The last two weeks have been rather weird for me. I came out with that vlog for Retro Gaming Expo on the Facebook page and got a good number of positive reactions to it, which is gratifying. However, my desire to record more AVDRshows was hampered by indecision and anxiety as I planned to have one on current events (from three weeks ago). Unfortunately, I sat on it for too long and it’s no longer relevant, so I now salvage what I had by putting it all here. (more…)
Spending time in the martial arts space is kind of like being in a school playground. Imagine you’re at the swings, and everyone brags about their own way of pushing the swings to make it swing higher. But who really gives a shit about that playground stuff? Nothing about it matters in the grand scheme of things. However, it’s this perplexing seriousness and tendency to care about what doesn’t really matter that I’d like to talk about here. (more…)
Overwatch is a sinking ship. I start this blog post with that statement as I’ve seen this before with another Blizzard game I used to be obsessed with. StarCraft II peaked in 2012, then floundered in the following years due to numerous issues. I’m seeing the same patterns now with Overwatch, but there’s a lot more going on with this one due to what is both its biggest strength and weakness—its expanding lore. (more…)
Perhaps you’ve seen the recent viral news on an American missionary travelling to the infamous North Sentinel Island to spread the Gospel to the primitive residents there, only to be killed by their arrows. There have been other victims before him, but he is of significant interest due to his purpose for being there. I wish to take this opportunity to talk about well-meaning idiots, who seem to be everywhere in this world. (more…)
At the moment, I have a video project queued up regarding deliberate practice and the importance of stakes in competitive video games to incentivize performance improvement. Perhaps I’ll actually finish that video one of these days, but I felt like I should post something about what Overwatch had got me thinking as of this writing. As I delve more into topics related to competitive gaming, I hope to dig deeper into the attitudes and behaviors I’ve been observing first hand in games so far. (more…)
Never mind how more expensive video games may get later on due to the current situation regarding graphics cards. Prices have gone as high as twice the MSRP and are keeping consumers from building their dream rigs. Imagine finally being able to save up enough to build your own rig after working so hard in that call center job or whatever else you have. Your household is in order, and you just want to be able to play games after coming home from a hard day’s work. However, you either can’t or have to settle with an inferior GPU because you can’t get a better one. (more…)
There has been talk lately about how video games may actually be underpriced these days, as unbelievable as that may sound since AAA games are quite expensive already. However, pundits are making their cases as to why the video game industry is now at its current state of having microtransactions and other predatory forms of monetization being shoved down consumers’ throats, as well as horrible working conditions for the rank and file in the industry. I’m no insider, but I’d like to try making better sense of the whole video game price debacle. (more…)
What I wish to talk about here is not a new trend, but definitely a recurring one. As of this writing, the divisiveness of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is still harped on every now and then in memes and flame threads. It’s the sequel of a sequel, and other sequels and sequels of sequels have been subject to similar heat, especially if they come out a decade or more after the original. Never mind what they did to Luke Skywalker, they turned Michael Corleone into a mental patient in The Godfather Part III and the story is a complete crock of shit in Diablo III. (more…)
Pardon me while this blog post is a couple of weeks late, it’s still better than never. The controversy with EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II and its loot boxes made the rounds in gaming news, even culminating in governments condemning the game and loot boxes in general as gambling. While loot boxes had become the norm in games, especially free-to-play games with not that much room for monetization, publishers had been slowly but surely pushing it as far as it’ll go until the dam breaks. (more…)
This article on The Verge about how Marvel’s The Punisher on Netflix is a mess with how it tackles gun violence in America caught my eye. Since this blog is full of cobwebs and I recently got rejected by a client for my freelance work, I’ve written something here in response, partially to remind myself that I can still write. Also, I have been watching the show. I like it, and I think I’ve seen more of it than the author of that article. (more…)
There was this recent news of a model of mechanical keyboards made in China that turned out to have keyloggers illicitly installed in it. Of course, this is scandalous on a potentially global scale due to Chinese products becoming more ubiquitous in the tech space. It’s easy enough to assume that whatever comes out of that place is full of cooties that will make your computer cry out in pain whenever you plug it in. (more…)
So, it sort of actually happened for real well over a week ago. The Giant Robot Duel that had been two years in the making finally came to pass, and it was pretty much how I expected it to be when I wrote about it here in the blog. I still watched it, much like Mayweather vs. McGregor—a circus you can’t really take your eyes away from. The only difference here is that there was something interesting enough with MayMac, while GRD was only good for memes that will die quick deaths. (more…)
