S H A K E Z U L A

Getting old or getting older?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:09:22 GMT

This makes 360 #5. The manufacturing date is April of '08 so this one statistically shouldn't break, but you never know. Anyways, that's not what I'm here for...

As the title of this post may suggest, I can't tell if I'm just outgrowing stuff or if the stuff is simply not growing anymore; maybe it's due to overexposure, but quite simply, a lot of shit bores me these days and I long for that childhood wonderment that doesn't come anymore. To clarify, let me first state that I'm a total entertainment junkie (I think we all are) and that I've spent the majority of my life diving into other peoples' visions, be it games, comics, anime, movies, or the occasional television series. There was a time, and I'm sure anyone reading this can easily remember one for themselves, where something was just on the horizon and I was totally excited about it. More importantly, when it actually came, I was insanely into it throughout the entire boom of it, as it were; eventually, novelty almost always wears off, but the point is that I don't find much novelty in anything anymore.

Maybe I've been in some sort of funk for the past few years, but maybe - just maybe - there's something that's missing from almost every piece of mass-produced entertainment I've touched since Y2K. I don't know if it's because of the rise of the cost of production or something else, but if you ask me, there's a severe deceleration of new and exciting things to see while technology invariably speeds forward exponentially. For the sake of this topic, I'm going to talk about games since I've pretty much become disenfranchised with almost everything else, but the points I'm about to make apply to almost everything out there.

I have been gaming since the days of monochrome monitors and hand-held "paddles" and keypad cover slips. Having been born just before the Pac-Man phenomenon, I've been surrounded by gaming pop culture for as long as I can remember and I have been first-hand witness to gaming's evolution from almost the very start. No, I wasn't around for Pong, and I was too young to understand the Asteroids machine at the arcade, but I think I can arguably say that I've pretty much been there from the beginning, perhaps excluding the whole Infocom era. Yes, there's a whole bunch of gaming history that took place before I was around, but remember that gaming pretty much died in 1983/84 and didn't really come back until Nintendo became a household brand by 1987 (NES released in 85), effectively tolling the death knell of arcades in the years to come. In the mean time, I had cut my teeth on adventure games by Sierra (you know, the ones where you had to type stuff to get the characters to do anything) and was just diving into Super Mario Bros. before I turned 10 - these days, kids under 10 are cutting their teeth on Pokemon and Wii Shovelware. By the time I turned 11, the SNES had made its mark all over the world and PC gaming was a mad-house of variety - adventure, strategy, war, sci-fi, space combat, RPGs, and a whole bunch of crazy shit was everywhere. Arcades had a revival due to 1991's Street Fighter 2, but ultimately, everything was coming comfortably home. In 1993, Doom was unleashed upon the world as a follow-up to Wolfenstein 3D and the FPS was born (or rather, well-defined). Here's where I will begin because this is where it kind of ends.

If you're wondering why the coming of id Software's Doom is the beginning of the end, then allow me to explain. Previously, attempts at any kind of "3D" gaming were gimmicky/clever manipulations of 2D images. Whether it was a rail shooter that spawned sprites over a pre-recorded background (I wish I could remember the name of the game) or a fancy way of arranging and scrolling bitmaps (Wolfenstein or the insanely-clever Mode 7 of the SNES), we were still looking at 2D images on essentially a 2D plane, only they were fancifully arranged well enough to give us the illusion of 3D space. The truth of the matter was that technology simply wasn't able to render a 3D space in real-time until Doom's designer, John Carmack got really clever with the 2D plane. That is not to suggest that Doom is truly 3D (it isn't), but rather that Doom was so obscenely successful that it fueled the need to make 3D space possible. Previous gaming eras were strictly 2D, even if they supposedly featured 3D elements such as pre-rendered character sprites (but sprites nonetheless) or isometric points of view. Doom and its resulting ilk of clones spurred the most insane technology evolution over the next 10 years. At the time, CDs were still weird, new, and expensive, but it wouldn't be long until the resulting 3D engines of tomorrow were demanding space that would require a stack of floppies to fit in one box. The 90s, in terms of gaming and entertainment technology, were simply exciting.

Even beginning right off the bat with the advent of the 16-bit era in 1990, the next ten years would be phenomenal in terms of the evolution of the gaming landscape. While I can't possibly take the perspective of someone who's on the inside on the development side, I can say without a doubt that as a consumer, especially looking at things today, it was an incredibly exciting time. This is the decade when gaming became less and less of a niche nerdy cult and more of a big-business mainstream market wonder. Money was literally pouring in from everywhere and nerds were buying Ferrari's and boob jobs. Not only was technology advancing at an unimaginable rate, developers were constantly experimenting during this time; there was this love of gaming that permeated the entire industry on both sides of the fence, from developers to hardware manufacturers to consumers. Each new title was something you had never seen before - now you could stack rooms on top of each other; now you could have your enemies run for cover and come back with reinforcements; now you could interact with the wold and find trinkets in drawers; now you could aim for specific body parts and see the results; now you can see massive creatures generated on screen at once; now you could see hundreds of guys on the screen at once... it didn't stop. There was always something wonderful just around the corner and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and see what it was. Back then, you had to reinvent the wheel each time you went out there because if you didn't, you would get left behind or slapped to the side as the next guy out the door would truly show you something new. Even sequels were few and far between if only because the only way to really put one out successfully was to simply change the way people thought about it.

Then something happened. The 64-bit era reared its ugly head and was phenomenally successful, raking in money like never seen before, surpassing - as an industry - Hollywood. Gaming got itself a brand new audience and things took a turn. With so much money being exchanged for these "toys" as people once wrote them off to be, those same people started coming in with ideas for business. I would like to think that while gaming has always been a business by its very nature, it was at one time populated by no more than people just wishing to tell stories or entertain the masses. People were in it because it was a dream come true to get paid to make what is essentially bullshit. That is not to say that games are useless or anything like that, but rather that clearly, you're not really producing anything more than entertainment. There is no value to the world beyond the value someone assigns to it as opposed to, for example, finding a cure for cancer. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and start hopping, please - I'm not suggesting that these people have better things to do with their time, but rather that I'm pretty sure nobody was, at the time, fooling themselves about what they were doing for a living (except for, perhaps, Romero). The point is that the price of success is that the sharks come out to swim, and swim deeply into the waters they have.

Where the focus of gaming was, at one time, on new things for players to do, it's very much now about new things for players to see. Instead of saying, "Hey, you can now co-ordinate four entries into a room at once," it's now, "Hey, you can now see the individual follicles of this guy's eyebrows!" Visual technology has advanced so tremendously far in just five years, but all of that new power behind it is, quite simply, for the sake of powering it itself. That is to say that where it was once a matter of requiring processing power to, for example, handle AI routines for more realistic behavior, all of that processing power is now being used to do nothing more than to show you a bunch of fancy bumps on a guy's shoulder pads. As I said, where I once felt that the entire industry was really fueled by the love of the people behind it, the big-business that games do today have replaced most of those people with sharks. In the chain of things, nothing eats the shark, but the shark definitely eats you.

Imagine, if you will, a coral reef in some tropical island bay somewhere near the equator. All the fish know it's there, but they think it's a joke 'cause there's better reefs (or is that reeves?) out there to swim in and there's nothing really to gain from swimming in this one. So the first fish there are believers, dreamers, and productive explorers - pioneers, if you will. They're the first to swim in there and check it out, finding some tiny homes and - for the sake of this analogy, please suspend your disbelief - building others. This attracts quite a few desirable little green fish that provide food for the pioneering fish, and quite frankly, they're the tastiest thing on the planet. However, these pioneer fish are not greedy and they're just happy that the green ones are coming in at all. Instead, their joy is from staking a claim on unclaimed territory, exploring what the reef has to offer. As news gets out of their efforts, other fish soon follow in their wake and begin to develop the reef, exploring its various nooks and crannies, mapping out its dark spots and finding its truly wonderful treasure troves. Their work brings in a steady stream of the green fish, no longer a rarity in the reef, but a commonplace one and one that other fish can take comfort in. Soon enough, you've got other fish following the green ones, discovering the reef and taking the task of exploration and building to heart. They start competing happily with each other to see who can build a better section of the reef to invite all the green fish to live in. It's friendly, sometimes hostile, but everyone's pretty much having a ball. Explorers are constantly finding new wonders in the reef, builders are creating huge fish communities, and all the while, the little green ones are filling up the reef and nobody's worrying about whether there's going to be enough to eat tomorrow. Then comes a big fish, who has noticed all the little green fish flocking to this reef - let's call him the EA-fish. The EA-fish already has a good supply of green fish, but it doesn't matter - he's always out for more. In fact, he's a pretty fat fucking fish. His goal isn't exploration or building or anything of the sort. No, his goal is to use his green fish to attract and control other green fish. He uses his expert team of followers to round up the green fish and basically demand that the builders and explorers do stuff for him. In return, he'll supply them with green fish to eat. While there's quite a bit of green fish swimming around in the reef, EA-fish has pretty much shown everyone that he can control them and that if they want any, they better do what he wants. Instead of building new and exciting homes, he wants the builders to clone the last one made, maybe add a hut on the top. Exploration isn't needed anymore because he proves that if he just has everyone build the same house as before with maybe a hut on the top, green fish still keep coming to the reef - these are technically his houses, so he technically controls all that's in them, too. He also shows that it helps if all you ever do to the new house with the hut on top is cover it with plants and other pretty things - the green fish don't even notice that it's the same house. Finally, the sharks come to the reef. They tell EA-fish that they own everything because they will otherwise eat the fuck out of him. These sharks are of the Publisher species, and they are now calling the shots. They divide up the reef and take EA-fish's strategy and apply it everywhere. They eat all of the explorers and round up all the green fish that are left. Now the only way to get green fish is to do what the sharks say or swim to another reef altogether. The reef itself admittedly gets prettier, but all of the unexplored corners are going to be left unexplored because the green fish keep coming anyway and all that time spent exploring is wasted when it can be better put to use putting huts on stuff. Oh, there are some rebel builders and explorers out on the fringes, but they squeak by on what green fish squeak in. Ultimately, if you want to live in the prettiest part and eat all the green fish you want, well, you gotta listen to the sharks. Whew, that one kinda ran away from me.

As ridiculous as that was, it pretty much explains what I'm getting from the industry these days. Nothing changes. The song remains the same and the only thing that's different is the patch it's played through. I would say that somewhere in the midst of the PS2 era, the industry as a whole fell into what made the PC platform fall as a mass-market industry. Because of companies like id Software whose innovation was less on gameplay and more on graphics, it became incredibly expensive for both developers and consumers to keep up. Entertainment was there to be had, but the high bar had been set and the experiments are nearly gone. The cost of development is so high that the risk is simply too great and since the publishers are the one funding everything, they call the shots. Since the publishers are the business of the industry, they're the ones who have changed it from "you must reinvent the wheel" to "you must add a spoke or two to the wheel and forget about it". The PC platform can be boiled down to 3 genres: MMO, FPS, and The Sims. Anything else might still make money, like the occasional blockbuster RPG or RTS, but ultimately, to be successful on the PC (in shark-terms, that means not just remaining in the black, but far exceeding it), you do either of these three things and technically, only EA can do the Sims. Collectively, all the new gimmicks and gadgets are pretty cool. That is to say, if I compare a PS1 game to a PS3 game, I'd be insanely impressed and excited, but the fact is that there's a whole lot of incremental progression in between there to basically turn me off.

Allow me to go with an example - MGS4 and the MGS series itself (don't worry, no spoilers if you haven't finished it yet). The very first Metal Gear on the NES (or MSX, if you're a weeaboo) came out when I was just a little boy, but it was an exciting game to play because it was NOTHING like what was available. We had a slew of Super Mario Bros. clones, but here was a game where your job was not to go running and gunning. Fast forward to MGS1. Oh. My. God. It was exactly like playing the first game in the series. Nothing like it had been done before, from the gameplay to the presentation. MGS2 - again, new platform, new technology, new things to do, but not all that different. MGS3 - same platform, new camo system, completely different setting, very cool... but eh, not all that different. MGS4. This game was in development for YEARS. Again we have a new platform, new technology, some neat little gadgets, but... is this really what I've been waiting for? All of that time and effort was spent on nothing more than graphics. I don't know about everyone else, but there's zero discovery here for me. Yeah, the environments are cool and you know, it's neat to see the whole war zone thing, but the game itself, the game is unchanged. An auto camo system and a weapons store has been slapped on top of it. That's it. That's what we've been waiting for? Is there really any reason this could not have been done on any other system besides the graphics? The game, don't get me wrong, is epic but only in the sense of story. If you ask me, and yes, I'm going to be a dick about it, this is a graphics upgrade with a few incremental gimmicks attached to the MGS2 engine. Even for MGS3, I can understand why more wasn't done with it because it did tap the PS2 pretty hard, but really, MGS4 has no excuse.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I was spoiled by the 90's. Halo is among the most successful game franchises in the entire world, but I consider it a huge step backwards in terms of the genre itself. No reinvention going on here, but rather a purposeful ignorance of all the new things that were done in shooters (specifically by Half-Life 2) in favor of a mindless clusterfuck with a convoluted sci-fi story attached to it, or if you prefer, the multiplayer ignores, well, EVERYTHING that has come before it in favor of a leaderboard and a stats tracker. Maybe it is just me, but I demand a hell of a lot more from my games than this. I'm simply not satisfied with a new gimmick every year - this isn't pro wrestling (I don't watch that anymore, either)! Maybe everyone else wants to play the same game over and over again, but if that's the case, stop charging me full price for it because it's bullshit. The industry is releasing what pretty much amounts to expansion packs and people are buying it up like silly. And what isn't an expansion pack? It's just a re-hash of something I've already done a billion times *cough*Uncharted*cough*. Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

Yes, there's a community out there trying new things, but they don't have the financial backing to truly explore what's available to them. What if, for example, you gave the guys who developed N a few million bucks to develop a game? What would they come up with? I would expect them to come up with something totally fun and exciting and new that we haven't seen before. This is why Looking Glass Studios is gone. This is why Clover is gone. The problem isn't so much that the sharks are calling all the shots, but rather that the people - you - are being incredibly stupid with your money. Remember the analogy above - the green fish are the only thing that really determines whether or not this reef is worth swimming in and yet everyone knowingly feeds the shark instead of the builders and explorers (I promise I won't start that again). The point is that the sharks do not control the cash in the industry - you do. You control what gets your hard-earned cash. I can't even count the amount of people who echo the same sentiments as I do, and yet they're buying yearly EA Sports titles or they're raring up for the next Gears of War circle-jerk (come on, do you REALLY think Gears of War 2 is going to be any different than 1? It's called a map pack, people). They are no different than people who complain about Michael Bay, yet have seen every single one of his movies and even own a few. What the hell?

My ranting isn't going to amount to any change in the way people buy their games, movies, anime, or whatever, but I'm not a hypocrite. I don't buy sequel after sequel; I'm a Dynasty Warriors fan, but the last one I bought was 4. I love NHL08, but chances are that I'm not going to pick up 09 (unless they do something awesome, and I'm not so sure it gets awesomer than 08). While I may be ranting here, I do speak with my wallet, and I really think that if anyone agrees with me, they should perhaps start wallet-talking, too.

Also, fish.

Quick Drop

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:29:22 GMT

Okay, so on my way home today, I had a good laugh at the expense of others. When I got home, I had to make a diagram to show you how awesome this thing I saw was. Curious?

Instead of painting a picture with words, allow me to present you with a quick-n-dirty mock-up of what happened:

Okay, so basically there's a huge left curve on the 404 heading north towards home and I travel on it a bit before I connect to the 407 east. This is for the few Toronto people who read my blog and they'll know what I'm talking about - it's the huge S bend right before the 407 and 16th Ave exits northbound.

So, on the far left we've got a carpool lane which is basically abused since the enforcement thereof is nothing like the States. So basically it becomes a massive speeding lane. I've never seen anyone pulled over for it, but I generally don't travel in it (despite being a speed demon myself) simply because I don't want to tempt fate. Suffice to say, given the diagram above, I'm glad I stuck to that rule.

I'm not even sure how it happened because nobody's supposed to merge on this bend and there's a thick double-line for the lane, but this bend is long. My diagram betrays its length. So there's a guy in a van who was blocking me all the live long day from further (farther?) south on the highway going at a crappy clip when he decided to move on over to the carpool lane. That freed me up to go, so I went... and he followed. For some reason, he decided to grow a set of balls 'cause apparently nobody in Toronto likes it when a red Integra passes them. So we're barreling down this curve when, from my one-lane vantage point, I see this black Grand Prix t-boned across the entire lane and some other car further ahead of him hugging the wall. I simply say, "nice," to myself (I do so enjoy mayhem when it occurs to strangers) as not only is this car straddling the entire lane (which is a fast lane, mind you), but there's this sad-looking dude with long hair in a t-shirt rushing out INTO the lane to wave his arms to warn people that he fucked up 'round the bend. To get a good idea of how fast we were traveling, I believe in Imperial measurements, we're doing about 65-70MPH. As I zip by, I watch my rear view mirror and all I see is tire smoke from the van, whose bumper is forced forward to mere inches above the concrete.

While I don't really wish anyone harm, I was a bit disappointed to have the whole scene clear from my view before I could see what really happened. Still, this little t-bone is on the cusp of oncoming rush hour and I would seriously like to set up a lawn chair just to watch what happens.

In any case, I don't really understand why people like to race me. I'm a fast driver, but not an aggressive one; if I'm blocked, I don't weave or anything like that (unless there's ample space). For some reason, as I come up on people or after I pass them, they start speeding up, and almost every time, they get punished for it. Today, it was the van driver. A few weeks ago, a cop came out and gave the guy behind me a ticket. A few days before that, some guy tried to follow me around a bend after I'd passed him (I call this speeding-up "growing fake balls") and while I'm in my low-center Integra, this guy was driving a high-center SUV. He didn't flip or anything, but he most certainly drifted into the next lane and almost caused a pile-up.

You may be thinking that I'm the cause for all of this mayhem, but I'm really not. I don't tailgate people to get them to move. I don't weave in traffic. I don't do anything but put pedal to the metal when I can, but Toronto drivers don't like it. They all grow them fake balls and then they quickly fall off. I adittedly get some sort of weird joy out of it because, really, you think you're as good as me? I'm THE BEST. :)

Listen up, whores!

Wed, 07 May 2008 06:05:39 GMT

You are one of them, I can tell. I can tell by the way you rabidly defend Uncharted and Halo. I can tell by the way you gawk and insist on playing Army of Two. I can tell by the way you constantly play the same four maps in Gears of War. You're one of them. There's no use denying it - you're a graphics whore.

Some time circa 32-bit gaming, the whole trend of treasured games being about gameplay fell to the wayside. I'm guilty of it. You're guilty of it. Everyone's guilty of it. I admit that I sometimes am so amazed by the way a game (or movie) looks that I'm not quite paying attention to how much it sucks or how little it does for its entry into a genre. However, that puts me apart from you, the graphics whore. Where I recognize crap after the shine is smeared away by my cynical TP (gross), you cannot accept the fact that a game simply doesn't deliver. Maybe I expect more out of my developers, but the developers of today certainly don't expect more of you. You've proven that with an insanely-detailed bumpmap (okay, normal map), they can sell you your own fingernail grit.

Let's go over some examples, because that's what I do best. *cough* Halo. Halo sucks. I don't care who you are or where you're from, the entire Halo series is so subpar that I am amazed how people can continually play it and be satisfied with what they're doing. It does absolutely nothing that shooters that came before it couldn't do, like Tribes or Quake. It was simply pretty. Fact of the matter is, it got prettier, but the game never got better. First off, how many times have you been lost in a single-player map? Second, remember the library? Third, how many times have you cried, "cheap kill" or something to that effect during multiplayer? How many times have you unloaded two guns into an opponent only to have him kill you with a single shot? Unbalanced, terrible level design, generally crap. Yes, it's my opinion and I'm not changing yours any more than you're changing mine, but there are much neater things to play than Halo. Army of Two kind of speaks for itself if you've played it (it sucks, but it's gorgeous), so I'mmo gloss over that one.

Instead of picking on something that sucks, let's pick on something that's great - Uncharted (PS3). Uncharted is a solid action-adventure-cinematic game. It's not the masterpiece people want it to be and it never will be. The fondness for this game clearly comes from a user-base that is so starved for quality titles that it latches on to the first thing that doesn't suck. That's great, but don't tell me it's a 10 because it's not. It does absolutely nothing new. It tells an old story (see: Indiana Jones), presents old game mechanics (see: Tomb Raider), and throws in a little hide-n-seek gunplay (see: Gears of War, and then see Kill.Switch). So what does it do new? Vegetation like nothing you've seen before. The game is pretty as all hell, but overall, it's a standard experience. I suppose this isn't an entirely bad thing, but as I said, I expect more from developers, especially ones with a lot of PR behind them.

So what, then, is my problem? My problem is that fans and journalists alike are keen to be graphics whores, yet unanimously complain that we don't see enough innovation. Who in their right mind gives Halo 3 a score of 9 or higher? Only graphics whores and fanboys are capable of this. So what does that tell developers? It tells them you don't want to see new things. You just want to see prettier things. Prettier things cost money, so the guys that are hard at work on fun quirky things are out of jobs because nobody is going to drop 4 billion dollars on something that might not even break even.

It's quite different when you're Rockstar developing the latest GTA entry because you know you're already working on something that's treasured by gamers everywhere. Yet even Rockstar is not guilt-free. GTA4 is missing so many things that were put into San Andreas and I can't seem to figure out why. Each new iteration of the series on the PS2 introduced new things to the game for us to see and do and that's what made the series so legendary. Now we're on the fourth installment of the series (since the move from top-down, of course, technically making this the 6th game) and we have an insane progression of graphics, but instead of stepping forward or even matching step in terms of features we've come to expect, we're stepping... backwards. At the cost of graphics. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Lots of things were traded away to improve graphics, and I honestly don't see why. No matter what Rockstar does with this series, they will make their money back by a longshot (perhaps not so with their other endeavors), so why put it out without the additions made to San Andreas? Part of the fun of the series is that each time out, you're finding new things to do in the sandbox. Now it's like, okay, fine, the sandbox is shiny white gold, but you took some of my toys away. In short, San Andreas is a better game, but GTA4 is prettier.

So, what's the point? The point is that, well, I suppose you can't fight graphics whoring, so I don't know what my point is. Perhaps this is just a call for people to smarten up and call devs on shit they're trying to pull. DLC is something else altogether, but for God's sake, people, spend your money wisely. Stop buying the prettiest shit out there - everybody knows that your pretty girlfriend/boyfriend doesn't mean a damned thing if she/he doesn't have a brain. So, as gamers, let's demand brains in our sluts.

I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean it...

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:00:54 GMT

As my blog has degenerated into nonsense, I feel it's time for a true return to form. It's been a while since I've stretched my writing muscles as I honestly just haven't had the patience for it. Such as it is, night shifts allow me to peruse the Internet and enjoy silly punishment games from Gaki no Tsukai, but I've gone through all of them and there's nothing left to watch; thusly, I go elsewhere and I'm constantly amazed by one thing. However, before I get to that, let me ask you - in all seriousness - if you would stick by a generally terrible boyfriend or girlfriend because they gave you some shiny stuff every once in a while... so... would you? Before you answer, let me get started.

Now the aforementioned "one thing" that amazes me is the relentless and tireless loyalty of a dedicated Nintendo fan. My rants against Nintendo have, in the past, pissed people off. In fact, I think I single-handedly cleared out a bunch of people from a message board, but I'm not so sure it was just my anti-Nintendo rants. Wait! Don't stop reading, yet - I'm not about to hate on Nintendo. I'm man enough to admit that Nintendo had a great impact on my life and they will always be an icon of my childhood. What I'm saying here is Nintendo is hardly infallible, and yet people who would gladly turn their back on a company once scorned seem to be adamant on forgiving Nintendo for all its faults... scratch that! They don't even see anything wrong!

So clue me in, Nintendo fans. What is it that makes it so impossible for you to recognize that Nintendo is not without its mistakes or faults? What is it that makes you so willing to rationalize a poor choice so that it works for you? Tell me. The way it looks to me is exactly like a bad relationship where one person can't leave the other. Each time out, they say they're sorry and promise you things will get better, but they don't. Are you so easy to please with a simple ring on your finger or danglies from the ears? What's funny is that Sony fans are starting to do the exact same thing, and I honestly don't get it.

Perhaps it's the need to justify the choice in console and to ensure that, in your head, you're never convinced that you made the wrong choice. Not everyone has a disposable income and can buy everything that comes out and I understand that, but even I can admit when I've made a terrible decision. Hell, perhaps this rant is a terrible decision in the making, but I'm really dying to know what makes a corporate slave a corporate slave. Perhaps then I might even understand what makes someone stay in a terrible relationship.

If it's still not making sense, maybe I can clear things up for you so you can at least understand where I stand - it's only fair. I was once a rabid Nintendo fan, but that doesn't quite put me in the same league as you. When the N64 came out, I was a lover scorned and I packed things up and told Nintendo I was leaving. They promised me shiny gold jewels like Zelda OOT, Mario 64, and ... well, I'm not a fan of Goldeneye or MarioKart, but the interesting thing is that this pretty much sums up most of an N64 owner's repertoire of defense material. But it was a shallow promise, you see. Beyond the horizon was the PSX and the Dreamcast, offering me up tons of different experiences, keeping things interesting - the decision to stick with carts didn't help my love for Nintendo one bit because it was such an anchor. And yet every N64 owner swore to the heavens that it was a piece of paradise. They enjoyed their five or six presents over the course of as many years where I was showered with gifts from other lovers. They let me know they loved me back, you see. Fast forward to the Cube, where I made the crucial mistake of believing the lies again - I was told Resident Evil would never go anywhere else. I was told that 3rd-party support was significantly higher than the N64 (significantly higher than practically nothing is... nothing). I was once again promised the same old Zelda, a new Metroid, Mario Sunshine, and something called Animal Crossing (am I missing anything?). I hopped on board hoping that perhaps Nintendo had learned from the N64, but they didn't. Once again, they chose a limited format, implemented an insane publishing policy, and generally refused to admit that gamers had grown up. Once again, we had 10 games to the competition's 100. Don't get me wrong - these are 10 terrific games, but when you stand there with your pants down and you're with the ugly wart-covered sweaty creature you've decided to keep and it farts in your face, shouldn't you at least QUESTION your decision? Perhaps your lover isn't quite keeping up with everyone else? Entrez le Wii. What on earth is going on here? Thankfully, it was my father that bought it for himself and not me getting it because I never touch it and Smash Bros isn't enough. A gimmick is fun for a while and then you move on to where the real innovations are. Sorry, that's just the way I feel and in no way am I saying that you should feel the same way. Point is, if you don't feel the same way, I'm interested in knowing why.

Now here's the thing, because I KNOW you're offended - it's how you react and it's to be expected - I'm not saying that there's no fun to be had. I'm just saying that when it comes to pointing out anything that Nintendo does that has negative overtones, you either get terribly offended or come up with some of the most creative rationalization I've ever seen. For example, there are people complaining about Nintendo's decisions about Virtual Console; specifically, the fact that the original NES Bionic Commando doesn't seem to be slated for a VC release any time soon. Some guy actually posted some long-winded explanation about keeping the VC viable for the next four or five years and holding off on the hit retro titles. What? If my experiences in corporate doctrination tells me anything, it's that people are looking to make numbers and long-term plans are mostly an afterthought. Truth. Alternatively, if I say something, for another example, against the N64, there's a good probability that you'll simply ignore it and point to Nintendo's dominance over the portable market. Fantastic. Yes, it's there, but many companies have produced gems and shit equally, yet for some reason, it's near impossible to call Nintendo on it and they know it. For example, I love the Dreamcast. I think it's one of the finest systems ever made, simply ahead of its time. I adore the system. That in no way excuses Sega for what they do today, and I think that's where a lot of the problem lies when it comes to Nintendo.

Nintendo is such a giant in the industry and the nostalgia among gamers is mostly unanimous, at least in older generations of gamers. Perhaps it is this that causes such religious devotion to the company and that's exactly what it is: religious. In much the same way that hardcore believers of Christianity go to great lengths to prove their faith infallible, so too do the legions of Nintendo fans march when someone points out what, if standing a step backward, might seem a little more logical. I'm not knocking faith, of course, but reason does have its place.

Perhaps, like religious devotees, it's simply impossible to ask what their reasoning is. Perhaps it -is- simply faith that I don't understand, but I must say that I don't see anything spiritual about it when it comes to Nintendo. Like you, Nintendo was a large part of my childhood. They make incredibly fun games and have some of the most endearing franchises in the world. They rule the portable market with an iron fist. They are, in short, a fantastic company. That does not, in any way, make them infallible. That's all I want you to understand. That's what I need to understand about you. They are not flawless perfection - nobody is. Maybe your reasons are simple or maybe they're complicated, but I'd like to hear some of them. What makes you tick, Nintendorks? What, indeed?

Um... Shit

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:05:48 GMT

UM! SHIT I MISSED IT! HAPPY BELATED ENER!!

Because I Can, Son!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:34:30 GMT

Okay, so it's time to do a real post. Let's talk about beards and how sad they make you. Mostly, why you shouldn't grow one unless you're old and married. For serious.

Just kidding. Feast your eyes on greatness!!

I don't know what it is about plastic toys, but they always come with some sort of icky goo all over 'em. Like ever piece is all greased up. In actuality, I don't want Keroro to salute, but they gipped me an arm and since I bought him at the Honger mall, there's really not much to do about it. He comes with a whole bunch of things to make him carry a mop and bucket, etc. For some reason, though, his paint job is all screwed up. Why isn't his hat yellow? Why does his belly star have red in it? I'm wondering if this is a real Ban Dai toy or a knock-off shoved in the same box.

And here are the Gachapon toys (yes, I know it's dusty). I've been pounding mass amounts of money (not really) in trying to get the awesome one with Kerero scrubbing the floor (his expression is priceless), but I keep getting the stupid chicks. At least I got a Giroro (have an extra one if anyone wants it... or maybe I'll eBay it).

Treading History's Water... Ugh

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:59:43 GMT

In there interests of scientific posterity, I present to you, my precious reader(s) a piece of my own history. Back in the day, I had the great honor of speaking to a world renown scientist and I captured these conversations in case I ever needed to refer to the material for exams and stuff. Being that I no longer have any aspirations to become a scientist (in truth, I've NEVER had aspirations to become a scientist), I pass on my education to you because someone might just find this stuff useful.

Note that instead of editing the text to contain my screen name, any prompt beginning with > is me. It begins with a simple question:

[16:34] > how was ketchup invented
[16:35] someone cut up some tomatoes and shit
[16:35] and there was a dog involved somwehre
[16:35] but then there was ketchup
[16:37] > excellent
[16:37] > i will come to you with further questions

As he has now affirmed his academic authority, we continue with the foundation of all science:

[16:37] > for example
[16:37] > please explain thermodynamics
[16:38] thermodynamics
[16:38] easy
[16:38] stuff gets hot sometimes
[16:38] and there's a dog involved somewhere
[16:38] and when it gets hot it makes energy
[16:38] dynamicall like
[16:38] with the dog there
[16:38] if the dogs not there there won't be energy
[16:38] just heat
[16:38] you need that dog as a catalyst
[16:38] > hahahaha
[16:39] > that's awesome

One thing leads to another...

[16:40] > hm, do you know how crude oil is harvested?
[16:41] yeah
[16:41] with a refinery
[16:41] or something
[16:41] wait no
[16:41] that's teh refinery
[16:41] ok
[16:41] you take a drill and drill into the ground
[16:41] and then there's this big pump thing that looks like a horse
[16:41] a bobbing horse pump i think
[16:41] that's what it's called cuz it looks like that
[16:41] and you light the oil on fire
[16:42] and put the bobbing horse pump on there
[16:42] and it bobs up and down on the flaming oil hole
[16:42] then you take the oil that comes out to the refinery and make gas and that stuff you put in lamps to make light
[16:42] > why do you want to set it on fire?
[16:42] > aren't you trying to harvest it?
[16:42] which brings is back to thermodynamics
[16:42] > oh
[16:42] you light it on fire so it doesn't explode
[16:42] > oh
[16:43] if you don't light it on fire it'll explode
[16:43] that's the nature of the beast
[16:43] > that makes so much sense
[16:43] there's no dog involved in this one
[16:43] until you get it to the refinery
[16:43] > well of course
[16:43] > because it's man-made
[16:43] which si where the thermodynamics happens
[16:43] > thermodynamics happens at the factory
[16:43] > er, the refinery
[16:43] yeah

There's a great deal of interim conversation missing (if you notice the time-stamps, we're quite blisteringly fast and there's a lot that was probably covered in the missing 8 minutes)...

[16:51] apogee calculations you just made up
[16:51] those aren't real
[16:51] gravitational pull works because teh sun is hot
[16:51] and it makes the stuff move
[16:51] with the dog
[16:51] and the thermo dynamical reactionary forces
[16:52] kinda like on that episode of power rangers
[16:52] hmm
[16:52] no
[16:52] wait
[16:52] > i didn't make up apogee calculations
[16:52] yeah
[16:52] ok
[16:52] that's right.
[16:52] i made up apogee calculations at a party
[16:52] and everyone started using it in sentences

Again, there is some missing interim conversation that wasn't likely related to scientific discussion, but it goes on...

[16:57] > how does a combustion engine work?
[16:57] exactlyx
[16:58] > perfect explanation
[16:58] it involves that principal of thermodynamics
[16:58] > exactlyx.
[16:58] because you see
[16:58] > oh, there's more.
[16:58] you put gasoline in the engine
[16:58] and turn it on
[16:58] and it buirns the gasoline in the engine
[16:58] > buirns!
[16:58] creating thermodynamics
[16:58] which is where the dog comes into play
[16:58] > ah
[16:58] > and it takes place at the refinery
[16:58] > exactlyx.
[16:58] assistant brendon can you refernce my thermodynamics explanation

Is there more? Plenty! But none on this train of thought, so I'll leave it as it is.

AmeriJapanish people... Weeaboo!

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:19:57 GMT

Hey, there. This goes to my pals who are deeply embedded in Japanese culture as I am mostly out of the friggin' loop. Ever hear of "Caramelldansen"? What's this meme going around? Don't know what I'm talking about? See below... and then explain it to me!!

(I know these characters come from Hitman Reborn, but that's not the birth of this meme is it?)

I love Sgt Frog

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:10:03 GMT

I'm no expert model builder. In fact, I kind of hate building them. But as I was in the Honger mall, I saw that lots of places were displaying sweet Kerero Gunsou models (Sgt. Frog). I thought they were toys so I ran around and couldn't find anything. Then I asked and they were like "Oh, those are model kits!" and I thought, "Well, shit."

Still, I couldn't resist as it was only $10 and I got half way through the decals before I realized that there should be paint on the thing. Since it's a kids' level model, it just snaps together and requires no glue (and it's super poseable) so I figure, "no glue, no paint." Sadly, I realized it too late so my model looks kinda rubbish, but the decals make it look much cooler than it ought to be. If I go get anymore (I like Giroro more anyway), I'll consider putting paint to it and cutting around the decals... you know, put the effort into it to make a $10 model look like $100. Tips from model-builders would be neat (but I warn you, I'm not getting an air brush).

With Love From Canada

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:25:28 GMT

Dear Americans,

Your dollar is so weak, it needs to sit down every ten minutes. This may not be good for you, but it is most certainly good for me... somewhat. As a Canadian, I am enjoying the benefits of having an almost-equal dollar value on several of your fine entertainment products, but for many of your companies which have invaded, bought-out and pretty much changed the consumer landscape of Toronto and Vancouver over the past decade or so (I whole-heartedly believe that Calgary only has horses and nothing else and, well, let's be honest - no other cities count), you're being obtusely reluctant to reprice your shit. As a Canadian, this upsets me, and I believe I have every right to be upset.

Now not every company is as underhanded as, say, Toys R Us. Gamestop/EB, for example, has been more than fair in equally pricing their products across the border. This was proven by a trip I took to Tennessee to see my best buddy and on several shopping outings, I noticed that nothing in Gamestop was $10 cheaper than my local EB. Cool. Fair is fair and EB isn't trying to rip me off. In fact, they're fully aware that the American dollar is weak like grandpa. Not -my- grandpa. Perhaps your grandpa. My grandpa is dead.

Anyways, I've been shopping around at various toy stores for Lego products because on aforementioned-trip, I got hooked on 'em again. For some reason, my local Wal-Mart doesn't carry any. Very weird. Toys R Us has plenty (and they have some nice displays, too), but they're charging a 1.5 mark-up on American prices as if the dollar hasn't changed one bit. Uhwhaaaaaaaaaaaaat? In denial, are we?

The American dollar has not been that high in some time and I think several U.S. companies who are in Canada doing the exact same thing as Toys R Us are now treading in the realm of dickholery. That's right. I said, "dickholery". That is to say, really, that these companies are dick holes. It's not like the American dollar fluctuates between 1.01 and 1.50 Canadian dollars on a whim. It's not going back and forth between what it wants like my ex-girlfriend. If it was, then I could understand not lowering prices. But it's not. It's sitting very low and has been very low for quite some time.

Canadians are losing jobs because of your weak dollar. "What?" you ask. "Don't be dense," I say. A lot of work was farmed out to our side of the border because with such a strong dollar, it was simply cheaper to have stuff done here. Now it's cheaper to have it done in India. I'm not criticizing - it's simply a fact of life. To trivialize it, though, I will say that the least you could possibly do is match your Canadian retail to your American retail. It's only fair, isn't it? I mean, Canada generally bends over and takes a rock-solid up the ass whenever you want some action, so be nice to us. We give you maple fucking syrup and hilarious (not really) ethnic jokes. We give you Russell Peters! Moreover, if money-hungry Gamestop can do the right thing, certainly the rest of you can. It's not cool when you know you're being ripped off because of standards that simply don't make any logical sense anymore.

Fact is, while I say I benefit from the weak American dollar, I really don't. Nobody does. You guys have single-handedly pooched world economy and for that, you deserve golf claps. I'm no financial analyst so I won't get into a lengthy discussion on root cause, global impact, or what have you. It's just pretty easy to conclude that your weak dollar fucks everything up. I've been following your presidential race and I'm afraid to say that it looks like nothing is going to get solved any time soon. So, please. Let's be fair and stop ripping off your neighbors to the north. We practically opened ourselves up for your corporate invasion, so you might as well be decent enough to admit that you're not as strong as you used to be. We're still here for you, but if you don't change your attitude, our little nation might suddenly turn its back on you.

Think about it, America. We're your only friend. We're the only ones that still want to be like you (I don't, but Toronto most certainly does). We still like your TV and your movies (again, not me). We like your fancy coffee (not me) and your fast food (not me, again). We like your music (hmm... not me), your cars (still not me), and your women (...). I may not like you anymore, but I'm a lover scorned. There's plenty of people up here who still think that getting shot is better than living in igloos. We love you, America, but stop fucking with us. We're not the joke you think we are, and these aren't the droids you're looking for.

Freak Out With Your Geek Out

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:43:45 GMT

As a modern-day digital cowboy (not really, I just wanted to say that), I have plenty of time to think about shit nobody really cares about. Case in point: geeky people. I'm one myself, but I've never had any issues with being socially inept. However, that's not what I'mma talk about. I'm going to both defend and attack geekdom, or at least certain aspects of it. See, it's all a matter of perspective, so allow me to paint you a picture.

All men, whether they want to admit it or not, are geeks. I once heard someone define the geek as the guy who's crazy about the fiction and the nerd as the guy who's crazy about the technical. I don't make that distinction. A geek, in my eyes, is simply someone who has a passion for something that doesn't really contribute anything to their lives and instead provides some form of endless entertainment. On the other hand, a nerd is just someone who simply takes it too far and moves into possibly unhealthy obsession. An example that actually fits both points can be taken as thus: I am a geek for Battlestar Galactica and I'm terribly upset that it's not going to be around anymore after this season. I love the story, the characters, the handycam shooting, the music, etc. I eat it all up. At the end of the day, though, I'm still just a regular dude who goes about his life and doesn't think much about the series beyond watching it. A BG nerd, on the other hand, is obsessed in that he knows the specifications of the ships, all the reasons behind technological decisions, detailed character backgrounds, maybe even has a badge or two and a uniform. See, he's not just obsessed with the technical, he's just entirely obsessed. He knows more about the show than the show will ever convey because he digs supplemental material and feeds off of it. He builds model kits, names his fish Adama, and makes Viper noises when he's in his car. That's the distinction.

Now, in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that so long as you can manage to maintain a grip on reality, but many other people think otherwise. I don't know why that is, especially since all men have a level of geekiness to them, if not outright nerdism. Here's the picture I paint for you: I like hockey. I couldn't tell you the starting forwards of every team, the names of coaches, or even the leader in Goals-For. I simply don't care. I can tell you where my team stands (2nd last) and how much I still like 'em even though they suck. Another guy can probably tell you everything and more. That guy could be a sports geek and there's no problem. Then there's another guy who can tell you the names of every player, all the statistics for the past 5 years, what his favorite player does on the off-season, what restaurant the player eats at, etc. That would be a sports nerd. But here's the kicker: he doesn't take a hit.

Like I said, I have no problems with geeks or nerds because I come from the same boat, but I find it a little unfair that I can geek out about, for example, Metal Gear and get weird looks. People would say, "It's just a video game. Calm down," if they had the balls to be honest. A sports guy? Nope. In fact, the sports nerd probably IMPRESSES the sports geek. A sports nerd gets no dismissal from women. Yet the guy is still obsessed beyond reason. I ask, then, what is the difference? Nothing. A player will not change your life. A team will not thank you for buying their jersey. There is no benefit to being obsessed about it beyond entertainment, right? So what if I say "Pokemon nerd"? Suddenly there's this mega stigma attached and this look of disgust. He's not impressing his peers. He's instantly dismissed by the ladies. He knows a shitload about Pokemon, so what? Why is that any different than being a sports nerd?

Oh, that's right. Because you're not a sports nerd, you're a sports nut. Big difference there. Don't even pretend that it's an appreciation for athletic ability when it gets to the point of being an obsessive fan. You are, in fact, a big giant nerd only instead of carrying the stigma of being a lanky dude with taped-up glasses, you carry the stigma of a jersey-wearing, big-bellied beard monger. I honestly don't see how one image can be more "acceptable" than the other. What's the difference between being a fan of basketball and being a fan of Halo? Or Batman? Or Star Trek? There's no punchline here; I'm looking for an answer.

That being said, let me flip things around: I hate hobbyists. Before anyone leaps on me, let's define that term insofar as I'm using it. While I have no problem with geekdom or nerdism, I do have a problem with those who geeks and nerds who cannot accept that there may be other people in this world who do not appreciate the same things they do at the same level they do. Therefore a hobbyist, insofar as this post goes, defines the kind of geek or nerd that attacks anyone who's doing it "wrong".

I'm a pretty open-minded fellow, so I understand that people like things at different levels, neither right nor wrong. Take a super-show like Lost. There are a bajillion fans of Lost and each one sits on different places of the neutral-to-geek-to-nerd scale (for your convenience, call it the NGN Scale... or not, I don't care). Someone closer to the neutral side of things - where one would be indifferent or at least somewhat entertained by the show to be considered a fan - can tell you about what the show explicitly conveys and perhaps offer some opinion on what's going to happen next. Someone closer to the geek-side of things enjoys the conspiracy, the science fiction, and all the mystery behind it. They LOVE discussing what's going to happen next. The nerdy type will be able to quote bios, corporate history, and whatever else they can come up with that can only be gleaned from material presented outside the show. A hobbyist may fall into any of these categories and generally be a giant dick about it.

The hobbyist is, quite simply, worse than any geek or nerd and contributes in large to the stigma that goes with being either one of them. This guy has strong, normally unfounded opinions about anything and everything that other people are doing with their particular focus of interest. It could be a show, sports, music, anything. Music is a good one because people can relate when I say that many people are religious about their music. I once told a group of people that I'm not a fan of grunge and they wanted to jump on me. When I tell people I like classic rock and they say they like rap instead, I give them a funny look. It's inevitable because we are prone to judging others. At the same time, I don't knock anyone who listens to rap because that's their thing. It doesn't affect me in the least. But I can't stand people who pretend to be rappers and talk funny and then judge others based on the fact that they don't wear the clothes, walk the walk, or talk the talk (gear, step, flow, respectively... assholes). In their eyes, I'm doing it all, "wrong". Is this really necessary? In another example, I was watching some videos of RC helicopters because, well, they're neat, and some guy commented to the effect of "why did you spend so much money on this thing when you can't even fly it properly?" This was the Internet, so it was more like, "Fag, fuck you. $20K for that and you crash it. Fag. Fag."

The point is, boo fucking hoo. For one, what does it matter to you if the guy wants to spend his money on something? For two, what if he's trying to protect his investment by not thrashing the thing through the air like a "pro"? It's no different than someone who can't play guitar buying a sweet vintage 1960 Les Paul. I'd be incredibly jealous, but I wouldn't care if the guy can or can't play it. He wanted it, he got it. Big deal. If he only ever learns to play one note on it, does that instantly justify your judgment? Hell, it'd make me want to take a video of me pissing on the guitar just to get your goat.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a self-proclaimed asshole, but I'm an asshole because I openly and equally hate people, especially when they exercise no logic in their actions. At the same time, I'm not petty when it comes to being a dick. I judge people because they're stupid and perhaps that makes me a hypocrite, but I don't judge people for petty bullshit like they can't outscore me in a video game or draw a better picture than me (many people can do both). I don't judge you because you're doing things "wrong" and taking a different path than me. No, my judgment is reserved for people who exercise little-to-no logic in their decisions like, for example, driving in the left lane when they're not passing people. It has nothing to do with the fact that they may not be using their engine's full potential or that they have amazing tires and aren't throttling to put 'em to use. It's about getting out of my fucking way. I think that's a little more justifiable, don't you?

Let me close with an example from Rock Band. Great game, by the way. Anyways, I met some guy in another game and we were talking about Rock Band and the music we like. Dude seemed pretty cool and had good taste, so I said, "Hey, let's stop talking about it and just go play it." So we did. And the entire time, he'd jump on me or my pal for missing a note or killing a streak like he's the God of fucking rock. He'd get audibly upset if either of us messed up the big-time ending (a bonus area where you can hit anything you want for extra points, but it's followed by required notes that give you a score of 0 if you miss them). He wanted me to change instruments because his friend could score higher than me on the guitar. He's the proverbial hobbyist, and needless to say, he's not on my friends list anymore.

The Tube o Deadly

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:55:37 GMT

Someone explain vlogging/YouTube "shows" featuring yourself. I can understand the concept of YouTube for posting clips of things like your awesome guitar playing or your kick-ass round of a fighting game or your rock band score or a monkey sniffing itself or some dude smashing his face into a wall and bleeding everywhere 'cause like, that only gets posted once to show off. But there's the weird thing of vlogs and shows on YouTube. You have fans, but... there's no benefit to it. Just the adoration of strangers and no paycheck. And you do it every week for years and nobody's even approached you for a television deal because you suck! :( On the flip side, who watches these things? Why do they watch them? Someone explain it to me!

I find it entirely different from blogging because I feel that the visual half of it is a desire to be seen and noticed; essentially, they want fans. I write for an audience of... 2... that I know of. And if they hate me because of the stuff I write, then I still write for me. Maybe I'm missing something.

Welcome to the NHK

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:30:03 GMT

I splurged this weekend on manga (yes, I'm still a geek) and picked up five volumes of something called Welcome to the NHK.

For those of you who are not weeaboos (and really, I'm not one), the NHK is a public television network in Japan that runs off of viewer contributions. In fact, it is THE public television network in Japan that runs off viewer contributions. Unlike the American equivalent (PBS), it apparently doesn't suck and is probably the most popular station on the island. It also has nothing to do with the story in the manga. Also, for those of you who don't know, manga is the Japanese equivalent of a comic book, only with less tights.

Anyways, the story of W2NHK is bizarre and has no apparent form. It's crazy, dark, and hilarious, but if there's any point of cohesion, I'd really like someone to point it out to me. In any case, it brings with it the notion of "hikikomori", which I find incredibly interesting.

There is apparently some sort of social phenomenon in Japan in which today's young crowd are locking themselves away in isolation, refusing to interact with the rest of the world at large. They are reclusive and unable to deal with the hardships of reality - no job, no school, and no ambition. Such is the case that there are so many people doing this that there is actually a word for it. How sad.

Suffice to say that while I cannot relate entirely to that phenomenon, it pretty much describes how I've lived most of my life. I didn't honestly think there was anyone else like that out there, but for crying out loud, there's a WORD for it. While I have absolutely no problem leaving the house and getting along with other people, the fact of the matter is that I simply don't WANT to. I'm employed, but all the ambition I ever had was sucked away from me when I went back to school. Even recently, I told someone that I want to be "professionally lazy". I kinda miss who I used to be, but I suppose - in a sense - that I have accepted defeat and moved on. *shrug*

Despite that, I don't think the story is out to correct the phenomenon, but instead offer a twisted send-up of those in the throes of self-imposed isolation. It doesn't really make any effort to truly resolve the issue, but rather to identify what causes it. It makes bold claims of cowardice, self-loathing, and a general feeling of not fitting in. There is even a point at which one character, who has dropped out of school, makes a sincere effort to return to life as deemed socially acceptable and she is unable to join anyone socially, not because the people around her are unwilling to let her in - far from it, they approach her and generously try to make her fit in - but instead, she simply can't handle the idea that someone might actually be interested in having her around. In that sense, I can relate.

I've always considered myself somewhat of a chameleon in that given any particular social situation, I can seriously fake it. Unlike the hikikomori described in W2NHK, I'm not unable to fit in, but I do so under false pretenses. That is to say, I have a knack for zeroing in on what people are tuned into, and I have enough general knowledge that I can totally pass off as being into the same things. In truth, I am not. For the most part, the only things that interest me carry social stigma strong enough to invite the judgment of complete strangers, something which I don't honestly care about, yet still frustrates me because who the fuck are you to judge me? For example, I love anime, manga, comic books, and video games. These are apparently social faux pas and it most certainly doesn't get you laid. That is not to say, of course, that my one true goal in life is to get laid - far from it, I don't really care - but rather to say that while I enjoy these things, I normally don't relate to other people who also enjoy these things. I also don't relate to people who don't enjoy these things. It's very weird in that I straddle a middle-ground where I am a geek, but I don't like other geeks, and I'm liked well enough by "cool" people, but I also don't like other cool people. Like I said, I can totally fake it.

So where does that leave one such as myself? I don't feel sorry for myself or anything like that, so don't misjudge what I'm trying to say here. While I'm at it, don't mistake me for saying that I'm just like Satou in W2NHK, either - in fact, anyone who truly relates to him seriously needs help. The point is that if there is indeed such a phenomenon as hikikomori, it's likely that it doesn't simply reside on the shores of Japan. After reading this thing, I don't feel like I'm the only one anymore, and I'm sure the problem is far more widespread than I originally thought. I'm sure there are some people that are far worse than I am, but I begin to wonder if there really is any kind of resolution to this.

For me, I've simply made a better effort in recent years to surround myself with people and it's kind of worked. I have more genuine friends now than I ever did when I hung around a circle of thirty-some-odd people in high school. At the same time, however, there's still that feeling of not quite fitting in anywhere. I don't know if there's a cure for that. It seems to me that the social norms are drinking, sports, politics and television. While I enjoy the good beer every once in a while, I'm not a fan of most sports and those that I AM a fan of, I don't follow religiously. I couldn't care less for politics as I firmly believe that it doesn't matter who you put in charge of a country, they'll still run it the way nobody likes it run. Television? What the fuck is television? I got games to play and I'm not watching those shows everyone's talking about. So I don't fit in there.

On the flip side, I'm immersed in geek culture. Here, there seems to be a norm of being absolutely devoted to whatever you're into, be it anime, model building, science fiction, etcetera. While I certainly do enjoy a bunch of geeky things, first and foremost video games, I certainly don't relate to anyone who's completely immersed in fiction. For example, I love Battlestar Galactica (the new one). I think it's one of the best shows out there and I'm sad to see that it's going to end this season. On the other hand, I can't stand talking about it at any great length. For me, it goes, "Hey, did you see the finale of Season 3? HOLY SHIT!" The only thing I'm looking for is, "Yeah, I know! HOLY SHIT!" Instead, what I'm treated to is either, "What's Battlestar? Did you watch basketball?" (for the record, I hate basketball), or I touch on some sort of geek button and BOOM, I'm reluctantly a participant on a discussion of the entire plotline, characters, and thematic arcs presented in the fucking show. What the hell? Is there no way to straddle that middle line where you're fan, but not entirely drenched in fandom? And there is the problem.

The Internet pretty much "solves" this problem in that I can easily find other people like me all over the world. Several posters on Kotaku, for example, are people I can get along with and, if they lived near me, would love to go have a beer with. However, the truth is that while I can relate to people I find online, that doesn't help relieve any isolation that I feel. In fact, it simply strengthens it; I happen to relate to other people who spend their time online and not anywhere else. This has always been the case with me.

Perhaps it is the ease with which I can find people I truly respect online that makes leaving the house a bit of a chore. Outside, it seems like everyone is on guard. I firmly believe that we're all geeks in some way, but like myself, when we go out and mingle, we're chameleons. We put up this barrier to "hide the crazy" and do what's expected of us. Let's go clubbing, let's go drinking, let's go shopping, let's get a coffee. Standard actions in the rule book, yeah? The second we try to do ANYTHING else, we're pigeonholed in a way. I'm a chess aficionado, but I can't just go and challenge anyone to a match, right? Because the second people hear "chess", they think "nerd". I realize that and I'm not innocent, either, because there's truth behind it in that most chess geeks are so fully devoted to their hobby that they don't know how to do anything else. On the flip side, I can go clubbing or to a party, but then because I feel that everyone in that place is faking it, I don't really feel like I'm doing anything worthwhile. I can go to a concert, but I'm not so into the music that I really feel the need to scream for four hours and buy the t-shirt.

In a sense, I enjoy a lot of things, but I'm not devoted to them the way other people are. I will gladly clock shitloads of time into a video game, but that's because I'm being entertained. When it's all said and done, I don't really take the game with me. I don't discuss how Master Chief toppled the Covenant or how Big Boss's plight with his mentor is saddening. I believe in a balance in that I can totally geek out, but only when I'm doing the geeky thing. When I'm done with it, it doesn't come with me. It stays with the thing until I get back to it. Something less nerdier would be my love for guitars - I totally dig guitar playing and all the stuff behind it. My heroes are Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. I own a Fender Fat Strat and accompanying Fender amp. I dig the blues. But when I'm not playing or listening, the thought doesn't even cross my mind. When I find another guitar freak, however, it seems that it's all they want - they'll talk about pedals, drum machines, tones, pickups, accoustics, etc. It's crazy. I can't relate to all that.

It's not even a lack of confidence that keeps me at bay. I have the utmost belief that I can do anything so long as you give me enough time to learn how to do it. I pick up on stuff incredibly fast so long as I am given the chance to get my hands dirty. Instead, it's likely that I am dispassionate. I have no passion for anything I do except perhaps gaming, but even then, it's not the same as others, and I'm not ashamed of that. I don't WANT to be so devoted to something that I lose myself in it. I believe in maintaining some sort of balance where I can enjoy what I do, but it doesn't need to be my life. Not many people, in my experiences, are like that. They are generally into one thing so heavily that it becomes their life. I just don't have that, or maybe I do, but it doesn't contribute to my life in general.

Instead, I'm the kind of guy that simply likes to take things as they come and if they don't come, then it's no skin off my back. When we're growing up, our parents tell us to get a job, get married, have kids. Only one of those is completely necessary if you want to survive in this world. The rest? Fuck it. Even then, the job thing isn't necessarily something that enriches your life. For the lucky few who do what they love to do (Phi), I believe that they deserve it because chances are that they worked very, very hard to get to where they are. For the rest of us, we're simply going through the motions. Nobody grows up and says, "I want to design e-solutions for online commerce." If they do, then they must have some seriously screwed up childhoods, but that's beside the point.

W2NHK, while enjoyable, feels like it's passing judgment on those who are comfortable doing nothing. And why shouldn't it? That's no way to live life, right? Fuck you. I don't see anything wrong with simply enjoying where you are and making due with what you have. That's who I am, and I don't think I'm in any bad spot because of it. Granted, there are those extreme cases like the character Satou, but I think that's rare. Instead, I think there's a lot of people like me out there that have no drive and I don't fault them for it. My goals are entirely short term because I simply don't believe that long term goals are healthy. You can devote years of your life to your ambition and never get it. Or if you do, what do you do afterward? Meh. Is a society of indifference dangerous? Perhaps, but I don't think it's necessarily so. You just need to find balance and be happy with whatever you're doing. It's the most anyone can really hope for, if you ask me. I still work on the side to be creative and maybe one day I'll be successful at it, but if I never am, so be it. It's not the end of the world or the end of the road. I've got a pretty good life even if it is in semi-isolation. Things could be worse and given that they aren't, I'm pretty happy with where I am. Write your book on that!

Ghost Night

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:58:04 GMT

Ever hear of the legend of the ghost of Carli Banks? Of course you haven't. For one, she's not dead and she's also a porn star (safe pic - http://www.nakedmovies.net/gallery/carli_banks_naked/carli_banks_001.jpg). That doesn't mean I wasn't creeped out by a funky dream last night in which she was out to kill me - admittedly, it wasn't Carli, but someone who looked a lot like her, though I'm sure now that you've seen "porn star", credibility is shot. Screw it. I suppose after reading Phi's entry on how she bolted out the door an hour early had me up at 2AM this morning getting ready for work only to realize that I still had two hours to go before I needed to be up. So back to bed. Here's an account of what happened in dream land during those two hours.

I was staying at a beautiful country resort, invited out for the weekend by a friend I haven't really seen since she had her first kid. On one end of the resort was a beautiful hotel, the kind that had glossy surfaces around every corner and sparkled with gold that's generously applied all over the place. On the other end were a few ranch houses with livestock and beautiful open fields of green grass for that authentic country feel. If the place existed, I'd probably want to visit.

As I couldn't really afford to stay in a ranch house, I elected to stay in the fancy hotel, but as every room was booked, the only room available was a private suite on the ground floor accessible only by a sliding elevator that, when traveled in, would give you a great view of the inner courtyard of the hotel - a sunny view of an obscenely large space with a glittering blue pool and tall tropical trees lining the outer walls of the resort. Past the view, you would end up in a suite that was made out of polished pale blue and white marble and filled with dark mahogany furniture. The room was not welcoming, but it was gorgeous - upon arrival, you were treated to a large living room, decked out in large wooden chairs dominated by a tall fireplace flanked by two massive pillars of marble. Despite this, the room felt cold because there was no warm light, as if it was lit only by twilight, and the fireplace never roared. Still, it was fancy and it was kind of fun to pretend to be rich.

It was then that a weird feeling of being watched came over me. Though being in the room itself was uneventful, it was difficult not to feel uneasy being there because I could feel its weight upon me. I thought perhaps it was simply the fact that despite its posh styling, nobody could really ever feel comfortable living in a room made out of marble, but no, something else was making the room colder. In my haste to get out of there and head over to the ranch house where my friend was having her dinner held, I ended up in a long corridor (also marble) just outside the room, which led to the sliding elevator, and there was this beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman (see photo above) decked out in a denim jacket and a white, low-cut shirt. She said nothing, but she seemed incredibly sad.

She was a hooker. I had not "ordered" her, as it were, but there she was, offering her services to me. Though I thought she was immensely attractive (again, see photo above), I was not interested in her services, but her sadness preyed upon my compassion. I offered to invite her inside for a drink, to pay her simply for her company instead of her body, but she would have none of it. She forced me back into my room and demanded that I have sex with her. When I refused, her sadness melted away and was instantly replaced by pure rage. I could not understand her insistence on needing to sleep with me, but still she pressed on, even foregoing the price tag. I doubt that I would seriously resist in my waking hours, but here, I was unwilling to take advantage of someone who was clearly not in her right mind - she looked, quite simply, murderous.

Then, without warning, she was gone. The room, which was at once lit up with her fiery rage, was once again cold, suspended in the twilight, despite the beautiful sunny weather outside. I knew, then, that this beautifully tragic creature was a ghost or spirit, and to be frank, ghosts are the only thing that really scare me in life. I then began to notice that there were photos strewn about the room and even some decorative photo albums. Photos that were in frames featured the same girl I had seen not moments before, and when you looked at them, the eyes began to darken and drip and the photo itself began to melt like the way film melts when you put a hot lamp on it. In the blink of an eye, however, the photo would restore itself to its original state. Instead of bolting out the door, I flipped through some of the albums, which also featured Carli (who I shall name as such for the sake of convenience, as she never had a name in the dream), but among friends. Here, however, her companions in the pictures would distort; their cheeks would puff out and their nostrils would widen. A correct assumption had me asserting out loud that Carli was not fat or wide-nosed or unattractive at all, at which time she would then burn like she did in the framed photos.

That was enough to get me out of there. When I had gathered my things and left the sliding elevator, I found out that Carli had once lived in that room for some time and had been tortured and murdered while she was staying at the resort. Though it was never clear why, Carli had been a permanent resident, living in that private room in isolation. She had been horribly disfigured when she was killed - her killer took pleasure in slicing her nostrils open during sex and then killing her, most likely by strangulation, but the details were never clear. Nevertheless, I dared not return to the room and suffer her wrath again, so I made my way to the ranch house to meet my friend.

When I got there, my friend wasn't so delighted to see me and hinted several times that I should simply go home. To understand this, in the waking world, I had missed her daughter's first birthday party and I feel guilty about it, even though I would never have been able to make it because of work. It was a simple buffet deal where there were huge foil bins of food laid out on a table and people would get up and help themselves. Even here, however, the weight of the private room was present, though I seemed to be the only one that felt it.

Again, there were photos of Carli about the place. It didn't make sense at first until someone was telling the story of how she was staying at the resort and a family was lodged here in the ranch house. It was through this family that Carli had met her killer, and though she lived in the private room, it was here where she was murdered. Immediately after this story was told, her presence was made apparent. Her photos began to melt as before and she then appeared before me, once again looking terribly sad. Knowing what she was, I did not want to look, but somehow I knew she wasn't out to hurt me. Still, when I looked at her, her eyes darkened and her skin began to char and I could not but be terrified. I no longer wanted to see this girl suffer, and so I made my way out the door.

Outside, it was dark, and I knew that something terrible was about to happen. There were hotel patrons touring around in the countryside and I felt this urging to disappear. Ahead of me, close to the tourists, a minivan was pushed forward by invisible hands, only to be replaced by another van that sprang from the ground. It didn't seem like the tourists saw this happening, but they did notice the new van. Drunk as they were, they investigated as there were several horrible sounds coming from the van - like muffled screaming and gurgling. Though it was never explained to me in the dream, I'm pretty sure that this is how Carli had died. Still, I did not want to be around to see what was going to happen, so I quickly walked away in the direction of the hotel. When the van was almost completely lost to the darkness, as if to shield my eyes, Carli unlatched a fence and several cows came stampeding out, muffling the screams of the hotel patrons as I can only assume that the family that had brought Carli's killer sprang out and killed them all.

I ran. The family in the van was not quite finished and they were giving chase. As I stumbled, I saw the first family member emerge from the darkness - a small, bleach-blond kid scampering viciously towards me on all fours, screeching like some sort of creature from Hell. As the mother and the older brother (who I assume was Carli's killer) began to emerge behind him, all three were suddenly and violently pitched back into the darkness. I somehow knew that my compassion towards Carli in the private room had saved me, and when I called out my gratitude, I woke up.

I realize that the ending is quite stupid, but most dreams are like that. At least this one had some sort of cohesion, no? Anyways, I thought that might be a fun one to share before I forget about all of it. Have a good weekend, people.

-DT

A Wave of Muti... no, I hate that song!

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:25:00 GMT

When FFT PSP came out, I promptly ran out to my local game store, grabbed it, and then promptly shoved it in a corner somewhere in my house (in actuality, it was left on top of my Gamecube, which has become somewhat of a stand for small items). I had completely forgot that I had it. In my quest to track down Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (for some reason, there's been a rush of interest for it here and nothing to explain why no stores have it), I got my itch for SRPG action and remembered that I picked up FFT PSP. Originally, I had ignored it simply because I didn't want to spend the hours on it, but yesterday I finally shoved the thing into my PSP and I swear I almost cried when I heard the music start to play. Of all my gaming experiences on the PS1, FFT (alongside Vagrant Story and Vandal Hearts) completely spun my world around. I dunno - it's not like I had never played an SRPG before, but something about the epic-ness of FFT just blew me away.

The new cutscens are beautiful, but with my fond memories of the originals, it's hard for me to get behind them. That being said, though, the remixed opening crawl is phenomenal... but I keep thinking of the end to Monsters, Inc. You judge.

For a taste of the new cutscenes, hit the jump (yes, I read too much Kotaku).

Rock Band Rocks Me

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:49:51 GMT

I bought a mic stand (nice boom stand for $30) so I could play Rock Band and sing at the same time. It's tough as nails because I don't know most of the songs by heart. The way the screen is laid out, the words are at the top and the notes for the guitar are at the bottom (no chance I can sing and drum at the same time). So I mostly end up just warbling the pitch instead of singing any actual words. Hella fun, though.

Also, for those of you with PSPs and not much to play on 'em, I suggest getting Pursuit Force. It's like a successor to Chase HQ (anyone remember that) where you're a cop who chases down criminals, only this time you can jump on their cars/boats/whatever and shoot the hell out of the baddies. Lotsa fun and good for pick-up play.

Half a Day and a Day's Worth of Tired

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:56:34 GMT

It's about 4:15AM and I'm going into the home stretch of my 12-hour shift tonight, or rather this morning. Despite the title of my post, I'm not really that tired. In fact, I'm quite awake. I ate a whole thing of spaghetti, about half a thing more than I should have eaten, and I'm terribly gassy. More importantly, however, I managed to forget my headphones in my car way back at the top of the subway system, so instead of watching funny clips on Youtube, I've been whiling away the night on Wikipedia, thankful that the drama from earlier this week (which I have not written about) has settled to a horrifyingly-still pond of... water. Normally when I venture to Wikipedia, I look up a single topic of interest - this is normally provoked by random thoughts which have no explicable genesis and any investigation into such, I believe, would be frightening. Digression aside, one topic always leads to another, and I somehow went from submarines to physics to notable phycisists. Which brings me to my point.

Keep in mind the hour at which the arrival to the following conclusion took place, but do not in any way excuse the following theory for that reason alone (because that would be stupid) - anyways, Einstein wasn't human. I'm not saying he was an alien or anything like that, but he was definitely not one of us. I have no proof except his undeniable uniqueness in history. Think about it - before the wild-haired scientist and his time-travelling partner in a life preserver... wait... wrong thing - before Einstein, the world was moving forward at a crawl, much like we are today. More importantly, at a time when evil rose to destroy the world, along came a man who ensured, although indirectly, that it would not happen. If you don't understand yet, just stay with me.

The world before Einstein was stagnant, struggling... ancient. Einstein grew up, ended up working in a Patent Office for a few years where he could study electromagnetic devices (coincidence? pshaw!) and then SINGLE-HANDEDLY ADVANCED THE ENTIRE WORLD. If you look at the history of Science, you never really pay attention to the gradual developments like Aspirin to Tylenol to Advil. Nobody cares, but perhaps less noticeable is that it doesn't really do much for the world in general. Then, every few decades or in a century or two, something scientifically massive happens. A new theory is proposed and it just makes everyone in the world go, "Wow... never thought of it like that before," and bam, at a breakneck pace, a whole bunch of stuff happens. Normally, it's like two or three guys all having an epiphany and bouncing off each other. Not Einstein.

No, Einstein had colleagues, but he schooled everyone. Dude just went home at the end of the day and THOUGHT. He had such a brilliant understanding of the science before him that he could simply write papers after just a few moments of thinking, whereby he comes up with these amazing theories that just spin everyone on their heads. Of course, this is overly simplifying his achievements and his methods, BUT - and that's a big 'but' - it cannot be denied that the world before Einstein and the world after Einstein are completely different things. In the span of 70-something years (shut up, I closed the wiki entry), this man ushered in a new era of humanity practically all by himself. Not a single person like that exists today.

And it all culminates with a little something known as World War II, started by a very, VERY upset little German man who went by the name of Adolf. On the one hand, you have a brilliant scientist - a brilliant human being in any field - who is ushering man into a new age of evolution; a technical evolution that ends up redefining the way people live in the world. On the other hand, you have a petty tyrant who embodies the ultimate politician - someone so maniacal, yet so incredibly charismatic that he convinces men to do murder. In many ways, this guy is the complete opposite of Einstein. Where Einstein moves man forward, Hitler moves man backward. Einstein encourages the development of humanity through science, and Hitler encourages the regression of humanity through war. Is it starting to click yet?

So here we go, two adversaries with no direct conflict with each other, but they are, in many ways, opposites. It's like when you watch those cartoons where the good guy and the bad guy are throwing beams of power at each other and it gathers in the middle until something happens and one side loses - that thing in the middle was the atomic bomb, my friends. It was an evil that helped to end the war and destroy what could have been a very bleak future for mankind. After the bomb was made and dropped, things quickly went downhill for Hitler and he ended up dying somewhere in a ditch on fire. Einstein on the other hand dies ten years later in a hospital while valiantly trying to finish a speech he was working on - I believe this speech would have unlocked the entire mystery of life had it been finished.

So you're sitting there going, "WTF is this guy talking about?" Let's take a look at the facts. I don't trust Wikipedia one bit, but I do know that dates can be corroborated. So let's take simple dates and lay them out side-by-side so you can see exactly why there's no way that Einstein was human. In 1879, Einstein was born - ten years before Hitler, who was born in 1889. That meant that someone knew Hitler was coming and that mankind needed to rush to a new era to counter that threat. Ten years head start was all that was needed. Skip forward to the future. Hitler dies in 1945. Ten years later, Einstein leaves the world behind and returns to the mothershi... er... Heaven... It takes ten years for Einstein to observe the world and know that we're no longer in need of his services, which sounds about right - stuff doesn't just go back to normal after a giant world-tearing war.

In Einstein's last moments, he tries to deliver a message to us, but never gets to do it. Why so urgent in writing the message? Why, when your brain has pretty much burst a seam, worry about a speech you're never going to be able to deliver? Einstein had something to say, but someone made sure he didn't get to say it. It's all too carefully orchestrated, you see. Imagine - just imagine if Einstein was given one more hour in this world. It took him 70-something years to move man through a theoretical century of research, all by thinking. His last thought was so important that even on his way to the next world, he desperately wanted to say it.

I say that we once again head towards darkness and that once again, the chosen Einstein will return to us and bring us into the next era. Next week, a continuation on how Einstein is Jesus! Same bat time, same bat channel! ...Not really.

Yawd (Yet Another Weird Dream)

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:35:17 GMT

Okay, this one I have to share since it's one I can remember. I had a dream last night that I had put a fish into the bathroom sink so I could clean its tank. This is something I don't do - I actually put them into a bucket. Anyways, turns out that the plug for the sink had a hole in it and all the water was slowly slipping down the drain.

So naturally I don't want to put more water in the sink because it's full of chemicals and stuff, so I start messing around with the plug. So I find another plug and the danger is that when I do the swap, I'm worried the fish will go right down the drain with the water. In real life, I'm probably quick enough to prevent this from happening, but in dream life, the second I moved the plug, BWOOP down the fish went.

So in my ingenious solution, I decided to simply turn on the taps (with lukewarm water so the fish won't freeze) and since the fish is clogging up the drain, the sink starts to fill up slowly and I watch as the fish pops its head out of the hole. I flip it out with my finger and yay, fish saved.

Then I put the new plug back in, which is ten times worse than the first plug, acting more like a "screen" in functionality in that it holds jack shit in the sink, but at least the fish won't go back down. However, I'm kind of stuck because I have no other plugs, so I leave the taps running.

At some point, the plug pops out of the hole or something, but all of a sudden there's about 20 different fish in the sink with no water and I've got no way to save them. The tank I was apparently cleaning is now far away from me and without water. I don't want to leave the sink because I KNOW the fish will go back down or die or both. I simply need to fill the sink up somehow before I can continue on with the tank.

There's no ending to this dream because I thought it was fucked up enough to wake up and realize that it's way too early for me to be awake.

Attention, Readers Everywhere

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 02:03:08 GMT

The following message is of great importance and urgency. Please read and review it immediately as it may pertain to your physical well-being, your life expectancy, and your overall blood pressure. Message is as follows:

I now have Rock Band, fuckers.

Message concludes.

Happy Holidays

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:57:18 GMT

Though I took this shot quite a while ago, I was playing around with my camera and came across it. I don't really want to bother hooking up the 360 to the PC just to get the shot, so unfortunately it's pretty blurry. So to be helpful - in the spirit of the holidays - I pointed out some great things for you. They are not napping.

Below is another 10 reasons why Christ sacrificed himself for everyone, or so I hear.

Gaming Goodness

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:40:00 GMT

So I got a new job downtown which means instead of waking up at a relatively reasonable hour and driving in to work, I get up at an ungodly hour (4:30AM) to catch a train so that I don't have to deal with downtown traffic. On this train ride, you have the option of nodding off, but I've never been good with power naps - that is to say, there's no problem with me getting to sleep in public, but there IS a problem with me sleeping for just under an hour and having to get to work. Fuck that. So, instead I needed to find something to do and having just picked up Castlevania PSP, well, therein lies the resolution.

Now the odd thing about Castlevania PSP (aka Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles) is that the box clearly advertises two games: the remake of the previously East-only Akumajo X Rondo no Chi (Rondo of Blood) and the pinnacle of the entire god damned series, Symphony of the Night (herein "SotN"). Needless to say, Rondo of Blood - remake or not - can suck my fat wang because nothing is better than SotN. Admittedly, Rondo is great, and like the original (which I played emulated years ago), it's fuckin' tough as nails, but SotN is just the greatest game I've ever played. You know how when people ask you to choose your favorite thing and it's always hard to say? Well, fuck that. SotN is my favorite. I own the original on PS1 and totally rocked it there (completed the upside down castle and did that trick where you can explore outside the walls to get a higher % total), I've been waiting for my credit card to get the 360 version, and the only reason I picked up the PSP version is so I can have a portable SotN.

Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off when I learned that you must traverse three levels of Rondo (not exactly the simplest of things to do) - one of which is an alternate version of the level so it's even tougher than usual - and climb to a specific spot to unlock the son of a bitch. It didn't take too long, but there were a lot of frustrating moments because, well, old Castlevanias are bitches to play. You see, the Belmonts are handicapped. Sure, they're charged with killing Dracula every century, but for Christ's sake, you'd think they'd learn how to RUN or something (this doesn't count Richter's ability to dash in SotN's intro). In essence, the Belmonts move like rocks and shit is flying at you ALL the damned time. So it's kind of hard to dodge stuff, especially when your weapon of choice is a morning star. Also, specifically to the original Rondo, if Richter jumps, he moves a hell of a lot faster than when he's just plodding along getting grabbed by mud hands. I just so happen to love tough platformers, so I do enjoy the entire series, but SotN is where I really fell in love with the word "Castlevania".

You see, SotN merged the concepts of Metroid with traditional JRPG stuff to update the platformer into a kind of exploratory action-fest, not to mention the major shift in art from low fantasy to beautiful Gothic. The problem with the older Castlevania games is that they are specifically designed to piss you off. Where in SotN you can heal and upgrade your items, weapons and armor, in the original Castlevanias, you're simply fucked. The only way to truly master the old games is to simply learn every inch of the level so that when you meet the boss, you haven't been hit once. And only then do you need to practice on the boss so that you can kick his over-sized ass (all Castlevania bosses are large) without dying.

Being spoiled by modern games that are more about thinking and strategizing, I need to be in the mood for the old platform style and as much as I like the Vanias, I hate Rondo of Blood. I don't have any specific reason on why I don't like it. It's relatively easier than the first 4 games and obviously prettier, but maybe it just doesn't carry that nostalgic feeling because when I first played the original, I wanted to throw my monitor across the room. Whereas the first three games on the NES were loads of fun when I was a kid, perhaps because I played Rondo when I was older and less patient, it doesn't hold the same kind of magic that the first three do. I really can't say for sure, but suffice to say that SotN totally blows Rondo out of the water.

There are some hardcore purists, including Castlevania head honcho "IGA" that dig the old style of the game, I'm one of the millions of people who were floored by the change in SotN. Not only was it now like Metroid (SotN is commonly called Metroidvania), we had a character who was responsive and moved the way we wanted him to move and we could upgrade him so that he could do the things we really wanted him to do (like double-jumping). The art style shifted to this hauntingly beautiful style courtesy of Kojima Ayami and everything felt so right. I can't say the same for the following games that appeared on GBA and DS because they were just clones and the shift to the anime style just doesn't work. The thing about SotN is that anybody can get right into it and find themselves blasting hours at a time into the game because it never stops being interesting due to the free-roaming nature that was never seen previously. Where the old games would really punish you for being a casual gamer, even SSJHaloFan69 can enjoy it. So if you've never played this game, you're a twat and you should go get it. Whether you find it in a bargain bin (unlikely) for PS1, get it on 360, or get the PSP version... well, I'd recommend you steer away from the PSP version because unlocking it can be a large task... play it. It is, quite frankly, the greatest game ever made.

And no, I will NOT talk about the 3D Castlevanias. They do not count. Ever.

Dude Dies

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 05:30:53 GMT

Here's a spoiler for Mass Effect - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for Ace Combat 360 - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for Metal Gear Solid 4 - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for Devil May Cry 4 - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for Final Fantasy XIII - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for Uncharted - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for Assassin's Creed - Dude dies.
Here's a spoiler for BioShock - Dude dies.

Regardless of whether or not dude dies, dude still dies, so it's always dude dies. Why can't there be stories where dudes don't die? It seems like every game has dude die and it ain't cool anymore. Nobody cares if dude dies anymore - dude just dies. Seriously.

American "Goods"

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:49:21 GMT

We suck in terms of tchotchkes that get released Stateside (including Canada) related to video games. Comics, to paint the picture better, have all sorts of tchotchkes - you have busts, keychains, shirts, buttons, decoder rings, visors, and a whole bunch of other stuff dedicated to expressing your love for your hobby. Games, on the other hand, at least as far as America goes, are relegated to art books, world books, comic books, and generally just books. For the rare game, you may get a medallion or a special box, but that's nothing compared to what, for example, the Japanese get. I mean, if you keep up with gaming sites and gaming news in general, you'll see that the sushi-loving folks on an island enjoy a slew of things like gun cases, pendants, statues, plush boobies, tattoos, spoons, and other trinkets that generally don't do much except decorate your room and deny you any kind of hope for sex, but that's not stopping anybody!

So why is it that we only get books? Granted, some of the books we get are awesome, but for collectibles, beyond fancy packaging and giant plastic helmets, we don't get a lot offered to us. Is gaming still carrying some sort of stigmatic shame when it's the major money maker in the entire world? Admittedly, you can geek out a little bit on some titles (I got my Big Daddy statue), but for the most part, Japan doesn't even bring over half the crap that could be brought over. What if I want to collect those shiny plastic cards with Street Fighter characters on them? I have to go to the Honger mall, is what. And I hate the Honger mall.

Still, to get my gaming tchotchke jollies, I visit the Honger mall and get some sweet swag since nobody else is doing it. This includes some Street Fighter gatcha toys, some lenticulars, a neat plastic case with swords in it (I think that one is for a comic book), and I even have some Parasite Eve pins hiding somewhere. For the most part, however, that's only for Japanese games, and I'm a fan of lots of American-made games, too. So where's my Mass Effect collapsible pistol or my N7 t-shirt? Where's my GRAW-skull shoulder patch? Where can I find some tiny Nod tanks to place on my monitor? Where's my sack of coins from the Forgotten Realms? What about my own GalCiv starship playset with swappable parts? How about a series of Worms with different weapons including the Grandma bomb? It's not that I want to play with all this stuff, but I just collect it and all the cool stuff I have is from Japan, my favorite of which is my Zombie Survival Kit from RE4 which includes a water bottle that says "Hazardous Waste" or something on it (I'm too lazy to go get it to prove a point). I want to show my love for American games, too!

If the stigma is there, just make the shit cooler. Don't give me a blinky lightsaber keychain, give me a Galactic Credits card instead with shiny parts. Don't give me stickers, give me embossed metal. It's all good. Hell, if my head wasn't so big, I'd still be wearing my S.T.A.R.S. hat, and yes, I know that's Japanese, but fuck you, it's awesome. The reason I mention the hat is because only those who know the game will know what the hat is for and there's no stigma. I was never ashamed to wear the hat and anyone who recognized it instantly wanted one, too. I'd wear my Fatal Fury hat if it wasn't a trucker's hat. Either way, I didn't have to buy some crazy-priced copy of the game to get this stuff - it all came separate and that's what I like.

Anyways, this whole post came about because I recently bought two art books, one of which I was forced to buy a strategy guide to acquire. Anyways, flipping through them, I was thinking it'd be really cool if there was some other crap I could buy for these two games to display proudly either in my home or on myself, only without some weird desire to emblazon the game title somewhere on it. Taking the queue from above with my RE hat, I would proudly wear a black shirt that said N7 on it. Only those who know would know, and that's what makes it fun. Alternatively, I'd love a coin or some piece of metal with the Masyaf logo on it that I could put on one of my shelves. If you can't tell, the two art books I bought were for Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed respectively. If you didn't have to read the previous sentence to know what I was talking about, then that's what I'm talking about. Cool shit to show that I love me some games without being a whore for the distributors.

Anyways, Ubisoft, learn to make an art book. Yours was good, but Mass Effect's was much better. Maybe I just don't like the fact that Jade Raymond's blurbs in the book are near useless.

EDIT: Also, interviewing unhygienic code junkies and slapping them onto a disc is NOT my idea of a good extra. You want an idea of how to really do your game justice? Try some commentary from a Valve game.

THE KING RETURNS!!!!

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:24:04 GMT

I am so stoked for Street Fighter 4. Considering I have a Dreamcast with a dedicated TV and own a crapload of arcade sticks, you can be I'm going to be first in line to kick some hybrid 2D ass. The trailer... oh my god, the trailer!! This game needs to come out NOW.

Dream Haunting

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:22:11 GMT

I've been having some seriously weird dreams these past two days. The dreams are not recurring in themselves, but there is a recurring character - a malicious ghost/spirit. I can't remember most of the details of the dreams, but I do remember some of the bits when she shows up. The dream itself will be moving along swimmingly, like any other dream, without any real logic or purpose other than to play up the fancy of my subconscious mind... which apparently is completely screwed up without the psycho ghost girl. However, without warning, things will suddenly start to go south and I'm stricken not with fear, but an intense anxiety, like when you're watching a very scary movie and you start to tense up because you know the scary part's coming, but the only thing scaring you is yourself. Like when watching a movie, I close my eyes and turn away, hoping that I miss the part I came to see, but the feeling of anxiety is too intense and I -must- look.

And there she is. She's not tangible in the least and she never materializes in front of me. That wouldn't be very ghost like. Instead, she appears in images like paintings or on computer screens, but only after she's done harm somewhere (like making a friend completely disappear). She is not Sadako/Samara, that much is for sure. In most images where she appears, she has a blue dress, dark brown hair cropped just under her shoulders, and no face. Not a single detail to identify her, but instead a blotch of flesh-toned paint or a blur of nothing. Except one time.

Of the most vivid memories I have of my dream last night, there was some point where I had been with a friend and we had both been taking pictures with our digital cameras in a house somewhere. When the anxiety hit, I turned away and heard chaos, but when I had looked again, my friend was gone. Everything was strewn all over the floor and yet, both of our cameras had been placed on the small row of shelves in the room (they resembled paper shelves; wide, yet very short for sheets of paper). I picked one up knowing that we had stopped taking pictures when the ghost girl came, knowing that she had made herself apparent on one. I knew that turning on the camera would show her to me once again... so I turned it on. Instead of the blue faceless girl, however, there was this dark-red image of a girl on the floor, holding a bear or something (imagine a sepia image with a lot of red added to it). As I type this, I can remember her face being old, but I don't think that's true. The odd thing is that as soon as I saw the image, it began to move and she turned toward me. Then I woke up.

Now you tell me, what the hell is that?