Games can help change lives...

Note: This is an old blog I wrote a long time ago but I figured I'd post it to help keep the updates going until I finally publish my stuff.

When I was younger life wasn't all that great. I lived in a horrible neighborhood after I was forced to move out of my nice one. See, when I was really young my parents went through a divorce. After that my mom had found a new boyfriend and I had to move away from my old home. When I thought things couldn't get worse, things did. My new "Dad" was a jerk and hated me. To top that off the kids in town weren't fond of me either, I was overweight so people liked to make fun of me for it. It made me want to go back to how things used to be, but my mom would never listen to anything I would say to her. She would always say "well things will be fine you'll see".

Things sucked and I felt weak. The world hated me,or so I thought at the time, and there was no way out of it. Until one day, I saw it, that beautiful case for Final Fantasy 7 sitting behind that glass at the store downtown. The game that enchanted me, when my eyes first laid on it. At the time I didn't know what Final Fantasy was, but there was something about that case that made me want it. Something about that simple figure standing tall and looking heroic made me want it. I had to beg my mom to get it for me but when she did it was the coolest moment of my life.The moment I had popped the disc in I knew that I would never put the controller down. I never knew how much this moment would change me forever.

I loved the game for one reason, Cloud:he just seemed so cool. At the time I wanted to be just like him. As odd as it sounds he represented the one thing I admired and wanted for myself. Confidence. Cloud could of been put into any kind of danger and he would defeat it without even cringing. At the time I saw him as the coolest character I've seen in a video game and I idolized him. Every time I was faced with another kid picking on me or pushing me around I'd stand tall.I always kept thinking what would Cloud do and that kept me going every time.

Soon, I had picked up my next addition of the series, Final Fantasy 9. This time I was in control of Zidane. At first I never thought much of him but soon he grew on me. From jumping off a castle with no fear in sight to preforming a staged fight in front of a theater of viewers Zidane had proved to being the coolest adventurer I had ever seen. He made me want to take more risks in life and live in a much more lively way.

Finally one day I had got my hands on a ps2 and Final Fantasy 10. This is when I got introduced to Tidus the one character that influenced the most of all. At first he seemed extremely whiny and that didn't make me like him much at first, but he soon grew on me. A real optimist he was, always looking on the bright side of things and being cheerful albeit to an annoying degree. But that's what I loved about this character Tidus could always have a cheery mood after something tough happened. I again found this fascinating and took this into heart with myself. I would always try to be optimistic about things. I would always persevere to achieve my goals and I would never let anyone get in my way. Although I did not always follow this philosophy I would always keep it mind.

When things would go to shit like my mom fighting with her boyfriend I would be able to stay strong instead of getting sad or afraid. I would simply go and escape in my world. In this world I got to be around these characters that I admired. These characters who seemed to never have a problem they couldn't face and take down. It made me feel strong again when I needed it. When things got worse with my mom and her boyfriend. At times they would blame me for all of their problems. It was like I had no where to turn. I always tried talking to my father about the problems but he would never listen. Things felt entirely hopeless for me. I felt like giving up on life. But I had remembered Cloud and Zidane. "The wouldn't give up they'd still keep fighting" I thought, although today I came to realized maybe Cloud wouldn't but at the time I didn't really know.

Even to this day I take those qualities in mind. I always try to be strong and confident when times are hard. I've been through hard times and I always tried to keep my chin up and a smile on. To this day I am much more confident and I don't let people push me around anymore thanks to these characters. Now,thankfully, my parents are actually back together which is nice and I'm still enjoying the Final Fantasies to this day. All in all these games in general have impacted my life on higher levels than I can explain. It helped me in hard times and ultimately turned my life around. I have always felt a strong connection with these characters and am glad that I had found FF7 when I did. If I didn't I don't think I'd ever be the person I am today.

Bits of Today

Since I'm trying to keep this blog updated as much as possible I've decided to start doing a series of small blogs summarizing things that are on my mind or just updating people on whats new. On that note lets get right into it!

• Planning on working on a blog feature for this summer. I have a lot of games in my back log and I was planning on going through all of those games over my vacation. I figure I can start a feature where I record my progress on my list. I fear this might become too much like a journal, but this is a blog so I guess all of this already is. Possible name for this feature: “Summer Long Back Blog”
  
• Finally coming close to finishing Chrono Trigger. I'm fighting the need to drop it and move to something else, the game is starting to loose it's grip on me.
  
• Thinking of recording vlogs along with my written work. It'll help me work in some experience with video editing and sometimes I'm too lazy to write but still just want to talk.
  
• Lastly, I'm a bit of a podcast whore this week, I guested on the "Broken Lamp Cast" (Link here), recorded my own podcast (Bomb Should Have a Face), and was mentioned on the “Negative Gamer Podcast” and the “Talkradar Podcast”. Go Go Narcissism!

Well that's me for today, I'll have something up mid week. Probably going to talk about the Game Industry and the recession. It's been quite of a topic this week with the whole 3d realms shutting down fiasco. Well that's all for now people, Stay Tuned.

It's been a while...

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog, the reason being: I’m lazy. I’ve always wanted to keep updates current but I can't seem to get off my ass and  actually write. Because of this I decided to give you guys a quick update on what I've been playing lately.

Chrono Trigger DS

I’m surprised I’ve gotten so deep into this game without succumbing to gamer A.D.D. It’s really interesting how fresh this game still feels after so many years. Most notably, the way the game plays with the choices you make. That entire court room scene blew me away, how all of the little choices you made at the faire reflected how you were judged in the court room. The things you did at the faire seemed very small and seemed to have little consequence to them. The game is tricky like that, you can’t actually manipulate the outcome of your choices the first time you are faced with them. The game makes you give it your truest decisions. 

What bothers me in a game like Fallout 3 is that the outcomes of the choices you are faced with are very obvious. One is an evil path, one is neutral, and the other is a good path. What I like about Chrono Trigger is that the choices I made are reflective of myself. The things I did at the faire were in a split seconds decision straight from my intuition and soon I felt the consequences. Because of these offhand choices I made, the game had shown me a little bit of who I am. I like that feeling, I’d rather have a moral choice be honest than the contrived bullshit I get out of Fallout 3.

In Fallout 3’s defense, its moral choice system is really made for character development so the outcomes have to be obvious to craft your character in how you want. I’m just not that interested in developing a character. I want true consequence from my decisions; in Chrono Trigger they offer me that: it shows me what I’m really like as a person.

Metal Gear Solid 2

I finally managed to come back to this game. The last time I played it I was pretty young and hadn’t paid any attention to the story. It was nice going back to this game since I've neglected to ever revisit it.

One thing I noticed while playing MGS2 is that, playing through this game really made me look at MGS4 in a different light. I almost like MGS2 more than MGS4. Its weird, when Kojima made MGS4 I was aware it was time to have all our questions answered, while I’m happy they were answered I almost feel soured because there were no questions asked. In a game like MGS2 you’re always in the dark, there is this high mist of mystery around you for the entire game until the climax. In MGS4 you were never in the dark because this was Solid Snake’s time to take control. You were in the know for most of the happenings and only getting answers to questions, never raising any. I seem to enjoy MGS more when I have the feeling that I’m being lied to by some higher power and that someone will stab me in the back eventually. I never had that fear or sense of confusion in MGS4.

I’ll probably write a longer blog about this somewhere down the line because there is just so much that I’m learning from going back into the MGS timeline.

Well that's been me, hopefully enough I'll be able to get to a much bigger blog about the Metal Gear series as a whole but until then I'll be seeing ya'.