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005 :: become an asshole/good |
filed:10/01/2005 by GM
I don't believe in hobbies. I was never taught to half-ass something. If you're going to do something, become completely obsessed and drown yourself in it. I thought I was the only one who had this mentality until I found other people who played the same video games as I did.
Every day is spent practicing. You fear the day you hit that "wall." The wall is a place where you've reached your limit and can only improve by making extra effort. Think of it as hitting a high level in an MMORPG and looking at your EXP wondering how you're going to manage to level up again. Either you can go find a better dungeon with better, high-level spawn or make the ignorant mistake of using low-level spawn and macro'ing. So once you hit that wall, it really tests your charisma, skill and dedication. Some people continue to improve, some people never actually hit the wall, and others will stay at their level for the rest of their career.
Being around people who understand this concept and fear it as well is liberating but will also feel like personality suicide on your part. Every day you and your friends push each other, possibly getting angry at the tiniest flaws in your performance. It doesn't take long until that perfectionist-mentality spreads to the rest of your life. All of a sudden you turn into an asshole. It's crazy.
Imagine a whole group of these socially dysfunctional obsessed. You bring these people together and leave them alone at an arcade and you'll end up with more drama and gossip than an episode of Degrassi: Next Generation.
I was a huge asshole. I still am, but at least I have it under control. I refuse to let any game rule my life like before. While this will mend my temperament and weed out my fucktard gamer friends over time, I can't help but think I won't be good at anything ever again. It's kind of defeating.
Let's see how long I can wallow in self-defeat before I take up a new life revolving solely around one video game. I could always play Ultima Online again. Hah.
filed under: social gaming, otaku
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004 :: Fast Friday Thoughts |
filed:9/30/2005 by GM
Game Boy Micro - I might have been sleeping a lot due to being sick.. But the Game Boy Micro just came out of nowhere. It could also be because I don't really care much for Nintendo. It's not that they're not good at what they do. It's actually the opposite. Nintendo is so completely stable, there's no point in me tracking the company because I'll have nothing to complain about. If I had the attention span for portable gaming and didn't have a DS, I'd totally get a Micro.
read:
Gaming Age - GB Micro review
GamePro - GB Micro Sales Surge in Japan
Japanese Togetherness - SquareEnix acquired Taito. Bandai and Namco officially merged. Sega Sammy? Playmore or SNK? I'm so confused. Stop it!! >:/
read:
Gamasutra - Namco Bandai Formally Created, Discusses Plans
GameStop - Square Enix to diversify business model
Walk of Gay - For a year or something, at the Metreon while walking around the second floor you'd see all this crap on the ground. Around the Metreon they have been promoting the Walk of Game since they came up with it last year. Current inductees are: Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, HALO, Link, Mario, and Sonic The Hedgehog. Now, this would be great if it weren't for the fact that no one notices or even cares. If Sony is trying to mimic Grauman's, they're failing miserably. And why HALO? Ugh. I hate the Metreon.
Sony whines about cracks - The only reason why anyone should ever consider getting a PSP is for modding. My friends and I were waiting for our porn hacks. If we can't have portable porn, what's the point? Well, Sony wants to rain on our porn parade. I'm not going to pay for porn UMDs, dammit. This is one of the many reasons why I hate Sony.
read:
CNET - Sony cracks down on PSP hacks
Spong - Hackers Dupe Sony
Revolt, revolt - I'm kind of tired of hearing about the Revolution's controller. All I'm honestly concerned about is wither or not I can bludgeon someone to death with it. If I can't, then it isn't that great. Which makes me wonder wither or not I could kill someone with a Game Boy Micro..
read:
Yahoo! Games - Nintendo Stratego
Computer Games Magazine - New Power Generation
みんな大好き塊魂ＧＭ大好き板垣伴信 - Itagaki is not only an avid hater of Tekken, but is also a short-film director! Who knew. Oh you ugly piece of crap, I love you and your big-breasted CG daughters. Yay Itagaki! (Note: I think in no way is DOA a fighting game. I happen to think Tekken isn't one either.)
read:
Spong - Itagaki Savages Tekken
1Up - A Week with Team Ninja
filed under: Sony, Nintendo, Metreon, Game Boy Micro, Revolution,
Itagaki
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003 :: State of Affairs |
filed:9/30/2005 by GM
or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Xbox360
Over the years, my allegiance to Sony has wavered. My cellphone may still be an Ericsson, my portable music player may still be a Hi-MD player, my nice flatscreen monitor is still a Sony (and so is my TV) and I still own a PlayStation (first gen) and PlayStation2. But with the new wave of consoles coming out, I've decided to give up my loyalty to a faulty company and buy an Xbox360.
For me, the only reason to possibly buy an Xbox before was to mod. However, what's the point when I can play all these emulators on my computer? Needless to say, I never bought an Xbox, instead opting to live vicariously through my brother's. My video game tastes tend to lean towards whatever perverts in Japan like. I admit one of my favourite Xbox games is Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, to a point where I actually own one of the licensed swimsuits. (Lamina) I like pretty graphics and ginormous breasts.. in addition to liking fighting games with good systems (VF4). But all the Team Ninja tits in the world couldn't have gotten me to waste my money on an Xbox.
Microsoft made a lot of mistakes with the Xbox. Selling only one third of their units in Japan, there was no reason for Japanese to buy the system. Itagaki believing firmly in the capabilities of the Xbox system made a deal so that a limited edition bundle would be released with Kasumi love pillows. The only reason why Xbox did okay in the states was because of all the PC-ported games and HALO. Then the release of Street Fighter Anniversary edition (3s on XboxLive) and CvS2 (XboxLive). Fat white kids everywhere who use Ken and Terry didn't have to leave their homes and play on arcade joysticks that they don't understand how to use!
But something happened. A year and a half after PS2 was released, I realised that the system was obsolete. It had been released just a little bit ago and it was already obsolete. Hell, the Dreamcast isn't around anymore but it isn't obsolete even just yet. Compare Street Fighter Third Strike for PS2 to Third Strike for Dreamcast, and anyone who seriously plays 3s would opt more for the Dreamcast version. And I respect Gamecube as a system. But all the games seem completely intangible to me. I don't want to play Mario games or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. I might want to play Animal Crossing, but I lost my life temporarily to that game and it scares me.
Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox are all in the past. We have the Revolution, PS3, and Xbox360 now. I still intend on buying a Revolution and a PS3, but my Xbox360 will be my baby.
The feeling of redneck-ness has kind of dissipated from the Xbox franchise. You have to admit that the only people who bought Xboxes to begin with were people who lived in the middle of nowhere, knew no better, and didn't care about importing video games over from Japan. People who just owned an Xbox and no other console were the kinds of people who played LAN'd HALO, sports games, and crushed beer cans on their foreheads. That's why none of my friends bought an Xbox for the longest time.. it had that pig-American stigma attached to it.
Microsoft not wanting to repeat the same mistakes has recruited Japanese video game makers. They see the problems that Sony will be facing with the PlayStation3 and are taking advantage. Microsoft has no pride. They don't care. They just want to be taken seriously, and up to this point no one has been taking them seriously. Remember what happened with Fable? The poor creator had to apologise for leading people on. How embarrassing.
Itagaki and I believe that the Xbox360 is a lot more tangible to game creators than the PS3 is. Sony has been very stingy with their releases, especially in America. Sony would prefer to just release their own in-house created games and make money for themselves as opposed to letting other people make money for a change. Yoichi Wada actually confirmed this briefly in his announcement to diversify SquareEnix. ".. game machine makers such as Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment controlled everything, including software development, manufacture, and distribution.."
Hopefully I won't be disappointed by the releases for Xbox360.
filed under: Xbox360, Itagaki, Sony
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002 :: Square |
filed:9/29/2005 by GM
I hate Square. Let's leave Taito and Enix out of this. I really hate Square. It wasn't always this way. I've played Final Fantasy (1) through IX. I was the fucktard waiting in line whenever the Metreon had special Final Fantasy events at the PlayStation store we have here in San Francisco. Yes, I even have a nice Final Fantasy Fan Day t-shirt (it's stained with chocolate, how funny.) I played all the other RPGs too.
What happened to make me hate Square so much?
I woke up one day and realised that their games suck. I realised that Final Fantasy VII wasn't that great. I realised that FFVIII was contrived, IX was short, and all X/X-2 were was fanservice. Kingdom Hearts, Parasite Eve, the Bouncer? What's the point. I have very little to say about Final Fantasy titles before VII because Square was still learning then.
What did they do with VII? They didn't even finish it. And now they're taking this chance to make a few extra bucks (read: Advent Children, mobile RPGs, etc) before they bow out to possibly fall into the same disorganised slump as Microsoft.
When a company expands too much, starts creating absolutely nothing new, and relies on old tactics.. they start to suffer from the Microsoft complex. Everything is disorganised, the employees are unhappy, no one in the business is impressed anymore. Square won't die from this, but I find nothing worse than being passed over because someone with a Google complex is doing something better.
I said I used to love Square. I loved Live-A-Live and Romancing SaGa. I've met Nomura. Until Square gets some balls and does something new and exciting that's actually Square's idea and not some left-over from Enix/Taito, I refuse to respect the company and its fans.
In some ways, I wish Square would somehow sabotage the Bust-a-Move franchise. Girls everywhere would be heartbroken. What would they do when they tag along with their boyfriends to the arcade? God forbid.
I am now surely guaranteed no readers. Or at least it will be set in stone once I get to talking about how much HALO sucks.
filed under: SquareEnix, Final Fantasy
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001 :: EP |
filed:9/29/2005 by GM
The first post for Electric Posse. Oh, it's only downhill from here. I project that after a couple of months, the "quality" of posts will degrade enormously. So enjoy these first few posts before EP becomes contrived like everything else I've ever worked on. I blame my rage.
I'm GM. I'll be bad-mouthing everything from here on. I would prefer to keep information about myself to a minimum on this blog, to avoid previous incidents. I ask that people who come here visiting who know me to respect my wishes. If you ever need to email me, feel free to do so.
This blog will mostly concentrate on video games but is not limited to such. I'll try to keep every post relevant however. There are links at the bottom of every post for you to comment or link.
The layout will fill up with more information gradually when more posts are made, outside links are found and quality-verified, and such.
I hope to include posts from people other than myself sooner or later. I don't think it will happen anytime soon given the fact that no one could possibly be as bitter and serious as I am. I'm sure there are people who know more about things like console gaming, but I have yet to find someone who can write and doesn't worship HALO or mindless Square RPGs. If you think you fit the bill, email me.
Update to come soon.
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all original content copyright EP
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