Over the years I’ve written lots of things that I’ve never published anywhere. I’m not sure any of this stuff is that good, but I’m determined to try and update this site at least a few times a year (even outside of just endlessly going on and on about Japan). In that spirit, here are two notes I’ve written about stuff that’s happened this year.
A perfect winter day in eastern Helsinki
The weather this February — really, throughout winter and spring — has shifted from freezing (around minus 20 degrees celsius) and snowing, where your face starts to hurt after spending 20 minutes outdoors, to warm, gray, rainy and foggy days, with even a scarf feeling suffocatingly hot.
But there was one day in mid-February where the weather was just perfect. It was cold, around maybe minus 7 degrees celsius, the sun shining and no clouds in sight (the quintessential fool’s spring, followed by several other false springs). The ground was covered in ice wherever tree coverage prevented the sun from melting it, making walking perilous at times. But you can forgive many of the negative aspects of a Helsinki winter as long as the sun is shining and you can walk around with your jacket open.
A small group of us made our way down to the southern edge of Laajasalo island, to the affluent neighborhood of Jollas, which is home to a cozy, small public sauna that you can buy a ticker for in advance. The kind of place you could bring a tourist to and make them really fall in love with the city. Located in the grounds of an old, wooden villa and surrounded by tall, red pine trees, the sauna was nestled between a small beach on one side and a rocky outcropping topped by wind-twisted pines on the other.
The sauna could just about fit 10 people — the maximum allowed for each 2-hour time slot — without feeling like you’re sitting a bit too close to people you don’t know. The changing room was small and cozy. If you felt like it, you could walk down the pier to take a dip in the freezing cold sea. The day was warm enough to sit down on the pier to cool down in your swimming trunks without getting cold.
After our session was over, we walked back up the steep hill (covered in ice, of course) and made our way to Saari, the neighborhood shopping center that, from the outside, looks like the small scale industrial plants and warehouses that dot both sides of capital area’s ring roads. Inside, there’s a sports bar that’s become known for serving pretty good soft tacos. After enjoying some tacos while watching (and trying to understand the rules of a) snooker tournament on TV, we all headed back home.
What I’ve been playing: Cyberpunk 2077
I’m sure this is not uncommon, but the amount of time I spend video games has fallen precipitously as I’ve grown older. It’s not that all that time is now spent cleaning the house or cooking, watching Arsenal lose the league on TV or reading books, but playing games just isn’t always on top of the list of things I want to do with my free time.
But sometimes there’s a game hat will just suck up all my free time, invade my thoughts at work and occasionally even cause insomnia. One recent example of a game like this was Anno 1800, which I played for what must be hundreds of hours, meticulously trying to build the perfect supply chain and, through that, the perfect city.
The resource management-trading simulation-city-building sandbox game mode becomes even more fun (and addicting) to play if you disable AI rivals, which means you can’t really lose the game (unless you go bankrupt). This allows you to fully focus on crafting ever more complicated supply chain networks needed to build the cars, elevators and fur coats your metropolis’ population needs.
Anno 1800 is a really busy game that can feel overwhelming: outside of ensuring citizens’ consumption needs are met, you have to manage and expand your city and island ownership, complete questlines, commission research and send out ships in expeditions or in search of sunken treasure. Every time I play it I pretty much have a plan in mind of what I need to do next to grow my city and economy. In a sense, this is pretty much required, since the game usually lives it up to you to decide how big and prosperous you want your city and empire to be.
The sense of having to think ahead and plan what to do rewires your brain to constantly think about it. I would stare at a blank PowerPoint slide at work (do not worry, employers – this did not affect my ability to work efficiently) and just think about what product my city’s smoke-choked industrial district should manufacture, what part of the map I should cover in beautiful Haussmann-style apartment buildings and to which island I need to shift wheat farms to get more land for my ever-expanding metropolis. This would continue for a few weeks, maybe a month, until I eventually ran out of steam, only to pick the game up again and become re-obsessed with it usually a year later.
Cyberpunk 2077
The most recent game that hooked me in this way was Cyberpunk 2077, a game I originally intended to get for the PS4 back when it launched. What happened with the game is well-known at this point – see here for an example of how the sentiment surrounding the game has changed since it’s disastrous launch – but needless to say, letting the game simmer for over two years turned out to be the right call. I’m always interested in cyberpunk stuff, and so having bought an Xbox Series X last autumn, I thought time would be right to see what the newfound positivity surrounding the game was about. It didn’t disappoint.
Games usually take some time to “click”: i.e., reach a moment where suddenly I “get it”, and then I can’t get enough of it. Some games just click instantly, like Anno, while some games never do, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. With Cyberpunk, that moment came about 20 hours in, when I was sitting in my car after a mission. The car was parked outside the No Tell Motel on the outskirts of Night City, with the city’s skyline and vertical advertising holograms visible behind tall cliffs, and the radio started playing this song. After that moment I was completely absorbed by the game’s world, story, (mostly) fun combat, and phenomenal soundtrack. Like with Anno, my thoughts almost constantly revolved around what I should do next in game.
It’s not a perfect game. You can’t enter lots of buildings, and the game doesn’t have a lot of side activities – gambling, for example, isn’t included, which seems like a bit of an oversight in a city as seedy as Night City, although I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some very sensible game development reason for leaving it out. There’s therefore little to occupy you outside of the (sometimes a little repetitive) quests and gigs. In addition, sometimes your character’s dialogue doesn’t really match what you thought you selected, and sometimes, I don’t really want to choose any of the options given. Especially the latter thing can feel frustrating when other characters then react negatively to something you didn’t want to say but had to to progress the story.
Outside of the gameplay positives, what really lifts the game up from a fun but flawed first-person RPG to something unique is, as suggested by the reason it “clicked”, its atmosphere and sense of immersion. I don’t think you’ll really get as much out of the game if you don’t sometimes slow down and walk around a bit in the city’s many, many unique neighborhoods and breathe in its sounds and sights. Wanting to just walk around the city in between completing missions is the real reason I keep coming back to the game again and again.
Eero Tuorila 