I’m sure we don’t have to tell you, and our recent post schedule is a reminder -  it’s been a week. It’s been a month, a year. The crushing horror of the daily news makes our daily struggles harder, more draining… and then it only gets worse, in ways you don’t see coming. One of the ways it came this week was the death of John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne. It’s hit the both of us at Never Say Dice quite hard. Ozzy’s work was a lodestone for both of us, something we’d visit time and again, together and as individuals. We attended multiple Ozzfests together. These “Never Say Disc” posts were begun specifically as a way for us to talk about the anniversary of Black Sabbath’s debut album. Ozzy’s also been family tradition - we both have older siblings who created the space for us to begin our own explorations and from which this one man’s music and, yes, philosophy, would be a constant for both our lives. And now he’s gone. If this medium bears any aspect of who we are, it’s vital that w...

There are generation-defining pieces of genre media, influential works whose presence is immediately felt in everything that comes after it, works in whose facets we can see its peers, its predecessors, and all the many creations it will inspire. And then there’s Back to the Future (1985) , which is somehow the complete opposite. Generation-defining, sure, but also wholly unique to its own vision, an unreplicable artifact, notable entirely for its own brilliance rather than an empire built on its foundation. These actors, these scenes, that direction… there’s really nothing else like it - even the sequels are largely their own things rather than rehashing the original. There were a couple expansions via the short-lived animated series and the much-beloved Telltale adventure game , but on the whole it’s been allowed to simply be - a rarity in today’s media landscapes of constant remakes, reworkings, and rehashes. Back to the Future is a movie that means a lot to us at Never Say Dice, a...

You see, there was going to be a Father's Day post about the way the holiday coincided with the simultaneous No Kings Rallies, Trump Birthday Army 250th Anniversary Parade, Minnesota state government assasinations, and Israel's attacks on Iran. It was going to build on the themes of fatherhood and legacy in the  Metal Gear  franchise, and talk about how the villains are generally motivated by a need to force change for the benefit of future generations. It was going to build on my previous Father's Day post about breaking the cycles of paternal abuse in  Metal Gear , along with the  Yakuza/Like a Dragon  series . And then a series of unforeseen real-world issues came up in my life - nothing catastrophic, but all things that needed to be dealt with immediately... and the post was postponed. No big deal, I thought, Father's Day can be a starting point, but certainly doesn't need to be the focus. I could keep going in the direction I'd already charted.  And t...

Look, I get it. I'm from the X-Files generation. I found the series at a perfect age: the cusp of adolescence, when you start to question the Narrative, and X-Files provided something different from  the honest utopian idealism of Star Trek or Doctor Who 's unfocused Bohemian wanderings through funhouse political allegory and theatrical grotesqueries of the British id. The X-Files was set in the shadows of here and now, dragging us with its protagonists into the cruel and hidden aspects of everything American society and its educational system had taught me to unquestioningly venerate - what restless, dissatisfied teenager wouldn't find themselves bewitched? There was vindication in Mulder and Scully revealing ulterior motives of the military, the government, corporations, and (especially in the earlier days) law enforcement - the adults really were lying! I didn't know it at the time, but I was living through the start of a conspiracy mania - driven to some degree b...

This was going to be some goofy-ass post about how US Presidents in games seem to get themselves kidnapped at a rate rivaling even the least secure princesses. There were going to be references to the semi-titular ninjas in Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja , who seem to consider the White House merely a single stop on a much larger crime spree. Perhaps I am not a Bad Enough Dude to stay the course there, but this President's Day finds me in a sufficient state of fear regarding the office and its holders that I am at a loss to tie the gravity of our situation with quips about never getting an opportunity to play T he President is Missing . (It came with a cassette tape, which seemed impossibly cool and cutting edge when I read about it.) The fact is, Presidents are scary - it's just that most of us haven't often been on the receiving end of the harm they can cause. But Barack Obama's legacy (just to name one) is very different depending on whether you're a financial exec...

Nazis are the Bad Guys. Saying that shouldn’t be considered going out on a limb, and if you disagree then you probably won’t like this one. In fact, it’ll probably make you pretty angry... although, there are seemingly endless ways to make Nazis angry. If you’ve been a regular reader, it should be no surprise, given some of our other posts , what our stance is. Perhaps you just need a reminder, though. Nazis are the Bad Guys. You should have easily figured that out during your school years by reading and learning of the atrocities they’ve performed and the abhorrent things they continue to espouse. Perhaps you didn’t receive the best education, though, or struggled with your studies, so you might need a reminder. Let me assure you, Nazis are the Bad Guys. You don’t have to take it from Never Say Dice, though, or pour over history books, or visit museums - but you probably should, lest history continue to repeat itself. However, you should still be able to find continual reminders v...

 " He came dancing across the water With his galleons and guns Looking for the New World And that palace in the sun..." - Neil Young, "Corte z the Killer" (1975) I'm aware that I bring up Ozark Softscape's 1984 game The Seven Cities of Gold rather frequently for a title that's mostly remembered today for its influence later series like Civilization . But it's a very significant game for me personally, not only because it was, for me,  an early demonstration of the medium's potential richness and depth, but because some thirty-six years later, I keep coming back to it. There's the cartographical indulgence Seven Cities foregrounds, of course, and an appreciation of the game's mechanics I wouldn't have had at seven years old, especially since so many are hidden, left for the players themselves to deduce. But there's a reason I kept going back, both as a kid and as an emulator-savvy adult, every Columbus Day: a longing for repai...

By now, my love of older electronic games should be well-established. Indeed, over the time we've been doing this blog, I've only delved deeper and deeper, more than tripling the number of vintage consoles I have on-hand, hooked up, and ready to go. And while we can look to the pandemic and the money saved by not having to regularly commute lifestyle changes that came with it, the fact is, the propensity was always there - I have always loved older technology, especially if it operates in ways fundamentally different than modern equivalents. And compared to, say, vintage guitar and bass amplifiers (something else I have in... "generous" quantities), consoles are relatively cheap, don't take up much space, and can be used late into the night without risk of noise complaints (provided I'm using headphones). They all have their own quirks, their own histories and unique libraries, and, since they were all released in my lifetime, personal connotations. Each cons...