League of Payforachievements

Since not all of my six readers are League of Legends players, much less gamers at all, I’ll try to kind of start with an analogy that those who have gamed at all within the better part of the last decade might understand.

Achievements, have become a pretty normal thing in today’s gaming landscape, with players getting little pop-up notifications in-game from their systems themselves, when they accomplish particular tasks in the games they are playing.  Ultimately, they’re utterly useless in the grand spectrum of most games, but their existence has created somewhat of a collecting hobby for those who game.

Some achievements are justly achieved by accomplishing monumental feats, like beating Mass Effect 2 on the hardest difficulty without dying once.  Others are as systematically simple as proceeding through the story, and getting an achievement for each notable storyline break point.  There are achievements of insanity, such as completing an entire Left 4 Dead 2 campaign only using a melee weapon.   There are achievements of futility, such as deliberately getting every single question wrong in a round of 1 vs. 100, and then there are achievements of everyone gets a trophy, such as simply starting a game.

The point is, achievements have become somewhat of a point of bragging among gamers, and one of the greatest accomplishments is getting a 100% of achievements earned in games, because usually every game has a good variety of achievements from layups to Hail Marys.  As in the case of XBOX Live, players’ stats have a running tally of how many games they get 100% success rate on, and for players like me, it’s something to be prideful of, to be able to prove just how little of a life I can sometimes have, when I obsess over trying to Boomer Bile over all four survivors in one hurl.

Continue reading “League of Payforachievements”

Alone time

I have no idea what I’m going to do when my brog is up and running again. Am I going to retroactively timestamp posts I made on the dates in which the impetus stories took place? Am I going to just post them in order as soon as things are up and running again? I don’t really know.

Frankly, I don’t know about a lot of things, and I’ve been feeling really vulnerable and uncertain about my life now, and for quite some time throughout, well, maybe all of this year. The lack of having my brog I think has given me an exorbitant amount of time to stay within my own head and think about things that probably need to be thought about, but I don’t really want to, mostly out of trepidation and anxiety.

For a site that has literally maybe six regular visitors, it means nothing to anyone really, except for me, and it’s got me dealing with some separation anxiety for my greatest and most dedicated hobby over the last 15 years. I imagine to some, it’s a place for me to spout off about opinions and veiled commentary about things in my life, which aren’t inaccurate statements, but honestly it’s a means for me to mentally vent and not just share my thoughts with those who want to read, but to kind of chronicle my thoughts and remind me that these are things that I’ve thought in my life.

Continue reading “Alone time”

Overthinking Fiction: Guile’s Stage

I don’t really remember the circumstances, but I remember staring at a screen capture of Street Fighter II, of Ryu fighting Guile in Guile’s stage.  And I began to think, how did Ryu manage to get onto a United States Air Force base in the first place?

Not to mention that his declared business on base would have to have been something like “I’m here to have a street fight Colonel/Commander/whatever Guile.”  Yeah, I’m sure the soldiers at the gate would hear something like that, and then immediately lift the gate and allow entry and passage, with no questions asked.  Sure, come on in, welcome to base, and go enjoy your street fight.

Also, not to mention the fact that Ryu isn’t an American citizen in the first place, a Japanese guy with zero documentation because he’s homeless to begin with, trying to get onto a US Air Force base seems all sorts of ludicrous.

Continue reading “Overthinking Fiction: Guile’s Stage”

Until Dawn was pretty great

Mythical girlfriend and I just finished our first playthrough of Until Dawn, and aside from the obvious thoughts about analyzing the story, and the directions and paths we took, my first thought was how I want to play through again, immediately.

I haven’t felt this way about a video game since like, Mass Effect 2, and how eager I was to go through the game a second time, but as a complete renegade decision-making asshole.

That being said, I thought Until Dawn was pretty awesome.  To no surprise, the obvious comp to what it felt like playing was Heavy Rain, also another fantastic game that broke the mold of what typical video games were up until that point.  But due to the butterfly effect concept that the game adopts, it basically means that the game has the potential for replay value that hasn’t been seen since like, Chrono Trigger.

Continue reading “Until Dawn was pretty great”

No walls left, apparently

I was vaguely aware of Xavier Woods’ social media presence, and the general existence of his YouTube channel, Up Up Down Down, but it wasn’t until a randomly recommended video did I actually take the opportunity to check it out.  And I ask myself why I even took that long, since I’ve made no secret that I’m a fan of his, and all the fantastic work he’s doing as the more or less heart of The New Day.

To no secret, Woods, going under the name “Austin Creed” does a fantastic job of entertaining, engaging and being a fun guy to watch.  I think the appeal for me is the fact that he’s just such a charismatic guy that he could probably easily entertain people who have no idea that he’s also a professional wrestler, because so little of at least the clip that I watched, had really anything to do with wrestling, aside from the fact that everyone in it was basically a WWE guy.

Anyway, it was an innocuous link to a video that basically summarized The Miz playing Xavier Woods in Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, with an adequate thumbnail to get the point across.  And in no time, the video creates the scenario, where Miz and Creed play a best of five in SF2:CE, where I can’t remember what Creed had put on the line, but the Miz had wagered his replica of the white-strap Intercontinental title, that all wrestlers apparently get to commemorate the fact that they were a holder of it.

Continue reading “No walls left, apparently”

This is cute and all

In short: Capcom makes headbands with little googly chick birds suspended on them, to tribute the dizzy birds from Street Fighter II.

But my first thought is that if they’re attempting to merchandise off of dizzies in SF2, when are they going to try and merchandise and monetize off of the random puking that occurred in the same game?

Seriously, they could be like chintzy fake Halloween beards, but instead of hair, it be this gelatinous orange or tan rivulet that hung off your chin instead.  Perfect for referencing the perfectly timed hit in SF2 that prompted the damaged character to spontaneously hurl straight downward.

Maybe this ingenious suggestion will make the next round of SF2 tribute merch.  After all, there’s still dizzy stars and dizzy grim reapers to exploit, but they would be inconsequential if they were sold at the same time as SF2 vomit beards.

Photos: Dragon*Con 2015 – Saturday Costumes

The good news is that I probably took more pictures on Saturday than I did on any other day, so after the lengthy gap in between getting Friday’s and Saturday’s pictures up, (I hope) the rest will go by somewhat more expediently.

Like the last costume gallery, I was being pretty meticulous about trying to take pictures in groups of threes, or at least presenting them in a way that was neat and orderly (kind of), because I’m psychotic like that and have such a strong need for organization.

Anyway, this was an entire day of picture taking at the convention, before escaping to the Georgia Aquarium for their own Dragon*Con Night, which was an interesting escape from the typical convention setting, getting to look at the awesome collection of aquatic life in between taking pictures of people in costume, before it was back to the hotels for the usual devolving into the nights of drinking and camaraderie.

Continue reading “Photos: Dragon*Con 2015 – Saturday Costumes”