Game of E-Thrones 3: The Painting of Coming in Winter

I have no idea what all of that means as a single title.  And just a forewarning, today's post is going to ramble quite a bit.

E3 starts tomorrow (June 16, 2015), which means if you add all the numbers together you get 3 (6+1+6+2+0+1+5=21=2+1=3), which is the number of topics that I will be rambling about today.  So E3.  Going into E3 week this year, all I knew ahead of time was the handful of announcements from Bethesda: Doom, Fallout 4 and Nintendo: Nintendo World Championship 2015.  That's all I knew about before I woke up this morning and since the waking, I read more Bethesda announcements which include an online TCG from Bethesda called The Elder Scrolls: Legends, which people are saying is akin to Blizzard's Hearthstone, of which I know the name and basic mechanic (there are cards used for fighting) and that's about it.

As for other games, there's a gigantic list here that I will be sorting through as the week goes on.

Hopefully there's some word on last years announced Steamboy, but as their site hasn't been updated since last year, I fear that this project may have fallen through; but I can still have hope.

Lastly, I wanted to talk a little bit about Game of Thrones season 5, part in the season finale that aired last night (6/14/15) and part on the whole season.  First off, I am very happy with how the season finale went as far as story, or as some people have commented, the lack of story and/or character arcs.  Yes, I agree that some characters (Sansa) didn't appear to have done much this season aside from going from one not great situation to an exceedingly worse off situation, but I have learned from this show (as well as other long running shows such as LOST and X-Files that character arcs may last multiple seasons and GoT is a fairly massive show with a massive number of characters and giving important and memorable arcs for even half of the characters every season, I feel would not leave time for the other half to have any on screen time.  Sure this would be great and for the show to follow the books more closely, but people age [especially the youngin's (Bran, Arya, Sansa, Rickon, Tommen, Myrcella)] so obviously things have to be cut out, reduced and characters should be doing things more interesting than their respective characters in the books.

That paragraph/semi-rant boils down to, I will reserve judgement on characters, their motivations, their arcs until the end of the show.  Now that I think about it, I'm sure someone has charted how much time has elapsed during each individual season and the amount of time passed between seasons.  I might just go and look that up.  

And again, I was happy with season 5 as a whole and I look forward to nine months from now when I can binge watch the season all over again, then again with all of the commentaries, because that's the way I like my cake.

Additionally, fan theories (regarding both the books and the TV show) about characters and how people think they should be connected make me almost irrationally irritated.  I always bring it back to fan theories/demand about Will Turner's father in Pirates of the Caribbean. I could lead myself into a long rant that won't get me anywhere except just more worked up and annoyed, so I will stop myself here.

And since we agreed on three topics earlier today, with any luck, I'm going to start painting some Reaper Bones this week for our D&D group.  It's been almost 4 years since I've pointed a paintbrush at some minis, but it's time I got back into the habit.  And with eight minis to paint (and then some), I think I'll have full for the remainder of the week.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Et ca me fait quelque chose.

Monthly Update: March 2015

"Lousy Smarch weather!"  I can't help but think of "Smarch" whenever I see the month of March. although I guess that could be somewhat appropriate with the East Coast buried under a few meters of snow and us the Pacific Northwest being burned alive with average temperatures of 55° F, which is warm for February for us.  But onto why we're really here!

In February, we saw the Humble Bundle people put up a massive Star Wars game bundle with 11 games, none of which have I ever played before.  Later in the month I'll actually go into what makes a Star Wars game fun for me to play versus some other science fiction so be prepared for that one later in the month as well as for people to rip me a new one for not being über Star Wars canon knowledgeable.

I've also gotten back into Dungeons & Dragons (As I mentioned last month) and I am presently really enjoying the game.  For our group, I'm DMing and we've managed to get in two sessions, about every other week, but as with every D&D group ever, scheduling is always an issue.  I know that I said I would do a write up last month, but I may actually get around to it this month after I complete my final schooling electronic paperwork assignments for the month.  And I still need to get back on that painting wagon again, but I'm hoping for some nice detail brushes to come into my possession soon.  

On a similar note, I uncovered a D&D story that I wrote back in 2002-03 and I am going back, rereading and converting everything to a 5th Edition model.  The nice part about this is that I am figuring out some story elements that I sort of flubbed on or just ignored to make the story work and it's a lot of fun to go back into this world/story that I concocted.  I'll tell you what, it's somewhat nice to know that my storytelling capabilities didn't completely suck 12 years ago.

I've also decided to put Dragon Quest VI on the back burner for a bit as I just seemed lost with the story.  I don't know if it was because of intermittent play or because I am genuinely not as interested in the story as I want to be, which might be a fault in itself; forcing myself to play something because I feel that I'm supposed to like it is probably not the best way to play a game.  So now I'm going back to Radiant Historia, which I started very briefly I don't know how long ago because I love the concept of the game and the short amount of time that I did put into the game, I recall loving what I was experiencing.

Ah, and I also started up Borderlands after finishing RAGE, which both need articles of their own, which may or may not happen (see paragraph #3).  I am afraid though that it will turn into another Skyrim, which I always seem to be learning something new about once every few weeks.

Lastly, Conklederp and I will be attending the RePLAY orchestral video game concert up here in Portland in a few days so as I may have said (see paragraph #3), there may be an article at the same time.

JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

This Thing Is Too Precious To Ever Sleepwalk Your Way Through This.

P.S.  And then there's the whole Elder Scrolls Online going free later in the month and becoming Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited.  And I thought I read somewhere that the game is not considered canon?  I may need to look into that.

God Damn Steam!

Hehe.  

No, this will not be an article about the faults of Valve's Steam gaming system.  This is about the heated evaporation of dihydrogen oxide.  

Steam as a mechanic is nothing new in video games.  It is often used as a permanent barrier or an intermittent one for the hero to cross on their way to Point B.  I don't know about you dear reader, but it's been one of those obstacles that I have often felt was a bit over the top and over exaggerated.  "What do you mean I can die if I get caught in a jet of steam!?  There's steam in the bathroom when I take a shower.  There's steam that comes out of a tea kettle and I'm pretty sure I haven't died from that."  It's been one of those annoying barriers that is, well, annoying.

From Penumbra: Requiem.

Then the event of Monday November 3rd, 2014 happened.  It was in the morning and I was making coffee for myself and Conklederp as I normally do.  So I had the water in the kettle boiling and letting me know that it was ready to be moved by way of its shrill whistle.  I walked over, turned off the stop top and prepared the Aeropress with filter and grounds.

That's when the steam still jetting out of the kettle hit the back of my hand.  I pulled my hand back immediately and may or may not have uttered an expletive, but I'm thankful that I didn't have anything coffee related in my hands.  I was genuinely surprised by the temperature of the steam.  Yes I know that H2O boils at 100° C (212° F), but I had never thought of it as scaldingly hot.  I then ran my hand under cold water for a couple of seconds and I didn't give it a second thought.

Throughout the day, the back of my hand felt like I had received a contact burn from something hot, which I had and I realize how stupid this makes me sound, but in my head I had rationalized it as "But it's only steam."  I've even been trained multiple times (every two years since 2007) in first aid procedures through American Red Cross, but for whatever reason, I just figured this out.  The next day the pain was still somewhat present, but by  the following Wednesday (November 5th), the pain was gone and I didn't give it a second thought.

Later in the week, Saturday I believe while visiting my parent's, my Mother asked what had happened to the back of my hand.  It was then that I noticed that about a two inch by one inch blob shaped region on the back of my hand had become slightly puckered and rough. What I had chalked up to a very minor contact burn on par with being out in the sun for an extra 13 minutes had changed the appearance and texture of my skin.  A few days later (probably around the 11th or 12th) the skin began peeling, similar to a sunburn, but really shiny (do not do a google image search).

I would like to think that now whenever I come across steam in a game, that I will think twice about trying to sprint through this caustic barrier as if it were a minor hindrance.  And if you find the time, take a first aid course.  The courses are helpful and hopefully won't make you oblivious to the harm that heated dihydrogen oxide can do to the epidermis of your largest organ.  

And don't go running through jets of steam!



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
It's So Hard To Believe

Monthly Update: February 2015

If you're a frequent reader of our site, you may have noticed the fall off in posts towards the end of January.  The last couple of weeks have been taxing on me as coursework has begun to pile up and finding time to both play games and write about them has dwindled to a level that makes posting twice a week very difficult.  Thus, I have decided to cut myself back to posting once a week (Monday or Friday), but not including the MIDI Week Singles that has become a fun staple that both Dr. Potts and I contribute to on a whomever-has-an-article-written-and-ready-to-go-come-Wednesday basis.  Actually, I might post twice a week if I'm feeling up to it and am overly talkative.

That being said, I have managed to put in a fair amount of time with Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call on the 3DS that will garner at least two posts this month.  I also started up playing Dungeons & Dragons again last week, which will hopefully turn into a weekly or biweekly event.  That DMing experience will also earn itself its own article, probably mid month.  This revised interest in D&D had also got me thinking again about painting miniatures, something that I haven't done since July 2011.

Around mid-January, Extra Credits put out a couple of videos about making your own video game and their recommended steps to going about that arduous process.  These series of videos got me motivated about using RPG Maker VX Ace to make a game in the same way that listening to Robert Rodriguez talk about making movies convinces me that I could shoot, cut and score my own movie.  It's simple things like starting out small and not trying to make Final Fantasy VI on my first attempt are more important than churning out a masterpiece and getting bogged down on my first attempt.  All good points and based on their most recent video (part 3 in this game making series), I've realized that I should still scale back my plan just so I can get the mechanics of using the program down.

And then there was that Super Bowl MLLXVXLIX that happened last Sunday as well.  Now, I know it's stereotypical for someone who plays video games, D&D, paints miniatures and cross stitches pixel art to either not know or care about the NFL (or to go to a Star Trek convention instead. . .1999 I think it was), but after the 49ers were eliminated during the playoffs, I sort of turned my brain off and until the middle of last week, I had forgotten all about the Super Bowl.  Plus, without expressed consent from the NFL, I'm not supposed to talk about or give any kind of recap about the game.  Besides, who was I supposed to root for?  The Seahawks eliminated the 49ers so I can't cheer for them, and the Patriots have that whole deflatinggatenonesense going on, but more importantly is that I've never been a New England (team, not the region) fan so I don't plan on aligning myself with them at the present date.  I also don't feel that I should hoorah for the Seahawks only because they're a West Coast team and are closer to Portland than San Francisco, or because 90% of the football fans in the Portland metropolitan area are Seahawks fans.  I ended up picking Seattle.

So that's what happened last month and what is looking to happen in the upcoming/presently circumcised month of February.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Works of My Gods Receding Now

Ramblings Near the End of the Year

I have a couple of things that I want to talk about.

The first being that Conklederp and I just moved from the abode that we have resided in for the past three plus years and life's been kind of hectic, hence the lack of post by me this last Monday and Dr. Potts chiming in for MIDI Week Singles on Wednesday.  One thing we've discovered though is that 1) companies can be asshats when you say that you want to cancel a service you've previously held for three years.  Say, for instance, you want to transfer services from one residence to a new once, everyone is as helpful as Satan with an handful of sinners, but say that you want to cancel your phone line because you won't need it anymore and all of a sudden you'll be put on hold and disconnected after 10 minutes of said hold (two separate times) like you've contracted the plague from the Montagues or some such rot.  UTTER ROT, and I know my plagues, so it is in fact, a thing.  So we will have interweb services again in 10 days, which, luckily enough will be after we come back from a trip down to the seasonless SoCal (where we will have access to the rest of the global-sphere, so we got that going for us, which is nice).

Next, I purchased my first Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition product and beware, some of you might be shocked and offended (Delaños).  It was the Starter Set that Amazon is currently hawking for a measly price right now.  Gabe over at Penny Arcade talked a bit about it and I have a few friends that have been wanting to get into D&D for a while and I was a bit leary about starting in on 4th Edition, but now that 5th Edition is out and getting, from what my limited ears have heard, pretty good reviews, I thought I would spring for this boxed set to see if Salty Liver and her husband WhoBear were still interested after the short four part quest.  If all goes well, and suspect that it will, the DM and Players guide will soon be on the horizon.  And maybe the monster manual too, but I just might modify the 4th Edition MM for 5th Edition rules, which shouldn't be too hard and honestly, I would find it to be a hoot and-a-half.

The Starter Set is pretty basic as far as D&D packaging goes.  The box includes a whittled down players/rules guide, a DM and story guide, five pre-generated character sheets as well as a blank one for copying and a set of six dice (standard d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20).  One thing brought up in the rules that I really loved was the emphasis that ". . .the rules are a tool to help you have a good time.  The rules aren't in charge. . .If you decide that a rule works a certain way in one session, make sure it works that way the next time it comes into play."  I don't know why, but I found this very refreshing.  I know there are people who are stickler for rules, that they will find a specific rule in the Player's Guide and refuse the game to be played in any other way; not that I have personally played with these people, but I know they're out there.  Not being bound 100% to the rules is nice.

This lead me to another minor epiphany of sorts.  I like being the storyteller in these types of games and I will be the first to admit that I am not the best DM out there; to date SidMesh and PlacerMan are who I tend to look up to.  When playing games like Mansions of Madness, I like playing as The Keeper (equivalent to the DM) and I love playing as the DM.  I like all of the research needed before starting a campaign and being in charge of the story, which is something that goes contrary to my general approach to the rest of the world.  I'm sure someone out there can diagnose this as something-or-other.  There's probably a word for it in Latin.

So that is where I am going to leave you for the weekend.  I'll try to have something up on Monday before hoping on that literal aeroplane but I should also warn you that posts for the next week might be a bit spotty.

Oh, and if you don't know yet, Steam's Winter Sale is happening to lighten the load, as if your wallet/purse hasn't been feeling already.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Rambling In The Name Of

I had an interesting week last week, and by interesting, I mean that it will be not at all interesting for you, the reader.  So needless to say, which is why it is needed to be said, I will not be winning any Pulitzers for this one particular article.

First off, this happened to my computer screen last Thursday.  This is not only why steak knives and computer screens should not be friends, but also a lesson in the activities of stretch/yawning while moving toward a spinning ceiling fan.  As is the slogan of Nike in one of many alternate universes goes:

The other non-interesting aspect for you of my last week was that I was indoctrinated into Path of Exile.  I've known about this game for some time, in that it was a Diablo-type clone that was a lot of fun to play and that it was free-to-play.  For whatever reason, those two descriptors together made me wary about trying the game.  Then I noticed Chreekat playing it a lot while I was learning the ropes of DOTA2 and thought I would give it a try.  17 hours later (after figuring out why it wouldn't initially download the first five times I had tried), I've fallen in love with this game.  The character choice is plentiful, the artwork and world design is beautiful, the music is semi-atmospheric-eh, and the skill tree, holy damn the skill tree!

This is maybe just a quarter of the skill tree too.  All these tiny lines and dots were a little overwhelming when I first started, but now I feel that this tree will be manageable.  Did I mention the game is free?  I gladly would have paid money to play this (having played the game now) and the moment I have a steady income again, these fine folks will be receiving a bit of mine.  Oh, and presently, I have not experienced anything that leads me to believe that I have to pay money in order to progress through the game and I am not inundated with adds or special offers for glowing glitter eyes.

I've also just finished Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer, the book in the Summer Reading BINGO, and so now it is onto a book "With a number in the title."  Time to go look through the book case or peruse what free titles I already have on the ol' Kindle.  That is, unless I plan on reading something by Janet Evanovich, but that'd be an easy out and I have no real interest in Evanovich.  The search begins.

Returning to the world of games, Salty Liver and her newly acquired husband gave Conklederp and myself, for our own nigh-approaching wedding, the Mansions of Madness board game.  I am excited to play this game, which I will get into in a later post, but for now, looking through all the materials will have to make do.

Apologies for this less than stellar submission to the Nobel Prize for Literature, but then again, we all can't be Steinbecks.  Or Kings.  Or Revertes.  Or Tolkeins.  Or Pratchetts.  Or Lovecrafts.  Or Crichtons.  Or Adams'.  Or Machens.  Or Poes.  Or Dumas'.  Now Shakespeares, those're one a dozen.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Converting All Your Sounds Of Woe

Gardening Game Design, Planning Stages and Replay Value

In my ongoing series of posts about Game Design informed by Gardening, or general Garden Simulation, I have yet to touch on the subject of Pest Management.  This is due in part to my own feet-dragging approach to dealing with garden pests in my own garden.  Still, as I prepare to break down and buy an insecticidal spray, I reflect on some of the things that have been working so far, and how they might play into a Gardening game.

The first, and most compelling method of pest management comes in the planning stages of gardening.  The idea is to grow plants that will attract beneficial insects, which will do the work for you.  I've leaned on this approach pretty heavily, however, this came about by happenstance, not by careful planning.  Now I obsess about my next garden and how I'm going to plan it better.   What's nice about Vegetable gardening is that the plants are all annuals, which will die off after a season, creating an opportunity to start over again.  This can be a good thing .

This is very similar to how I've approached Sim City 4.  I've made maybe eight different cities in that game.  The first was a disaster, and I just ran and hid from the havoc I had unleashed.  The second city went much better, but still, I learned some things which I was eager to apply on my next city.  By the third city, I hit a plateau, and, try as I might, I couldn't really improve on my model.  That didn't stop me from trying a few more times, though.  There's something captivating about those beginning stages, designing a layout to avoid typical pitfalls.

I have a similar experience when I play Settler's of Catan. I find that during the early stages of play, I feel compelled to start the game over again - to place my tokens differently, because I know what I did wrong.  I wonder if this might be a palpable experience of the oft-talked-about Learning Curve.

Learning can be fun!  I said it.  But seriously, maybe that's what's going on here.  Thinking about Knytt and Starseed Pilgrim, those games had the most delightful learning curves.  Starseed is highly cryptic; really all it tells the player about their goal amounts to a hill of beans.  Yet, through repeated play, I was able to figure out goals, and increase my skills many fold.  This growth in my play experience drove me to begin again time after time, until I hit a plateau and dropped the game.  Up to that point, Starseed Pilgrim was a very potent gaming experience.

Knytt lays out very basic goals and controls.  Then reward the player with an unfolding world of many environments.  The learning curve here is to learn what the purpose of the game really is (hint: to enjoy yourself!)  My compulsion to restart Knytt was based on finding out where I could explore that I didn't before.  This curve was considerably shorter than Starseed Pilgrim, but still delightful and also free of charge.

Here's a random list of games with Learning Curves I have particularly enjoyed:

Starseed Pilgrim (PC)
Settler's of Catan (Board Game)
Blokus (Board Game)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series (Playstation)
Wave Race (N64)
Goldeneye 007 (N64)
Final Fantasy XI (PC)

Okay, those are a few to get the ball rolling.  It occurs to me that there are a variety of different Learning Curves of different character.  And it is possible to reach the end of a learning curve - the final plateau, so to speak, but how often do we actually get there?  There are people who can do things in Street Fighter games that I have never had a hope or a prayer of ever doing.  But it seems to me these games boil down to reflexes, rote memorization and practice, practice, practice.

Then on the other hand, there are games that start easy and stay easy, and just amount to a slog from point A to point Z.  I felt God of War was kind of like that - good thing the visuals were so great.  I've been complaining that games were too easy since the snes days, and it's usually these games that are very easy with one or two tough spots.

What are some of the best Learning Curves you have encountered?

Monthly Update: May 2014

First off, apologies on two fronts.  Front 1: I should have had my monthly update up over a week ago, back on the 2nd, which was my first post for this month.  Front 2: This post should have gone up (again) on Monday (5th), but I've been busy doing stuff that I'll get into once everything is finished.  Yes, I am being intentionally cryptic and no, there are no dead bodies.  Yet.

So what's going on in the gaming world?  I'm asking you because I don't rightly know.  Probably not something that I should be outrightly admitting as the Doctor and I strive to maintain a video game and related culture presence here in the interspaces.  But, if you are a frequent reader, you may have already come to that conclusion by now.  I know what it is that I've been playing recently (The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy VII, Mirror's Edge, Bioshock 2, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box and Assassin's Creed), but with the exception of ESO, which I've previously talked about somewhat extensively so there is presently no need to cover that game again; at least not right now.

This month of May will probably look a lot like the previous month with the aforementioned games being played.  Oh yes, I was introduced a few weeks back to a couple of mobile phone games that will possibly have their own posts later in the month.

I've also been reading less than I usually do due to a change in work happenings.  I did purchase a Kindle Paperwhite early last month so I'llt put up a product review about that as well as the "perks" that come along with having an Amazon Prime account at the same time and I promise that I will do my best not to write a commercial.

I will also try to get up a couple of Game Score posts although I have yet to choose which games I want to highlight.  If you are one for music, the good people over at Extra Credits have begun doing a weekly segment highlighting a video game remixing musician.

That's really all I want to say right now and I should stop before the inevitable ramble starts to happen and pushes you, the reader, away from us.  So have a pleasant weekend and we will see you all in the coming days.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Are Motives So Important Anyhow?

Always Seems To Be A Work In Progress

Just to forewarn y'all, the post for today is going to ramble a bit.  And by ramble, I mean that from the overarching fact that I'm rambling, there isn't much coherency.

You know, I don't have a whole lot to go into today.  I mean, there are a handful (maybe multiple hands) of games that I'm playing, some because I've been meaning to play and others because I'm deep into that post-Steam-sale zone of GAMES ARE EVERYWHERE!?  It's also a Monday (my work-Friday), it's nice outside (nice for Portland anyway) and parenthese seem to be taking over (which isn't all that odd if you look back through some of the posts I've put up).

I've got some irons in the fire, some of those irons have somehow turned into styrofoam (whatever that means), while others are just gathering steam (pun not intended) and wondering when the damn train is going to be built.  I also finished reading (again) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Hogfather (again) within the last month and am nearly finished with Jingo, so I have British satirists running around in my head telling me that I'm doing it all wrong and don't sound anything like them.

I could start talking about late 19th century and early 20th century weird, horror, science fiction authors, two of which who are both not H.P. Lovecraft, but I feel they would warrant their own post without all this nonsensical nonsense that has been happening for the last 217 words that have occurred before the number 217.

Now that I think about it, I may just have too many irons in the fire (I was going to Wiki-link to the "irons in the fire" bit, but the Wiki page for that is just too silly).  I have (at least) two games I'm playing on my 3DS, one on the PSP, 10 or so games on Steam that I'm in the middle of and a couple that I play on my phone every-so-often.  Not to mention (except that I am) a stack of board games that haven't been played in Idon'tknowhowlong and a card game that has yet to be played because Idon'tknow.

Part of me knows better than to post drivel if I don't have anything to say, especially on these self-imposed deadlines, but that's just the way I am.  If I falter one day, I feel that I'll begin the habit of doing it on a consistent basis.

With that being said, I would now like to end the writings of today with a picture of the outcome from my first foray into the DayZ alpha:

I guess we all could use a little work.

JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Working On The Highway

Where I've Been And What I Signed

I didn't make a post last Friday (11/22/2013) because I was doing something that I said I would not talk about.  As in LEGALLY cannot talk about.  There were a lot of words in a Non-Disclosure Agreement that I electronically signed, which is a legit/legal form of binding.  I also cannot say whom I was with as I think that would violate said NDA.  That being said, or not, I did the thing and now we're here, back in the real world.  Come to think of it, I should also be receiving something else unrelated in the mail that I said I wouldn't discuss or talk about and I sort of signed an NDA of sorts, so I won't be talking about that either.

So what do I talk about on this glorious of Mondays before myself and the rest of the civilized Western god fearing world gives thanks for this plentiful land?!

Well, the Xbox One came out. . . at some point.  Friday?  It's pretty much the same situation that I typed about last week regarding the PS4.

What is it then that I can talk about?

Well (2x this post), there's this guy that I found out about through one of the few facebook ads  that I came across about 7-8 months back (I think it was from a facebook ad?, or maybe it was through Drunken Moogle?) that was relevant to me.  It was a guy (and his cat) who goes by the moniker Smooth McGroove.  He does acapella covers of video game music, all with himself (and occasionally his cat) in multiple frames with footage of the game in the center.  Like this:

He'lll post videos every so often.  Frequently enough that you wonder how long a session/song takes.  Regardless of those thoughts, the videos are pretty fun to watch.  That's the key though for me, the watching.  I've tried a couple of times to just "listen" to the songs without watching the video and they kind of loose their charm/appeal.  I start to feel like I'm listening to actual video game music and not someone singing acapella.  Which I guess is a testament to his abilities, but that's not always what I'm looking for.  One thing that I really like about Mr. McGroove, is that he doesn't do only the traditional covers you see video game cover bands do, such as "Bloody Tears" or "World Theme from Super Mario Bros."  Sure he does do those too, but he has also covered possibly less familiar songs such as the theme from Lavender Town from the first Pokemon and "Corridors of Time" from Chrono Trigger.  In short, the guy is good.

Happy Monday.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Buph-buh!

The Xbox One Reveal & Demo Time

The video game blogosphere was all a-buzz last week with Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox One and all that it can and is designed to do.  When I first saw the pictures of the system and controller, I liked it.  I thought it was a classy looking approach to a video game console that didn't shout out, "I play video games!"  I thought it looked a lot like a DVD player or cable box.  And I'll be honest, in that brief moment, I actually considered the purchase of the One.  That was before I watched the video on Kotaku (via Darkbeatdk) telling me all I needed to know about Xbox One.

Then, I remembered that I really/probably/most likely don't want one, what with all the "everything needs to be on" thing, and the Xbox Live pay accounts.  One last (amusing) thing about the Xbox One reveal, was the mention of the "newly redesigned D-pad." Wait, what?  Directional pads like that have been around since the mid 80s, and I personally, haven't liked the tinkering that was done for almost every non-Nintendo D-pad (Dreamcast aside).

That's all I'm going to say about this since I'm very much out of my league when it comes to most/all things related to the Xbox; I can honestly say that I've played/used an Xbox less than ten times.  Ever.

A couple of months ago, I did an article about the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate demo with the header of "Demo Time."  I would really like to turn this into a "thing."  While some games may not warrant an entire article, there will be times when I combine a couple of games that have similar themes or feel like two games are one-in-the-same, just with a different pair of underwear on the outside.

There will be some games that are obvious as to why I would play them, while others I won't fit within a single target area of a game's demographic.  The point is, there have been some games that I've been surprised by and others that I thought I might like and turned out to be a boring slice of dried cheese.  I will state thought that I may or may not play every available demo.

I currently do not have any plans to release Demo Time posts on any day in particular, but they will appear here and there.  Possibly when I don't have anything else on my plate or if there is a particularly engaging demo that I feel the need to share.


Lastly, I don't feel that it's any surprise that my goto for what a video game blog/article should be is Penny Arcade.  For a long time, I thought the phrase at the end of Jerry/Tycho's posts were little cryptic sayings that had to do with the article, even when they were labeled "instrumental;" in my head there'd be a dramatic movie music cue ready to go.  That all changed (last year?) when Jerry started actually hyperlinking the end phrase to a song, which is what the phrases were related to.  

Yes, I'm copying on some level, although I did something very similar with in-office emails when I worked for the State (of California).  I would have little taglines, something like "The marmots are really just framing the ferns until someone notices."  Nonsensical things with the intention of making people scratch their heads.  It's not as funny when you don't work with "professionals."  Although, back during the Myspace era, whenever I wrote a note/blog post, I would use a mozilla extension (FoxyTunes I think it was) to paste information on whatever song I was last listening to when I finished the posting.  For a while here I've been doing something very similar, although I would usually alter the song title or some of the lyrics to better "fit" at the end of a posting.  I will continue this practice and now, I too will hyperlink.

I've used too many words and should probably stop tippa-tapping now.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
He, The Aethyr