themblan's blog

I was feeling groggy after eating some chicken last week, so when I made my weekly trip to the grocery-store, I didn't buy any animal-products. I was going to give veganism a chance. Eventually, I started feeling depressed. I didn't feel like doing anything. I had no joy in life. I also couldn't stand for very long without my feet hurting. I wondered why that was, and so yesterday, I bought animal-products once again, and instantly I could feel relief. I felt physically happy and emotionally motivated to do things. I looked up food-combining charts once again and finally agreed with what I had seen before - that fat and protein are a bad combination. When you eat animal-protein, its fat and protein are kind of a package-deal, and the paleo-diet advocates a large consumption of fat, but only then did I realize that I shouldn't eat too much fat with my protein, even if they occur naturally together. Fat is good, but best by itself, and good with vegetables. After co...

When you are not happy, watching or hearing another's happiness is like poison in your veins. I was watching a livestream of something and the people in it were so happy. It kind of felt unnatural and ignorant. I know that people that excessively express happiness are not totally happy. A lot of it is forced and a defense-mechanism to deal with their inner sadness, but it is still offensive. I'm not saying we should be crying and sad all the time. Let's be real without being asinine. I "Hate" Mario Kart 8 This game was definitely meant to be played locally, because playing online just causes a lot of bitterness and anger. I used to play Mario Kart 64 at a friend's house, and whether I lost or won, it was fun. When I play Mario Kart 8 online however, it's just not fun going from first to eleventh, or losing half my balloons from being sidelined at the last second. When I play Mario Kart locally, I can feel the joy of the other people, so whe...

What is a competitive person? I believe a competitive person is one who has an underlying feeling of inferiority, and it subconsciously drives him or her into constantly "proving" that he or she is better than other people. I like to win things, sure, but it's not the only thing that drives me. Some people put winning above all else, to the detriment of their moral character; I do not. Even in a round of Turf War in Splatoon where I have no chance of winning in the final seconds, I will still try to win, because honor is more important to me than winning. If winning was my only goal, I would probably disconnect from a match that is lost. Our economic and educational systems encourage competition, and to an extent, it is a good thing, but it also discourages people from being themselves. If you're average, it doesn't reward you. You have to be exceptional and rise to the top. You can't be like everyone else; you have to be different, even if you're not....

I was born to Korea immigrants in the United States of America. I have never felt national identity or pride for either South Korea or USA. For example, when people are going crazy during the World Cup while rooting for their country, I feel lost. National identity is more of a cold, matter-of-fact thing than something I have a hot passion for. Being born in USA, I am a citizen of it. I can vote and become President, but you wouldn't know it by the way people treated me. When you don't look European, you are not considered a "true" American. All non-white races have different prefixes attached to their "American" status. Black-skinned people with African ancestry are called African-Americans; yellow-skinned people with Asian ancestry are called Asian-Americans. Why aren't white-skinned people with European ancestry called European-Americans? We need to change the lexicon of human interaction. We need to stop identifying people by race, or gender, o...

It took two years and ten months, but Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Smash 4) is now feature-complete. I always wanted to play the game with and against the amiibo of all fifty-eight characters, and now I finally can. I always felt the game was incomplete until all the amiibo came out, and last Friday, they finally did. Super Smash Bros. used to be my favorite gaming-franchise. I hadn't really felt disappointed in Brawl like many other people. I embraced it for what it was. I was glad they took out advanced techniques like wavedashing, and that I could play online. Then, I got annoyed with tripping, and then the playerbase in Brawl got reduced to immature Taunt Party children. Smash 4 was supposed to be Nintendo's redemption, and all signs seemed to point to that. They held an invitational-tournament during E3 in 2014 featuring some of the best players from Melee, Brawl, and Project M. What else could this mean, but that they were taking the c...

When Splatoon 1 came out 2 years ago on Wii U, I fell in love with it instantly. For the first few days, I played that game all day; I just left my Wii U on. With Splatoon 2, it is understandable for me to not love it as much. The excitement is gone, the familiarity is there, but some changes have turned me off. I don't like their choice of font in the game. The chromatic theme of colors on a black background doesn't appeal to me, either. I prefer the bright, pastel look of the first game. The music in this game can be great. During Splatfest, I loved the Victory jingle. In general, I really love the cute, high-pitched voice of Pearl, but the overall carefree, high-energy, fun-loving nature of the first game's music is gone. The new stages all feel the same. They have a meaty, slightly raised center, alleyways out the wazoo, and sniper-perches before the center. I think they designed the stages with eSports-balance in mind, and to protect Rollers, but it's not fun...

Learned, educated, or literate storytelling might make one look smart, but ultimately it's derivative. Everything eventually looks and sounds the same. I was reading synopses for the story-segments in The Matrix Online and names like Ouroboros, and Ookami were in there. These are words I've heard before, and if it was the first or second time encountering them, I might be impressed. When everyone tries to dig into the history of literature and of every culture and nation on the planet just to sound educated for the sake of stroking his or her ego, it is kind of sad. When everyone is trying to be better than everyone else, eventually, everyone will be the same. The people on top will take a break, and the people behind those on top will catch up. This is what I have learned in life. Instead of trying to be the same but better than the next person, we should try to be different. You don't even have to try to be different. We are all naturally different. This will f...

The Know posted this video about PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds banning a player for team-killing. I thought this was so questionable. If you didn't want team-killing in your game, why did you enable friendly fire? "Intentional" friendly fire is against the rules but accidental friendly fire is not? How do you determine what is intentional and what is accidental? Come on; give me a break. It's impossible to ascertain the intent of a player on the internet. Either turn friendly fire off, or deal with the consequences.

This is a silly little theory I came up with. I was watching this video titled " The Matrix Trilogy Decoded by Mark Passio ," and I thought that maybe the blue pill and red pill from The Matrix could apply to today's videogame-industry. In The Matrix , ingesting the blue pill meant that the one who ingested it would return to the matrix, and ingesting the red pill meant that he or she would wake up from the illusion that was the matrix, and into the real world. We all know that this generation, the three console-manufacturers have decided on one specific color to represent themselves and market around. Sony has chosen blue, Microsoft has chosen green, and Nintendo has chosen red. If we equate each console-manufacturer's chosen color with a pill-color, we can see that Sony represents the blue pill, and Nintendo represents the red pill; there was no green pill in the movie. This is a shaky theory, at best, but I do see how Nintendo Switch has been revelatory fo...

Japan is going crazy for Nintendo Switch. There are lotteries going on that give people a chance to be able to buy one. This is great news, for Nintendo, and for the gaming-industry in general. Nintendo does very well in Japan, and so does Sony, but the Japanese gaming-industry really needs Nintendo to really challenge Sony in the AAA console-space. Outside of Japan, the Xbox One and PS4 are both doing well, but in Japan, the Xbox One is dead. Big, AAA publishers and developers could really benefit from Nintendo succeeding where Xbox One failed. Having two successful AAA platforms in Japan would really help the industry there because it would provide more consumers to sell their software to. I'm not saying that having two live platforms to sell games on would automatically double sales, but it would introduce competition and excitement back into the industry. Watching Evo this past weekend, I could only sigh in helpless frustration as game after game was not available on a...

When I used to be a religious Christian, I would always hear people saying "You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I didn't understand what they meant back then, but I can definitely see it applying to videogames. With the explosion of YouTube and Twitch , there are more opportunities to have an impersonal and instead communal relationship with videogames. Instead of playing games, people are watching others play games, and that is fine, but to get the most out of games, you have to play them yourself and have a personal relationship with them. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best example I can think of. It is a game that you should play by yourself, with no outside help; don't even watch streams. Every time I watch a stream of it, I learn something new, which is nice, but it detracts from my personal relationship with the game. That's why I have stopped watching streams of Breath of the Wild . Without spoiling anything...

This is old news, but I needed to put my feelings down. On June 22nd, 2017, Brook Lopez was traded, along with the rights to Kyle Kuzma (the 27th pick in the 2017 NBA draft), to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for D'Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov. I am a Nets-fan, so my thoughts are coming from the perspective of one. Brook Lopez is one of the best centers in the league, is only 29 years old, and D'Angelo Russell is another point-guard. We already have Jeremy Lin. Why get another point-guard? In this post , I posited that Jeremy Lin is greater than his numbers. I think we have yet to see the best of Jeremy Lin. Someone said that Russell could play the 2, because he is 6' 5". Okay; I can buy that. To be honest, neither are true, pass-first point-guards, but I would put Lin at the 1 and Russell at the 2. It could work. Maybe the Nets know something I don't. Maybe having two good guards is better than having one good guard and one good center. Brook Lope...

Someone on reddit was venting about how " It really sucks to be special ." He or she has since deleted his or her post, but the gist was what I have known for the last few years. Nintendo-fans, especially fans of Wii U, are few and far-between. Of course, I am talking about Nintendo-fans in real life. On the internet, we are legion. Every time Nintendo streams a Direct, I bask in the energy of fans from around the world, but in the real world, we are not as abundant as we should be. We are special. We are fewer than the people playing Xbone 4s and PCs. That is one of the prices of being enlightened. So on one hand, it is unfortunate not being able to share our joy with most people, but at the same time, we get to feel a little more special than most people; we know a secret of the universe - that Nintendo still makes the best games. There are underground-movements in every facet of life. The underground-wellness movement by Sean Croxton, is one that changed my life. It ...

I received the Splatoon-artbook yesterday. Here is the front cover: Here is the back cover: Here is the spine: It has the same length and width of my Titanfall-artbook: This one, however, is much thicker: It features 327 pages of art on thick, high-quality paper. Here is the title-page: Here is the Table of Contents, so that you can get a sense of the type of content that is in the book: It starts off with its distinctive 2D artwork that looks hand-painted: After looking at the 2D artwork for a little bit, when you see the first 3D artwork, it really pops out: Here is artwork for Annie & Moe, and Jelonzo: I like how the book gives the reader some example-outfits to try: They have artwork for most of the weapons in the game, but some of the later weapons like Sheldon's Picks, are not included:

This is a response to someone on Reddit who was bragging about how he or she could farm in-game currency by being AFK during online battles . This got me to thinking. What is good sportsmanship? Is it just the absence of bad behavior? No. It is also the presence of good behavior. Playing the game it was meant to be played is good sportsmanship. Trying to win is good sportsmanship. Passively going AFK and farming coins is not good sportsmanship. Even though you're not actively trying to ruin someone else's experience. You are still accomplishing it passively. Think about sports. The Brooklyn Nets had the worst record in the NBA and the Golden State Warriors had the best. What if the Brooklyn Nets didn't even try to win and just let Golden State win? That would be bad sportsmanship. It would be bad for the fans that went to watch the game, the fans watching at home, and look bad on the entire Brooklyn Nets organization. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "In...

I was kind of disappointed that Splatoon 1's shopkeepers weren't making a return, with the exception of Sheldon and Crusty Sean in a different role. Then I thought about it some more, and I think it's a good thing that the Splatoon-team is being given the green light to be creative. It's kind of the opposite of what is happening right now with Paper Mario, where creativity is stifled and every NPC is a Toad. I was delightfully surprised at the new firing-ranges, which can feature moving targets. This will be great for practicing, especially with Chargers. Battlefield 4 had a similar area called the Test Range, which also featured moving targets. The Clash Blaster was a weapon I was very interested in after seeing it. I don't know for sure, but it seemed slightly faster than a Rapid Blaster. One thing's for sure, and that is that it will be fun to use. Seeing the Baller Special Weapon made me very happy. I love the creative and wacky ...

I beat the North American version of this game years ago, but on a whim, I checked out Samus's Japanese voice on YouTube. I delightfully discovered that her Japanese voice is really good - much better than the English rendition. Looking at the footage, I took an intuitive leap and assumed that the Japanese version included options for English with Japanese voice-overs (the Japanese version of Super Metroid also had an in-game option for English). There was no definitive answer out there on the internet, so I took a gamble, and I was right. My newly-acquired Japanese Wii struggled to play the game because of the game's dual-layer nature. Back in the day, I had to send my Wii in for repairs because it stopped being able to read Super Smash Bros. Brawl, another dual-layer DVD-game. After some heartbreak, I decided to try to use the Homebrew Channel to play this game on my North American Wii. After some trouble, I got it to work! Playing this game for the second time, I remembe...

I didn't know this, but Metroid Other M's Japanese Box is incredible. You might take a quick glance at it and wonder how it's so special. Then I tell you that the red portion is a cardboard-sleeve around the DVD-case itself, and it comes off, and you get excited: Both sides of the inner cover have a different picture of Samus. The default front cover is when she was younger: It has a greenish tint so that it looks like her visor. Then the back has her current-aged self without a tint: You can put the cardboard-sleeve on top of this face for a slightly different look: The inner cover is also reversible. It features the older Samus with the green tint for the default cover, and younger Samus without the green tint on the back.

Feminism is a word that does not have a positive connotation these days, thanks to the explosion of extreme feminism. Their main message seems to be that females are equal to males in every way, deserve equal treatment, and can do anything and everything that males can do. Saying that females can do anything males can do is a good thing, but it simultaneously ignores and marginalizes what makes females uniquely great. The feminine characteristics of people should be celebrated and valued as much as masculine characteristics. The ironic thing is that society does value feminine traits, but these extreme feminists are stuck in a mindsight of victimhood that they can't see the truth. Their entire focus becomes "I am just as good as a man. I can do anything he can do," instead of looking inward and appreciating the value of their feminine characteristics. These people were probably traumatized by a few bullies, and instead of seeing the truth that most people are not sexi...

Who holds the most power in the gaming-industry? The consumer is the easy choice. They number in the millions, and without their money, the others could not continue to do business. The consumer, however, would not spend that money, if not for the developers. The developers create the games that the consumer wants to play. If they don't create a game that the consumer wants to play, the consumer won't buy it. So in this scenario, the consumer seems to have more power, but developers can create demand for their games even if the consumer has never played a game like it before. New genres and IPs are created all the time. The creators have enormous power in influencing consumers. All developers do not simply cater to the desires of consumers. Some create new experiences that are so compelling that many consumers want to experience those creations. Think about Nintendo Wii. It had the biggest install-base of its generation, but most developers did not develop for it, becau...