In previous New Year’s posts , Never Say Dice has gathered up the courage to do some self-reflection and spend a little time reviewing and making New Year's resolutions. It might be time to check in on how we did with 2022’s propositions, but this year we’ve decided to take things a bit easier on ourselves. We’ve all had a few rough years, and while we encourage you to make your own resolutions, and will still make some ourselves, we think everyone could use a break. Instead of the pomp and circumstance of New Year's resolutions, how about we take a look at a few things we plan to enjoy in the coming year taking the guise of past media, present media and media yet to come. - A A : Much to my chagrin, Never Say Dice has yet to complete all of the accomplishments I had hoped it would in 2022. I can say, however, that we've made significant progress on those fronts and leave it at that. As far as personal goals, I’m happy to say that I've spent some time playing games wit

In light of the weather making the holidays particularly stressful this year, we at Never Say Dice thought we would simply share a few gifts we've received relevant to our remit (say that three times fast!). May your own haul be as bountiful - even if you're just buying for yourself this year. Stay safe, warm, and adequately electrified out there... and happy holidays! - B   Send comments and questions to neversaydice20@gmail.com or Tweet them @neversaydice2. Header image borrowed from ournerdhome , give it a try yourself!

I'll say it up front: I am no fan of winter, despite the fact that some media I enjoy features it prominently enough to call it a central character. It's probably no coincidence that these are harsh and violent stories of twisted motivations, revenge, and betrayal where the weather is a monster to be feared. I'm no fan of the cold, the lightlessness, the monotony... sometimes, I think being born in California might have affected me more than I realize. Recently, I discussed choosing games to match your mood and situation , and mentioned that the change in weather and real-world frustrations had led me to return to a few games I had taken breaks from: Fallout 3 and Demon's Souls . With the winter solstice just around the corner, I thought I'd explore why these games are speaking to me at this particular moment, and what I (consciously or not) am looking to gain from them. Both these games could be described as "post-apocalyptic," but a more appropriate t

The season has come once again for the Home Alone movies to make their run on our viewing devices. There's something powerful when you’re a kid about seeing children your age in media take on and defeat adults. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that this movie worked for me so well when it first came out. After all, Kevin/Macaulay and I are around the same age, and not only does he run the house for a few days, but he also defends it from the wet bandits. The movie(s) even entertain and inspire my own children. My older son can often be found studying and making his own battle plans, and my younger guy is usually making traps around the house - just in case bad guys show up. Somehow, though the premise laughs louder and louder at the suspension of disbelief the older it gets , the movie still stands the test of time for holiday entertainment. Maybe it will survive for future generations out of the nostalgia of parental figures, or maybe it will slowly fade into obscurity. For n

It's that time of year again - every digital game storefront is having some kind of end-of year sale , meanwhile, that backlog just keeps getting bigger and bigger . Sometimes, it may feel like finding the right game for right now can be a bigger and more complicated challenge than anything the games themselves have to offer. With such widespread availability, particularly when factoring in a half-century 's worth of titles basically available on demand (depending on your current definition of "availability" vs. "legality”), option paralysis is a real possibility, and, for some of us, a guaranteed certainty. There are the obvious, concrete factors to consider: the amount of time you can dedicate, what your setup is capable of running, what you've already started and how close you are to completing any of those games. These are pretty straightforward to calculate, particularly with the help of tools like HowLongToBeat and your choice of review sites. But th

The holiday season is trucking right along once again with stores starting to tout their Black Friday deals weeks in advance. After all, Black Friday is a tradition ( sort of) . Americans are busy celebrating their Feast of Maximum Occupancy Thanksgiving, Canada just celebrated theirs last week, and before you know it we’ll be looking at Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, etc. etc. A time of year thick with celebrations and chock full of traditions. Although for Never Say Dice, as we mentioned in Home Media for the Holidays , our traditions mostly consist of trying to take some much needed time off and spend it consuming some of our backlogged media - be it traditional films, books, TV, or games. This year though, I thought we might dig a little deeper into some of our own traditions.- specifically, those that involve tabletop gaming. So pull up a plate of leftovers, and let's all ponder while we gorge ourselves. - A B : One of the joys of gaming with other people i

I've recently completed all the trophies in Marvel's Spider-Man That may sound like bragging, but that's not my intent. I already know that I’m a little late to the party . While I probably should have been spending time with other obligations or going through new games and storylines, I had an ulterior motive that had nothing to do with game accomplishments: I wanted to take my kids with me through the story this time. Perhaps I’ve robbed them of completing the story on their own at some point, or maybe it was a bonding experience they won’t forget. Only time will tell. Either way, it did get me thinking about the replayability of games, and specifically of tabletop roleplaying games. Dungeons and Dragons , to use the perennially popular system, is something that's revisited over and over. However, people are typically reusing it to have new and different adventures, rather than replaying the same adventure multiple times. We’ll often come back to the same books and m