themblan's blog

"What?!" you may be thinking. PCs are state-of-the-art gaming-machines while Nintendo stays in the middle ages. Yes, as far as hardware is concerned, PCs and Nintendo-machines have little in common (although that is slowly changing as well), but their gamers are surprisingly similar. PC-gamers and Nintendo-gamers alike are constantly begging for ports. PC-gamers are always begging for console-exclusives like Destiny, or obscure Japanese games. Slowly, they have gotten more variety. Nintendo-systems, as of late, have not been blessed with third-party support, and we do not even bother begging anymore, because we know it's a lost cause, but our hearts and minds are constantly begging for those luscious AAA third-party games we will never get. PC is the mecca of indie-games, and while Nintendo was very slow on the uptake during the Wii-days, they reluctantly embraced indie-games during the early years of Wii U, when it was evident that AAA third-parties were abandoning t...

It's the thing I dread most about spring and summer. The grass-cutters are out in full force, polluting the air with noise almost every single day. Such is the price of beauty in suburbia, but it is annoying. By contrast, winter is such a peaceful month because these people are absent. Seriously, these grass-cutters ruin the best months of the year with their incessant noise-pollution. Every day, there is a new house's grass getting cut, and even if it's far away, you can hear it. Of course, the rationale is that most people are at work and won't hear it, but if you are at home, you are constantly hearing the sounds of loud gas-motors at work. Is short grass really so beautiful? How would it look if every homeowner didn't have their grass cut? Would natural nature be so ugly?

I don't know why Square has gone away from using the best battle-system, that they themselves invented - ATB, and gone back to strict turn-based combat. I know that I am Setsuna uses ATB, but that has been the exception in a sea of turn-based battle-systems. Even in turn-based systems, you can have characters with different speeds, but ATB offers a more tangible feeling of time because you have to wait for characters' turns to come up, and the visual ATB-bar on screen depicts a tangible representation of time that is truly palpable. When I play pure turn-based games, every turn is so immediate that it destroys any feeling of anticipation for my characters' next turns. I like having to wait a little bit for my next turn, as well as seeing that ATB-bar fill up. I dislike how in many turn-based games, the order of every character and enemy's turn is displayed. It takes away from the dynamic feeling of combat. Not knowing when an enemy will strike makes it that much mo...

I was watching some videos about Michael Jackson on YouTube and came to a startling realization: Nintendo is a lot like Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson has an amazingly fervent fanbase, just like Nintendo. Michael Jackson's Thriller is still the best-selling album of all time. While Nintendo doesn't have the best-selling console of all time, I believe they possess the most beloved and dominant console of all time - the Nintendo Entertainment System, or Famicom. Michael Jackson has fallen out of grace with the mainstream because of his looks and allegations. Nintendo has fallen out of grace with the mainstream because Nintendo continues to make games that appeal to everyone from children to adults, instead of focusing solely on teens and adults. Thus, I feel that Nintendo will never become the mainstream name synonymous with videogames ever again, but by being smart, they can still stay in business, as they have done with the launch of Nintendo Switch.

In a lot of Nintendo's games, there are samples of voice, but they are usually not in any language known to humankind, but instead sounds like gibberish. Splatoon is a recent example where the characters don't speak English, Japanese, or any language on the planet, but an indecipherable gibberish that is both charming and immersive. Wouldn't native languages being spoken in a videogame be more immersive? No. Videogames are about escape, and to escape into another reality, and have, for example, English be spoken, would break the immersion of entering an alternate reality. Also, when we watch foreign films or animations, we all know that the best way to watch them is with the original voice-track and subtitles in the language of our choice. Why is this? We are far more critical of actors' voices when they're in the language we are best at. When I hear Japanese voice-acting in an anime, for instance, it all sounds good. I can't tell if the person is not trying...

Abilities should not be tied to items. If we could dress however we wanted and roll for the abilities we wanted, that would be the best of both worlds. In Splatoon 1, I always preferred dressing up versus trying to get the best abilities. In Splatoon 2, if the abilities were all rerollable, including Main Abilities, that would be great. We would be able to get the abilities we wanted, while looking the way we wanted. Tied to that idea are cosmetic microtransactions. Wait. Hold up. You want microtransactions? Of course not per se, but I recognize that games cost money, and having a second stream of income for the developers would be great. Only a few developers would be needed to make new gear, while the other developers could work on another project, and the money would also go toward keeping the servers up and running. Because all abilities would be rerollable, there would be no overpowered gear that would require spending real-world money. Further tied to that idea is an in-game...

I went into Splatoon 2 full of excitement and hope. I hadn't played Splatoon in a long time, and so it was nice getting my feet wet with ink once again. I picked the Splat Charger as my first weapon because I figured that players would be rusty and it would be easier to use it earlier rather than later on during later Global Testfire sessions. I did very well, often topping the charts, and getting a few splats in as well. I couldn't figure out how to store a charge during the games. I think I didn't keep holding ZR down when I went into my ink. The Sting Ray was interesting. It takes multiple hits to splat someone, and it moves slowly, but I managed to get a few splats with it. From there, I picked weapons with gradually decreasing range, so the Splattershot was next. Its accuracy and range were disappointing; I constantly found myself out of range and not hitting my opponents. I have a lot to get used to. The Tenta Missiles were difficult to get splats with because the...

It happens all the time. Someone will decide to lose weight, and he or she will try to shoot for the stars, instead of taking one step at a time. He or she will do things like P90X or a military boot-camp simulator - really harsh things, when he or she should just be focusing on diet and nutrition. It's only natural. We want to look like the fitness-professionals, athletes, and thespians we see on TV, but these people work on their body full-time. It is unlikely we will ever look like them, not that it's impossible, but the point is that focusing on diet and nutrition is the most effective way to get healthy and lose weight. I know from personal experience. Yes, of course you can lose weight by exercising while eating whatever you want at the same time, but this never lasts. Most of the world eats every day, but most do not exercise every day. Exercise is extra work that most people need inspiration in order to do, whereas eating is a matter of survival. If you master eatin...

Sometimes, a developer will design games based around ideal situations in which their game should be played. For example, Nintendo often designs games for local multiplayer and completely ignores online multiplayer. PC-developers, on the other hand, often design games built around online co-op with voice-chat. These are the truly nerdy, PC-games that do not become mainstream. Should these games stop being developed? Of course not. I just wish, from a standpoint of not having friends, nor possessing the desire to talk to strangers online, that more developers would think of us, the antisocial people that like playing videogames with and against strangers online without having to say a word. Nothing turns me off to a game more than having to rely on other people to have fun, or to accomplish something in a game. This is why I stopped raiding in World of Warcraft, stopped doing arenas in WoW as well, and do not ever desire to become a competitive Splatoon-player, even though I totally...

Is it in our nature to hate ourselves? Is that why we must be shown love from an outside source to be able to love ourselves (e.g. Jesus Christ)? I think it is related to our nature to fear or hate others, which extends to fearing and hating ourselves. Perhaps we were shown self-hate by our parents early on in life before we were capable of conscious thought. Whatever the reason, I believe some people have a tendency toward self-hate, and when someone hates himself or herself, it is not easy to love another. We must first love ourselves, and then we will be able to love others. Sometimes, however, that's hard or impossible, and that's why people like Jesus existed, to show us love from an outside source. That outside source of love was supposed to inspire self-hating people how to love, and what love really was.

A lot of people are complaining that GameStop is only selling NSes online through bundles. It is true that it's anti-consumer, but I'm hear to tell you today that it is pro-gamer. A scalper would rather buy a non-bundle than a bundle. He or she has no use for accessories and games, but a gamer does. He or she would buy Zelda and a case anyway, so why not discourage scalpers buy offering bundles to people that would actually use all the items in that bundle.

Blaster Master Zero has a lot of things going for it. It has excellent art and it appeals to the nostalgia of the aging NES-fans out there. However, it is boring because it's formulaic. It is an interconnected 2D platformer like Metroid. You will encounter obstacles that you cannot overcome until you acquire an item, after which you can return to the obstacle and proceed. This was still novel twenty years ago, but I feel like the formula has been done to death. Maybe I'm the only person on the planet that feels this way, and everyone still loves the formula used by interconnected 2D platformers, but I want something new.

Metroidvania was a specific term created to refer only to Castlevanias that were designed like Super Metroid. This started with Symphony of the Night and continued with Circle of the Moon. Somehow, this term became an umbrella-term used to refer to all games that were inspired by this type of design. This is a fallacy. How is Guacamelee a Metroidvania when it's neither a Metroid-game nor a Castlevania? We need to use a different term for these games, and it should be 'interconnected 2D platformers.'

Some artists like working with restrictions, and they produce great things. All the great developers from the 2D era had to work with restrictions and they still produced games that stand the test of time. They had to program in machine-code or assembly-language to get good performance. They had to design sprites with very few pixels. Now that processing-power is astronomical, the sky is the limit, but has this necessarily produced better games? Are they more fun? This applies to gamers as well. Some gamers, like myself, like looking for games within a restricted system-lineup, and finding gems. I have said this before, but when we have all the current systems and focus only on the AAA blockbusters, we end up playing games that look and feel similar, and we miss out on the new experiences that are found in smaller games.

There is this philosophy within Nintendo to create something new. Satoru Iwata ran with it, and Miyamoto does as well, but is this really the best policy? It's okay to make iterative sequels. They take less time and energy to make, and they generally sell better. I'm not saying Nintendo never makes iterative sequels; look at all the New Super Mario Bros. games and Mario Karts. My point is that, from an outsider's perspective, it seems like iteration is frowned upon from a philosophical standpoint inside Nintendo, although not completely rejected. It's okay, Nintendo. We won't crucify you for making an iterative sequel. Sometimes they're better. Innovation for the sake of innovation might be worse than an iterative sequel. Although I loved Star Fox Zero, many people would have liked a less-complicated game.

The drought on Wii U is now a distant memory, but it's good to reminisce. I went retro during that time. I bought a few Everdrives, got my first Sega Saturn, played through some Mega Mans... good times. Now I'm back in the rat-race. It's exciting but very unsatisfying, like having cake versus sweet-potatoes. It's nice to have new games to look forward to, but the wait is not fun. The wait and the hype makes disappointment all the more strong. There is also the feeling of obligation.I feel obligated to play my NS because I just spent a lot of money on it, but I would rather play Wii U, or World of Warcraft.

When you look at the indie-games on Steam, there is a wide variety of games in different genres and different rendering methods, whether they are in 2D or 3D. On the Switch, right now, we are mostly getting 2D platformers. Eventually, I would like to see more 3D games. There are some in the works, like Snake Pass, Yooka Laylee, and Rime, but I wish there were more graphically-demanding games. My hope is that one day, we will see an indie-game that looks as good as Crysis 3 on Nintendo Switch, because we sure aren't getting AAA third-parties any time soon.

One thing Nintendo doesn't realize is that as graphics get better, gaming is becoming more mainstream because it is resembling things they see in movies and real life. Back before 3D graphics were mainstream, games looked, at best, more like cartoons, and so they appealed more to children. They also weren't high-enough resolution, and so the aesthetics of art was more abstract. Abstract art is far more niche than realistic art. Nintendo is always trying to make games more mainstream, but they are ignoring the simple fact that as processors become more powerful and are able to produce more realistic graphics, games are becoming more mainstream by that simple fact alone. Movies and TV are mostly depicted with live action, and it mimics our real life, which is what we are most familiar with. As much as Splatoon looks beautiful and creative, it will never sell as much as a more realistic-looking game in a similar genre because that is what the general populace will be more ...

This was a fear of mine. The Switch's library will primarily be Nintendo-games and digital indie titles because of the cost of cartridges. Nintendo knew this. They made the same mistake 20 years ago with the N64. PS1-games were $50 max, but new N64-games were at least $60, usually $70. It boggles my mind how little they care about third-party support and only care about selling their own games. Are they that arrogant, just foolish, or do they know more than we do?

I understand that high review-scores of a game will urge people to buy that game, but I wonder whether people's actual enjoyment of the game changes based upon the public perception of that game. I know from my own experience, that I have been disappointed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, partly because I do not like open-world games, but also partly because of the high review-scores. Hype around high review-scores definitely makes disappointment more likely, and thus review-scores do affect people's enjoyment of games. How about low and medium (let's group them into low) review-scores? What if BotW got 7s and 8s? It would definitely have been prejudged by many people. Many people would have skipped the game entirely. There would have been people saying things like "I've been a Zelda-fan my whole life, and so I will give this game a shot." If BotW got low review-scores, would people be looking for flaws while they play? Do high review-scores m...

What is the purpose of ARMS's existence? Nintendo already has a fighting-game series: Smash Bros. With Splatoon, it was clear. They needed a competitive, online shooter. With ARMS, the only explanation I can come up with was they wanted to develop a 'core' game designed around taking advantage of the JoyCons. The problem here is that JoyCons are optional and one can turn off motion-controls. I understand why JoyCons aren't being mandated, but they should be. I have a feeling that like Splatoon, ARMS will control much better with motion-controls, and so most serious players will use them. Another theory I have is that maybe they are going to steer Smash into more of a party-game direction and ARMS will be their core fighting-game.

There is a disease going around with regards to framerate and resolution, in that people are obsessed with them. They are so obsessed with these numbers that they will prejudge a game before they play it based upon these numbers. Some people won't even give a game the light of day even if it's fun, just because some of these numbers are low. It is like how some women behave in regards to dating men. They have asinine requirements with regards to height, or salary, or what car the man drives. It's really disgusting, immature, and animal-like. I wonder, however, if gamers really care about this stuff, or if it's because videos regarding these numbers and graphics-comparison videos are all over the internet. My hypothesis is that they really wouldn't be able to tell the difference, don't really care, and only care because they are inundated with all this information and assume that the higher number means the better game. Open your heart, and realize that gam...

I see all the time on comments about Fast RMX that Shin'en should make the next F-Zero, and that Nintendo should buy Shin'en. Do you understand how people are? Developers don't want to be another company's lapdog. They will, if they have little financial choice, but they do not want to. Does Shin'en want to be bought by Nintendo? I doubt it. These commenters act like being bought by Nintendo is an honor. It's not an honor. The greatest thing to a creative individual is freedom, and being owned by Nintendo would greatly stifle that freedom. Even if Fast RMX is very similar to F-Zero, even if it was inspired by F-Zero, the fact remains that it is not F-Zero. Shin'en developed their own IP, and are proud of their creation. Nintendo has contracted third-parties to develop games for them before, and those relationships almost always die. Remember when Amusement Vision made F-Zero GX and AX? Remember when they made another F-Zero? I sure don't. Remember ...

Shokio was complaining about losing subscribers because he was being honest. Just do what you want. If you lose subscribers, who cares? Do you really want people who don't like you to keep watching? Conversely, if you're a viewer, and you don't like someone's vids, don't watch them. Instead of watching them and then complaining and trying to change the person, do a proactive thing and just don't watch. There's this insidious need in the world to complain about everything and conform it to our desires, but that is not a peaceful way to live. Some things you just can't change and we should accept them.

The future world of videogames, especially in Nintendo-ecosystems, is kind of scary. There is so much uncertainty, so much new hardware coming out, and so much money to spend. There are so many new games coming out, but that only means more chance for disappointments. It's so much nicer and comfier in the world of retro. On the latter half of 2016, with Wii U dying a slow death, I turned to retro to fill the void, and I was rewarded handsomely. Even with no new games coming out in the past, there is a lifetime of games to discover in the past; it's awesome. I remember the summer of 2001. The PS2 came out the previous autumn, but I had no interest in it. I mostly played my Dreamcast and PS1, and I still had games I had never played. I was not done with the Dreamcast. Then the Gamecube hit, and now I was in a whole new ecosystem. It was exciting, but at the same time, there was nothing wrong with the previous ecosystem. Every half-decade, we roll the dice on new platforms ...

With almost the developer-friendliness of PCs on Steam and the worldwide, casual audience of Nintendo, Nintendo's friendly indie-scene may be the fertile grounds for the next big hit. Remember when Minecraft wasn't huge? Nintendo Switch's friendly indie-community may be the perfect nesting-ground for the next big indie-title that will blow up like Minecraft. If it remains exclusive, it would blow up sales for the NS-hardware. Perhaps this is what Nintendo is banking on, we can't be sure, but they may not have a choice but to gamble on this possibility.

Nintendo Switch is a microcosm of the hybridization of the world at large: hybridization of human races, hybridization of human and alien races, and a general knowledge-explosion and melding of cultures. Nintendo Switch is the future. To be able to play the same game any time, and anywhere, is revolutionary. Nothing that has come before has made it so easy and seamless. PS Vita came close, but Nintendo Switch has perfected the concept. Will we see copycats from Microsoft and Sony? I'm skeptical. I believe, however, that NS is the future. We do not want to be confined when we game. If we want to play on the couch, we should be able to. If we want to play the same game in bed, we should be able to. NS shouldn't be viewed as two separate things, but as a hybrid thing. Blade, the comic-book hero, was a human-vampire hybrid, and had none of their weaknesses while possessing all of their strengths. Of course, NS isn't exactly like Blade. It suffers from the weakness of it...

Should you really do something you love for work? I love videogames, but when I used to make, for a brief few months, YouTube-videos about my gaming, it wasn't fun. It sucked most of the joy out of playing videogames because it felt more like a job than what I play videogames for - which is fun. I think people are saying to find your passion and making that into a career. Making gaming-videos on YouTube is more about video-editing than actually gaming, so since video-editing is not my passion, it wasn't a fun thing. Your passion would be something you could do forever and ever and not grow mentally tired of it. You would be physically tired and need to sleep, but you could do it every day. Video-editing almost every day was not fun. It was mentally and physically tiring. Should you really do something you love for work? Absolutely. Find or make money off of doing something you love. Make sure that what you do the most in order to do that job is what you love the most as w...

You have probably met a stubborn person. Stubborn people will never admit they're wrong. They'd rather go insane and deny the truth over and over again, than to ever acknowledge that someone else is right. We shouldn't really take offense to this. They are so insecure that they can't ever acknowledge that they're wrong, and someone else is right. It would crush what little self-esteem they have. We must let them live in their bubble of lies. It's not like we have a choice.

SuperMetalDave64 is a rare example of an OG (original gangster) Nintendo-fan that still supports Nintendo's new consoles and games. There are, by contrast, many Nintendo-fans that do not support Nintendo's newest offerings with the same passion they did during their youths, and instead stay up in the clouds of nostalgia where they are safer. Pat the NES Punk and the AVGN are two examples. OG Nintendo-fans grew up with the NES and played all of Nintendo's systems from then on, chronologically, while they were relevant. This is not a bragging-point that I wish to bring up, but the truth. The truth is that elders are not given their due respect in the United States, and are instead sent to nursing-homes; it is simply the culture, and it seeps over into videogame-culture as well. We are, however, far from the most vocal group of Nintendo-fans on the internet. The most vocal Nintendo-fans right now, are the younger ones, who probably grew up with Nintendo 64 or Wii. There...

In his video, Dave made some good points, the best of which was that he criticized Nintendo because he cared about them. I agree that we criticize the things we care about. Why would I criticize The View when I don't watch it nor care about it? At the same time, however, if we truly love something or somebody, we accept it for what it is; we love it unconditionally. With people, we have to take the good with the bad; we have no choice. It's the same thing with videogame-companies like Nintendo.   I acknowledge that this is a passive way of living life, and that change can happen if enough people care and complain, but we have been complaining to Nintendo for four years regarding power and AAA third-party support, and it doesn't seem like they have listened. In his video, Shokio said "It's good to complain." I do not necessarily think complaining is good. The word 'complain' conjures up images of bratty children complaining to th...

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the 'father of Final Fantasy,' is no longer at Square Enix. He works at Mistwalker, a company that creates mobile games. Yu Suzuki was a prominent developer for Sega, working on games like Space Harrier and Virtua Fighter. Although he has returned to the mainstream for the development of Shenmue III, even that could be argued as an indie-title, and he is far from his glory days at AM2. Yuji Naka, the main programmer of the Sonic-series, is now at Prope, where they also make mobile games as well as a couple of Streetpass-games on 3DS. Perhaps they have made enough money, and are satisfied with their career-accomplishments and wish to take it easy. I respect that. I'm just sad that many of the people who created the games I grew up with are no longer taking a greater role in game-creation nowadays.

This is a chiefly British word, but it has slowly seeped into the American lexicon as well because it looks and sounds more fancy, but it's a waste of energy, space, and letters. Do you know what 'whilst' means? It means the same thing as 'while,' so why not save energy typing, writing, or pronouncing 'whilst' by using 'while' instead.

When describing female genitalia, we often lazily call it the vagina, but the correct term is the vulva, the external female genitalia. The vagina is the internal portion.

As someone with perfectionistic, completionistic, and OCD-like tendencies, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a nightmare. It's so overwhelming that it paralyzes me, and I cannot do anything. It is so directionless and full of freedom that I do not know where to start. For people like me, I have found a way to enjoy the game, and that is to become obsessive. I believe that's how 'normal' people play this game. They get sidetracked by something and then they obsess about it for hours, not caring about the dread of wasting time or being time-efficient. Find something you enjoy. For me, it's the combat. Although the breakable equipment discourages combat, I find the most joy in it, and so I try to enter combat whenever I passively happen upon it. If you're a goal-oriented gamer like myself, set little goals for yourself instead of 'beating the game.' This can help, but there are so many goals one can set for oneself, that this to...

Why would high quality be a bad thing? Let me explain. In the past, when you owned a Game Boy or a DS, it felt durable, as if a child could mess around with it and it would still work, and this was true. The NS, however, feels delicate. It is heavy, and feels like it could be easily broken, which is not something that Nintendo-handhelds have been in the past. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. The world is increasingly becoming mobile, and so NS's competition is not the Game Gear or the PSP; it is the iPhones and android-phones of the world. Those devices try their hardest to look as technologically modern and luxurious as possible, and so NS has veered more toward that aesthetic to compete. Personally, I would have loved if they had created another clamshell-portable that resembled a Super Famicom.

As many people know by now, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild features breakable equipment. This is a shame because combat is my favorite part of the game. So basically the game is discouraging me from participating in the part of the game that I find the most enjoyable, and that is definitely a problem I'm having to overcome. Having breakable equipment makes the game feel much less like an RPG, where your avatar continues to grow in power, and much more like a survival-game. This is what they were probably going for, and I don't like it. I have gone back to playing World of Warcraft because there is a clear feeling of progression there, whereas I've supposedly spent over 40 hours in BotW but I feel like I haven't accomplished anything or have had much fun at all.

There needs to be more Japanese indie-developers, and not on mobile. I hope NS can entice some of them to develop for it, because I love Japanese games. I grew up with them, I like the art-directions in them, and I agree with them in what makes a game fun. I, as a console-gamer growing up in the '80s and '90s, primarily played Japanese games because the consoles post-NES were mostly Japanese, and most of the best games were Japanese. The worst games were usually licensed games made by Western developers. The best arcade-games were also Japanese. I preferred the edgier art of Japanese games over the more rounded look of Western games. Cartoons in Japan were created for all ages. Cartoons in America were created primarily for children, and it shows. Although this is slowly changing with the rise of anime in the West, cartoon-like art by Western devs still looks too childlike to appeal to me. A lot of indie games nowadays have a gimmick they invent, that they will explore f...

As much as I love and respect Shovel Knight, I hate trickling DLC over the course of years. I understand why they're doing this - they promised to do so on Kickstarter. Yes, Plague of Shadows and Specter of Torment play differently from the main game, but it's still using the same assets in the same universe. Will they be making every boss playable? How long would that take? If they continue to make money, then more power to them. I will say, though, that I love Specter of Torment. Although the Shovel Knight universe for the most part has goofy characters, the protagonist in this expansion is cool, and I like that. If Yacht Club Games releases more characters like him, I will be glad.

I'm optimistic, hopeful, as well as realistic and doubtful of AAA third-parties on Switch. After Wii U, I shouldn't feel this way. After the small launch-lineup, I shouldn't feel this way. After games like Disney Afternoon Collection skip NS, I shouldn't feel this way. But I do. There's a feeling in the air. Maybe it's blind hope, or the euphoria brought on by the launch of a new console, but I feel it nonetheless. Did I feel this way after Wii U's launch? Maybe, but I don't think I did as much. PS4 and XB1 hadn't launched, and so there was this dark cloud looming over Wii U's head. Would third-parties abandon Wii U when those consoles launched? We are in a different situation. We are in the middle of the lifespan for PS4 and XB1. Even Scorpio and PS4 Pro will be backward-compatible, and so games will be developed for the baseline PS4s and XB1s, which gives third-party support on NS a chance. Maybe I should not be rationalizing or making ex...

Yes, on a macroeconomic scale, 'voting with your wallet' works, obviously; but like voting, each individual instance of 'voting with your wallet' does not, and is anti-consumer as well. Just like the 'supporting the developer' logical-flaw, 'voting with your wallet' usually comes in the context of a place where you do not really want to spend your money 100%. Maybe it's a late port of a game, the game is missing DLC, or costs more but it's on your favorite platform. There is almost always something wrong that is preventing you from saying 'Shut up and take my money." When you are in a predominantly Democratic or Republican state in the US, it really doesn't matter if you vote. This is why I stopped voting after 2004. Unless you can muster a million people to vote with their wallets, it will also be meaningless. Even if you could vote with your wallets, what does that really accomplish? Usually voting with your wallets is done s...

One of the mantras I see thrown around is the concept of the need to support developers as if they're broke, hungry, or a charity. It is usually within the context of not really wanting to buy something 100%, but when needing that extra nudge to plunk down the cash, we say, "I will support the developer and buy this late, poor port on Wii U," or "I'll buy this DLC I don't need." First of all, any creative person or developer doesn't want people to give them money out of charity. These creative folk want people to like their work and desire to give them money for their product out of a desirous joy. Give these developers more credit. Saying stuff like "support the developers" is kind of patronizing, because it implies that without our money, they could not support themselves or their families. They can, and if we don't want to buy their product, we shouldn't have to out of some lofty, altruistic goal.

It is great to be grateful, but sometimes people are only grateful, and blind to everything else. Maybe the gratitude they express is not the full picture, but on the Twitterverse and elsewhere, there are always apologists that spew thankful comments seemingly in an attempt to quell the complaining masses or to one-up them in a "I'm better than you are because I'm thankful" kind of way. It is great to be optimistic and positive, but you also have to see the truth in matters. So instead of blindly being thankful, you should get all the facts first, and then say, "Despite these negative things, I am thankful for these things," or "Wow. Despite these negative things, I am shocked that these positive things exist. Thank you." Blind gratitude is not constructive for anyone. It doesn't help consumers and it doesn't help companies ameliorate. In fact, people whose job is reading these comments probably gloss over the rosy comments; they have l...

This video really bothered me. Filipino Champ is ripping on Daigo, but this is exactly why Daigo is the best, and why people like Daigo. He's not an insecure, arrogant, immature little boy like Filipino Champ. He is the embodiment of Ryu. He's not a 'tier-whore,' someone that jumps from the easiest character to character. He sticks with his favorite character, and plays that character at competitions, even if it costs him victories, and that is very respectable. So I don't care if Daigo finishes last or first, he will be a hero in my eyes forever. But if people like Filipino Champ win 5 Evos in a row, I will gain zero respect for him.

Looking at Blaster Master Zero, I see a huge missed opportunity by Nintendo in not contracting indie-devs to make or remake some of their classic games. Nintendo's IPs have the greatest love in the videogame-industry. People make fan-games for free. Nintendo foolishly shuts them down, when they could be raking in the cash. Another Metroid 2 Remake is a recent example of a game that Nintendo could have used to keep their floundering Metroid-IP alive. Nintendo, being the owner of the IP, could have easily swooped in and struck a deal with the developer and both could have profited.

The term e-sports gets bandied about a lot, but it is such a bad term. It doesn't give sports the respect they deserve, nor does it do justice to the type of activity e-sports actually entails. I do not know for certain, but the term e-sports was probably invented by insecure nerds who wanted the same respect that professional athletes got. The problem there, is that they were simply demanding respect instead of earning it slowly. MLG, or Major League Gaming, was an acronym invented to resemble MLB, or Major League Baseball. It is woefully disrespectful of the history and minutiae that is involved with professional baseball. I am not a sports-nut, but I do understand how it is incongruous to equate professional sports with professional gaming. The term e-sports painfully and cringingly makes it obvious that its proponents are trying to be something it is not. It would be like a bicycle calling itself a sidewalk-car, or females calling themselves fe-males, which is why some p...

There comes a time in every Nintendo-fan's life when he or she wants to give up on them, but I say that it's these times where we must further strengthen our resolve and give them our support. The NS started off strong, but there will be trying times indeed. When 3DS continues to get games and NS doesn't, we will be perplexed. When most AAA third-party games skip NS, we will be sad and angry, but we must go on. I know this sounds like a religion, and it is, to many a hardcore Nintendo-fan; the difference is that I'm aware of it. It's not about the money. I already have the other consoles and a gaming-PC, but I just do not want to use those systems until absolutely necessary. I know other people feel the same way, but in reverse, in opposition to Nintendo. Nintendo gave me joy throughout my life, and so I want to show my support in return. Giving up is easy. Fighting through these tough times is hard, and when we finally get a console that matches Xbox One in ...

The DS lite headlines a short list of videogame-systems I have bought at launch. I didn't really want a DS phat , because it had ugly 3D graphics, and the GBA was still relevant. By the time DS lite was launching, innovative games like Brain Age, and a new 2D Mario in New Super Mario Bros. were coming out. The DS lite was light and white; it looked good, and so I wanted to get one. I preordered one at Gamestop or ebgames. On the day of release, I went there, and I was the only customer. I was only going to get Brain Age, but then the sales-clerk asked me something, which prompted me to get New Super Mario Bros. as well; I was teetering on the fence about it, but somehow he got me to buy it. I really liked Brain Age. It was like no other 'game' I had ever played, and this was the kind of thing I had been looking for in the DS. NSMB was a mild disappointment. It was aesthetically unappealing, and aurally different from past Mario-games. The DS lite, however, doesn...

Splatoon 2 is coming out, and I'm not really feeling it. It has a darker, edgier look to it. Splatoon used a lot of pastels, and it had a soft and friendly look to it - maybe a little childlike and innocent, but not too much. Its music and font-selections were very nice and gentle. Splatoon 2's are a little more aggressive. I don't like it, but that's okay. There are many times when a sequel to a game does not meet the expectations of a hardcore fan. Brawl was a big step down from Melee. Crysis 3's multiplayer was a step down from Crysis 2. I did not like Sonic's new sprite in Sonic 3. Unless a game is multiplayer-only and they shut the servers down, there's no reason to stop playing the first game just because the next game comes out. It's common human hope that a sequel will be better than the first, but we see time and time again, in movies and games, that this is not the case. I must question why people make sequels in the first place. The bes...

Glowing reviews of videogames are great, but they do not necessarily translate into great sales, just like Oscar-winning movies certainly do not make the most money, but in both cases, they should. Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the most universally critically-acclaimed game I have seen in a long time. Nintendo needs to utilize this to their advantage in their marketing. They should make cheesy commercials with 10s and 100s plastered over the screen. Casual gamers will take note of that and become interested. Bayonetta 2 was one of the most critically-acclaimed games on Wii U, but Nintendo did not list it among its million-sellers for some reason. There is a possibility that vgchartz is wrong and it did not sell a million. This is a shame. Bayonetta 2 had a lot going against it: female protagonist, unpopular console, and a niche genre, but if Nintendo utilized its review-scores in their marketing, it could have sold a lot more. What do we mean by marketing? Do we just mean televis...

Nintendo-games look 'kiddy.' This is not an insult. It's a purposeful choice by Nintendo, and I'm not saying the games themselves are kiddy. They just look that way to appeal to children, although they do not appeal solely to children. That's fine, but one of the retorts I see among defensive Nintendo-fans when their beloved Nintendo is accused of being kiddy is that adults or 'real' gamers don't care about tone. I'm here to say that even these defensive Nintendo-fans do care. There are many defensive Nintendo-fans that swing on the opposite side of the pendulum when their favorite company's games are accused of being kiddy. They say, for example, that they dislike realism, violence, and sexuality. Is this the truth, or just a defensive retort? I think it's a defensive retort that either stays a defensive retort, or has transformed into a person's beliefs over time from lack-of-exposure to such content. Nintendo-fans haven't had a...

amiibo are the worst form that DLC has ever taken in the history of the videogame-industry. Why? Because the DLC is attached to a physical thing. You can't download the DLC separately as a digital-only entity. You have to buy the physical thing. If it's rare or expensive, good luck. Do you want to level-up a Roy Figure Player in Smash 4? You'd better have that Roy-amiibo. I don't think it has to be this way, and in some games, you can unlock the same things without having the amiibo. In Star Fox Zero, you can unlock the black Arwing and the SNES-Arwing by accomplishing things in the game. This is how it should have been done. I started collecting amiibo because I wanted to play with every Figure Player in Smash 4. I wanted to train with them so that I could become better with every matchup. Right now, there are missing amiibo in Smash 4, presumably to save them up for the port of Smash 4 for NS. I don't mind having DLC tied to a physical object. That's ...

YouTube is rife with videos that ruin surprises for everyone, whether it's an unboxing-video, or a Let's Play. I understand why they're so popular. People, especially children, cannot buy everything they want, so they try to experience it vicariously through watching videos. This may placate the masses, but is it good for them? Gaming is an interactive medium, but with the explosive popularity of Let's Plays and eSports, it has also developed spectator-friendly quality. This might be good for broadening the appeal and reach of videogames, but it is not necessarily increasing sales or increasing the value of actually playing games. The most fun one can have with a videogame is achieved by actually playing it oneself. A lot of people are skipping that part and just watching someone else play. He or she is going to be less-inclined to purchase that game after he or she is done watching the entire Let's Play. How does this help game-companies? I'm sure that t...

Nintendo Switch's launch brought back wonderful memories of Sega Dreamcast's launch, the last console by Sega, Nintendo's arch-nemesis in the '90s. I miss Sega. Sega, like Nintendo, was a pure videogame-company, unlike Sony, which is mostly an electronics-company, and Microsoft, which is mostly a software-company. When Sega and Nintendo battled it out, they battled it out with games, and the Sega Genesis-Super Nintendo rivalry stands as the greatest rivalry in the history of the videogame-industry. The games during that era still hold up today, partly because technically, the machines produced 2D sprites that still look good today, and partly because the competition inspired each other to produce their best work. Sega and Nintendo pushed each other to greater heights than they would have aspired to had it not been for the other. I miss that. Nowadays, Sony and Microsoft are the big two contenders, and all they're doing is pushing technology. Sony had a r...

Jim Sterling made a great video about this, and it's time to share my perspective as well. It's not news that Nintendo likes to trickle out Virtual Console games over the entirety of a console's lifespan. It's really annoying. Why do they do this? One reason might be is that they want people to buy them and if only a few are available at a time, people are more likely to buy a game. I understand this logic, but it's hell to the gamer. In fact, I stopped buying games on Virtual Console and started buying actual cartridges for actual systems. So Nintendo, you lost a customer on the Virtual Console front. Instead, release them all at once. It will be a major selling-point of the console in question. In this case, it will be Nintendo Switch. Imagine if all thirty of the games in the NES Classic Edition were available when Virtual Console launched for NS. Of course, we would have to pay for them separately, but having that many available would be awesome. Person...

Of course, I haven't even played it yet, but as it looks right now, it is almost what I wanted in a Mario-game, but not quite. EAD Tokyo has created fabulous games, but they haven't had the same look, sound, and feel of Mario-games before Super Mario Galaxy, when the main EAD-team made Mario-games. EAD Tokyo's games seem to be a little too happy. If you look at Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, it is far too happy. The music and everything tries forcefully to evoke happy emotions, and it becomes a little much. The colors they use are also very 'rainbowy.' They don't veer too far from the seven colors of the rainbow. If you look at Super Mario Bros. 3 and World, they use many drab colors and pastels; it's not all just about red, white, and blue. I am not intellectually opposed to Mario appearing in the real world, but on a deeper level, seeing Mario in a city that resembles New York is not right. Also, I am not fond of 'candy-land' levels in...

People cite Wii as one of the most innovative pieces of technology, and it is, but in the sense of offering new ideas in gameplay for gamers, it wasn't as innovative as people think. We can start right off the bat with its first game: Wii Sports. It was innovative in how it utilized real-life, physical motion to simulate the feel of playing sports, but in the end, it was just sports. Wii Tennis was just Pong with motion-controls. People say Nintendo created a lot of new IPs on Wii, and they did, but how revolutionary were they? Wii Sports? Playing sports-games with motion-controls? What did they offer besides a new way to control the game? Did they offer new ideas in expanding upon or making the sports-games more fun? No. People mistake new ways to control a videogame and the creation of new IPs as great initiatives for gamers, but they are not necessarily. I'm not saying Nintendo did not innovate during Wii besides in controls. Super Mario Galaxy could have been done wi...

Wii U might go down in history as Nintendo's last home-exclusive console, and that is pretty sad. It's sad how much the industry has changed, and forced Nintendo to reluctantly change along with it. When Nintendo partnered with DeNA, you could tell from Iwata's face that he did not want to; it was simply a matter of necessity in a changing age. What was the first home-console you ever had? NES, if you're a little older? Perhaps it was Wii, and you got introduced to Nintendo when they were the wackiest. Whatever the case, Nintendo operated under a different paradigm back then. Slowly, with the growth of smartphones, PC-gaming, and the continued rise of the Playstation and Xbox brands, Nintendo has lost a lot in both market-share and mind-share. Wii U is the end of almost 34 years of home-exclusive Nintendo-consoles. It is sad, but the future that is in store for us with Switch is nevertheless exciting indeed.

Hipster-gaming. I really don't like how everyone plays the same thing. When everyone starts playing something, I don't want to play it, usually. Resident Evil VII is not something I want to play right now. First of all, it doesn't look like an RE-game; and secondly, it pisses me off that people who have never played an RE-game are into this game. I am a hipster-gamer. Resident Evil on Gamecube is one of my favorite games of all time but Gamecube wasn't the most popular system of its generation, so I felt a little more special playing it. When you play a game that all the news-outlets are talking about, you feel a little less special. After the initial desire to play a hot new game passes, I realize that I didn't need to play that game anymore, and the Haterade-level in my blood increases. How did this happen? I wasn't always like this. Even earlier this generation, I was all about playing whatever new game I wanted to play, on whatever platform it came ...