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'. 

Hey Me! What Have I been Playin'?

What have you been playing me?

Left 4 Dead

I've had this game for a long time now but I've never really had a lot of extra time on my hands to actually give some attention to it. Luckily enough I managed to get some nice one-on-one time with this game and I have to say this game has some very notably awesome things to it.

I like this game. I don't love it. I really don't feel its as great as its been hyped up to be. Frankly, I see the good parts, but there's just something that isn't clicking with me. I mean, I really enjoy getting a good game with some good friends, once you get into it, this game starts to shine. The ability to live out your fantasy of defending yourself and your group from a horde of zombies is great. This game feels like its the perfect game for that guy who has planned out his/her zombie escape plan if so the time occurs. This game just has a very strong attention to detail for the very small things that really set the atmosphere.

The whole game seems like your playing in a zombie flick and the Left 4 Dead really tries to set players in the right mood. With things like the ending credits after every level that look like movie credits, and the very cliche situations your put into set off the right atmosphere. In a way I think it's ability to mimic really crappy B-movie, zombie flicks is awesome since its only a few of the games that I feel pull these moments off well apart from games like Dead Rising.

Although I enjoy the atmosphere of this game, something is still not clicking with me. I think its mainly the lack of maps on hand at the moment. Right now there's only a choice of 4 maps that aren't extremely long. The lack of more content kind of puts me off since I've seen most of what's meant to be seen and I just want a little more since I get sick of the same old stuff very easily. But beyond that this game does a lot right but the lack of content right now is keeping me away from loving it.

Machiavelli's Ascent

[Niccolo Machiavelli' a poet, philosopher, and has nothing to do with this game]

The whole XBLA Community games have a lot of crap in it, but once in a while a gem comes out, and this game is a very nice gem. 

Essentially you play a phallic-like object that is very reminiscent of a jelly fish. In this game you make you Penis Jelly Fish jump in the air and you need to hit small white orbs to keep your Jelly Fish moving upwards. The higher you get the more points you get after you fall to the ground.

This game sounds SUPER simple and it is but that's where the magic is. This is one of those games that grabs a simple mechanic and makes it addictive as hell. I found myself playing this for hours attempting to reach the highest height I can without noticing that and hour had passed. This game very much has a Geometry Wars effect on me where it hooks me into it's simple gameplay.

Yeah so...that's what I've been playing just a little update for you guys.

Hopefully enough I'll have something interesting to write up mid week but I'm still not sure what to write about. 

Bob from Bob's game even MORE crazy

So yes, we all know the craziness that has come out of Bobsgame.com but if you look on his recent post on the site you'll notice he has completely changed the whole site to just have these words on the page.

"THAT IS NOT ME!! IT'S NOT ME!!! SOMEONE CAME INTO MY HOUSETHEY CAME INTO MY HOUSE!!! THEY WENT THROUGH EVERYTHING, WENT THROUGH MY PC, FILE TIMESTAMPS CHANGED, FOOTPRINTS, EVERYTHING MOVED, DOOR UNLOCKED THEY TRIED TO OPEN THE SAFE MY PC IS KEYLOGGED12 HOURS OF CAMERA FOOTAGE WAS DELETEd CAMERA WAS UNPLUGGED WHEN I WOKE UPI WAS SLEEPING!!THEY DID IT WHILE I WAS SLEEPING!!THIS IS NOT PART OF THE PLANTHIS IS NOT A JOKE

THEY MADE HANAFUDA CARDS FOR 50 YEARSTHAT IS A YAKUZA GAME
THEY ARE THE JAPANESE MAFIA THEY ARE THE JAPANESE MAFIA THEY ARE THE JAPANESE MAFIATHEY ARE THE JAPANESE MAFIATHEY ARE THE JAPANESE MAFIA
THINK ABOUT IT!!THEY WANT TO SILENCE MEFOR A REASON!IT'S EITHER THEM OR ALIENSI'M PRETTY SURE IT'S NOT ALIENSI'D RATHER IT BE ALIENS !"

Here's the link, http://www.bobsgame.com/

Yeah...I'm not sure what to think of this besides that the mafia are bringing the man down and that we as gamers have to rise and fight them to the death.

Or you know...get this poor man some help before he goes mad.

Maybe I Don't Really Like Video Games?

You know, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. This is a question that has sprung in my mind many times before. Do I really like Video Games? I really Don't know. You see, I play video games, a lot, but the problem is, is that I don't really enjoy them most of the time. Now by enjoy I don't mean that I think the game is no fun or terrible it's just that I never ever am as pulled in by a game as many other people seem to be.

Everyone seems to have stories about these awesome moments they've had in a game, or about how they noticed certain aspects of a game, while for me I don't see any of these things. For example, my friends talk about all these amazing moments they have playing GTA4, like simple things like cool jump off of a ramp or a funny happening between them and a pedestrian where they ended up running him over in a car. Now these are all cool, but when I have these moments I can't help myself to think, "Yeah that happened, whatever it isn't really that amazing." I still don't know why I don't seem to notice or enjoy certain aspects of games that other people do. Maybe I'm just a jaded asshole. I honestly don't know.

Even though I don't notice all of these kind of things that other people do, I still feel like I enjoy video games. Just not in the same way. I have always been a big film buff. I've always admired many films and have dabbled in acting myself once having dreams of being apart of the industry. This is where my somewhat weird perspective on games comes in, I enjoy a game like I would enjoy a movie. I play, more or less, for the experience rather than the gameplay. I want to be taken away into another world. I think that's such an amazing feeling. It's almost like being sucked into a movie but even more so. I feel like everything I do has an impact on the world, and in many cases, it does. I love that feeling so much. I always hated watching a film and knowing that shit was going to go down and the only thing I could do was be that annoying guy in the theatre going "No don't go in there, runnn runnnn!!!" (Oh god, for the record I really don't talk like that).  I just enjoy the feeling of control over my surroundings, most of the time I couldn't give a shit about gameplay. Which feels like a awful thing to say.

Feeling some sense of control is one thing, but games have given me a sense of belonging also. Very recently I've become apart of the Giantbomb community and have been doing as much as I can to participate in it as much as possible. This is one thing that makes me completely adore video games. It's fanbase. I love the culture that has spawned around video games. I love it simply because video games can bring people together so well. I can honestly say some of my most memorable gaming moments were the ones that I shared with my friends.Online or real life. There's just this big sense of comradery that's created because we all have the same passion. In the end this is the greatest thing to ever come out of gaming and it's culture. Because of video games I would never decide to produce a podcast with a couple of guys, I would never even bother to write. Somehow gaming has motivated me to do something semi-productive for once in my life.

I think it's more of what has come out of gaming that makes me love it rather than the actual game itself.  

You know, writing this and looking through everything I've said so far, I think I've already come to a conclusion. Yeah, I do like games. Sure, maybe not for the gameplay, but for the more broader reasons. The people, the experiences. So yeah, I guess I like games then.

Hey UGO! Fuck you!

So yeah, everyone knows this by now that the rumours were true and that UGO is buying 1up. The one thing we weren't aware of was the fact that UGO was going to fire about 30 of it's staff members. This was really a big hit for everyone, all of the fans, all of the people who are still employed, and most importantly all of the poor people who were laid off.

This just fucking sucks. Honestly, this is the worst thing to ever hear about from my perspective. It's just so dis heartening for me. I've always wanted to be apart of the industry, mainly on the journalism side of things, and seeing this just makes me sad. The fact that these people are living some kind of dream, they're living this kind of awesome fantasy in which they get to write about the thing they love most 24/7 and that this is all destroyed by something so simple as "We can't really afford you anymore so like...you guys gotta go". The corporate side of things completely destroy everything. Its just such a crappy thought. 

Despite all of the negativity surrounded this situation, there still is good in it. Now all of these guys have the freedom to try new things, to move off and use their talents in other places. I for one am etremely excited to see how far things go at Eat-sleep-game.com and talkingorange.com. Hopefully these guys keep doing what they're good at and hopefully we get to hear more of them in the industry. It'd be really weird not to hear from these guys since they've been involved in games journalism for so long now.

Sure, things aren't going to be the same ever again, but good things can always come of situations like this. Just look at Giantbomb.com for example. Frankly, if Jeff Gerstmann never had never of gotten fired I would never had met all the nice people I have. 

I wish good luck upon all of them (Although No one will ever read this nor give a flying fuck) and hope that these great guys and gals will fall back on their feet. They deserve it.