Posts filed under 'Life'
I found this great new game that I think everyone would find interest in if they are into this kind of thing. It’s called the simExchange and it’s like play-stock market for gamers… well more specifically for gamers that are interested in the “politics” of games. In essence it tracks NPD data for most games in the current generation on a monthly and a lifetime setting. It also tracks the Metacritic score a game will get.
So in essence you are buying stock in a game and investing in it. You play with play money called DKP where 1DKP = 10,000 sales of a game or 1 Metacritic score. If you think a game will do well, you buy buy buy! If you think it will do worse than it is projected at the moment, you sell sell sell! And like the stock market, it’s all based on “investor” interactions where the current “price” is based on their selling and buying tendencies; take a look at how Super Smash Bros. Brawl is doing right now! Anyway, it is a little complicated, and particularly more complicated than I just described, but it’s very addicting and a lot of fun! It’s something you can spend minutes a day with or hours with, much like the stock market! I recommend you all at least check it out. Also when you do create an account, feel free to friend me: AnujSuper9.
December 7th, 2007
by Anuj
Alas I make this post because the video told me to… and of course it’s an interesting and amusing video/song. Also, it’s certainly not as easy as the video makes it sound… I think everyone with some kind of website has hopes and ideas of being able to do something like that with it, but I think it requires things from you as the developer, sacrifices that aren’t seen on the surface of the simplicity that make it questionable if it’s worth it or not. Ah ‘get rich quick,’ always easy on paper… even easier in your head.
Oh and a snippet of my opinion, myspace sucks, facebook is pretty awesome.
December 6th, 2007
by Anuj
So last night I noticed a dashboard update to the Xbox360 dashboard, which I thought was mostly pretty cool! Most of the changes seemed kinda pointless, but it did add efficiency and I’m always a fan of efficiency.
I guess they also took this time to unveil the new and highly talked about feature, which would be the “Xbox Originals,” which seems to be the ability to pay $15 for classic favorites on the Xbox and then be able to emulate their play from your hard drive instead of from your disk. If you ask me, this is a ripoff… you could find most of these games on shelves for under $15 bucks anyways, and you get no added features or support by downloading it, no 360 menus or dashboard options, no achievements, no content addtions or things via the 360Live system, not really anything new. I don’t really expect a whole new game with features that didn’t exist when the game was first released, but I expect some reason to pay for this.
Also, comparisons to the Wii VC are undeniable, but I think the comparison would be more fitting if you saw GameCube games on the VC for $15, and furthermore, it seems to me that Wii VC titles are a lot harder to come by, the prices are much more reasonable, and you’d actually have to connect another console to your TV to play these games, which, depending on the game, is reason enough (IMO).
Oh hey also, I got the Psychonauts theme which was awesome, and that’s probably the coolest thing about the new Xbox Originals update is that they are giving away themes for those things free instead of charging the dollar or two they normally might to especially rip you off. I’m sure it won’t be long before they add price tags to those things. But anyway, I did get the Psychonauts theme because Psychonauts is awesome. You can see it in the pictures I took with my cell phone above. But hey, you know what’s also weird, for some reason I’m getting my messages from other people in Spanish!
December 5th, 2007
by Anuj
What is the meaning of War? It’s rather cliche to begin a piece of writing by asking the definition of the topic for which the piece is being written, but I really cannot think of any better way to begin this piece.
[war-nado]
A look at a dictionary yielded an indredibly long list of definitions, a revelation that is somewhat depressing to think about… a fact that a word so negative can mean so many things and be used in so many contexts. The definition of ‘war’ in the sense I find it most fitting and appropriate, and the meaning which I find true to define any kind of war would be simply, “conflict that leads to struggle.” You won’t find this definition in so many words anywhere, but it is something of an amalgamation of most of the other meanings I found, and it represents best what I have in mind.
What leads me to this somewhat depressing and strangely repetitious chapter of humanity? Well a lot of things that have been going on lately that have led me to many interesting thoughts and I think it was just time I felt like making a post about it. The topic that more specifically led to my study of the semantics involved with said topic was a few of the more heated debates I find on gaming forums and even our very own forum, that being the everlasting console war. The console war is honestly a topic I and few others really care about, but then why does it yet find such a strange place in all of our minds? It’s a topic that I feel most of us believe truly pointless, but then why does it still incessently continue?
Console War. I think it’s aptly named that. As far as I know it hasn’t broken out into actual physical struggle or such, but isn’t that simply the next logical progression? I feel uncomfortable talking about War in general, especially that on a political level because I hardly consider myself as knowledgable on the topic as I feel I would need to be to qualify making claims on the topic, but then it occurs to me that when you consider the fact that it always boils down to conflict that leads to struggle, there really shouldn’t be much that one would need to know in order to speak on it. All war is relatively pointless when you consider it as a struggle that began from conflict. Is it so difficult to resolve a conflict without some kind of struggle? But then, it is the virtue of humanity to be able to have conflict and conflict is unavoidable, nor is a lack of conflict desirable. Conflict is what leads to the betterment of something, an aim to please higher than what is already there, and so we should embrace conflict, but embrace it as means of finding resolve and nothing else.
The console war (like all wars really), is a subject matter somewhat trivial, and certainly not something worth going into physical resolve about, but is it really a fire we should be feeding? Most people are capable of dismissing the conflict, but yet we find such amusement in continuing its discussion as well as creating feeding grounds from which it can spawn more followers and grow ever larger. I speak in part of most of the gaming internet, but more specifically the website that brought this idea to my mind. I was introduced to this site by Penny Arcade when they made a mockery of the site that is clearly a joke. Anyone can go there and see that it’s clearly meant to be condescending and amusing, but at the same time, too many people take it seriously and join forces or forge to fight against it. I think Penny Arcade approaches it well by simply making fun of it since I feel confident to say that that is entirely the purpose the site serves, but conversely, they must be aware they continually feul the fire. Though, I find it thoroughly impossible to not be amused and impressed by some of the things that spawn as a result of the console war.
But on the other hand isn’t that what the competition or the war is there for? And I mean, is acknowledging current preferences biased? And hell, is bias even wrong? I think the answer to both questions is no, the problem though is that far too often people’s actions make them both out to be yes. Anyhoo, like all Wars, I am interested to see how it will all resolve but it is something I wish not to contribute to or feed into. I’m not interested in sales, or numbers or anything, it’s really all about the games and I easily forsee myself needing at least all three consoles to play some of the awesome console exclusives. The real question is where and how I’ll actually manage to find the time/money to play all of these things…
August 19th, 2007
by Anuj
Now, I’m not one to normally fall prank to April Fool’s Jokes but one of them got me pretty good this year. Namely, this year’s STARMAN.NAT (the name I’ve given to the prank pulled by the guys at starmen.net). For those few of you that may not know who starmen.net is, they are a group of individuals who, years ago, started a fan-site for the wonderful game of Earthbound. Starmen.net became the first and largest house of petitions for the release of Earthbound 2 or Earthbound 64 or however it was to be known; essentially, the petition to bring us the sequel to Earthbound.
[more April Fool’s Day goodness]
Over time, their fandom rose to the ranks of being more than just an Earthbound fan-site, but a bastion in which all under-appreciated fans of games could harbor, more specifially, fans of Nintendo games. After this transition, when more fan-sites for other games that were once popularly represented by starmen.net began to rise, I think their focus towards Earthbound and Earthbound related games rose more. At which point there was also a lot more specific Earthbound content to focus on such as Earthbound, Mother 1+2, Mother 3, and Earthbound’s influence on other popular games such as Smash Bros. Now, they are easily one of the biggest unofficial fan-sites out there, period, let alone one of the biggest Video Game fansites, Nintendo fansites, and Earthbound fansites.
So, needless to say, I love starmen.net; I love their independent drive, their humor and their comprehensive collection of information, including works to translate the recently released (and fantastic) Mother 3. So upon seeing this news on the website’s homepage, my thoughts instantly went to a murderous rage! I’m thinking, WTF Nintendo? What is this crap? These fan-sites that fuel undying love and dedication for your company, being killed by the source!? I said to a friend of mine linking me to the event, that this truly would have to be a first, and an incredibly foolish thing to do. We both were outraged by such behavior, and also wondered what the fate would be of other popular Nintendo fan-sites such as one of our favorites, smashboards.com.
It wasn’t till about 15-20 minutes later that it occurred to me what I told myself early this day: April Fool’s Day, making the internet fun again. Of course! It was an April Fool’s Joke! Duh! How could I be so easily fooled! To be honest, I was relieved. A bit embarrassed and such, but regardless, I was relieved that starmen.net would not suffer, and that I wouldn’t have to take upon the burden of having self-conflict relating to the interests of Nintendo versus the interests of myself. Regardless though, having been fooled as I was, I decided that I wanted to write a bit about this occurrence as a means to depict how important starmen.net is not only because of the website itself, but because of what it stands for.
Also, I wanted to take a bit of time to write about some of my favorite Video Game April Fool’s Day jokes… well, maybe not the best jokes, but definitely some of the most memorable ones.
Goldeneye “All Bonds” Cheat
This cheat claimed to unlock models of all of the different Bonds, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, in addition to Pierce Brosnan. What was fun about this farce was that it turned out to be true! Rare wasn’t able to put them into the game due to licensing issues, but using a GameShark, they could be “unlocked!”
Conker’s Inappropriate Tales
I was one of the few people looking forward to Conker back before it was Conker’s Bad Fur Day and was instead Twelve Tales of Conker. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the change, CBFD was fantastic and probably better than TToC would have been, but when I saw this news in the EGM, I thought it had to be the April Fool’s Joke for the issue. The reason this was funny and memorable was because it wasn’t! It was true; the joke was that Intellivision was making a comeback!
DOAX Nude Code
Now, I didn’t fall for this one, but if I recall correctly, one of my good friends did. In the April 2003 issue of EGM, there was a rumor about a code in DOAX that would allow the characters in DOAX to be topless. The rumor stated that if one was to complete adventure mode or whatever in less than 13 minutes or something, then the “god hand mode” would be unlocked, which would allow the girls in the game to be topless. This was something my friend proved to be false, haha, which for me, was just incredibly amusing!
Realistic Wind Waker
I heard about this before I knew it stemmed from EGM. A friend of mine messages me and says that they are giving away a realistic Wind Waker for preordering “The new realistic Zelda.” I said it couldn’t be true, it didn’t make any sense. I remember arguing for about 10-15 minutes with my friend before he realized that it was the April issue of EGM.
Sonic and Tails in Smash Bros. Melee
Now this is the one that really got me good. The farce claimed that upon slaying 20 people in Cruel Melee, you would face against Sonic and Tails, two unlockables in Melee! I was glued to Smash (more than I already am) trying to get those 20 Cruel KOs. I managed to get approximately 10 with Jigglypuff when I decided that it was impossible, after which I started finding out that it was a joke. I laughed at myself for spending hours trying to get 20 KOs. I later discovered that it’s actually quite possible to get hundreds and thousands of KOs but I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. What none of you actually know is, that the secret is true. I actually unlocked Sonic and Tails in my copy of Smash Melee. Hehe. >:D
It occurs to me now that all of these are EGM April Fool’s Jokes, including one of my new favorites, the Mushroom Kingdom Hearts one mentioned in the previous article, but alas, kudos EGM on your awesome April Fool’s Jokes.
April 1st, 2007
by Anuj
What do we as an audience expect from critics; what do we as critics expect from ourselves, when it comes to the concept of an opinion? I personally believe that too often, too much time is spent writing a long and wordy review for the sake of seeming thorough and complete, covering topics that don’t need to be covered only prolonging the time it takes to truly find out what the critic thought of the game in the first place. But perhaps that is what we want, perhaps that is what is to be expected of a general and unbiased review of any game, despite its history or lack thereof.
[more consumers versus more critics]
It truly does depend on the game the level of attention it should get, perhaps it is a blockbuster title and people just want to know if it is everything that it was built up to be or a disappointment (despite probably buying it anyways). Or perhaps it is something totally new and different and people know little to nothing about it and want to know everything they can about it before considering a purchase. Without any exception, treating a game as it were different from no other, the latter of the two is probably the safer of the two routes, but games are different, and most of the time people are going into a game knowing a lot of what has already been written. I personally believe a lot of that information is better found in some sort of listing found on the website for the game, or by means of a list of specs found somewhere on the developer/publisher’s website. Perhaps the reviewer’s responsibility should contain though, at least a means to get this information.
Reviews should contain impressions and opinions and nothing else if you ask me. But how much credibility can simply ones impressions and opinions hold in a reader’s mind when dealing with only that. To truly appreciate and understand one’s impressions and opinions, you have to first know the person; an odd sense of trust needs to build between the reader and the writer to truly accomplish the desired goal. This trust can be formed through months and months of reading, or through proof of knowledge on subject in question, or even just in an agreeing opinion. Though trust and understanding are a significant leap away from each other, and not even in the same field; I have understood plenty of people that I wouldn’t place an ounce of trust in, and I’ve trusted people who I never really understood, so what makes one critique any more special than any other? Opinion?
Why would the guy who has played every other game ever made have any more say than the guy playing a game for the first time in his life, assuming of course that both are able to appropriately depict their thoughts on the matter. I think anyone would prefer the opinion of the person they can more relate to for a review, which reintroduces the idea of bias in a supposedly unbiased industry of criticism. So my thought is, why pretend to ignore bias, why hide from it, why try to negate it, especially when dealing strictly with opinion anyways? People are opinionated, and they are going to go into it opinionated, and as long as they understand your stance, there isn’t any conflict about the quality of review, or the myth of the unbiased approach. Why not write for the readers? Why write for this strange social standard created by people who aren’t doing the writing or aren’t doing the reading as an audience, but only as a critic of critique?
This is something that I desperately wish I could change, something I desperately wish I could adapt onto the world, but on the same note, who am I to think that such standards would be better? This is something that has been this way since the beginning of the journalism industry when dealing with anything opinion, and it will be this way forever. While the idea of the proper review grows and grows, and more and more adapt to it, I think we get further away from truly reviewing and critiquing media the way we all envisioned it at first. So, while we may not be able to change the rest of the world (not that we really want to anyways), we can at least adopt this philosophy on ourselves. I say this now as a warning, don’t expect objective review standards, expect us to bitch and moan about the stuff that sucks, and rant and rave about the stuff that rocks. That is all.
I suppose this all goes back to the whole, “being able to appropriately depict ones opinions” bit…in the end, it’s all that really matters, but for us at least, that’s a waste of time and thought, because it shouldn’t be an issue.
[image courtesy of Jeff Pidgeon]
March 2nd, 2007
by Anuj
So now it’s E4. The successor to E3 has been deemed the Entertainment For All Expo or “E For All”, but that name is stupid, so it’s E4 from now on, which is only slightly less stupid. Apparently according to this official banner of theirs “for all” even includes douches in powder blue trucker hats. But let’s get to the point here. E3 is back and now even more consumer focused than it was originally, which brings some pretty hefty pros and cons along with it.
The new format will include the same showy loud displays of days past, a seemingly larger focus on consumer electronics (CES style), retail zones set up for consumers to purchase things that were demoed on the showfloor, a Video Games Live concert, videogame tournaments, and job-fair/networking opportunities. While this sounds nice for those who couldn’t make it to past E3s (it honestly just required some effort, it wasn’t as restrictive as many were led to believe), it doesn’t sound all that spectacular to me.
[we called it e4 first, before ANYBODY!]
Having attended E3 in 2005, I can tell you that what made the show awesome for me most definitely wasn’t the showfloor. Its loud, bright, showy obnoxiousness is a curiosity which can be sated in about an hour. As has been noted countless times before in other spaces, E3 was definitely not the best environment for gaming. Most impressions of games are just as valid getting them via online and videos, as you already know how the controls will work out and can imagine how it plays. This is not true of the Wii, as it is really the only platform that I think would really benefit from showing preview games to consumers in such an expo format. What made E3 awesome was all the behind closed doors demos and interviews with the developers. Talking with the people that are the heart and soul of the industry was what made E3 worth it in the end to me, and is something that E4 will likely lack for the most part. Add to that what will probably be a very packed show floor with people of all ages and the headache that was the E3 showfloor suddenly becomes E4’s migraine.
There are a few things that could redeem E4 in my eyes, however. First, the videogame tournaments. With proper moderation, great prize incentives, and a large selection of games for the tournaments, this could be a great thing for the tournament scene. It would be nice to be able to meet people you’ve only read or heard about at local gatherings, as well as the opportunity to meet expert players in a variety of genres. Second, the potential of a successful job-fair/networking component. My hope is that the time slots that used to be used for publishers and developers to advertise their new tech to eachother at E3 can instead be used for educating people interested in the industry on what it’s really like to work in gaming and entertainment and present avenues for them to further investigate their career interests in the field. The networking could also be a big plus for small, independent artists, sites, and gaming leagues to get more exposure, which could be great for gaming culture. Third, move to San Diego or San Fransisco.
As much potential as E4 has to be a giant money-grabbing mess of annoying, I still hope that it works out into a positive for not only the industry and the economy of L.A. (the latter being a very big reason why there is an E4), but for the consumer and gaming culture itself.
January 5th, 2007
by Mike
Recently was a time of politics. Which means that politicians and voters alike everywhere were getting out there and finding one side of the fence to be on. While I may not be the most politically inclined person, I do know a thing or two about picking sides of a fence. It’s pretty much what we as people do. Now, I do have my preferred sides of the fence when it comes to politics, but those aren’t really the types of things I generally like to discuss, so that isn’t what this is about. This is about the consumeristic nature that drives us to make the decisions we do, this is about us as consumers.
[i want to consume a sandwich]
We as people, are all consumers, I don’t mean for that to have any negative or positive connotation (as it usually does…usually negative). We all buy things, we all sell things, we all expect each other to do the same, and doing any of the following excessively or inexessively really changes nothing. If you tend not to buy as many things, then you’re still a consumer, but you’re more of a consumer of opinion, belief, entertainment, knowledge, and other such generally free commodities. So consumerism as I believe it, is life how we live it; and as such, we as consumers, face everything else, we face the “man,” the “machine,” we face each other, we face figureheads and leaders, propaganda, and anything else you can think of. Thus, I create this as a means to talk about we as the consumer, and whatever audience I choose to face it against; and of course, facing against something, doesn’t necessarily mean opposing it in any way, it’s just a comparison of one to the other.
So anyways, today I choose to begin my first installment of this series. Why today? Well, I’m bored and I really wanted to write this. This first installment will serve as an introduction to the series and what purpose it serves, and also a means of introducing what will be the topic of this series for the few weeks to come. Today we are on the cusp of what, for me and very many other gamers everywhere, is going to be a large time of consuming. With the Wii and the PS3 launching, and a slew of games for them and the 360, I can’t think of too many people (that are gamers) that I know that aren’t planning on investing (”consuming”) soon into one area or another. Within a few days, a lot of things will happen, and I want to make sure I get a lot of what is on my mind now out there before it may change.
Though my next installment will focus on gaming, ‘gaming’ is too broad of a topic to compare upon. I’m going to focus on the whole “picking a side of a fence” kind of consumerism, the reviewing and the critics in gaming. As much as I’d like to get into the aspect of gaming or the release of the new console and the comparison of the state of the industry and the audience it so strongly tries to entertain, especially considering how much more relevance and importance it has, I think I’ll write about that later still. So here’s looking forward to Consumerism versus Critics!
December 5th, 2006
by Anuj
Ok, so the the website isn’t completely done, not even close, really. There’s still so much more I want to add, more I haven’t figured out yet how I plan to do, and it’s not exactly the way I want it even in the state that it’s in right now. But the fact of the matter is, I have plenty of things to say, with more added to that list each and every day, and another fact of the matter is, is that I just don’t have time right now to work on the website to get it done to the optimum level that I have thus far wanted.
Well ok, maybe I do, shut up you. Whatever the case is, while I do still plan on “finishing” the website (whatever that finished state is supposed to be), the main purpose of the website, the reason for it existing, is so that we can reflect on the matters that are important to us on a day to day basis, present our opinions not just for others, but for ourselves as well, so that we may reflect on them.
[upkeeping this is harder than you would think!]
So even though the website isn’t changing (aesthetically speaking), that doesn’t mean that the world we care about isn’t…quite the opposite in fact; now is a time of great change, in everything, really. The world, politics, our lives, our futures, video games (thank god), movies, comics, cars, television, sports, weather, blah blah blah; anyone that can say they care about any one (or more) of the things mentioned in that list can without doubt say that it is going through great changes. So, like I said, even though the website may right now be in a temporal state of construction/activity, I do think it’s fair that I should start writing about whatever I care about, which is whatever is on my mind (so yeah, not JUST video games). I mean, it’s not like any of it really matters anyways, right?
I did originally come here with the intention of writing something with actual meaning and merit behind it, thusly being “The first,” as mentioned in the title, but I think I’ll add a little something to the title and better leave what I originally planned to write for my next posting to the website (or whenever). So for now, adieu. Oh, and of course, Happy Halloween.
October 30th, 2006
by Anuj
Just a quick update on how things are going with startpause here. Anuj and I have been busy getting acquainted with the beginning of the summer and such, and will be back in action very soon. Basic layout, design, and interface are all in place and we’ll be fleshing out the site with the real content, categories and so forth in the very near future with early August as our current target for getting things running full steam with regular updates. Meanwhile be sure to check out the Forums, as we’ve got a great group of core posters, and the more the merrier. I hope you’re looking forward to this as much as we are. Thanks for your patience, and I hope everybody’s July is proceeding smoothly!
July 8th, 2006
by Mike
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