Fighting anime and manga have played a big part in supplementing my fascination in martial arts over the years. While most shonen has some element of physical combat, I gravitate to realistic fighting with detailed explanations of techniques and tactics like in Hajime no Ippo, Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Baki the Grappler, All-Rounder Meguru, and so on. This one in particular is no different, and it hits the spot for me with its level of detail. (more…)
I’ve been binge-watching videos on the SB Nation YouTube channel and related channels, specifically ones produced by SB Nation Labs creative director Jon Bois. There’s also the Deep Rewind series, which is also fascinating, even if it involved sports I don’t give two shits about. Recently, he came out with a five-part documentary series called “Fighting in the Age of Loneliness.” I watched it as it came out and am pretty depressed now because of it. (more…)
Overwatch was my 2016 Game of the Year due to its engaging team gameplay and how it helped me bond with friends. Two and a half years since its release, while it’s still fun to play with others, the gameplay itself has become what many describe as both stale and frustrating (at least from what I’m seeing). This is from the perspective of players who take their competitive rank with some degree of seriousness. (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…)
It has been well over two weeks since the furor surrounding the announcement of Diablo Immortal. Perhaps it’s already quite late to give my two cents on the whole thing, but I’ve had some brain farts lately that may be worth pondering on. I’m not sure if I’ll play Diablo Immortal when it comes out, but the events surrounding it are pretty interesting thus far. (more…)
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…)
