themblan's blog

I have been watching a lot of old American Idol videos recently. Simon Cowell is certainly entertaining, but most of the time, his criticism is pointless because he completely discourages people from pursuing their dreams without any constructive criticism. He only offers constructive criticism to people that are already good. If someone cannot sing very well, he basically drives them to the point of tears. People love to sing. It makes them happy, and it's true that not everyone can make a living off of singing, but singing may lead to other opportunities. People shouldn't just drop everything they're doing and just do something else. Maybe they can do other things that are related to music. Maybe they can sing for fun. It's sad that people's aptitude in something gets judged by how much money they could make by doing that thing. If you love to sing, it doesn't matter what others think. Just sing. Maybe you don't have to sing for the world. Sing for you...

Sony has dominated three out of the four generations of home-consoles it has been a part of. The original PlayStation dominated the Nintendo 64 because of its less-expensive and larger-capacity CDs; and easier development-process. PlayStation 2 is still the best-selling dedicated videogame-platform ever created at 155 million sold. Although Nintendo improved things with their Gamecube, it wasn't enough, especially as Microsoft entered the fray and took some market-share that could have belonged to Nintendo. Nintendo's Wii technically took its generation with 101 million, but gamers did not use it as their primary gaming-device. The Xbox 360 won the hearts of gamers with 84 million sold, but PlayStation 3 caught up after a slow start, and wasn't far off, with 80 million. Wii U failed, in part, because Nintendo marketed it towards gamers, and gamers had, for the most part, ignored the Wii. PlayStation 4 did all the right things at the right times. There was a big undergroun...

My natural disposition is being a positive optimist and my sister is a negative pessimist. She wasn't always that way. I think that her failures in life contributed to the development of her pessimism as a defense-mechanism to combat disappointment. I do not think that dependence on that defense-mechanism is an optimal way to live. A lot of pessimists, unironically, criticize positive or optimistic people, as if it's smarter to be critical and pessimistic all the time. Not only is being positive or optimistic not bad nor stupid, it is the best way to live. Think for one second, on a subjective level. Isn't it nicer to see the good in everything rather than the bad? When you look for and find the good in everything, you also naturally do the same for yourself, which makes you feel good. I'm not saying that you should have nonsensical hopes and dreams. Being a positive optimist is believing in a better world, not simply because you want it to be better, but you beli...

After deciding I didn't need to torture myself with not buying games for a year, I decided to buy Enter the Gungeon on Thursday. Then, on Sunday, I decided to buy Doom for Nintendo Switch as well. I didn't fully realize this beforehand, but Doom is a very fast-paced first-person shooter, meaning that it is best played with a keyboard and mouse. Playing with a controller was a nightmare, and I reduced the game's difficulty to its minimum. I still think you can play slow-paced FPSes like Alien Isolation with a controller. I realized, after playing Doom on NS, that I like the game, but I'd rather play the game on PC with a keyboard and mouse, and so I purchased the game on Steam. It is downloading as I write this. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was another game I wanted to buy from the moment it came out. With my resolution abolished, I purchased it. I played the game for an hour or so. So far, it is heavy on dialogue and tutorials. I believe that, after a while, this game wil...

Enter the Gungeon finally came out for NS on December 14th. It's one of the few indie games I have been looking forward to, so I decided to renege my resolution to forgo buying games until next year. It's more difficult than I expected. Binding of Isaac is easier to get through a run. I struggled mightily and finally got to the third level, but I haven't been able to pass it. It's not a simple twin-stick shooter because you need to tap or hold a button to fire, rather than just holding the analog stick in a direction for automatic fire. You also have to reload for most weapons. I don't dislike this mechanic. It is different, adds depth, and challenge to the game. The biggest problem I have is dodging bullets. I almost always dodge-roll too late. Still, this is one addictive game. I swear to myself that I will play better on the next run, and sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. I guess that's what a roguelike is. The randomness of the rooms and the e...

I saw a thumbnail on YouTube from someone who bought Gear.Club Unlimited for Nintendo Switch. This year has been an unusually strong year for simulation-racing games, but I am sure that he didn't buy Forza 7, Project Cars 2, nor Gran Turismo Sport. Instead, he bought the vastly inferior Gear.Club Unlimited just because it's for a Nintendo-system. That's so silly. I know he has a PS4, so that excuse goes out the window. Fanchildism isn't worth it. You miss out on so many games. This year's E3 was the breaking-point for me where I decided to eschew fanchildism. There were so many great games I wanted to play that were skipping NS. I had to eschew my hope that Nintendo would ever become the multiplatform powerhouse that I knew it could become if they wanted to. Even if NS was getting every multiplatform game, it still wouldn't get the exclusives for PS4 and XB1, so I decided that enough was enough. Enough of the silliness. Let us enjoy all games from all compan...

Detroit: Become Human is the latest videogame to be attacked by mainstream society. There's a scene with child-abuse in the game, and of course, ignoramuses who don't play videogames are going nuts. There's this misconception that videogames are always interactive, and are always virtual reality. This couldn't be further from the truth, especially in the case of David Cage's games from Quantic Dream. His games are the complete opposite of interactive or virtual reality. They are barely-interactive movies created with real-time graphics. They are more like the old FMV-games from the Sega CD. The graphics may look real, but the interactions had therein are far from real. In fact, reading a book or watching a movie feels more real because with a book, you are actually actively using your brain to interpret words into thoughts, while in movies, there is a narrative flow that feels more real. In a Quantic Dream game, 1) animations are stiff and unimme...

What is the final step on the path of a gamer? It might seem antithetical, but it's the fact and realization that you don't need games at all to make you happy. At the very least, you don't need to keep buying new games to keep you happy. A real gamer can play the same game in a multitude of ways, being creative and creating challenges for himself or herself. Games have always been a tool for the stimulation of happiness. In time, we have become addicted to them, and relied upon them for happiness. This is not the ultimate goal of the gamer. We are people, first and foremost, and so games don't define us. Consoles don't define us. Videogame-companies don't define us. We define ourselves, and one element of our own self-identification is in the games we love and play, and not the other way around. Some people may view people who play Nintendo-games, for example, as overgrown adult-children, but this is not true, nor fair. Some people may stereotype all X...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Is that really true? Of course not. In fact, the words may be more powerful than those sticks and stones, which is why I believe that comedy does more harm than good in this world. Personally, I don't use comedy these days. I don't listen to nor watch somebody else to make me laugh, just so that I feel a little better inside for one second. I don't rely on comedy like a crutch anymore, but there are a lot of people that still do. That's why it's a big industry. Comedy is produced just like any other product. Comedy, when done correctly, can be a great tool, but when abused, can be more harmful than straight-up bigotry. Comedy is like murder in cold blood. When murder is done in hot blood, or with a passion and a purpose, it is more understandable, whether it's pure anger, self-defense, hunger, or whatever else. When comedians casually toss out jokes out there, especially thos...

Why do people hate Nintendo? What did they ever do to deserve the hate? Is it because they think Nintendo is destroying the gaming-industry? A lot of people want the industry to be a certain way, and when there are companies like Nintendo doing things totally differently, these people feel like it's dividing the industry. They feel like the industry should move forward with one singular goal. These people feel threatened, because they believe in a finite world. They believe this world has a finite number of gamers, money, developers, and publishers. Driving people away from what they consider "real videogames" is a threat to the existence of these "real videogames." Is it because they're family-friendly? There is a big difference between companies that solely cater to children. Nintendo tries to please everyone at the same time, which might be a mistake. By trying to please everyone, you may, inadvertently, please nobody. Is it because their hardware i...

Diablo II I did not fully appreciate Diablo II until I dove into its deep and addictive loot-system. There is something called "Magic Find," and it increases your chances of finding rare items. Just going on Meph Runs (killing a boss called Mephisto) took up a lot of my time. I amassed a large collection of items and kept them in "Mule" characters and separate accounts. Before the 1.10 patch, this game had great gameplay. If you clicked on an enemy to attack, your character would go up to it and attack. After the patch, it played more like an MMORPG. Your character would sometimes be really far away from the enemy, and miss attacks. Play any patch before 1.10. World of Warcraft It is kind of unfair to list an MMORPG as a favorite game because it has years of content added to the game. It is still, however, one of my favorite games of all time. It was my second MMORPG. My first was Star Wars Galaxies, which I only played because m...

Let's do something fun. Let's list my favorite games of all time. This will be in no particular order, but I will only do five today, and five tomorrow. Super Mario World The first Super Mario Bros. had a more realistic approach to physics, which was cool in its own right, but it was hard to control. You needed momentum to make longer jumps, and you could slide off platforms if you were going too fast and didn't compensate enough or quickly enough by holding the opposite direction on the d-pad. Super Mario World made the physics far easier to control, and thus, made it more fun. Super Mario World also introduced the dual-exit system. On levels that were marked by a red dot, there were two exits to the level instead of one. It was so fun exploring the levels, looking for secrets, and eventually the exits. Using the new Cape and Yoshi, there were so many things you could do. The amount of freedom and experimentation possible was unheard-of and took videogames to an...

I don't understand the logic behind advertisers pulling away from YouTube because of controversial videos. The point of advertising is exposing your product to as many people as possible so that more people give you money. It doesn't matter where the advertisement is, nor who is looking at it. The point is making money. By pulling ads, you are decreasing the exposure your products get. Think about all the types of people that watch an American football-game. Some may be wholesome men and families, but some of them are probably alcoholics, pedophiles, and even murderers. Does that mean you should stop advertising your product on Monday Night Football? Of course not. Before, you had companies pulling ads from controversial videos, but now you have companies pulling ads from videos because of their comments-sections? How does that make any sense? The only reason that those disgusting comments exist is because there is a comments-section. What if people could comment d...

I wonder how much of a game's budget is actually marketing, how much the marketing pays off, and how much a game would sell without, very little, or free marketing. It's sad how much brainwashing, I mean marketing, a publisher has to do to sell AAA games these days. Look at Super Mario Odyssey. They had to create a song that is not very good and dance like idiots to sell the game. Then take a look at PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. There was absolutely no marketing - just word of mouth, and it sold millions. Of course, it was cheaper than a full-price game, but it's just remarkable how a game can sell millions on reputation alone. Imagine if Nintendo allowed this kind of viral, grassroots, gamer-driven, "free marketing" to occur on YouTube and Twitch. Imagine if they weren't so stupid. They wouldn't have to spend millions to market a game and they could sell just as much, or even more.

Before and after the Nintendo Switch was revealed, a lot of people that liked the concept of a hybrid liked to ask, "What's the point in having another PS4-like system?" The reason they said that is because 1) they already had PS4s, and 2) they liked the concept of NS. What if someone didn't have a PS4, Xbox One, or powerful PC? What if he or she didn't like the concept of a hybrid that wasn't truly portable nor powerful enough to have games ported to it easily? It's okay to be like everyone else sometimes. Proponents of NS throw around the notion that being the same as or copying others is deplorable. Oh really? Then why don't you apply the same logic to Sony or Microsoft? They copy Nintendo all the time. Why does Nintendo, and Nintendo alone, have to have the burden of being different? That is unjust and discriminatory. You like to keep Nintendo in a little box that you have constructed in your mind. You think Nintendo has to be this wacky toy-co...

That fanchildism is stupid is self-evident and of common sense, but it needs to be iterated over and over again. It's dumb how Nintendo-fanchildren and fanchildren in general are more interested in a company's success than their own enjoyment. Someone posted a video about a rumor about Pokemon Switch and how it could change the world and be this awesome game. The catch is that I know that he will never play the game. He only cares about the game because Pokemon sells a lot of copies. This should not be our focus in life: a company that we have no financial stake in. Be a man. Think of ourselves for once, not some company that doesn't give a damn about us. I need to conscientiously eschew fanchildism every day; acting like a fanchild is a bad habit. From a logical standpoint, I need to realize that Nintendo doesn't give a damn about me or else they would have made a powerful console that would have blown Xbox One X out of the water easily and be less...