Picks: March

Hello everyone! March is well underway and now that I have officially finished moving into my new apartment I am ready to release and start consuming my picks for March. To start off, the theme for this month is nature, and the themes for the next two months are going to be a bit different than how I've previously been doing things. Before I would come up with the theme before selecting my picks; however, over the course of the next three months I will be reading a trilogy, so the themes will be planned around each individual book of the three books instead of the other way around. I have been itching to read this book series and figured I could fit it in pretty well with the format of "Year of Critique". With that out of the way, let's get into my picks for March!

Book: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Author: J. R. R. Tolkien

Why I chose this book: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy! Yes this is the series that I so badly want to read. After watching the extended editions last year I wanted nothing more than to read the books. Fast-forward to now and, well, I'm reading them! So many people I know are so invested in the books, that I figured it would be a shame to not give them a read after how much I liked the films. Like I said earlier, I will try and pick a theme every month that works well with each individual book in the series to keep things as on track as possible. To deviate a bit however, I will not be writing a review for these books until I finish all three. The next two months of reviews, expect one less review than usual while I finish this trilogy.

Album: The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton

Artist: Clogs

Why I chose this Album: My friend recommended me this one specifically for the theme of nature. I was having trouble finding an album that resonated with this theme, and the second I played a snippet of one of the songs on this album I realized it was perfect. It charmed me instantly with it's whimsical, classical string instruments, I knew when I listened to it even for a moment that it was my perfect pick for this month.

Film: The Revenant

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Why I chose this Movie: This one seemed like a no-brainer for the theme of "Nature". I absolutely adore Leonardo DiCaprio, but stray away from big Hollywood Blockbusters. It's as well a survival movie that takes place in the great outdoors. It feels like a perfect pick to be honest, as it is familiar enough to have me intrigued, but different enough to have me stepping outside of my comfort zone to watch it. Oh and Leonardo's performance in this movie finally won him an Oscar so I can't wait to see that as well.

Video Game: Yoshi's Island

Developer: Nintendo

Why I chose this game: I was really struggling to choose between two different games for the month of March. I didn't want to play a game developed by a publisher whose game I had already played (Shigeru Miyamoto) but I also didn't want to play a game that felt to similar to one I had played before. In the end though I knew in my heart of hearts that the point of "Year of Critique" is to get me out of my comfort zone, and so decided that varied gameplay was more important to me, and chose Yoshi's Island as my video game for March. I tend not to be a big fan of pure platformers; however, I believe Yoshi's Island may be able to win me over. Don't worry, I still intend on playing that other game later this year. 😉

Recommendation: Pikmin

Developer: Nintendo

Why I recommend this game: I don't know if you can tell yet but I really like Nintendo games, and Pikmin is one that I have played a ton. Were it not for the hundreds of hours I have put in the game in fact, I would have undeniably chosen it as my pick for March (as it so beautifully fits into the nature theme). I recommend the first Pikmin game more than the others (although many prefer the second) as it is the better RTS game in my opinion; however, if you aren't comfortable being on a timer I'm sure you will enjoy the second one much better. Either way is not a big deal, what's more important is that if you haven't played any of the Pikmin titles before, I super recommend you give any of them a try.

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And that's it, those are my picks and my recommendation for March! I apologize for getting this out five days into the month, my life has been super hectic with starting a new job and moving (excuses) but I am a bit more stable though so I should be able to get back into the swing of things very fast. Look out for my four review/critiques from February in the coming few weeks. Till then!

- Malachi