I watched every Best Picture nominee so you don’t have to (though you should) Zach Archer TV – March 1, 2025
This year I made an effort to watch EVERY Best Picture nominee as well as all of the nominees for almost every category and thought it would be fun to share my thoughts going into the Oscars.
Welcome to March’s installment (and the first ever installment) of ZA Monthly! ZA Monthly will be my opportunity to showcase every video I put out in the previous month, as well as all of the media consumed (specifically finished) for the previous month as well! So feel free to stay tuned each month to see what you might have missed!
New Content
My 2024 Reality TV Ranking! Zach Archer TV – February 1, 2025
The last of my year-in-review videos, I went through all of the reality television I watched in 2024 and ranked it accordingly.
Ranking Gamers’ Backlogs! Zach Archer Games – February 2, 2025
As part of my Discord’s latest video game backlog challenge, I went through and voted to potentially decide what games people would be assigned for the challenge.
Anora Review Tarqaron – February 2, 2025
Alec and I spontaneously decided to review a film that has a lot of awards buzz going into the upcoming Oscars, Anora.
The Last Games Standing Gents Challenge Tarqaron – February 8, 2025
The Gents Challenge is a challenge I regularly host over on my Discord server which is designed for gamers in our community to tackle the video games they haven’t finished yet! This one had a unique format and we were lucky enough to be joined by Blink and get his live reaction to what games he would be playing for the challenge!
Recently I just had that Fire Emblem itch and decided to go ahead and scratch it. I know it is a significant time sink to actually see the game to completion so it was always daunting but I figured I would at least give it a good shake so I could sate my curiosity. I’m happy to say that I am definitely enjoying my time with it so far but as someone who started on the GameCube with Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, it’s kind of striking to think just how different this game is from classic installments in the series. Even just the ability to walk around the school and do things other than the traditional strategy RPG style we’ve come to expect from Fire Emblem is so unique to the series, and while I’m sure the day-to-day activities would be lost on some classic fans, these elements in games are right up my alley so it works out! Just different than what I’m used to in this particular series! I look forward to more time with this game, for sure!
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune on the PlayStation 3:
It’s crazy that it has actually been almost 15 years since this first Uncharted game came out and I am just now playing a game in the series for the first time ever! And honestly, as much as I have heard such incredible things (about later parts of the series especially), I probably still wouldn’t have ever gotten around to it on my own. The reason I decided to finally get around to it in reality is because I was assigned to play it as part of a little series of challenges we do on my gaming community’s Discord called the “Gents Challenge”, where usually everyone is paired up and your partner picks what game you are challenged to finish before the deadline out of the list of games you have provided. This time around the challenge was different in that everyone’s games were essentially decided by random draw. So I had a completely random assortment of games on my list and the two games I was assigned were Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Resident Evil 6, both of which were on the lower end of games I was looking to play soon, in all honesty. But it was just the push that I needed and I have been thoroughly enjoying this game! I love the style of the game which even to this day feels so unique compared to how most games present themselves. You will definitely hear more of my thoughts on an upcoming video we will be recording for Tarqaron, so look out for that as well!
Content of the Week:
Survivor: Guatemala Review – Tarqaron
No season of Survivor on Tarqaron ever feels truly complete until the season review, where we can tie up any loose ends, give our final thoughts, and provide some closure for the experience with this nice proverbial bow to top everything off. That’s exactly what this review was for us and since Guatemala feels in many ways like the redheaded stepchild of Survivor seasons there was plenty for us to get into and have a lot of fun with!
Zach’s thoughts on Survivor 43 Ep. 2 – Tarqaron
While the premiere for Survivor 43 didn’t immediately hook me because of its “more of the same feel,” I really feel like they kind of knocked it out of the park with the second episode. I think a lot of it was also thanks to the 90-minute episode, which I so so wish was the norm for Survivor, in addition to some things that were executed well and lots of fun character and strategy moments to complement it all.