With the conclusion of my entertainment round up in 2023, I outlined some vague plans for these twelve months – catching up on my library, buying some new tech and doing some more streaming. And so when I started collecting my notes filed under “Qazi’s Disposable 2024”, In all honesty I probably didn’t get as much done with my plans as I would have liked, but I’m still content with the year in entertainment.
Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Watching
In my round up for last year I mentioned that I never got around to Barbie or Oppenhemier, so I made a point this year to watch both and write my thoughts on the films. Scheduling a block of two days to watch the two films, I began with Oppenhemier and enjoyed the atmosphere and tension; less so the nonlinear storytelling which came across as a bit clumsy and unnecessary. Barbie, on the other hand, was a fun commentary on identity and self-image, but was light-hearted enough for anyone to enjoy it. I also took some time to watch Fallout, the Prime Video series based on the popular post-apocalyptic RPGs. Whilst I haven’t played the games myself, I enjoyed the dark humour and the contrast of the three main characters, but also the moralising and the depth of emotion in the scenes. Purnell, Moten and Goggins were a joy to watch, and despite being talked into watching the series I ended up looking forward to each of the episodes.
Elsewhere, I did more catching up on older films, and I think I explored both ends of the emotional scale. The Mike Judge film “Idiocracy” had been on my bucket list for a while and I finally rented it in June. A fantasy comedy which follows two individuals into a stupider future, it’s a brilliant commentary on our own sense of intelligence, and I enjoyed it so much that I searched around for somewhere to order it on disc the next day. The other bucket list film – on the other end of the emotions – was “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale.” I vaguely knew about the story of Hachikō and so I had a general idea of how the film would play out, but it still got me pretty choked up. It inverts your typical animal tragedy by framing the dog as the one continuing life after the passing of their owner, and even though it gets a little bit samey in the middle, the last half hour or so was genuinely moving. I figured that as I grew older I wouldn’t have the same emotional reactions to tear-jerkers with cute animals, but this film managed it.
I don’t have any massive regrets about movies I missed, but I can’t deny that I’m falling behind on a few long-running series. The third Sonic movie was being talked about this year and I still haven’t got around to watching the second one – meanwhile, there are around four Avengers movies now and I think that I’ve only watched up to Age of Ultron. Oops.
Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Listening
Conveniently enough, I’m drafting this article on the same day that Tidal has published my “Most Listened” of 2024, although its summary of the year’s music isn’t too surprising – I ended up listening to plenty of EPs and singles in 2024, and a lot of “high energy” genres such as drum & bass. Under Influence Records, Bungle continued to deliver some dreamy D&B vibes with things like the Black Waves EPs. Squarepusher made a return with “Dostrotime”, his follow-up to 2020s “Be Up A Hello” (I particularly liked the “Arkteon” acoustic pieces that served as nice interludes between the more intense tracks) and even the dubstep producer Sharks decided to pivot into a high tempo number with (checks notes) “watching everything burn right in front of me”. However, if I were to settle on one standout I’d probably pick something from the Bungle EPs, because each one absolutely dials into the kind of vibes that I enjoy in electronic music.
(Although it isn’t a genre I typically follow, I also need to give a special mention to the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar – it’s been highly entertaining and captured the attention of all kinds of people who weren’t keeping up with the modern rap scene.)
I’ve also been revising and refining the sources of music discovery available to me – making regular visits to the Vision Recordings YouTube channel and their radio show (the show has a lot of exclusive early reveals and I often end up having to write myself reminders to hunt down tracks when they’re released for purchase and streaming), bookmarking the channels for Liquicity and Night Bass for my liquid and house needs, and keeping my one dormant X account alive just so that I still have a list of musicians, labels and DJs I can continue to follow. And of course, I’ve been insufferable on social media – filling Bluesky timelines and Discord channels with links to whatever tune has dominated my attention span on a given day. To everyone’s credit, I haven’t been met with any resistance and all of my mutuals and contacts seem pretty tolerant of my enthusiasm. The one thing that’s kind of remained dormant in 2024 has been my listening tech – I got some Marshall Mode EQ earphones in a sale, but that’s about it. Then again, not much is wrong with my current setup – I’ve generally covered my needs for home and portable listening. The only possible future purchase would probably be an optical drive for my desktop that actually works… but even then I have a dedicated CD player…
Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Playing
I was pretty excited going into this year. The inaugural Qazi’s Disposable 2024 article would have so many good things to say with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth being released and Metaphor: Refantazio finally making an appearance. What was more surprising, however, was that my favourite RPG was neither of these games. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth wasn’t just a riot from beginning to end – it’s probably provided me with the most fun over an RPG’s hour count since Persona 4 Golden. It filed the rough edges of the seventh game’s pacing whilst also making nearly every interaction fun and rewarding. The instant takedowns and pursuit of job skills made combat incredibly satisfying, the playground of minigames and side-stories managed to provide hours of distractions, and there are no difficulty spikes as notorious as chapter 12 in the predecessor. Did I enjoy it more than P4G? Not really, but in my mind – in my world of likes and dislikes – it’s one of the first games that’s comparable to P4G in terms of polish and quality. Tellingly, I’m already considering buying it again on Steam.
However, in a year without Infinite Wealth, Rebirth and Metaphor would still be remarkable achievements as well – one an extravagant celebration of FFVII’s world and characters; the other a stunning entry into the fantasy genre from a studio that leans more towards modern urban settings. Both impressed me to the extent that I’m already keen for news about the next game in the FFVII Remake trilogy and the next Metaphor game.
Finally, I was able to get around to some classics that I always wanted to play – I managed to complete Super Metroid at last (I enjoyed the adventure but I will never forgive how vague the in-game map is. I know that it’s nice to give the player room to speculate, but the map could at least colour-code the pink, green and orange doors on the map once I’ve seen them! In the end, I actually created my own map in Google Drive, but it’s likely to be full of errors…) and set aside four or five hours for Doki Doki Literature Club – the sugary-sweet visual novel which I… can’t really talk about. Just like Undertale, it’s the kind of experience you enjoy more if you know less beforehand.
As with most years, I wish I had more time to play more things, but I already have gaming plans outlined for 2025. Oh, and I didn’t play the Elden Ring DLC because I lent my disc to someone – so that’s why we haven’t covered it this year.
Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Streaming
I don’t have much streaming news to reflect on this year, save for one long-term project; I played through Final Fantasy V Advance on stream. I’ve streamed a few highlights from RPGs before, and I’ve previously streamed a full “Hero” playthrough of the charming Half-Minute Hero, but in terms of total hours streamed for a single game this is easily the most – 13 hours of stream footage over 16 sessions. I even streamed a separate window with the pages of notes I had written from a previous playthrough, so that I had something to refer to and so that anyone watching could see my inner madness. And although FFV Advance actually took more than twice that many hours to finish once the stream was done, I wasn’t going to broadcast all of my grinding. Personally I’m really happy with how much I was able to stream, and I have a more ambitious stream planned for next year…
Future adventures
As ever, I don’t know how much any kind of life stuff is going to affect me and the time I have to enjoy my favourite entertainment, but I’ll have some things lined up for when opportunities present themselves. For instance, I’d like to check out the new Monster Hunter but also get into a few older games, I’ll continue to grow my digital music library and look at more films to stream, and I’m considering some new hardware too. For now, I’ll just say thanks to anyone who has clicked on any of our articles this year, or followed us on social media – your support is always appreciated, and we hope you have a great 2025 planned. And while you’re here, don’t forget to take a look at Dan’s Disposable 2024 highlights as well.
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