Tales From The Cereal Aisle
Every Wednesday I go to the store to do a little grocery shopping. Most weeks I can get away with $40-$50 worth of products, but every third week or so I have to do “the big shop.”
“Bino needs litter, food, treats and a new toy. Out of eggs, maybe I should make a proper breakfast this week. Need protein powder. Need peanut butter. Bread? I have tortillas. No wait no I don’t. I made tacos on Sunday. Shit, I need hamburger meat. No beef this week. You need to thaw out that ground turkey.”
These are just a few of the thoughts flying through my mind as I attempt the big shop. By the end I walk out with just over one hundred dollars spent. I anticipate the big shop. I practically write it in the calendar at this point. Sometimes I consider just hitching a ride to Sam’s Club and doing my shopping in bulk, but part of me loves the freedom of walking across the street and taking my time snooping out the selection at my local grocer. Maybe this week I’ll hit up the deli and get some ham. Perhaps a new bag of chips to try.
One part of the store that I try to avoid however is the dreaded cereal aisle.
First thing’s first: Most, if not all cereal is inherently bad for you. Whether you buy a neon colored box with some animal mascot on it or a plain Jane box of Cheerios, it all turns to sugar at some point. That doesn’t stop me from indulging though. I know the knife will kill me, but sometimes I like to mess around with one.
If I end up in the cereal aisle I’ll practically shut down. There’s just too many types to choose from. Kix, Trix, Corn Pops, Corn Flakes, Captain Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp, the list goes on for miles. After a solid 5 minutes last week I decided to go with Lucky Charms– a cereal that I don’t even like! The actual cereal part is fine enough, but the marshmallows have that gritty, dense texture to them that hurts my teeth. When they finally become soft the cereal is ruined. You can never have a perfect ratio of absorbed mallows to crunchy cereal. It’s man’s biggest failure to breakfast food.
I get home, shelve my newly acquired items, and reflect on exactly what I didn’t need.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten a whole 12 pack of diet coke. I should’ve just gotten a two liter. Bino didn’t need food after all. Why did I buy a new bag already?”
“…Why the fuck did I buy Lucky Charms”
Hello. If You haven’t guessed it already this is a metaphor for game subscription services.
Last January I purchased a year subscription to PlayStation Plus Premium…Extra? I never learned the difference in names. I bought the subscription that has the monthly free games, the Gamepass-like “Game Catalog” and the PS0ne games that vary from “Good” to “Disney Tie-in.” Not bad, but why am I paying over $100 a year for this?
I told myself that I was going to see exactly how many “free” games I would finish in the coming year.
I didn’t finish any.
Sure, I played a whole bunch, but When it came to multiplatform games like Neo: The World Ends With You and Star Ocean: The Divine Force I would catch myself glancing towards my PC. I can’t help it. I just love playing games on Steam. I’m a slave to Valve. I own their giant baby handheld PC. I own their weird controller. I have an allegiance, and that’s to Gabe Newell apparently.
With my Steam and Switch library I feel a sick form of pride in knowing that the games available to me are games that I actively went out and purchased. Meticulously curated and cataloged experiences for me to enjoy, or to stare at for an undisclosed period of time before closing so I can play more Tetris Effect. For PlayStation Plus (and Xbox Gamepass as well) the cereal aisle was now surgically implanted into my game collection. What was once a totem of leisure is now a dishonorable place of foreign entities.
It’s not all bad though. In a sick move on my part I used Playstation Plus games as an extended demo of sorts. About an hour in if I liked a game enough I would stop playing and then wishlist the game on steam or purchase it outright. That way when my subscription ran out I would still be able to play it. Games also don’t stay on the service permanently, with a lot of titles getting Disney-vaulted right before one might hit the finish line. You can always just purchase the game after it gets removed, but that might make someone feel a bit cheated. Imagine dropping $120 on the service only to pay another $40–50 on the game you were just playing? You can always just wait for a sale, but by the time that happens the fun you had might be a fleeting memory. You may just stop playing the game outright.
One more thing to note is that a good chunk of Playstation Plus’ catalog are games that are either fairly inexpensive to begin with or are prone to hitting $20 or less when on sale. It would just make sense to purchase the the games a la carte. Xbox Gamepass has the luxury of cutting big deals with publishers for games like Wo Long and Remnant, not to mention their 1st party games being on the service day one as opposed to PlayStation’s taking a year or more to hit their own service. Gamepass still isn’t perfect though, because when it comes to playing new titles my Xbox Series S was never first to bat. It was essentially a Lost Odyssey machine right up until I sold it last August. Gamepass on PC is nice, but if I’m already at my desk I might as well open up Steam.
As of writing my Playstation Plus subscription has ended, and I don’t plan on ever renewing it. I understand that you need the base version of PS+ to play online, but thankfully I’ll be purchasing games like Tekken 8 on my trusty old PC. I still don’t think the service is actually bad, just not for me. I love playing games at my own speed, and don’t like the looming threat of a game being removed from the service hovering over my head like a cartoonish rain cloud.
-PA
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Now, with all this said and done I took some time to write up a comprehensive list of games that I own, and actually intend to finish at some point in my life. Think of this as a reward for taking the time out of your day to humor my rambling.
I present to you: THE PRIVATELY ATTACK GAMES LIST- 2024 EDITION
Switch
Ai The Somnium Files
Citizen Sleeper
Cosmic Star Heroine
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Kentucky Route Zero
Moon Remix RPG Adventure (never finished it)
Onimusha
Pokemon Legends Arceus
Saga Frontier
Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne (again)
Star Ocean (never finished)
The Alliance Alive
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Tokyo Mirage Sessions
Xenoblade 3
PlayStation 5
Cyberpunk 2077
Devil May Cry 5
Mundaun
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Soul Hackers 2 (never finished)
PlayStation 4
.Hack
428 Shibuya Scramble
Bayonetta
Bloodborne
Catherine
Child of Light
Chrono Cross
Dark Souls (again)
Days Gone
Dead Rising
Dragon Quest XI (again, for like the third or fourth time)
Dragon’s Crown
Farcry 3
Final Fantasy VIII (never finished)
Judgement
Killzone Shadow Fall
Mass Effect
Murdered Soul Suspect
Ni No Kuni
Red Dead Redemption II
Sakura Wars
Sekiro
Stories Untold
Tales of Vesperia (again)
Last Remnant
Silver Case
Travis Strikes Again
Uncharted
Vanquish
Yakuza: Like A Dragon (currently playing, about twenty hours in)
PC
999
Anodyne
Ape Out
Atari 50th
Baldur’s Gate 3
Batman Arkham Asylum
Blood: Fresh Supply
Bravely Default II
Broken Age
Bugsnax
Celeste
Chrono Trigger
Crisis Core
Dead Space
Deathloop
Deus Ex
Disco Elysium (never finished, unless you count some of the game ends as actual clears)
Dishonored
Doom (2016)
Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon’s Dogma (never finished)
Dredge
Eastward
Elden Ring (never finished, just love hanging out in that game)
Etrian Odyssey III
Fable
Fallout 2 (again)
Final Fantasy Type 0 (again)
Forgotten City
Frog Detective
Gato Roboto
Ghostwire Tokyo (never finished)
Goodbye World
Grim Fandango
Gris
Half Life
Halo
Hellblade
Hifi Rush (never finished, probably gonna restart because it was so good)
Higurashi: When They Cry
Hitman: World Of Assassination
House of Fata Morgana
I am Setsuna
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream
Ikaruga (1CC, or one credit clear)
Katamari Damacy
Killer 7
LA Noire
Lost Planet
Metal Gear Rising
Metro 2033
Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight
Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Mushihimesama (1CC)
Norco
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Octopath II (never finished)
Ori and The Blind Forest
Outer Worlds
Painkiller
Paradise Killer
Paranormasight
Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous
Pathologic
Pentiment
Pillars Of Eternity
Persona 5 Royale (finished P5 vanilla, kind of a toss up if I actually want to play again. May just play P3R to satisfy my primal urge for Atlus games)
Planescape: Torment
Pony Island
Prey (2006)
Prey (2017)
Psychonauts
Queen Beast
Rain World
Return To Castle Wolfenstein
Rez (again, not in VR this time)
Roadwarden
Root Letter
SaGa Scarlet Grace
Scarlet Nexus
Season: A Letter To The Future
Secret of Monkey Island
Shenmue
Shiren The Wanderer 5
Skyrim (again)
Sleeping Dogs
Sludge Life
Spiritfarer
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
Steins Gate
Stray
Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP
Syberia
Tacoma
Tactics Ogre
Tales of Arise
Tell Me Why
Thief
Thimbleweed Park
Thumper
Tomb Raider 2013
Tyranny
Umurangi Generation (never finished)
Unsighted
VA11HALLA
Valkyria Chronicles
Void Stranger
The Walking Dead Season One
Wattam
Wolfenstein (Machine Games’ whole catalog)
What Remains of Edith Finch
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
World Of Horror
Ys I, II, VI, Origin, and VIII
