Fiction!

Here's my first foray into fiction! (sort of) This is the prologue (or chapter 1?) of a longer novel I'm tossing around in my head...but I don't know. Is this a good idea? Or is it cheesy? Does it have potential? Or...is it cheesy?

Whatever. Read it and enjoy! (hopefully!)

Thank you, Yacht Club Games!

Nostalgia is a force of nature.

This is a thank you letter to indie game developer, Yacht Club Games. I recently downloaded and played through their inaugural title, Shovel Knight 3 times. (I played it on the Wii U, but the game is currently also available for PC and Nintendo 3DS)

Shovel Knight is designed to be like an old-school NES title in it's graphics, soundtrack and difficulty. Seriously the game is tough as nails...you know, in a good way. An action platformer, Shovel Knight is a mixture of Mega Man, Duck Tales, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Castlevania 2. (am I missing anything?) It scratched an itch that I had for years but couldn't reach. Part of Yacht Club's reason for making Shovel Knight in the first place was the lack of these kinds of games over the past couple of years. Mega Man 9 and 10 were great retro style games, and proved that there's still a market and demand for them, but they were sequels with a gameplay formula that was already established. Shovel Knight is a new IP from the ground up.

But what makes Shovel Knight so good? It can't all be nostalgia, or else we'd get bored after the first level. Yacht Club proves that gameplay is king. (level design plays a pretty big factor in this genre as well) How else do you sell 150,000 of something that looks like it came from the 80s in a month? You need to have a damn good game. Sure, our yearning for the glory days of the NES hooked us but our thirst for great gameplay kept us on the line.

So thank you, Yacht Club. Shovel Knight rocks.

Its Official: Super Smash Bros. Brawl Sucks

This year sees the release of not one, but two brand new Smash Bros. games. Woo-hoo! Boy am I excited.

In honor of being graced with new Smash, how about we go back and figure out why the last one sucked so much?

What is Necessary

It's been a little over 2 years since Christopher Nolan concluded his Batman opus, so I thought it would be a good time to go back and pick apart just what made those films great. (and not so great)

So please, never forget to do What Is Necessary.

Tha Gaijin Odyssey

I recently visited Japan and discovered that its more than just tentacle porn and the toilets don't flush backwards. The Gaijin Odyssey is a complete recollection of my participation in the Kakehashi Project.

Inaugural Post

Here's the obligatory first post. w00t w00t!

With this entry, I'd like to kick off a feature called 'Terms I'd Like to Coin'. This is one I use quite often, as I suspect I have overactive bladder. Or something like that.

Pissy Fit   noun

: an uncontrollable stream of urine that keeps you returning to the bathroom over and over :

"After Joe took the Benedryls, his kidneys were forced into overdrive and sent him into an annoying pissy fit."

Or...

"I got caught in a pissy fit during rush hour traffic and had to urinate into three different empty water bottles."

Sometimes it hits you out of nowhere and you're trapped. Other times it keeps you from falling asleep. Every time...its a pain in the ass.