T-Boned by Politics

*buries face in hands*

*groans*

All right, let’s hit it again, I guess.

Blindsided by Politics

It was either this, or another post on Marvel’s Spider-Man.  And come on, nobody cares about that stinker.  That garbage is headed straight to the bargain bin.

It’s a super-good game, thoooooooooooooooough.

Besides, this is more important.  Slightly more important.

Slightly.

Let’s discuss America, or thereabouts.

*sigh*

Video Games are NOT Hurting Us.

As a preface: always remember the golden rule.

Hijacked by Hurricanes (But Also Politics)

So here’s a fun fact about me: I was born in Houston.

Yep.  It’s gonna be one of those posts.

Tales of Berseria is…

So I had a moment with Tales of Berseria the other day.

I was pretty much in the last stretch of the game -- more than capable of waltzing right into the final dungeon, at least after I tied up some loose ends vis a vis the sidequests that opened up.  I did as many of those quests as I could, since I worked under the assumption that -- by virtue of the game taking up much-needed memory space on the PS4 -- I might never get the chance to play it again.  As of this post, I’ve finished the game.  I didn’t do everything (like the post-game dungeon) because I need to move on to other stuff.  But I’d say 95% of the stones were turned.

In any case, one of those sidequests got a real reaction out of me.  I didn’t cry or anything, though.  It’s just that…well, I won’t go into detail about it, because it’s a spoiler for both Berseria and (to a lesser extent) its predecessor Zestiria.  But it does involve/clarify a core character’s fate, which is just as dire as you’d expect.  Said character -- Eizen, the one who had become my favorite character -- happened to be the one I was using as an avatar on the field at the time.  So when the cutscene finished and I regained control, I could’ve gone on to do other stuff.  Fight more daemons, search for treasure, et cetera.

But I didn’t.

Art, the Great Equalizer

There’s an episode of Kamen Rider Drive where --

Hey, wait!  Don’t close the page yet!  I’m going somewhere with this.

Hijacked by Politics -- ACT III

All right, let’s have one more for the road.

Hijacked by Politics -- ACT II

Well, I didn’t think I’d be doing this again so soon.

And why would I?  I don’t know politics.  I haven’t been paying attention to any of it until a few months ago, and I get the feeling I’ll go straight back to my natural state -- one of pure, blissful, drool-mouthed ignorance -- when this election cycle is over.  But it’s not over yet.  So that means that I’m checking the r/politics subreddit daily (sometimes multiple times a day) to check out the latest news.  Inevitably, that means I’ve got a pulse on one scandal after another, and one event after another.  I hardly even need to go that far; the debates thus far, AKA the most official of the official instances, have told me more than enough.

They’ve told me that this whole “race for the White House” is a mess.  Like…is this what politics have always been like?  One absurdity after another, featuring men and women in their 50s, 60s, or even 70s shouting at each other like they’re back on the playground and refusing to acknowledge that they got tagged?  Is it common to feel like no progress has been made and no understanding has been gained, to the point where legit issues get buried and people just end up trusting whoever they were going to vote for that much more?

I don’t know.  Then again, I guess it doesn’t bother me that much -- mostly because that stuff isn’t what this post is about.

*sigh* Let’s talk about Donald Trump.

Hijacked by Politics.

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog for even a few weeks, you may be well aware that I try to focus on fiction.  Games, movies, TV shows, stuff like that -- the stories that circulate throughout our world, what’s good about them, what’s bad, and the general concepts worth taking away.  I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a pretty strong lean towards gaming, though -- whether it’s putting the industry under the microscope, or taking shots at Final Fantasy again (which I’ve found attracts readers faster than a mound of poop the size of a rhino attracts flies).  But you don’t even need to be a longtime reader to know what I do.  Just look at the header.  Look at the layout.  Cripes, the titles for all of the sidebar widgets are references to Street Fighter.

So it’s not like I have either interest or experience in talking about real-world stuff via this blog.  I know where my expertise lies, and it’s not with politics.  But just this once, I’m going to make an exception -- a “break glass in case of emergency” sort of post.  If you’ve been keeping up with the news -- or more specifically, the fight to claim the White House for the next four years -- then you know what’s up.  If you don’t?  Maybe I’m being ignorant here, but…is it just me, or does this presidential race sound like something that’d make for a pretty striking (if bizarre) story?

I guess it’s like they say (the back half of which is now a major motion picture): truth is stranger than fiction.

Are Video Games Actually Hurting Us?

So I started watching Kamen Rider Gaim.

I said as much on Twitter, but it bears repeating: Gaim strikes me as what happens when a man watches the movie version of West Side Story, and takes it WAY too seriously -- and upon realizing that the streets of New York aren’t filled with gang battles won via elaborate dance moves, proceeded to have a nervous breakdown. 

The show starts in one place, and becomes something completely different barely a quarter of the way in.  Without giving away any spoilers, let’s just say that head writer Gen Urobuchi has evidently been playing a lot of Devil Survivor…and unfortunately, happened to watch huge swaths of the abysmal anime adaption.

That -- much like the majority of this post -- is pretty depressing.  So you might want to have your favorite comedic video or song uploaded.  

(Should your search fail, Gaim will provide.)  

A Creator's Responsibility

Video games?  We need to talk.

Post #300 -- Our Final Fantasy

And here we are again.

I was thinking about skipping this “oh, hey, I reached a new milestone!” post, seeing as how this one coincides a little too neatly with the 1-year anniversary of the site.  It’s really awkward positioning, and tooting my own horn isn’t something I’ve ever been in the practice of.  So maybe from now on, this’ll be the last time I ever make note of a benchmark in the title of a post -- maybe I’ll make a mention of it in the first line or two of my virtual spews, but that’ll be it.  We’ll see.

But enough of that.  If the last milestone post (and the one before it) are any indication, then this is going to be high on the rankings for a while yet…which I find inexplicable, but who am I to argue with the logic of the internet?  All I can do is put out content and hope that it doesn’t inspire divine rage. 

I doubt that’ll be the case for this post -- probably because it’s got a bit of “real talk” within it.  Or at least real-ish.  Real in accordance with my skill set.

…So yeah. Not very.

On Possibilities

You know, I’ve been thinking...

(Warning: real talk imminent.)

I Hraet You -- A Reconsideration

You know, I’ve been thinking.  (Cue the ear-splitting wails of a million virtuous maidens.)

Warning: real talk imminent.

“This is a Kid’s Game, Right?”

I’m resigned to being late to the party.  By the time I get into something big -- new cell phones, Facebook, using email in general -- people have already moved on to something bigger and newer.  You’d think that a guy who plays video games like a Cocoa Puffs addict would be well-off in that department, but that’s not the case. 

A few months ago I played a Ratchet and Clank game for the first time.  It’s not like I never heard of the series, but when it started out I didn’t have a PS2 (and the same problem would repeat itself thanks to the leap from PS2 to PS3).  Still, I’d heard some good things about the series.  As far as I know, the games have gotten consistently good reviews -- there may be, what, one or two that’s gotten below a 9?  There’s been a lot of praise for the franchise assorted weapons over the years.  And the fact that the duo will -- in the worst case scenario -- be referenced in Playstation All-Stars means that Sony wants to give one of their major players a bit of recognition.  A part of me still can’t divorce the gun-toting Ratchet from, say, the gun-toting Jak, but I know there are plenty of differences.

Chief among them, a distinct lack of weasels.  Or weasel aliens.  I don't know, I only played Jak 3.