Opinion Archives


Motion Inputs Are NOT Stupid, Competitive Games Need Physicality

Motion Inputs in Fighting Games

A decade or two ago, it was participation trophies. But that wasn’t enough, kids were still crying about their uselessness. Now, well-meaning idiot adults are now thinking about making sports and games less difficult, thus lowering the barrier of entry. Despite good intentions, this is the opposite of what’s good for competition. After all, a video game is only as fun as its reward—the result of being able to achieve what takes practice to successfully accomplish. (more…)

It’s Not a Sin to Feel

Crying CM Punk Fan

Let’s talk about pro wrestling since I’ve been getting more into it lately. While I’m a commentator for a local wrestling promotion, I’m not that big of a pro wrestling fan, or at least not as invested in it as my colleagues. I’m more of a combat sports fan, which informs my way of thinking in pro wrestling. But despite how ridiculous it can be in the bigger picture, people can be quite passionate about it. With AEW All Out 2021 close at hand, let’s talk about its centerpiece. (more…)

Effortless Excellence Messes With Us

Daigo Umehara

Here’s another blog post to continue on the topic of The Revolving Door—that door many people enter to pursue a dream vocation only for most of them to exit it. That blog post was and still is an absolute mess, but perhaps I was looking towards the wrong direction. It’s not about how to climb the mountain, but what makes us want to climb it in the first place. Some people don’t get past the initial spark and the dip afterwards, while a handful are able to climb out of that dip and continue their progress. (more…)

The Revolving Door

Nothing is truly for everyone. There are always barriers of entry. The higher the barrier, the more people wish to enter, and the less people actually do so. For the rest, they go back out the revolving door. Most of them tend to not understand the exact reason for their forced exit, and they tend to blame others for faults that happen to be their own. (more…)

Overwatch 2 is What They Should’ve Released in 2016

Overwatch 2

This is a late post that may no longer be that relevant, I admit. I was supposed to post this after BlizzConline, but the past two weeks were a blur for me. However, I realized that I still had much to say about the sequel to my 2016 GOTY, so I had to finish writing this. While I have to admit that I’m actually hyped about what Blizzard is doing in Overwatch 2, I’m also quite skeptical about what it’ll do for their newest franchise. (more…)

Comparing Cyberpunk 2077 with The Outer Worlds and Fallout 4

Cyberpunk 2077, The Outer Worlds, Fallout 4

It does seem like I tend to spend my year-end holidays playing open world RPGs. In 2015, it was Fallout 4, which kept me occupied for two to three weeks. In 2019, it was The Outer Worlds, which I played non-stop for two weeks. Most recently, Cyberpunk 2077 has taken over my life, and it’s still incredibly fun more than a month later. (more…)

Bipolar Rock ‘N’ Roller — The Mauro Ranallo Story

Bipolar Rock 'N' Roller

Last month, I found this documentary on YouTube about one of my favorite combat sports commentators. I couldn’t help but expressed my thoughts on my Facebook profile after viewing it in whole. Having become a pro wrestling commentator myself, going through the struggles to get better in serving as a voice for Manila Wrestling Federation, I’ve become more attentive to the art of sports announcing. But this film was more than just about that. 
(more…)

Pathologic is Fascinating Hipster Fodder

Pathologic

In some corners of the YouTube gaming space, where those who profess to more discerning tastes roam, there are videos about a game that recently got a good bit of attention. Pathologic is one of those Russian indie games, which could be its own genre—buggy, depressing, dreary, and Slav as fuck. It’s not a fun game to play—it’s like E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy without the cool armor and guns—but it’s quite interesting. (more…)

Call of Duty Mobile is My New Trash Game

Call of Duty Mobile

Call of Duty Mobile was something I thought I’d never care about, but ended up becoming a current mainstay in my daily routine. Since I don’t feel like playing StarCraft II these days due to the whole Blitzchung thing, I wanted to move on to something else. I played The Outer Worlds for two weeks, clocking in 120+ hours before feeling like I’ve seen everything I care to see. Then this game came about, and it has been a nice break. (more…)

Role Queue is an Interesting Way to Balance Overwatch

Overwatch Role Queue

Overwatch is still a fairly important game to me, even if I tend to hurl verbal trash at it these days. I still play it with my friends whenever I can. Competitive play doesn’t really make me as salty as it does other people, but all the big changes it goes through over the years did make me uncomfortable. This planned change is perhaps the biggest one to date and it can change how the game is played, for better and for worse. (more…)

Apparently, I Wasted Time Having Played Mirror’s Edge

Mirror's Edge Time Trial

This is a personal gaming story from a long time ago, back in simpler times when Electronic Arts was slightly less deplorable than it is now. It was from the late 2000s to the early 2010s when EA actually started putting out original IPs and made gamers believe again, and one of those titles was Mirror’s Edge. I quite liked the parkour simulator for what it tried to do, as well as the clean and minimalistic visuals that almost became the basis for this blog’s web design. While that later was superseded by Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I still quite liked the look of this now decade-old game. (more…)

A Brief Look at Etika and the Venus Project

Etika and Venus Project Founder Jacque Fresco

The suicide of Daniel Desmond Amofah, better known as Etika, has become a hot topic a few weeks ago. As his personal belongings, and then his body, were found along the East River, more information on his mental state and prior activities were brought to light, including his membership in an organization I first heard of in an infamous series of documentaries. (more…)