Playstation Wrap-up 2020

At long last, Playstation has released personalized statistics for the year on 2020. (See yours here, through March 2, 2021!) They had done so at the end of 2019, so I was curious as to whether they'd do it again. After a month of wondering, my prayers were answered this morning.

Listen, 2020 featured a global pandemic, my shifting to working from home, as well as six weeks of paternity leave, so I was stuck at home most of the year and I spent quite a bit of time playing video games. I would be ashamed, but hey - I was stuck at home like the rest of you. It's not like I could go outside and do anything. Being the stat freak that I am, I love crap like this. No regrets.

More than anything else, I'm just blogging about this so I have the information in writing somewhere where it's not going to expire. Join me, if you will, for a look back on my year in gaming.

Games Played:

One of the first games I played in 2020 was the remastered PS4 version of "Ghostbusters: The Video Game." That, coincidentally was one of the first games I ever played on the Playstation 3, years ago. Over the past year, I played a wide array of games, from sports games to third-person, all the way to farming and city-building simulators, there was certainly a lot of variety in my entertainment. Playstation officially reports that I played 59 different games last year, but here are 20 of my favorites:

• Stardew Valley (PS4)
• Far Cry Primal (PS4)
• Mass Effect 3 (PS3)
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 (PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (PS4 remaster)
• NBA 2K20 (PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts III (PS4)
• MLB The Show 20 (PS4)
• Back to the Future: The Game (PS4)
• Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4)
• Cities: Skylines (PS4)
• The Outer Worlds (PS4)
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PS4 remaster)
• Marvel's Avengers (PS4)
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4)
• Fallout 3 (PS3)
• Star Wars: Squadrons (PS4)
• Astro's Playroom (PS5)
• Marvel's Spider-man: Miles Morales (PS5)
• Planet Coaster (PS5)

Top Games:

Unsurprisingly, MLB The Show 20 topped my list of most frequently played games, just like MLB The Show 19 did the year prior. I have a tendency to put a ton of time into my baseball games, and 2020 was no different.

2020 was also the year where I went through on the promise I made to play through the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise, as I've blogged about several times in the past (you can find all of my previous posts on that subject by clicking here). It comes as no surprise, then, that "Kingdom Hearts - HD 1.5+2.5 Remix" is listed as my second most-played game; I believe that disc had like three games on it, so it spent plenty of time nestled into my PS4 disc drive.

NBA 2K20 rounds out my top three, which is not totally unexpected, as the game's "daily check-in" feature kept me coming back most days for free login rewards - plus, I played the game a ton during NBA season to get my Utah Jazz fix.

Other games that clocked a ton of hours but didn't crack Playstation's "Wrap-up" list likely would have included the following:

• Stardew Valley
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
• Kingdom Hearts III
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate (PS4)
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2
• Batman: Arkham City (PS4 remaster)
• Red Dead Redemption 2

Total Hours Played:

Wow. 2,419 hours... That's, um, like 100 days of having the Playstation systems booted up. I'll justify it by saying this: Playstation likely logged just that - the number of hours that I had a game running, not the actual amount of time I was physically playing. That means that if I paused a game to eat dinner or turned off the TV to run to the store without logging out of the game, the clock kept ticking.

As far as the number of days played, I can chalk that one up to the aforementioned daily check-ins on NBA 2K. Often times, I would hop on for literally like two minutes to get my login reward, then power the system back down, so I find this stat to be somewhat misleading.

Regardless, if that's the quantity of time I'm spending with my consoles, I'm getting a pretty good return on investment. Thanks, quarantine!

Games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS4 remaster), Far Cry 3: Classic Edition (PS4) and The Outer Worlds would have been games in the "Action-Adventure" genre, so I spent my fair share of hours shooting 'em up and slashing 'em down, as it were. That's a lot of hours.

Total Trophies:

"Trophies" are in-game achievements and goals, such as "Defeat [X Number] of Enemies," "Beat the Game on Hard Difficulty," "Hit a Home Run with a Player from Each Side of the Plate in the Same Game," and so on and so forth. To say that, in the past several years, I've become more focused on what gamers call "trophy hunting" would be accurate.

Platinum trophies are an indicator that one has completed all the goals for a given game - 100% completion, so to speak. Here are the 15 games for which I obtained the elusive platinum trophy during 2020:

• Star Wars - Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4)
• Far Cry Primal
• The Sims 4 (PS4)
• WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2010 (PS3)
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
• Monster Jam: Battlegrounds (PS3)
• Kingdom Hearts III
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate
• Far Cry 3: Classic Edition
• MLB The Show 20
• WWE 2K20
• Back to the Future: The Game
• Fallout 3
• Need for Speed (PS4)
• Astro's Playroom

In addition, I also got 100% completion on the following games, which did not have an associated platinum trophy:

• Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage
• AdVenture Capitalist

Hooray for me.

Playstation 5:

As if it were a literal Christmas miracle, I beat the odds and somehow, some way was lucky enough to get my hands on a Playstation 5; it was delivered to me on Christmas Eve. Once it was delivered, I got a chance to play it a handful of times in the final week of 2020, so the sample size is quite small. Nevertheless, Sony provided me some insight, as follows:

Editor's note: There is no way that I got 141 PS5 trophies between December 24 - 31. Not a chance. Not sure where that number came from.

Playstation Plus and Online Gaming:

Playstation Plus is a subscription service that not only allows users to play online against other gamers but also provides several free games each month. In 2020, I took advantage of downloading 19 of those games. Thanks for the savings!

I very rarely play games online (cooperatively or competitively) with others because I don't like getting my butt handed to me by children. However, it looks like I spent seven hours playing the highly divisive, online-only Fallout 76, likely with my brother. It didn't happen often, which is a shame. We had pretty high hopes for that game - hopes that were not entirely fulfilled.

Analysis and Conclusion:

After chatting with some, apparently, judgmental co-workers about these stats, one of them ran my numbers and accused me of playing an average of six and a half hours of Playstation per day last year. He told me not to tell my wife. I subsequently pulled out my calculators and verified his math. It is inconceivable that those numbers are accurate. Granted, there are definitely some days when I play multiple hours of video games, but I definitely did not play an average of six hours per day, every single day of the year - not unless the "hours played" is also counting the number of hours my console was running Netflix and Hulu because I totally got my money's worth out of my streaming service subscriptions during the quarantine.

In conclusion, I'm not sure that one stat is completely accurate, but other than that, at least I feel like I'm getting some good entertainment value out of my Playstations. Everybody has a hobby, right? Nobody would judge me if I said that I read 40 books last year. Reading books, watching shows, playing games... It's all pretty much the same thing, right? My family comes first, but I see nothing wrong with having a little digital entertainment on the side. Judge away, haters.

My video gaming in 2020 took me to outer space, through plenty of classic Disney locations, to the Old West, through a re-imagined continuation of my favorite movie trilogy, to sports arenas across the country (even when COVID wouldn't allow me to watch games in real life) and beyond. I played some incredible games that told fantastic stories and spent a few nights playing others that I wish I wouldn't have. All in all, 2020 will probably go down as the year in which I spent more time playing video games in my entire life. I'd never wish another pandemic upon us, but, during the one that we got last year, at least I made a pretty sizeable dent in my ever-growing backlog of games.

*****

What are your gaming memories from 2020? Which games did you enjoy? Which didn't you care for? Which games are you playing (or looking forward to playing) in 2021? I'd love to get your thoughts in the comments section below, on Twitter (here and here) or, as always, on Facebook.

Until next time.

5 Things That Saved Me During Quarantine

It goes without saying that 2020 was a weird, weird year. I, like many others, had a bunch of plans that just didn't work out due to the coronavirus pandemic, like a baseball trip to Chicago and a Santana/Earth, Wind & Fire concert. There were movies I wanted to see, things I wanted to do and a years-long streak of going to the gym that I would have preferred to keep intact. Instead, I found myself quarantined at home, often forbidden by the government from leaving - and when I could leave the house, it wasn't without a very stylish facemask.

However, there were actually a lot of really good things that took place in 2020 that - dare I say it? - wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances. It has warmed my cold, dead heart to see so many friends and acquaintances acknowledging on social media that, although 2020 pretty much sucked, there was also a whole lot to be thankful for. While I feel like I should reserve some of my more personal experiences for a much more private setting, I thought it would be fun to take a second and jot down a few of the fun things that blessed my life while stuck at home in 2020.

1. Video Games

First and foremost, I need to give an enormous shoutout to Animal Crossing, which has truly been a cornerstone in The A-Towns' quarantine experience.

I'll never forget the night of March 11, 2020, when the Utah Jazz vs. Oklahoma City Thunder game was postponed after it was determined that Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. That was an event that changed the world as we knew it. Professional sports seemed to be the first thing that shut down, but businesses and other public venues were soon to follow. Shortly thereafter, my place of employment sent everybody home and I was stuck inside for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" was released for the Nintendo Switch on March 20, which, I think was, like, my first Friday at home. I hurried over to the nearest Target to pick up the new game and got to work on my island. I was chopping wood and catching fish for days on end, and I loved it. I played the original "Animal Crossing" growing up, so having a new next-gen version of the game was fun. Eventually, my wife, Miranda, took an interest in the game and I set her up with a character in the game.

After that, I didn't see her for three weeks.

Kidding, of course, but she did pick up on the game pretty quickly and, before we knew it, we were tag-teaming the island of Nookton and curating a place for our resident neighbors to enjoy.

By nature, "Animal Crossing" can become a somewhat tedious, chore-driven form of recreation, but with Miranda and me checking into the island and maintaining its upkeep on a nearly daily basis, it gave us something to talk about and something on which we could collaborate and work together. It has also brought us great joy that my sister received "ACNH" for Christmas, and I have had fun hopping online to visit her and give her tips over the past few days. Thanks, "Animal Crossing"!

Editor's note: Two other games we have loved playing together on the Switch were "Stardew Valley" and "FUSER."

*****

I also had plenty of opportunities to catch up on my Playstation backlog over the past nine months. I'm a man who enjoys great deals, and I'm also a long-time subscriber to the "Playstation Plus" program, which grants free games to users each month, so I've accumulated quite a wealth of video games over the years. The inability to go outdoors for entertainment left me at home with nothing but time on my hands, so I tried my best to make sure I got my money's worth out of all the Playstation games that have been sitting around, gathering dust.

Some of the games I enjoyed the most during quarantine were the "Kingdom Hearts" franchise, the freshly remastered "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2," "The Outer Worlds," "MLB The Show 20," "Marvel's Avengers" and "Red Dead Redemption 2," which I FINALLY had time to go back and play.

Being the OCD, completionist freak that I am, I also made an effort to fully complete as many games as I could. During the pandemic, I got the ever-elusive platinum trophy (or 100% completion) on the following Playstation games:

• "LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2"
• "Monster Jam: Battlegrounds"
• "Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage"
• "Kingdom Hearts III"
• "Assassin's Creed Syndicate"
• "Far Cry 3: Classic Edition"
• "AdVenture Capitalist"
• "MLB The Show 20"
• "WWE 2K20"
• "Back to the Future: The Game"
• "Batman: Arkham City"
• "Fallout 3"
• "Need For Speed"
• "Astro's Playroom"

So yeah, video games kept me pretty busy, and I don't regret it at all. It's not like I could have gone outside to do something else instead. Oh, and despite all the crap I said about the PS5 launch (it was a disaster), Walmart and FedEx made me a very happy little nerd by delivering one to me on Christmas Eve, which was a modern day Christmas miracle, so I really can't complain too much.

2. DDP Yoga

Before COVID closed the country down, I had been going to the gym at least once a week for like 10 years. That's not an exaggeration; it's true. I know you probably couldn't tell by looking at me, but I tried my best to stay in shape. However, once gyms closed, I couldn't get out and pump iron anymore, which was a major bummer for me. I tried to cheat the system by jokingly driving to the gym, getting out, doing a couple push-ups and then checking in on the Swarm app, which I use to monitor how often I get out of the house, but Swarm eventually stopped counting "check-in streaks," despite my best efforts, so I stopped going altogether.

During the pandemic months, I have only gone back to the gym one time since they re-opened with safety precautions (allegedly) in place. Beside myself, I only saw one other patron (excluding employees) who was wearing a mask, so I guess I haven't felt totally safe to return until this virus is a bit more under control. Muscleheads are weirdos and generally cannot be trusted, in terms of personal hygiene and sanitation.

Without a gym to go to, I've had to get creative with my exercise. More often than not, this has meant that I turn to my old friend Diamond Dallas Page's "DDP Yoga" program for home fitness. Page, a 60-something WWE Hall of Famer, created his home workout regimen to help people lose weight and recover from sports injuries, but Miranda and I have used it as a suitable replacement for our VASA memberships, which we really should call in and put a freeze on before they continue to charge our monthly fees again.

DDP Yoga has helped us stay relatively "in-shape" while quarantined, and has been a nice activity for us a couple times a week after work. Admittedly, we haven't done it quite as well as we probably should have, but we've supplemented with occasional walks around our condominium parking lot and other miscellaneous exercises. Certainly, I'm no yoga expert, but I can absolutely tell an improvement in my balance and flexibility between the time I started working out with DDPY and now, so I'll count that as a win.

3. Streaming Services, Virtual Fan Experiences and Theater Trips

When Miranda and I first got married, I floated out the idea that, at some point, we should have a "movie month," where we watched one movie every night for an entire month. Sounded like fun at the time.

Now, nine months into a global pandemic, that doesn't sound as fun as I thought a year ago. During quarantine, I have literally kept track of everything that I watched. Granted, I didn't think we'd still be essentially locked down for this long, but I thought it would be interesting to see how much stuff I could watch until they sent me back to the office.

Hang on a second. Let me pull up my list.

It's 223 bullet points long, including movies, seasons of TV shows, documentaries and made-for-TV concerts. Two hundred and twenty three. Holy crap.

I've binge-watched a lot of great stuff, including catching up on some old series that I never finished; rewatching some stuff that Miranda had never seen; watching live shows like "The Masked Singer," "Survivor" and even "The Bachelorette." I've seen a handful of movies and shows edited for content, thanks to VidAngel. I've DVRed classic movies that were new to me, like "Saving Private Ryan," "Gladiator" and "Rebel Without a Cause." Like many of you, I thoroughly enjoyed Season 2 of "The Mandalorian" from the comfort of my living room. I'm a far more cultured, in-the-know person now, after spending so much time on the couch, and I most definitely got some great value out of my streaming subscriptions this year.

*****

I was a "virtual fan" a couple times during 2020! You may have seen me during a Utah Jazz playoff game or (briefly) on WWE programming ("Smackdown!" and "205 Live"). You may not have seen me on "The Masked Singer" because they totally botched their virtual fan experience, but hey, we did get to watch the first performance of "Group C" in Season 4. They were not good - clearly the worst of the three groups this season, but I guess it was kind of interesting, nevertheless.

*****

One aspect of entertainment that we can thank COVID-19 for is straight-to-streaming movie releases - something that seemed unfathomable a year ago. During the pandemic, my family and I have been treated to "Bill & Ted Face the Music," "Soul" and "Wonder Woman 1984," and we even forked over $30 to watch the decent-but-mostly-unnecessary "Mulan" remake on Disney+ one time.

One thing I really had fun with during the pandemic was being able to venture out a couple times to a real-life movie theater (it's a big building we used to go to when we wanted to eat popcorn and watch movies with our friends, back before the plague). When things gradually started to open back up, we found a theater about 30 minutes south of where we live that was showing old movies for super-cheap. They were even showing my all-time favorite movies, the "Back to the Future" trilogy, and Miranda mentioned that we should check it out since I'd never seen those movies on the big screen. Over the course of a few weeks, we saw all three movies, socially distanced from the half-dozen other people in the theater, for less than $10, total. It was amazing and definitely a highlight of 2020 for me.

On three other occasions, my family rented out a theater to watch a movie together. That's right - just me, my parents and my siblings' families, all alone to watch "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World," "Ghostbusters" and "Hocus Pocus." The theaters took all the necessary precautions and treated us like VIPs the entire time. I can't thank the Megaplex and Cinemark theaters that gave us that thrice-in-a-lifetime experience. Again, that was something that we probably never would have done without the pandemic paving the way.

4. #GiveThanks

Arguably, my favorite week this year other than Christmas was the week leading up to Thanksgiving. When President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a challenge for members of the church - and those of any other religion or background - to spread gratitude on their social media accounts, my Facebook and Instagram feeds were overcome with fun posts from those I follow. I got to see what made my friends and family happy, which provided a welcome break from the doom and gloom of election season, and helped me catch up with people I hadn't heard from in years. It also gave me a chance to reflect on the things that I was thankful for, from my family to my education and the many opportunities I've been given to work in journalism and with comic conventions. It was always fun to wake up each day and think about what I would be posting before the sun went down, and it made it so I actually looked forward to getting on my phone and mindlessly scrolling through what everyone else was talking about. For those of you who participated in the #GiveThanks challenge, thank you for making my life better during 2020.

5. Parenthood/Working From Home

Finally, I am thankful for parenthood - and no, I'm not talking about the TV show "Parenthood," although we did watch Season 1 a few weeks ago.

The year 2020 will always be one of my favorite years, if for no other reason than that it gave me and Miranda our first child, Stockton. Every day, I am still in awe that we have a little roommate - and that Miranda actually let me name him after my favorite basketball player. Stockton is such a perfect little boy. He is the best little buddy we ever could have asked for, and he has brought us such great happiness and joy. He is cuter and way funnier than we ever could have imagined, and we just love kissing his little cheeks. He is our snuggle bug, our movie and TV pal, and he loves staying up late with Daddy to play video games or read books. Speaking of reading books, we have spent quite a bit of time reading to Stockton lately, whether it has been a book by our old family friend John Cena or a story out of Stockton's brand new Marvel storybook. He is generally a very happy dude, and more than anything, he loves being held - by anyone!

Parenthood has been a wild ride for us so far. We're trying our best to learn what to do to take care of our baby, and I think we're actually doing ok! It has definitely taught me to put the child's needs first, above my own, which means:

• I quite often can no longer play online video games that cannot be paused
• Several times a week, I'm not going to bed until at least 1 AM
• Stockton likes being held by someone who is standing up, to the dismay of my lower back and legs

*****

When Walmart first told us that we were going to have to work from home because of the virus, I honestly thought we'd be out of the office for maybe two weeks, then we'd be right back. Obviously, that didn't happen, and COVID-19 has turned into a much bigger deal than I thought it was. Working from home has been an interesting deal. The work I do can totally be done virtually, so that hasn't been bad, but I do miss the ability to walk up to somebody's face if they haven't responded to my Slack message for 45 minutes and make them give me an answer on the spot. I also miss the free snacks they gave us in the office. Other than that, being away from the office really hasn't been miserable.

Working from home has saved me, undoubtedly, hundreds of dollars on gas. Instead of filling up bi-weekly, now I refuel about once a month. There have been a couple weeks where I haven't even gone outside in days. That kind of sucks, but at least it's an inexpensive lifestyle.

Setting up shop on the couch or in my home office has given me the ability to turn on the TV (mostly as background noise) while I work, without interruption. It's a nice way to multi-task while still hitting my numbers and getting stuff done for my bosses.

The best thing of all is that I've been able to spend so much time with Miranda since March, and with Stockton since October. I got six weeks of paternity leave when he was first born, and they're allowing me six more to use any time within the first year of the child's life. I'll take those in a couple weeks, once Miranda has to go back to work. Right now, they're saying we will continue to work remotely until at least July 5, 2021. Of course, they'll play things by ear and adjust that date, if necessary, but it most likely means that I'll get to play Mr. Mom to Stockton for a few more months (simultaneously saving a ton of money that we would have had to spend on child care in a non-COVID world). My wallet thanks my employer, and Mr. Sam Walton, the veritable founder of the feast. We are incredibly thankful and count ourselves blessed that Miranda and I both were able to continue working throughout all the craziness 2020 threw our way.

No, 2020 was not even close to the year we all wanted. The holidays all fell on weekends, "twenty-twenty" was a nice round number, there were plenty of vision puns to be made, but COVID-19 wrecked us all and forced us into uncomfortable situations where we all had to make adjustments. No, things didn't magically revert back to normal at the stroke of midnight, early this morning. Sometimes, you just can't always get what you want.

But taking a page out of President Nelson's book and looking for the positive memories that were made along the way really goes to show that 2020 will go down as one of the most memorable stretches of our entire lives.

Here's hoping that we can do a bit more traveling, a lot more socializing and maybe even attend a couple sporting events and concerts in 2021.

Happy new year from everybody here at Signs of the Times!

FanX 15 - "Great Scott!": Christopher Lloyd on the inspiration behind Doc Brown

One of my favorite parts about Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2015 was the opportunity I had to sit on the front row during Christopher Lloyd’s panel on the second morning of the convention. The Back to the Future trilogy was a huge part of my childhood, so seeing Doc Brown, live and in person, was amazingly awesome for me. I just wish I would have been more prepared to snag a less-blurry picture of him holding up the iconic Mattel hoverboard (which he emphatically proclaimed “wouldn’t work”).

Now, it dawned on me about three quarters of the way through the panel that I should probably have been taking notes or recording some audio so I could blog about it later, so there’s some good news and some bad news here: The bad news is that I didn’t record or write down anything for about 40 minutes, but the good news is that I did record a couple answers that he gave toward the end of the hour.

One question that begged a noteworthy response was an inquiry as to the origin of Doc Brown’s eccentricity. For the sake of his reputation, with which I’m practically not even worthy to touch, I’m not going to paraphrase, sum up or adjust any of his response. I’ll simply include it all –starting at the point where I began recording – and let Mr. Lloyd take it from there. He began by talking about Albert Einstein, noting the wild hairstyle and vastly superior intellect and we’ll join his response right there, mid-sentence:

“…E = MC², and so forth… Extraordinary. Albert Einstein went on a travel across the ocean in a big ship liner and they found… Here’s the genius of his time… and they couldn’t find him; somehow he’d disappeared and they were worried about, “Where was he? What happened to him? Where’s Albert?” And they went down to the bottom of a hole, where, you know… the lowest people were living down there, who couldn’t afford… they were the bottom deck. And he was there, playing with a pinball machine. Who’d have thunk, you know? And the other image I had – I feel maybe I’m going on a little too much about this – was the… I love classical music. I grew up with it around the… [interrupted by applause] …And there was a great doctor by the name of Leopold Stokowski. He was a conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra – wonderful – and he did a lot of innovative interpretations of Bach and other music… All right. There was a piece he did called ‘Planets,’ a classical piece, where each planet is described in music, describing that planet’s mythical association, like the planet Mars. Music was picked that was very ‘military’ and harsh. Venus, the goddess of love, etc… I had that recording and it showed the solar system on the jacket. This was back when you had records [laughs]… and Leopold Stokowski had his arms raised, with the baton in his hand… He had this shock-white hair coming behind him in his profile. That was a lot of my image of Doc Brown. I remember my father looked at that jacket and he said, ‘I’m sure he’s a great musician, but does he have to have his hair like that?’”

Seeing Mr. Lloyd was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. Let’s be honest, though he defied the laws of aging on-screen for so long, it was somewhat apparent to me that the guy is getting older. Who knows how much longer we’ll have him around? But, for the time being, I can say from personal experience that the man is a legend – a national treasure. His roles in movies like Back to the Future and Clue have provided me with years of laughter and enough classic one-liners to impress (and, likely, annoy) my friends for a lifetime. (…not to mention the fact that his role in Who Framed Roger Rabbit gave me nightmares throughout my entire childhood!)

Here’s to you, Christopher Lloyd! Thanks for the memories.