tell me about the Earth-Romulan War, then I want something happy."

"What about those stories I made up about Captain Kirk in another timeline? Those were happy, right?"

"Those don't count. I didn't like how you changed the characters, and I didn't learn anything like I usually do from those stories. Besides, they all had a bad guy trying to kill everyone with some big weapon. I miss the story about the whales."

"In the story I'd like to tell you, the crew comes across a space whale. Will that do?"

"That sounds fun."

"Good. So, this is the story of Michael Burnham."

"There was a space whale named Michael Burnham?"

"No, Naomi; the space whale comes later. Michael was a human serving in Starfleet around 100 years after Captain Archer."

"I thought you said this was the story of a ship that went to war?"

"It is. But Michael was on that ship, and this is her story."

"Her?"

"Yes, Michael was a woman. In fact, Discovery—that's the name of the ship that went to war—had all sorts of different people on board. Now, you've said that you'd like to see more female role models in the stories I tell you, and I think you'll be very happy this time. In addition to Michael, there was a female vice-admiral, Discovery's chief of security, and Michael's former captain, to name a few—all of whom came from different racial backgrounds, too."

"I like that a lot. Did they all help to win the war?"

"Not...exactly, no. The vice-admiral was captured by Klingons and left for dead; the security chief was killed when she intentionally let an indestructible space bear out of its cage; and the captain was eaten by Klingons."

"Eaten!?"

"Klingons, as you know, are hairless, purple-skinned cannibals. They—"

"Neelix, that's weird. I know what Klingons look like, and B'Elanna has never tried to eat me. Stop making things up."

"I'm serious! That's exactly what Klingons were like a decade before Captain Kirk took command of the Enterprise. Starships were a lot more advanced then, as well—the hulls and interiors were elaborately decorated, and they had technology like holographic touchscreens that floated in midair and a spore drive that could teleport a ship anywhere in the universe."

"Neelix, I told you to stop making things up! Now you're just making fun of me. I know what ships looked like back then, and not even Voyager has that kind of technology. Tell me the real story already. And leave out the Klingons and this spore drive thing for now; I want to hear about Michael."

"Ah...all right. Well, Michael was the first officer of the starship Shenzhou, and—"

"I thought you said she was on the Discovery."

"Yes, but she was on the Shenzhou first. She committed an act of mutiny against her captain, which led to the destruction of the Shenzhou, the death of her captain, and the start of a war with the Klingons. Michael was arrested and transferred to the Discovery as a prisoner, where she served dutifully under Captain Lorca."

"Was the captain evil?"

"It depends how you look at it. On the one hand, he cared so much about his own people that he would do anything to protect them. On the other hand, he didn't behave at all like a Starfleet officer, he caused a lot of damage for the sake of peace, and he tricked or coerced the crew of the Discovery into doing all sorts of morally questionable things."

"I meant the captain of the Shenzhou."

"Oh. No, she was an upstanding officer who had been a friend and mentor to Michael for several years. But Michael thought the captain was making a bad decision, so she knocked her out and took command."

"I don't think I like Michael. Is there anyone in this story who's just nice, and smart, and doesn't get eaten or try to mutiny or anything? This doesn't sound like a happy story, and I wanted something to cheer me up."

"Cadet Tilly is very cheerful. I think you'll like her. And Lieutenant Tyler is a very nice man who falls in love with Michael."

"Tilly probably gets hurt or dies, doesn't she? All the other girls I'd like had something bad happen to them. And Tyler sounds too good to be true. I bet he has a deep dark secret."

"Naomi, don't go making wild guesses."

"That's what grown-ups say when they don't want to tell me I'm right. When does the space whale come in?"

"Ah, yes. Do you remember Harry Mudd?"

"He was...the swindler with all the crazy business ideas, right?"

"The very same. When he was a little younger, Mr. Mudd snuck on board Discovery inside a space whale so he could steal the ship and its secrets and sell them to the Klingons. Discovery was a science vessel, you see, and they were doing experiments with space mushrooms and space fireflies and hundreds of other things."

"What kinds of other things?"

"Well...I'm not sure, exactly, but...but they're not important to the story."

"Why not? You said this was a science vessel, not a warship. Couldn't you make it a science story instead of a war story?"

"It is a science story. You see, Mr. Mudd had a device that kept the ship in a time loop until he accomplished his goal. Of course, he kept murdering the crew each time, but they eventually stopped him."

"That's awful! You told me Harry Mudd was a liar and a cheater, not a killer. I don't like the people in this story."

"I'll admit, they're a bit different from the characters you're used to hearing about. The crew of the Discovery didn't get along very well, at least not at first. A lot of bickering and mistrust and nasty comments. They swore sometimes, and got angry at each other, and did things behind each other's backs. But I promise you'll grow to like them as you get to know them."

"Could you tell me a story with normal people in it?"

"What do you mean, Naomi? These are normal people."

"No they aren't. They sound like what people used to be like a few hundred years ago. I can't relate to those people. They're so different from everyone I know on Voyager and everyone in all the stories you've ever told about Starfleet. I want a story about good people who work together to solve problems. I want a story that gives me hope."

"But you wanted something that would teach you a lesson, right? This story is one big lesson about learning to trust people, doing the wrong things for the right reasons, and finding out who you are. You'll have a lot to think about by the time the story is over."

"I don't want to wait that long. All the other Starfleet stories you've told me have had little lessons along the way. And they weren't so violent."

"I haven't even gotten to the Klingon side of it. There's a lot of blood and gore, and even some...adult things that I probably shouldn't tell you about."

"I don't think I want to hear any more about Michael Burnham or Discovery or the Klingon War. None of this sounds like fun."

"Now, Naomi, you can't judge a story until you've heard the whole thing. Sometimes it take a while for a story to find its footing or set up all the important details. You ended up loving the stories I told you about Captain Picard, but I remember more than a few times early on that you were ready to abandon ship. And sometimes, people have false expectations that get in the way of enjoying the story. You barely gave my stories about Deep Space Nine a chance, because you thought they were too serious and didn't have enough space exploration for a story about Starfleet. But you stuck with them, and now those stories are some of your favorites."

"I guess. But those stories felt like they fit together. This one doesn't feel like it belongs. Tell me a different story, please. One that feels like a Starfleet story, and makes me smile, and gives me something hopeful to think about."

"If that's what you really want, Naomi Wildman, then we can take a break. Maybe you're right—maybe we could use a little more brightness in this dark part of the Delta Quadrant. I've got just the story, too. Have I ever told you about the Orville?"

Hoo boy. After five years of exile on the moon (as I frequently referred to it), I finally found an opportunity to leave. July was spent packing up the moon base and looking for a new place to live, but I managed to fit in a little time to keep some of my side projects going.

This Website:

I started writing up Series Opinions for two more Star Trek movies, and I performed some long-overdue maintenance on my Series Opinions pages in general. I introduced a new section for Mega Man fangames...or maybe that was in June. I officially need to add a "Last updated on..." tag to each opinion so I can keep track of what to list here! I guess you'll have to settle for a single blog post.

- Retrospective: June 2016

Games:

Hot off the heels of Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest is another fan-made Mega Man game featuring a level by yours truly—or, in this case, two levels. Cool stuff.

- Mega Man Endless

GameCola:

Although I haven't made any official announcement on the site itself, I've scaled back my GameCola contributions to the point where I'm more of a cameo-amenable former contributor than an active staff member. Our long-delayed year-end awards finally surfaced in July, and I contributed writeups for Chrono Trigger and the original Super Mario Bros., which won Best Game of 20 and 30 Years Ago, respectively. It should come as no surprise that I, a man perpetually behind the times, had nothing to do with the writeups for any of the games released in the year we were actually celebrating.

- The 2015 GameCola Videogame Awards (Part 2)

YouTube:

One last spurt of livestreaming before the moon base relocation yielded one of my better crops of fangame sampling.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #11: Battle, X Night Shade, Atari, 9000
- Let's Play: Mega Man Endless (Blind, Live)
- Back for More: Mega Man Endless (Live)

The Backloggery:

GOG sale + a PayPal balance I keep forgetting about = time to pick up a couple discounted games I've had my eye on. I also gave SuperDanny Powered Up another shot, following a conversation with the game's developer, and I put enough effort into beating the game to warrant adding it to my backlog.

New:
- Day of the Tentacle Remastered  (PC)
- Mega Man Endless  (PC)
- Resonance  (PC)
- SuperDanny Powered Up  (PC)
- The Shivah  (PC)
 
Started:
- Mega Man Endless  (PC)
- SuperDanny Powered Up  (PC)
 
Beat:
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze  (WiiU)
- Mega Man Endless  (PC)
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary  (PC)
- SuperDanny Powered Up  (PC)

I expect August to be similarly sparse, but hopes are high that I'll be able to kick my side projects into high gear once my wife and I have finished unpacking everything and have finished jumping through all the other hoops involved in moving back to Earth from the moon.

May was a fantastic month for my online projects, and I've been working on a number of things that won't be ready until at least June or July. For one thing, I started learning FamiTracker so I can try my hand at composing music for a certain semi-secret project that's in the works...

This Website:

Not much in the way of blog posts, but I did spend a lot of time developing various Series Opinions pages, finishing one and bringing several others closer to completion. On a related note, I really need to start including a "last updated" date for each of these so I can remember which ones to list in these Retrospective posts. I'm fairly certain that the majority of opinions I've written have never been mentioned in a Retrospective, on account of finishing them too early in the month to remember to include them. Well, and I also made the decision not too long ago to start highlighting each installment as it gets finished, rather than waiting for the whole category page to be done, so a lot of reviews fell by the wayside there. Poke around; there's plenty to read (and all of it is always subject to change).

- Retrospective: April 2016
- Series Opinions: Star Trek: Generations

GameCola:

By the way, GameCola is back! Again! A couple podcasts we recorded previously finally got their fifteen seconds of fame.

Podcasts:
- GC Podcast #91: Directly Indirect
- GC Podcast #92: The Singing Podcast

YouTube:

A few of the best livestreams I've ever done are preserved for posterity, my last two GameCola Podcasts are now on YouTube, and I finally got around to creating a channel intro video that's beneficial for new viewers, but mostly aimed at my longtime fans. Specifically, the longtime fans who have no idea that my GeminiLaser work is but a tiny portion of what I do in this series of tubes I call home, and especially the ones who assume I must be dead if it's been more than 72 hours since my last video or comment. Also, the video was super fun to assemble, and I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out. The last item on the list isn't technically for YouTube, but I did contribute a short clip to a video put together by Patricia of Old School Lane, whom you may remember as the host of a podcast interview I did at the beginning of 2014. The video itself gets very personal and spans a range of emotions (being at various times serious, silly, depressing, and uplifting), but it's an interesting watch if you've got the time, particularly if you're familiar with Patricia's work. You'll know my clip when you see it.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest - Part 1: Contest Results!
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest - Part 2: Judging the Judges
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #8: Square Root of Negative One, Mavericks, Bon Ball

GCDotNet:
- The GameCola Podcast #91: Directly Indirect
- The GameCola Podcast #92: The Singing Podcast

GeminiLaser:
- An Introduction to GeminiLaser

Old School Lane:
 -Should We Say Goodbye to Halcyon Days?

Games:

May marks the second time this year where a Mega Man level I designed for a contest was released for public consumption. Last time it was the Mega Man Legacy Collection; this time it's Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest, the awkwardly titled fangame comprised of levels from 20 contestants and five judges, all tied together by a hub filled with zany characters. In addition to contributing a level ("Maze of Death"), I had the honor of announcing the contest results via livestream (see above), I designed the logo on the title screen, and I've been an unofficial playtester and copyeditor/writer (you can blame me for most of the instructional text now). My personal stake in the game aside, this is one of my favorite Mega Man fangames yet; it's funny, highly replayable, and a solid challenge. The sheer variety of level designs makes for a unique experience, too; even the levels that aren't so fun to play make for good conversation, and it's interesting to read the judges' reactions to them. The game is free to download, and a multitude of improvements and tweaks have been made since I livestreamed the game. If you're even remotely interested in Mega Man, platformers, or collaborative game design, give this one a look.

- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest

The Backloggery:

It's nice to play games I'm enjoying, and nicer still to stop playing games once I've gotten everything I care to get out of them, even if I haven't beaten them yet. Faced with the reality I will probably never again be able to log into my Desura account to play the one game I have there, I did a little housekeeping.

New:
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
- You Have to Win the Game  (Steam)
 
Started:
- A Boy and His Blob  (Wii)
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night  (PS)
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
- You Have to Win the Game  (Steam)
 
Beat:
- Gradius Gaiden  (PSP)
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
 
Completed:
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
 
Removed:
- Star Runner  (Desura)
- You Have to Win the Game  (Steam)

As it turns out, you don't have to win the game.

With no new Mega Man level design contests cropping up, I found myself able to once again devote my free time to...uh...staying late at the office. April was a busy month. However, I managed to accomplish a few things of note, so I'm happy with what I have to show for myself this time.

This Website:

I did a lot of writing in April (at least, by current standards), and there's another Star Trek Series Opinions page and two blog posts already in the works for May. If you ever miss the kind of writing I used to do for Exfanding Your Horizons, the posts from this month should be a treat. Incidentally, I wrote almost the entire post about the NuTrek Enterprise back in February; I just didn't take photos until the trailer for Star Trek Beyond and news of the upcoming Star Trek TV series got me thinking about NuTrek again, which also prompted the 2009 Series Opinions page. I swear I've finally gotten all the complaining about the reboot out of my system. Well, at least until I start reviewing Into Darkness.

- Retrospective: March 2016
- Origin Stories
- A Tall Ship, and a Star Trek to Steer Her By
- Series Opinions: Star Trek (2009)

YouTube:

I simply did not have the time or wherewithal to record as much as I wanted, but I managed to pull off one impromptu livestream, and I recorded the intro stage of Mega Man 8 for my upcoming video playthrough. And, of course, I published the elaborate April Fools video I had originally planned for last year. Happily, it works even better now than it would have then.

Flashman85LIVE:
- One-Shot Live Playthrough: Prince of Persia

GeminiLaser:
- [April Fools'] Mega Man 8 Teaser Trailer

The Backloggery:

I effectively cleared six games from my backlog and only bought two new ones with my tax refund money, but I still only broke even on my progress index for April. Go figure. April was simultaneously one of the most refreshing and one of the most disappointing gaming months I've had in quite a long time.

Appallingly unprofessional PC port issues aside, I had an absolute blast with Ghostbusters, which reminded me why I play video games in the first place. The game was immersive, faithful to the spirit of the movies, thoughtfully designed, possessed of fun mechanics and excellent production values, and very funny (the Spirit Guide descriptions cracked me up). X-Men Legends was a cathartic release of wanton destruction and a throwback to my college days, when people in the house would pop in and out as one of us kept plugging away at the story mode.

Playing a shinier version of Gradius, which I grew up with on the NES, brought back some fond memories, and Gradius Gaiden was awesome. Hopping around from game to game in the Gradius Collection gave me my first real appreciation of what good and bad game design look like in a scrolling shooter. Bad game design looks like this iteration of Gradius III, and to a lesser extent Gradius IV, which derive challenge from all the wrong places.

Although I wasn't as happy with those games as I'd hoped, FEZ was the biggest letdown of the bunch. It could have been a clever puzzle-platformer, or a diabolical puzzle game with platforming elements, but it insisted on being a boring and tedious collectathon with almost everything worthwhile locked away as a poorly explained secret. The game is full of good ideas, but their execution makes the game feel either pretentious or just badly designed—neither of which inspired me to stick with the game any longer than I had to.

Oh, and while the sentiment of gifting me with AVGN Adventures was appreciated, ten minutes with the game reinforced how much I really dislike AVGN. Sorry.

New:
- Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride  (NDS)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius Gaiden  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius II  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius III  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius IV  (PSP)
 
Started:
- Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures  (Steam)
- FEZ  (Steam)
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game  (PC)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius Gaiden  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius II  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius III  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius IV  (PSP)
- Type:Rider  (Steam)
 
Beat:
- FEZ  (Steam)
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game  (PC)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius IV  (PSP)
 
Completed:
- X-Men Legends  (GCN)
 
Removed:
- Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures  (Steam)

Hey, this felt like a proper post for a change! It's good to be writing again.

It's no secret that J.J. Abrams' rebooted Star Trek universe has been a source of consternation and displeasure for me since 2009, but while I've discussed the problems with the feel and storytelling of NuTrek rather extensively, there's one element of the reboot that I have yet to thoroughly critique: the Enterprise herself.

And yes, I'm enough of a fan to know that starship names should be italicized. You'll thank me someday when I talk about "the Enterprise of Enterprise" and you can readily identify which one's the TV show. But I digress.

I bring this up because, once a month, I receive two meticulously detailed and screen-accurate model starships from the Star Trek Official Starships Collection, each one accompanied by a magazine filled with neat photos of the featured ship, its fictional history within the Star Trek universe, behind-the-scenes stories about its real-world development, and distracting grammatical errors. (P.S.: Eaglemoss, if you ever need an editor with content area expertise...) The ships come from all corners of Star Trek's 50-year history: icons such as the USS Enterprise-D, the NX-01 (I'll refrain from saying "the Enterprise of Enterprise" so soon), and Deep Space Nine (which is a space station and not a starship, but I'm not complaining); that one cool ship you saw in the background in First Contact; that weird ship that only appeared in one episode of Voyager...really, anything and everything. Short of buying me an actual, functional starship, this is as good as it gets for a geek like me.

Aside from one disappointment (the refit Enterprise from The Motion Picture [TMP], which is perfectly acceptable until you see how much more surface detail went into all the other ships), every new ship has been a joy to unbox and put on display. Once every few months, a special issue becomes available, featuring a larger-than-usual ship for an extra charge. Some months ago, I was given the option to become the proud (?) owner of the Abramsverse Enterprise from the 2009 reboot.

This was a challenging decision. On the one hand, I have so many problems with the design of the ship in question; I cannot readily call to mind any other ship from the entire franchise that I outright dislike. On the other hand, I was looking forward to a future special issue featuring the USS Vengeance from Into Darkness, and it wouldn't do to have the one NuTrek ship I like on a shelf without its rival beside it. Furthermore, there's always the possibility that a future film or TV series set in the Abramsverse will change my opinion about the reboot, and I'd regret missing the opportunity now to collect something I could like later. The completionist in me ultimately won out, and I've been trying to figure out how to feel about it ever since.

On its own, the design of the 2009 Enterprise (sounds like I'm talking about a car) is passable enough. If it were a ship designed by a new alien race or belonging to a different sci-fi franchise altogether, I don't think I'd mind it. It's sleek, it's curvy, it's glowy and full of lens flare. The problem is that it's a reimagining of a classic ship that, like the rest of NuTrek, ignores every precedent that should have informed its design.

The USS Enterprise of the original Star Trek (TOS) is simultaneously very '60s and very forward-thinking. The ship cuts a memorable figure, distinct from the flying saucers and rocket ships that had dominated science fiction up until that point, but the surface details are only slightly more complex than anything you'd see in Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. It's retro and futuristic at the same time, which makes it difficult to revise for a modern audience without sacrificing some part of its identity. It's also a beloved icon, so someone is bound to complain, no matter what you do. I get that.

I think the refit Enterprise created for TMP is a superb example of a revision done right, though. The ship's proportions and basic shape were left intact, more surface detail was added, and only a few elements (nacelles, deflector dish) were revamped substantially, modernizing the ship by tinkering with the existing blueprints. When you look at the subsequent Enterprises (B, C, D, E, and even J), it's apparent that the same design mentality was still in use; you can imagine each Enterprise being stretched or compressed into the shape of the next one in line, rather than being built from scratch.

Even the NX-01, designed for a TV show filmed decades after TOS but taking place a century before, has several key design elements in common with good ol' NCC-1701 (especially after the refit that was planned to happen if the show had remained on the air). If you can accept that somewhere between Enterprise and Next Generation there is a galaxy-wide revival of 1960s aesthetics that interrupts the otherwise consistent look of Star Trek, then it's not unreasonable to believe that Archer's Enterprise could evolve into Kirk's Enterprise.

Here's the thing: The Abramsverse doesn't reboot all of Star Trek; it only rewrites the timeline starting with the birth of James T. Kirk. This means that Zefram Cochrane still made his first warp flight in the Phoenix we saw in First Contact, and that the NX-01—whose design clearly took some measure of inspiration from the Phoenix—was still out saving the galaxy while Kirk's grandfather was in diapers. We even see models of these ships in Admiral Marcus's office in Into Darkness. So even if every other starship design principle of later Star Trek is thrown out the airlock, the Abramsprise should still look like a descendant of the Phoenix and the NX-01.

It doesn't even look like a distant relative. My wife says it looks like a Fisher-Price toy.

And you can't peg this on Nero disrupting the timeline, either. Starfleet encounters all-powerful beings that destroy starships all the time, yet this one incident where a mystery ship obliterates a single vessel and then disappears for 25 years is enough to spook Starfleet engineers into building a USS Enterprise that's a caricature of the original timeline's ship, and twice as big. Bigger, in fact, than the largest vessels that Picard and Sisko bring into battle against the Borg and the Dominion a century later. I think the following chart speaks volumes about what's wrong with the NuTrek Enterprise:

How would any Star Trek character explain this monstrosity to a fellow Starfleet officer without breaking the fourth wall? In real life, the designers took the original, forward-thinking Enterprise and exaggerated the components for a faux-retro look that's more 1960s than the 1960s. They were going to keep the ship close to the original scale, but then the scene in the shuttle bay didn't look impressive enough, so they doubled the size of the ship to increase the wow factor. No Starfleet engineer says, "This shuttle bay isn't jaw-dropping enough; let's double the effort and resources required for the whole construction."

Part of the reason I like the Vengeance so much is that it at least looks like a plausible product of Starfleet covert ops engineering. It's essentially a mashup of two canonical starship classes (Constitution refit and Sovereign), with creative elements that give the ship a unique look without altering the weight and lines of traditional Starfleet design. Even the Kelvin, lopsided as it is, has a sense of balance in line with that of the Oberth or Constellation classes.

When I look at the Abramsprise, all I can see are the ridiculous nacelles. In contrast with every other vessel in Starfleet history, the nacelles are as thick as the saucer section and even thicker than the stardrive section. They're too long and close together relative to the saucer section, giving the ship the appearance of having been gripped tightly and pulled back like a balloon animal. The pylons that attach the nacelles to the rest of the ship have almost a Romulan-style curve to them; Starfleet pylons are consistently straight, and even Galaxy- and Nebula-class pylons only use curves to round off the sharpness of a right angle. Everything about the nacelles draws the attention to the back of the ship. It's also irritating that the bussard collectors glow blue instead of the usual red. That last point might seem nitpicky even for me, but try changing one of the colors on your country's national flag and see how long it takes to bother you.

Any other elongated class of starship with a sense of movement to its design (e.g., Excelsior, Sovereign) has the look of a graceful bird or a swift predator about it. The Abramsprise has the look of an animal that was injected with whatever absurd vaccine McCoy gave to Kirk that made his hands swell up in the film. The nacelles are oversized jet thrusters hanging onto the back of the ship for dear life, and the saucer section fits onto the secondary hull like a full-sized sombrero on a child. There's no way this ship was designed by the same Starfleet engineers who would've made the Enterprise we know and love if some angry Romulan hadn't killed Kirk's dad.

Here's a comparison shot that helps illustrate how absurdly exaggerated the Abramsprise's features are—note that the engineering hull is basically the same size on both vessels (and also the bridge module, but you can barely tell here):

I think about the thought processes that went into designing the Reliant (immediately recognizable as Starfleet, but with a different shape so as not to confuse it with the Enterprise), the Excelsior (the Enterprise, but with an elegant Japanese aesthetic), and the Defiant (built for war, not exploration), and they all ask, "WWSD?" (What Would Starfleet Design?). The proportions, the contours, they all make sense to me. Nothing makes sense to me about the Abramsprise, and I can barely get a good look at the whole thing because my eyes keep sliding down the ship and falling off the back of it. This is not redesigning a ship for a new generation; this is having a little too much fun with Kai's Power Goo.

NuTrek had an opportunity to craft an Enterprise that made more sense as a successor to the NX-01. And as far as the story is concerned, there's not nearly enough of a rationale for why the new Enterprise looks so drastically different from the one that would have been designed if Nero hadn't shown up for two minutes. Early design sketches of the reboot Enterprise hint at a faithfulness to the source material, but the finished product seems to reflect the personal taste of the director more than the 50 years of Star Trek history that should have played into the design. I could even live with the retro-futuristic design if it leaned more toward TOS in terms of surface detail; ironically, those complex textures make the ship look too close to the Starfleet aesthetic from TMP onward, which only serves to emphasize the differences with the rest of the ship.

Somewhere between the two designs above is the Enterprise that should have carried us into the future.

March was another busy month. No sooner had I submitted my entry for the Make a Good Mega Man Level contest on Sprites INC than another contest opened up: designing any number of six-screen level segments for the upcoming Mega Man Endless fangame. Between friends, family, work, and my deadline-driven side projects, I was going almost nonstop by the end of the month. It was exhausting, but it was also a reminder of how I thrive on having a variety of activities to keep me occupied. Let's see what all I have to show for myself.

This Website:

I might not write many posts anymore, but the ones I do write are ones I want to hang on to. The story of my concert experience with Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage is one of my favorite things I've written for this blog, and I think it's the biggest indication that I've finally moved away from the "general bitterness commentary" that weighed down my writing only a year or two ago. Also, I've decided to start linking to my individual Series Opinions articles once they're finished, regardless of whether everything else on the page with them is finished. I've still got a lot of Star Trek and Mega Man to write about (and rewrite about, because opinions are subject to change), but I'm one step closer to having my definitive take on every part of my favorite entertainment franchises all in one place.

- Retrospective: February 2016
- The Ultimate Voyage
- Series Opinions: The Misadventures of Tron Bonne

YouTube:

Due to all the time I spent making Mega Man levels in February and March, I wasn't able to focus on playing Mega Man levels, (meaning my playthrough of Mega Man 8 got delayed)...but I did subject one of my friends to a level I made, so we can call that a compromise. I did keep another one of my recording projects going, though, carrying on with the next installment in what is possibly my favorite first-person shooter series. I like MotS less than its predecessor, but I think I like this playthrough more than the one I did for the original Jedi Knight. So it balances out. Pardon the choppiness of the first video; it gets better.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith (Live) - Part 1: The Noisy Asteroid of Ugly Awfulness
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith (Live) - Part 2: Wireframed and Imprisoned
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith (Live) - Part 3: A Pirate's Death for Me
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith (Live) - Part 4: Nothing I Want at the Swamp Meet
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith (Live) - Part 5: Taking the Bonus Level for a Bespin
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest - "Maze of Death" Blind Playthrough (With Special Guests)

GCDotNet:
- The GameCola Podcast #90: A Not-So-Spooky Halloween

The Backloggery:

Wow. This portion almost isn't worth mentioning. My wife and I played one round of LEGO LotR and were put off enough by all the glitches and gameplay issues that we haven't found the motivation to go back yet, and I played just enough of Nintendo Land with friends that it qualifies as Beaten by my standards. Oh, and I chipped away at X-Men Legends and played a little more of the 3DS Mega Man Legacy Collection, so it's not like I completely abandoned my favorite pastime.

Started:
- LEGO The Lord of the Rings  (Wii)

Beat:
- Nintendo Land  (WiiU)

...And that's just the stuff I finished in March! April oughta be pretty big, and I'm in a great mindset going into the month.

Star Trek has been a part of my family for as long as I can remember. Growing up, our Saturday night tradition was homemade pizza and whatever iteration of Star Trek was on the air at the time. Since I met my wife in college, we've been working through every episode of every series together. My sister and brother-in-law are now doing the same. Star Trek is a constant in our lives, an unending source of meaningful conversations and satisfying entertainment for the entire family—a family of musicians, I might add.

Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage brought together three of my favorite things in life: family, music, and Star Trek. It's up there with Star Trek: The Exhibition as one of my favorite family excursions in recent memory, and I still get a big dumb grin anytime I start thinking about it. Fifty years of Star Trek history expressed through live music, with thematically arranged video clips and narration by Michael Dorn to tie it all together. A lifetime's worth of fond memories with the people sitting next to me. And we all had homemade pizza together before we left for the concert. Jeez, I'm tearing up already.

A lesser concert would have consisted of a live orchestra on a boring stage playing all the main themes you expect to hear from a concert like this. But this was a 50th anniversary concert, and you could tell it was organized by people who were as big a fan as anyone in the audience. It was a celebration done right. The front of the stage was dressed up to look like the exterior of the Enterprise-A (or the refit Enterprise from the earlier movies; your preference), as though the audience were out in space and peering into the bridge from afar. The back of the stage was lit with stars, and behind the musicians was a mockup of Worf's tactical console from the Enterprise-D. The icing on the cellular peptide cake was the ambient noise while we waited for the concert to start—the familiar low rumble and all the pings and beeps you'd expect to hear on the bridge of a starship. Talk about atmosphere.

I came prepared, of course, wearing my Original Series crew tie with my concert-appropriate attire. At least two others in the audience had me beat, though: one man was dressed to report for duty in engineering on the original Enterprise, and one woman looked like she'd just come back to Starfleet Command from the Khitomer conference. Even among the people in plain clothes (no doubt time-travelers from the 24th century trying to blend in), there was was an air of comfort and kinship, almost like you get from being at a convention. Even after the concert started, no one tried to hush any of the respectfully quiet (and relevant) side conversations among my family, because Star Trek is something you're supposed to talk about. People laughed and cheered in all the right places throughout the performance (and you could tell where the Voyager [VOY] fans and the Spock-ophiles were sitting by the unusually large reactions they gave to certain video clips and pieces of narration). Everyone in that auditorium was family, in a way. What a great feeling.

The first piece the orchestra played was a smart place to start: the closing theme to The Motion Picture, which mostly doubles as the opening theme for The Next Generation (TNG). Everyone has their favorites, but the majority of fans can agree on liking The Original Series (TOS) or TNG, so this was a good attempt to please everyone. The next piece was equally equitable: the sweeping overture from Generations, the movie that brings together TOS and TNG. At least, that's what my brain registered it as—you'll have to forgive any lapses in memory or music recognition, given that we didn't have a concert program to take home for reference. I kind of preferred it that way, though; there was a certain joy in playing "name that tune" and making predictions about what the orchestra would play, and I loved some of the surprises along the way.

As the overture from Generations was played, the screen behind the orchestra came to life with scenes from the beginning of Star Trek V, where Kirk is slowly climbing the mountain. It took me a few moments to wrap my head around this seemingly out-of-nowhere clip selection, but it fit well with the music—a sort of metaphor for Star Trek's long climb to this milestone anniversary. The gorgeous vistas and sumptuous swells of the music drove home the scope of this adventure that we've been on for generations. Whoo, I'm tearing up again.

The first half of the concert was fairly heavy on TOS and TNG, both in terms of music and video footage. The second half was pretty balanced among the different series, though still a bit light on footage from Deep Space 9 (DS9). Unsurprisingly, The Animated Series was nowhere to be found, but we did get some music from the Starfleet Academy video game at the end of the intermission. We were also treated to the iconic Klingon theme, the sinister Borg theme (which loses a little bit of its oomph when played without that otherworldly synthesizer twang), and the overtures or main themes from most of the films and TV series.

When my wife and I were watching through DS9 at home, I liked to have fun with the opening music. There's a part at the beginning where the orchestra holds on a note, and an asteroid comes hurtling past the camera. I would always fill the space by singing a complimentary low note and the word "ROOOOOOCK" as grandly as possible, sweeping out my hand for greater dramatic effect. When the live orchestra played the DS9 theme at the concert, I waited for the appropriate moment and then asked the family member next to me to pass down a "rock" to my wife. It took a few moments for the gag to register, but I got a smile. Or maybe a shake of the head and a roll of the eyes; it's hard to remember without a program to refer back to.

Interestingly, Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness were treated less like the new face of the franchise and more like films 11 and 12. Every other major part of Star Trek history got a proper voiceover introduction and a title card with the relevant air dates listed, but the one piece of music from the reboot films received no such treatment. The few video clips used elsewhere in the program were practically all from the good parts that don't make me cringe. I smiled at the thought of the concert organizers deliberately downplaying the divisive impact of the reboot and focusing on the Trek-worthy parts. This was my kind of concert.

Still, what I liked about the video selection was that it embraced all of Star Trek, including things that some of us might like to forget. There was a segment celebrating some of the franchise's biggest villains, and Shinzon was right there alongside Khan and Dukat. There was a touching montage about friends, family, and the loved ones these characters have lost, and suddenly a brief clip from "These Are the Voyages..." kicked us in the gut again. Star Trek isn't just the parts that everyone likes, and the low points have united fans just as much as the high points. A lesser concert would have excluded entire films and episodes from the program on the basis of popular opinion. I think it's a mark of integrity to tactfully acknowledge the whole canon and let the fans exercise selective memory if they want to.

One of the best surprises of the concert was getting to see whole episode clips where the music track was replaced with live music from the orchestra. We got to relive the excitement of Spock and Kirk's fight to the death from "Amok Time" as well as the pivotal space battle with the Dominion in "The Changing Face of Evil." We were swept up in the emotionality of Janeway's sendoff at the end of "Year of Hell," the null-gravity scene between Archer and Mayweather at the beginning of "Horizon," and the conclusion of "Encounter at Farpoint." We got chills (well, I got chills, anyhow) from Sisko's final log entry of "In the Pale Moonlight" and Archer's speech to the assembly in "Terra Prime" (which, as far as I'm concerned, is one of the best monologues in the whole franchise, and perfectly sums up what Star Trek is all about). The orchestra did a spectacular job of bringing the music to life and heightening our appreciation of these scenes that were already pretty darn appreciated.

Of course, my absolute favorite moment in the concert was the re-orchestrated cliffhanger scene from "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I":

"I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service... us." Slow camera close-up on Riker's face. Music so tense it feels like the universe is about to snap. "Mister Worf... FIRE."

BUM BUM BUM! BUM BUM BUM! BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

INTERMISSION.

Awesome.

I'm more sentimental than I might let on, and things that are exceptionally cool have been known to get me misty-eyed. It's the extremes—the best and the worst—that crack my semi-stoic exterior. Before the end of the concert, I had simply run out of tears. The emotional music from First Contact got me. Kirk's brilliant "risk is our business" speech from "Return to Tomorrow" got me. All the funny moments, like Data scanning for those precious little lifeforms in Generations, got me. The exciting suite from Wrath of Khan, concluding with the iconic final scenes of the film, got me. The amount of love the concert gave to Undiscovered Country, my favorite film in the franchise, got me. Being surrounded by family and by friends I've never met, listening to a dynamite performance by a dynamite orchestra, got me. Everything was right with the world. It's been a very long time since all was right with the world, and that got me, too.

But, as they say, all good things...

After about 2-1/2 hours, it was time to return to my own century. The orchestra took a bow and shuffled offstage. But we knew they had to come back, because there was one more theme the concert would have been incomplete without.

The orchestra returned, and a single note was all it took to eke out one more tear from me before the end. "Faith of the Heart," the opening theme to Enterprise—was nowhere to be found, just kidding. No need to cause a riot.

The concert ended where it all began, with the theme to the original Star Trek. Whereas the rest of the music had been accompanied by clips from the shows and movies, the encore was filled with candid photographs of the cast and crew, the kind of things you'd see in a behind-the-scenes featurette. People getting into makeup and laughing on set, and the grinning countenance of Gene Roddenberry. There was no high soprano with the orchestra to drive the melody, but the conductor helped maintain the buoyancy of the piece by bouncing along with every swipe of his baton. When the music ended, the orchestra took their final bows to a standing ovation, and several musicians raised their hands in the Vulcan salute. What a fun way to end the concert.

Filled with such great joy and gratitude, I almost floated away after we left the theater. You had to tractor beam me back to earth. This was how I was supposed to feel about my favorite entertainment franchise. This was what a family outing to a professional concert could be like. This was a 50th anniversary celebration done right.

2016 is off to a great start. In the absence of GameCola (the main site is still in disarray), I've been dedicating my free time to a select few side projects and my New Year's resolutions. Not only have I been very productive, but I feel generally more relaxed than I've felt in a long time. What you see here might well become the format for the year.

This Website:

If you're only going by what I've posted on this blog, I've hardly done anything. But there's more to this site than the blog.

I've made a great many updates to my Mega Man series opinions, chipping away at Mega Man X3 and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, and finishing off my review of Mega Man Powered Up. In fact, I might start giving each game its own page (instead of grouping them by category) to make my reviews easier to read and keep track of. I've also made serious headway with my Star Trek series opinions, as you'll see below. All of these posts are perpetual works in progress, mind you; the more I write, the more I'm reminded to go back and refine what I've already written.

As far as regular blog posts are concerned, there's the obligatory Retrospective, but the one about New Year's resolutions is easily one of my favorite things I've written here, and perhaps one of the most important.

- Retrospective: December 2015
- New Year's Resolutions 2016
- Series Opinions: Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS)
- Series Opinions: Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT)

YouTube:

Not a bad month for videos. One of last year's most popular podcasts finally made it to the GameCola YouTube channel, and my latest Mega Man Fangame Sampler livestream was especially well received. The Fangame Sampler before it also went pretty well, with me beating one of the games on my first try without losing a life. Lastly, I finished off a playthrough of one of my all-time favorite video games, and the whole experience was fun enough (for me and my audience) to try tackling the rest of the games in the series in the months to come.

Behind the scenes, I've been practicing my showoffery for Mega Man 8, the next video series I have planned for my GeminiLaser channel. I don't think I've been this excited about a recording project since Mega Man 5, which is especially surprising if you've read my Series Opinions on the game. If all goes as planned, you'll see the first video in March!

Flashman85LIVE:
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #6: Scramble!!, DOS Remake, Star Man Upgraded
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #7: Hard Hat 2, Foo-roo's Flight, An Uncertain Future
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 4: What, Fisticuffs!?

GCDotNet:
- The GameCola Podcast #88: When this Podcast Hits 88 Miles Per Hour

The Backloggery:

That New Year's resolution about my video game backlog has pushed me to change my gaming habits for the better. I tried a bunch of games. I removed them when I wasn't totally sold after the first play session. I powered through the last of Dragon Age: Origins in order to free up my lone, self-imposed PC game slot for something more my style. By the end of the month, my wife and I were back in the swing of co-op gaming on a regular basis, capping off one LEGO game we'd been working on for months and diving into a new one we'd just received for Christmas. Finally, in going through my Backloggery to finish writing mini-reviews for all the games I'd beaten before joining the site, I discovered a criminal offense: leaving a Mega Man game marked as less than Complete when I'd clearly met the requirements.

Started:
- Bullet Candy  (Steam)
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers  (PC)
- LEGO Jurassic World  (WiiU)
- Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble  (Steam)
- Osmos  (Steam)
 
Beat:
- Dragon Age: Origins  (Origin)
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers  (PC)
 
Completed:
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers  (PC)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4  (Wii)
- Mega Man X4  (GCN)
- Mega Man X4  (PS)
 
Removed:
- Bullet Candy  (Steam)
- Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble  (Steam)
- Osmos  (Steam)
- StarFox Assault  (GCN)

Overall, a very good month. Let's hope things keep getting even better!

2015 ended on a high note for me. Good time spent with friends and family, some of the best weeks of work I've had all year, plenty of vacation time, meaningful personal development, and a change of focus that I hope will lead to a joyful and productive 2016. You'll note one big absence on this list: GameCola.net suffered a catastrophic server failure early in the month—the day before the shortest review I've ever written got posted, as though the website couldn't cope with me writing anything of substance shorter than 700 words.

Normally we'd revert to a recent backup version of the site, but due to mysterious technical issues, the latest backup we had was from sometime in November. An executive decision was made to put the site on hiatus to give our webmaster time to look into recovering the lost data, but also to give the Editor-in-Chief time to work on GameCola 4.0, a revised version of the site with all the modern bells and whistles we've been missing. I'll no doubt write more about the situation as time goes on, but in the meantime, I've been devoting my free time to other side projects that have been languishing for too long.

This Blog:

It's good to be writing again on a regular basis, and writing more positively, at that. In addition to the posts below, which hopefully represent a return to the kind of writing I used to do for Exfanding Your Horizons in its heyday, I was busy working on my Series Opinions for Star Trek: The Original Series and Enterprise, which I'll formally link to once they're complete.

- Retrospective: November 2015
- Star Trek Beyond the Point of No Return
- Always in Motion Is the Future
- Running With Superheroes

YouTube:

One GameCola contribution managed to slip through, despite the main site being out of commission. In honor of the new Star Wars movie, I kicked off a playthrough of one of my all-time favorite games, and it's been helping me refine my livestreaming style. The third installment of Jedi Knight and the second Backloggery Choice stream are two of my favorites so far (if nothing else, watch the Paperboy section of the first video below).

Of course, no mention of YouTube videos would be complete without a celebration of the true, final, real end of the Mega Man 7 recording saga. One of the funniest things I've ever released, according to me, and a joy to assemble.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Backloggery Choice #2: Crystalis, StarTropics II, Metal Storm, Paperboy
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 1: The Force Awakens
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 2: Elevator Action
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight (Live Playthrough) - Part 3: Confusing the Commentator

GeminiLaser:
- Mega Man 7: Audio Outtakes

GCDotNet:
- Hacks'n'Slash #10: Mario & Sonic Christmas Special

The Backloggery:

December is always a bad month for my struggle against the evil Bak'laag. Between Christmas, winter sales on Steam and GOG, and holiday travels that take me near used game stores, my game collection always seems to inflate around this time. At least my patience has run out for games that aren't worth my time; I'm abandoning bad and unrewarding games with a vengeance nowadays, and I've decided to go back to playing only the games I think I'll like—anything that's culturally worthwhile but not worth the effort is something I can watch someone else play on YouTube.

New:
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze  (WiiU)
- Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition  (PC)
- Final Fantasy X  (PS2)
- Final Fantasy X-2  (PS2)
- Gun Metal  (Steam)
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis  (PC)
- LEGO Jurassic World  (WiiU)
- Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS  (NDS)
- Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus  (NDS)
- Rokko Chan  (Brwsr)
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary  (PC)
- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U  (WiiU)
 
Started:
- Final Soldier  (VC)
- Gargoyle's Quest II  (NES)
- StarFox Assault  (GCN)
- Wario Land 3  (GBC)
 
Beat:
- Final Soldier  (VC)
- Gargoyle's Quest II  (NES)
- The Misadventures of Tron Bonne  (PS)
 
Completed:
- Final Soldier  (VC)
- Gargoyle's Quest II  (NES)
- Love  (Steam)
- The Misadventures of Tron Bonne  (PS)
 
Removed:
- Wario Land 3  (GBC)

That about wraps it up for 2015! Off we go into another year.