Robby Reviews 2018

I usually post these in December, but this year I wanted to wait until the year was over to even start writing it. Why? I don’t know. Whatever the case, here’s my annual writeup of notable likes and dislikes of 2018. Side note: I’ve had this written for weeks before posting it. It’s not a super entertaining read or even exhaustive by a long shot, but…whatever.

MUSIC
Some of my favorite bands released bands in 2018, and it was almost all kind of disappointing. Hanzel und Gretyl released Satanik Germanik, years after it was supposed to come out. I’ve tried listening to it so many times, but between the almost-humorless tone and the questionable mixing/mastering of the album…I just couldn’t get into it.

Ministry released Amerikkkant. The throwbacks to older sounds was cool, and the experimentation of instrumentation was welcome, but it was just too slow for me, I guess. On a positive note, I saw them live in November and it was awesome…except for a couple of the new songs they played.

There was some good new music that came out in 2018 that I liked, but nothing too exceptional.

Oh yeah. I put out More Awesome Than Awesome. Remember that thing?

MOVIES
At least 2018 gave me some movies I enjoyed, since I couldn’t spend my time listening to new music.

Hereditary. My god. I saw it twice in theaters. If you see it once and enjoy it, I feel like you HAVE to see it again to catch all the little things you missed. The ending is still a little weird, but what a movie!

A less gruesome and more subdued movie I liked was A Quiet Place. It’s a good watch at home, but it was a great experience in the theater, as long as you were fortunate enough to not have rude people watching along with you. Luckily, everyone in my theater was nice enough to not crinkle their candy bags and whatever during tense moments, which is pretty much the whole movie. Heh.

I barely remember it, but Solo: A Star Wars Story came out early in the year. It could have been worse, but I don’t really like everything being explained in these big stories. I don’t want to know how Han got his last name. I may even prefer not knowing exactly how he met up with Chewbacca. It didn’t perform well at the box office, which kind of forced Disney to take their finger off the side story films. I’m not complaining.

What else? Oh. Overboard. I saw that. That was one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but it somehow wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

VIDEO GAMES
It wasn’t until writing this that I realized how many games I liked a lot this year. In no particular order: Celeste, Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Super Mario Party, Octopath Traveler, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Detroit: Become Human, and Life Is Strange 2. There could be more, but I don’t think there are any games that released in 2018 that aren’t all over Game of the Year lists…except for one…

Two Point Hospital! I currently have 115 hours logged into it, having just “completed” each hospital. I’m sure I’ll go back and try to 3 star the ones I haven’t already, but it’s almost perfect. As someone who loved Theme Hospital more than the average person, I was ecstatic to hear about the game when it was announced. It’s definitely a better version of Theme Hospital, which is pretty much all I wanted.

It’s not perfect, especially on Mac, but I foresee it becoming very close to perfect after another update or two.

BOOKS
I read a few books in 2018. I wasn’t blown away by any of them, but I’ll give a shoutout to Lily Allen’s My Thoughts Exactly.