RIP Monty Oum

Late last week, I read a post from Roosterteeth CEO Burnie Burns stating that fellow co worker Monty Oum had been hospitalized under severe conditions and was unsure if he would recover.  Yesterday, it was announced that Monty Oum had passed away.

We are not a news site here, reporting on the latest information from the gaming world.  We are here, as I think I understand it, to provide personal commentary in anyway we see fit.

I knew of Monty Oum during Red vs. Blue season 8, when more than impressive CGI was introduced to the series that Roosterteeth produces.  I later found out that Monty Oum had caught Roosterteeth's collective eye with an animated CGI fight scene he did with Master Chief and Samus Aran titled "Haloid."  With the creative vision of Roosterteeth, I saw their production go from this:

to this:

I never did get into Monty's self-created series RWBY (pronounced like "RUBY"), but the visuals were still amazing for an independent production.  He has left his mark, for me personally on the world of Red vs. Blue.

That's really all I know about Monty Oum, including some bits when he appeared on commentaries or podcasts, but that's all that I can say.  It is sad to see anyone pass away and it is sad to hear about someone who has worked on a series (since 2010) that Dr. Potts introduced me to back in 2004.  And I am sad that Monty Oum has passed away.

That is all.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Or Something Like It

There are a couple of video game related sites that I visit, some on a regular basis and others that I'll visit when I suddenly remember that I haven't been there in a few weeks.  Then there're the handful that I remember existing that I visited for a while, but that was on a different computer that contains years worth of bookmarks that I no longer have access to.  Like the current trends with cellphones, I no longer remember phone numbers or actual website address, I just have them either bookmarked or I just have to type in the first three letters and auto fill in does the rest.

When I do visit aforementioned sites, the large ones like Penny-Arcade, Kotaku, Red vs. Blue, these are professional sites that have some sort of connection to the side of the gaming industry that actually make the games.  I really try to stay away from these places when I know that I have an article to write.  It would be like wanting to do a drawing or sketch and right before you pick up that box of colored pencils, you go for a walk through the Louvre.

I don't visit Penny-Arcade to look for inspiration when it comes to writing articles and god knows I have a closet full of ideas up in that attic I call a brain, but if I find inspiration while reading, that's perfectly valid and not at all guilt ridden.  I might be listening to the Rooster Teeth Podcast and they'll be talking about something to do with early SNES games and I'll think, "Yeah, that was pretty cool.  I'm going to write about that!"  I won't though, listen to them looking for inspiration.  Yes, I just used "looking" to describe the act of listening.

Given the somewhat short history of this blog, you may have found that Dr. Potts and I do not do a lot of reviews of current games.  Neither the good Dr. or I have any of the current generation of consoles although I do have a 3DS and we both play a fair amount of games via Steam, the majority of the games that I tend to purchase are not "new."  

However, with that in mind, I don't think that we are any less relevant.  Pretty much everyday I'll look at the statics and information about our site and how people came here and I'm always excited when I see that there were multiple searches for Amnesia ~ Justine ~ or Dr. Potts' post about Hiroo Isono's artwork.  

And as far as video game related posts go, here are a few that may be showing up in the next couple of weeks:

• Two part Full Review for The World Ends With You
• First Impressions for :
• Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
• The Art of Balance - Touch
• Dead Space
• Shatter
• Music Reviews for:
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Actraiser
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest
• Bit.Trip.Runner: Game vs. Soundtrack
• Hitoshi Sakimoto: Final Fantasy Tactics vs Final Fantasy XII
• Emulator Hours for:
• Metroid II: Return of Samus (Separate from Dr. Potts' post)
• One Year Later: 3DS

So as you can see, I've got some ideas for topics to discuss.  Are they the same topics that other video game related sites are talking about and discussing?  Probably not, but it's what we do.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Taking Yoda's Words To Heart

Bleep Bloop - Achievements Unlocked

Achievements, as they are currently known, began three years before I became aware of their existence with the already established terminology.  The fact that I've never been a big fan of "achievements" could in part be from the fact that I've never owned an Xbox or PS3.  I understand the concept of achievements just as well, but again, they're not really my thing.  My prepared rebuttal to the almost inevitable discussion that not liking achievements must mean that I suck at video games and that I should get back to sucking dick goes something like this, "Whatever."

When I first watched the Red vs Blue PSA "Small Rewards" back in 2008, I was introduced to the concept of Achievements in their present form.  I had mentioned in a previous post that I consider the cheats in Goldeneye 007 to be "functional achievements," but calling them as such is only as recent as the writing of that article.

With the acquisition of games via Steam, being my main source for PC gaming, I now have an avenue to acquire achievements.  What I sort of like about the achievements via Steam is that what you have earned is not posted on the front page of your profile.  Maybe they can be with a bit of tinkering in the profile settings, which is fine I guess, but it's not something that I'm going to actively look for.  Yes I can go and find out which achievements Dr. Potts has obtained/acquired/unlocked in LIMBO, but I've got to make at least 3 mouse clicks in order to find out.  To me, this says that the achievements on Steam are not as important to other people as they are on Xbox Live or the Playstation Network.  That you have to actively go looking for someone else's achievements says something about that system.  And whatever it's trying to say, I like it.

One other thing that somewhat disappointed me about the concept of earning achievements is the fact that you know about them before you even play the game.  In Portal 2, one of the achievements is titled "You Made Your Point" with the subtext "Refuse to solve the first test in Chapter 8."  It tells you how to earn the achievement.  Granted some other achievements aren't so easily accomplished or even tell you how to accomplish them as in the "Transmission Received" in the first Portal which lists the subtext as "..?".  I like the idea of achievements being totally ambiguous or just having no description at all.  I'd personally felt a sense of  pride when I figured out what that achievement entailed.  Do I have that particular achievement?  Nope, I've got 7 of 26, which is just fine with me as I know what to do to acquire the achievement, I just haven't done them all yet.

I like the idea that you would be playing a game and all of a sudden the game lets you know that you achieved something that you didn't know was there, that you did something cool that the programmers also had thought of, but again, that just might be me.  Or maybe in the case of multiple part achievements, trying to figure out what it was that you just did and have the game say that you need to do the same thing nine more times at other parts in the game.

The last thing, and I know a lot of games do this, is offering achievements for either passing a level or reaching a checkpoint in a level.  If it's something you're supposed to do like collecting fully powered portal gun, I don't see a reason for there to be an achievement for it.  I can almost imagine what achievements would have looked like in early NES games.  Get an achievement for beating the game on any difficulty level (if the game has difficulty levels)?  Sure, give out an achievement for Easy, Medium and Jedi level difficulties or for just beating the game in general.  Maybe they're around to show other players your progress through the game.

Someone who has a larger degree than I do might say that achievements are the product of a society that has become one based on instant gratification, that if there weren't achievements in games (except that most/all of Nintendo games don't have an achievement-type system) that people would feel that their progression in the game isn't worth anything.  But, I'm not that someone, so I won't say that.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
My Gamerscore is 0, If Anyone Wants To Know.



P.S.  I couldn't figure out where to put this in the main body of the article, so a post script will do just fine.  I get that some achievements are challenging to unlock, but some are just plain bitch-cake crazy (I'm looking at you True Form).  I have yet to come across a game on Steam that I feel compelled to unlock all of the achievements in order for me to feel like I played a game to its fullest.