What a month October is shaping up to be after a pretty dreary September. First up, it’s my birth month, and yes, I’m hitting the big 4-0 this year. Another milestone and best on current average life-expectancy of a typical Malaysian, I would say I’m half-way there. I’ve got a duathlon at the end of the month to commemorate this as well.
We are nearly at the mid-cycle of the current generation of consoles, and since I’ve already own nearly all of them (bar the Xbox Series X), I don’t think video game consoles are on the list of presents this year. The Steam Deck is the latest addition to my collection, and I think I’ve reached saturation point for my consoles. My wife would definitely continue to suggest selling the PS5, since it’s the most under-used (or useless?) console on the TV cabinet.
I do however have a check-list of PC parts to cross off for an upcoming build, so feel free to gift the following (do drop me a DM :)):
- DDR5 RAM
- 800-1000w PSU
- E-ATX capable PC case
- 2-or-3-fan AIO CPU cooler
Now October also happens to be the birth month for two franchises that I hold dear to my heart. Super Dimension Fortress Macross first aired in October 1982, and yes, it’s celebrating its 40-year anniversary this year. The anime, re-defined the real-robot genre while at the same time introduced a space opera with common tropes that come to define subsequent Macross series.
I remember catching Robotech on terrestrial TV, this being an amalgamation of Macross with two other unrelated anime, and while the hack job was pretty good, the novels were better. I then encountered Macross Plus and Macross: Do You Remember Love in college; getting the DVDs for these from a stall in a dodgy shopping mall near where I was studying. I skipped Macross 7 simply because the box-set was really expensive.
The series I loved best was the 2009 Macross Frontier, featuring not one, but two idols, Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee in a love triangle. The music featured in the TV series was totally awesome and there was plenty to like about Macross Quarter (the ship is a quarter size of the original SDF-1 Macross), but I missed out on getting a die-cast model of the ship.
The 2016 Macross Delta was “ok” in my books, but what I would recommend is to watch the second Macross Delta movie, titled Zettai Live. The movie features the return of fan-favourite character Maximilian Jenius from the 1982 TV series and Macross 7, as well as *major spoiler alerts* the death of a major protagonist from the Delta TV series!
Alright, so what’s the second franchise that’s celebrating its birth month? One hint: “war, war never changes”. Yup, the original Fallout was released way back on October 10th 1997 and its celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! Woot! To be honest, I didn’t get into Fallout 1 and 2 (I don’t recall seeing the game in stores, albeit these were pirated game stores), but I got into Fallout 3 and 4 in a very big way, with hundreds of hours invested in those games across the PS3, PS4 and the PC.
My Fallout 3 experience has been totally on the PS3, but I’m planning to get that title on Steam since it’s on sale this month along with the rest of the Fallout franchise.
So what else to do in this excellent month of October? Perhaps I should continue with the PC build that I have in mind, parts permitting.
