It’s been a tough year for the average man just trying to do the right thing so let’s kick it off with the first gaming review of 2025.

This year finds the Game of Life to be significantly more difficult than previous years for general male characters, not the crazy ones they make Lifetime movies about but the average ones that eat beer and drink tacos–the kind that have hobbies and friends and don’t murder too much. 

A growing unease is spreading through Man-town though, from the blacksmith to the bard and ale-house. Men are learning, from women in their lives, that they aren’t loading the dishwasher correctly. “Well fuck” is the collective response. But good-hearted men want to do what’s right and we, at The Vidalia News Recorder, want to better understand this growing concern. To do this we interviewed multiple average Joes on the hot topic of dishwasher loading, and were able to find common questions that men didn’t have answers to. See if these sound familiar to you:

• So I just take the dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher, right?
• If the dishwasher is full then I can run it, right?
• If it’s a dish, it goes in the dishwasher, right?
• The top and bottom of the dishwasher both wash dishes, right?
• I just buy the soap from the store and it works, right?
• When a dishwasher is “full,” is it too full, or not enough full?

We ran these questions by our panel of expert women and what we discovered may shock you. At least, we assume so. They said a bunch of stuff, and honestly, we tried to take notes. We did. We really, really did. But they just, kept, talking. So much talking. All we wanted was to know how to load and start the dishwasher and make our female companions happy. But we totally failed the “beginner level” of that mission.

While this is a beginner quest it comes pretty quick with multiple morality checks. Did you know, the simple act of a man attempting to use a dishwasher is a macro-aggression against a woman’s independence? Did you know dishwashers are how men have been oppressing a woman’s independence? We were shocked! Because, 1) we skipped through the bard & tavern-wench conversation options at the ale-house, and 2) both our dexterity and multitasking skill checks failed the whole time we were listening to all the notes about how to load the dishwasher. We just couldn’t keep up with it. Our level 3 pencil broke and we still couldn’t start the dishwasher or make the conversation options stop. We tried button-mashing through the conversation for thirty minutes and it just kept going and going–but we were no closer to the dishwasher or starting it. It was right there, ready to be loaded, with dirty dishes. Waiting… waiting to be started. But we hadn’t passed the “load the dishwasher correctly” portion of this quest.

Be prepared. The conversational options are difficult to navigate and can feel like personal attacks. Remember, it’s just a game. Read the examples below before going in to the quest. It may mean the difference between success and failure.

• I could fit ten more dishes in there. And look! You have the stemware next to the cookware, and flatware next to silverware? We talked about this in therapy! If you can’t do anything right then why do you expect me to say “I Love you?” My dad built a house for my mom and you can’t even do dishes properly.
• Do you think you did them well? Do you? Do you really? Look at those dishes, do you really expect me to believe that you think you did them well? Why can’t you just do it like I told you a million times now?
• … … … … I can’t even.
• Typical fucking man. Toxic masculinity at its worst. I wish I were a lesbian.

In our first few play throughs, we weren’t sure how to proceed. This seemed like the first boss fight in this quest. It was challenging, for sure, but we reviewed our actions menu and quickly realized a simple, but effective, combo. 

Adventurers, listen up. This is your first line of defense when you’re suddenly stopped from running the dishwasher by a lot of handwaving, gesturing, flappy eyebrows, ad hominem attacks, rhetorical questions (that’s the ones you’re not supposed to answer but do anyway which makes more noisy words and flappy eyebrows) and aggressive pointing at dishes in the dishwasher. Follow these rules to finish the quest on easy mode.

Remember…

1. Add the “sad” emote to your player skin immediately.

2. Wait for pauses in the string of noisy words and gesturing.

3. Select the “yes” conversation option as often as possible.

This only works for so many replays and the experience points gained from this diminish over time. The angry-wives are crafty NPCs and will eventually catch you if you always say “yes.” On higher difficulty, if you keep button-mashing through the conversation items you’ll fail the trick question skill checks. Be on the look out for trick questions like:

• Do these dishes make my ass look fat?
• Have you always been this stupid?
• Are you cheating on me with that whore secretary of yours that always says “hello” to you at the office and does her hair up like that? Don’t play stupid with me. You know the one!
• Maybe I should just do the dishes!

Saying “yes” to any of these questions will take you to the hardest boss in your dishes quest, and immediately start you on “nightmare mode.” This boss has all the same attacks from before with new attacks and defenses like, The Screech. This is a high level attack that leaves adventures deaf for 30 minutes and sets you back 10 feet from the dishwasher. Remember, stay focused on the dishwasher; that’s your final goal.

Another attack is, The Dirty Dish. Upper level boss fights often require questers to dodge these range-based attacks. Be careful of taking too much damage here. The projectiles are caked with old food & grime and give a poison or festering effect during the battle. Be sure to equip long-sleeve shirt armor and add the ambulance item to your support stack BEFORE beginning this quest.

Then there’s the Silent Stare. This is an interesting attack because while it does no physical damage, it does a large amount of soul damage. The silent side of the attack does freezing soul damage, and the shame side of the attack does burning soul damage. The Silent Stare can also lead to a lingering effect called “self-doubt.” Defenses for this attack include:

• Pretending to be blind and Australian. Look through your inventory and equip the best shades you have, modified level 10 is the minimum for effective defense. Then, speaking in a clear Australian accent, repeat these words: “What? I can’t hear you! Where’s my Sheila? She was just right here! Are you there? I can’t hear you!” It helps if you amble around and touch things like you’re discovering them for the first time–the counter, refrigerator, or can opener are all good examples. To quickly level up though, reach out to your wife’s breast and honk it twice with fingers and thumb in contrapposto and making quick pinching motions. Do this while performing the Honking Ululation Chant earned on the Secret Fishing Trip side-quest from the Dead-Beat Friend character. Be warned, this may force the final boss to use her finishing move.
• Though trickier, try the Turn The Tables attack. With this you equip your cell phone, drag-drop the wife’s mother’s phone number onto your cellphone inventory object, and select the Initiate Phone Sex option from the hidden action menu. Obviously a high diplomacy and charisma skill checks are required and this option is only available to chaotic-neutral player types. We haven’t found the hidden menu yet so we’re not sure how well this will end.

The Finishing Move. The final boss may use her finishing move called, This is Why I’m Fucking Your Brother. This is a massively Deadly move for any quester first trying out “nightmare mode.” This attack has an Area of Effect modifier paired with the Laser Focus modifier, an unblockable soul-crush effect, the dark-glitter visual effect, and is followed by a quick combo of the foot-to-balls attack and the inventory destroying move called, I’m Taking Half. If you aren’t wearing any adventure kit with magical modifiers for charisma, leadership, diplomacy, or boinking then you are most certainly dead. Only the most frugal, shrewd, or luckiest survive this attack, and it’s one of the few times where grinding for gold before a quest can backfire. Or, take time to gain enough gold to unlock the I’m a lawyer conversation option with the local blacksmith.

If you survived the boss fight, you can now confidently walk up to the dishwasher, load it, close it, and press start. Despite the inherent difficulty in this task, you earned a minimal amount of XP for this quest, 10 pts. Any completion of the game does require you attempt this quest at least once. But we feel the developers would have made the experience gained much larger if they really thought this was a mandatory part of daily life.

So, that’s our first game review of 2025 in the bag! It’s rough out there for a player so be safe and make smart choices. Make sure to subscribe and like, and get more nonsense delivered directly to your spam folder.