Time for another update post. The gap between the most recent post and what came before it is almost four months. That gap is due to life getting the best of me, and it’s becoming clear that I’m not making the most of what I pay to keep this website self-hosted. It’s not too serious, but it’s enough for me to want a change in my life. This is me trying to figure out what happened, what went wrong, and what can be done in the future. (more…)
The recent release of Red Dead Redemption 2 entailed a subsequent hoopla regarding the reportedly abhorrent working conditions in Rockstar Games. Just after that, the disappointing beta of Fallout 76 and its game-breaking flaws added more fuel to the AAA dumpster fire. While the debates on how to solve the various problems in the AAA space are still ongoing, I would like to prompt more focus on a different and often overlooked facet of the games industry. (more…)
Having left the tutelage of Freddie Roach for the first time in almost forever, Manny Pacquiao’s latest career decisions as far as boxing is concerned are still questionable. However, results can’t be refuted. His first knockout win in nine years doesn’t get by without some suspicion, but that’s what happens when he has the closest thing to home advantage in this card and winning a world champion at 39 years old. Pacquiao vs. Matthysse was an odd duck of a spectacle—technically interesting yet didn’t feel like that big of a deal. (more…)
With the passing of Anthony Bourdain last month, I thought I had to write a bit about how his work has influenced my view on “exploring experience”, as this blog’s tagline states. I want to focus on the memories he left behind with the travels he embarked on for his show Parts Unknown — a program I quite liked for how it packaged food and travel as a way to better understand the world and its people. (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…)
The past two weeks have been quite interesting for the fight game, and I wanted to talk about it in a show. However, with the amount of production needed and lack of time due to work, preparation for MWF 1: Kasaysayan, and chronic procrastination, I finished writing a script with neither the time nor patience to produce the actual video. I thought it would be a really good show since I’d get to talk about a lot of boxing, a freak injury, and even a bus attack. (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…)
Less than eight months after its debut event, GameCon PH is back with a follow-up. The pressure is on as they’re expected to improve upon what they were able to come up with last June, and they’re doing more things to get more hype. I even got a call to attend their press conference on February 1, even if I’m just a two-bit blogger. Just like with the first event, I’d like to talk about what lies ahead in this preview. (more…)
The fifth season of History Channel’s Vikings hasn’t been exactly what I would call “riveting”. The initial post-Ragnar episodes were pretty good as most of them was about Ivar’s ascent and how the Great Heathen Army are getting the best of the English. However, the fifth season has been quite puzzling with how things have turned out and how relationships formed and fizzled in the blink of an eye. The mid-season finale of Vikings Season 5, entitled Moments of Vision, was both beautiful and bewildering at the same time. (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…)
This may be the perfect way to end a year full of personal breakthroughs—becoming the ring announcer of Manila Wrestling Federation (and doing it well) and figuring out how to cover events my own way. The latter has been more hit than miss this year, after having tried making event vlogs for a few years now. Cosplay Matsuri 2017 seems like a great way to cap things off and celebrate the realization that doing this content creation thing isn’t just a waste of my time. (more…)
