What Do I Talk About Now??? Oh Yes, Game Design...

In a few days, I'm moving to Florida.  Thursday is Orientation Day--I'll get to meet my cohorts and receive my fancy laptop.  Then I have a few days to do nothing until class begins Monday.  But I'll discuss this at a later time.

Until then, I'm feeling a bit exhausted.  Well, I was having fun watching baseball on TV (what?) until that ended and playing Rock Band until my 360 broke down.

The logic behind this is that the 360 is a lot more complex and thus uses a lot more electricity and burns itself out faster (and is more fragile to boot) which is really sad...that's "state-of-the-art" technology for you.  But anyway...

Really, now gaming feels like a drag.  I'm starting to get annoyed by the hundreds of headlines that fly across Kotaku, Joystiq, Gamespot, GameFAQs, all those crap websites.  There's nothing "good" on the Sega horizon as of now.  Instead, the blogs are running a bunch of stupid junk like Rage, Star Wars, Dead Island, just STFU already.  I can't even read these social sites since I'm just baffled by the large amount of idiots that play the same games as I do...wtf???  Seriously, just take a stroll around GameFAQs, Kotaku comments, Something Awful, 4chan, Reddit, wherever and lose faith in humanity.  Though the ratio of idiots to non-idiots differs per site.

I've had ideas for future posts on my mind for a while, but I'm just gonna sit on them for now.  As a matter of fact, just about anything I do feels like a waste of time.  Ever feel that way about games?  I think my broken Xbox 360 is trying to tell me something.

Lol, I'm just chillin' like Archie Bunker so I found this funny picture to prove my point.  70's camera footage FTW!!  Just like Archie, I'm a bigot...against internet buffoons and bad racing games.  Come on, it's easy--just don't be an asshat and stop making Burnout/FnF clones.

One little story about how annoying gaming is.  I have a younger brother who is part of a "band."  He plays drums (like any good rebel does) while his friends play guitar and stuff.  At first, his whole group was into Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Then they reverted back to Modern Warfare 2.  Then one member of the band buys a silver Mitsubishi Eclipse with a black hood.  So what now?  Everyone starts playing Forza 3, talking like they know s*** about cars--"Dude, I just saw a 240SX down by the mall," or "I'm gonna buy a Civic and put a spoiler on it," or some crap like that.  What a piece of crap.  They also got into World of Warcraft  in similar fashion--how stupid is this...

But anyway, just like owning a fancy car make you into a car enthusiast, so does playing games make you a game designer.  We're all game designers now.



Man, I ain't into nuttin'...

For one thing, the the part of game design in which you play them is a load of ass--that's called beta testing.  It basically means sitting in your tiny cubicle, playing a buggy, incomplete prototype of a game, writing down every bug/flaw/suggestion that you come across.  Like driving an RC car through a minefield--yeah you get an RC car but not for long!

Really, though, I'm lucky that I got into this "legit" gaming university (FIEA) because I heard these nightmare stories about people who go to these mainstream/lightweight gaming colleges (Full Sail, lol) who can't find jobs.  I did plan on attending Full Sail at one point...whew, dodged a bullet back there!

Black Ops 15th Prestige: Mission All Over!!!...

John 19:30
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

15th Prestige--F*** Yea...  I went ahead and bought all pro perks, guns, and equipment.  I didn't buy all attachments, camos, etc. cause that would be ridiculous.  I'll buy whatever I want later.

Gee, there's so many people I'd like to thank.  I'd like to thank my brother for allowing me to borrow the game so long.  I'd like to thank Treyarch for making this terrible game.  And God/Jesus from keeping me from going bat-s*** insane at some parts.  Oh, and that Sonic toy my mom bought from the street fair.  I'm not superstitious (hell, I have a black cat as a pet) but eer since I put that thing next to the TV, it imbued me with good luck.

This is a bittersweet victory.  I feel good that I've finally "beaten" Black Ops.  I'm glad I got all the pro perks cause I'm sick and tired of looking like a stupid ass**** trying to do stupid tasks like "Throw back 5 frag nades" or "Destroy a sentry gun," chasing those things down like a doggy gets the ball, getting killed 100 times in the process.  The consolation prize--nothing.  I thought when you reach that 15-50 mark, you'd unlock some special lobby for all the cool kids to play in but no, that's not true.  It would be "nice" if those who made it this far would get something in a future CoD game but no, Activision & Bobby Kotick aren't that generous.

15 days & 22 hours (or 382 hours).  That doesn't include time sitting in the lobby.  And I sit there and think to myself, "What else could I have done with that time?"  In about a matter of five years, the Black Ops servers will be shut down forever and all trace of what I did here will be gone (except for what I save on this blog, YouTube, or my computer).  Oh, I like stats in my video games, but I kind of fell for the same thing I tried to stop--getting entangled in these stupid massive online games.

Then again, I never got any "stats" for my Counter-Strike or Goldeneye careers so it's not like this is "new" to me.  And am I really going to go back and look at stats for games I played before like TimeSplitters and Advance Wars?  Forget about it...

And to add insult to injury, I've worn myself out physically during the process.  Ruined my sleep patterns, worn out my eyes, upset my family with my outbursts, and everything else you can imagine.  I'm a piece of crap sellout loser--the one I told everyone NOT to be.

But really, what else could this time be put to?  If I had it my way, I'd probably make more Counter-Strike maps.  But then I would work hard on it, get in a creative rut, post the map up on GameBanana or wherever, and no one would play it.  So really, why should I care about the time I spent playing Black Ops?  Another good example would be the game reviews I wrote for GameFAQs--all 697 kb's worth.  Who cares?  No one (including me) is really interested anymore--I stopped writing them myself because they're pointless.

But there is some good out of this and that is I paraded around with that Sega logo for most of the duration of my career.  So a lot of people got to see that Sega logo.  I didn't get any "thumbs-up" for it, but consider it a small victory for our side.  I've seen Mario, Sonic, the Triforce from Zelda, Pokemon, Pedobear, a NES controller, Taco Bell logo, anime characters, "No Camping" pics, both male and female genitalia, bunnies having sex, horses having sex with gorillas, and all sorts of unmentionable crap but no Sega logo.  So that makes me unique I guess.

So will I keep playing Black Ops?  Maybe, but not as much.  I knew there would be at least one more map pack before MW3 comes out and guess what--it's entirely zombie maps.  The four old maps from World at War and a new map on the Moon (I presumed Area 51 but this is close enough).  I'll probably buy it because I'm a sucker but still--I'm getting pretty tired of these existing multiplayer maps already.  I need more than the 28 MP maps we have already.  You're stuck playing the same maps over and over and over again...it's enough to drive you nuts.  We need custom maps dammit!!  Not only that, but I don't have any "friends" or a clan to play with so I have to play it by myself now.

Really, what I ought to do to savor the moment is to print out a "diploma" of my progress, saying "I'm Lv. 50: 15th Prestige b****," to hang up on my wall so I can feel proud of myself.  But I'm too lazy to do that right now.  Like I'm too lazy to do anything...

In two weeks, I'm moving out to Florida so my leisure time is running out.  I almost want to go and make a name for myself and not play the same old games...gotta save Sega and video games as we know it.  And to any of you from FIEA reading this, you better damn well not get in my way cause I'm not taking any crap from anyone anymore.

Just for the record, I DO NOT intend to play MW3--I'm finished.  Well, here's a cool picture of Kramer I just found so that's all I have to say here.

So when's that new TimeSplitters/Outrigger coming out anyway???

Eric, What The Hell Are Ya Talkin' About?

Edited it a little bit, damn NBC blocked the old vid so I reposted it

You know, I've made about 160 posts on this blogspot and I'm fairly certain that a few people who have actually given me some thought have said, "Eric, what are you talking about?"  You know, because of the lack of hits and exposure.  My inane mumblings about crusty old video games no one seems to like.  What for?  Why am I still here?  Well, I'll give you a couple of reasons:

1. Cause it helps keep my mind straight.  What do I mean by that?  Well, look at people today. There's just too many people who are, for lack of a better term, bored as hell.  They sit there for hours on their World of Warcraft or their Call of Duty game.  Yes, I know that we are all guilty of that, but some to a greater extent than others.  I know a couple of people like that.  In a creative gridlock, they just play games to escape and they really don't gain anything from it.  They have little motivation to get up and do something.

What I really advise people to do is do something CREATIVE.  Paint pictures, write books or poems, learn how to code and design video games.  This blog is just one of my outlets.  It lets me flex my mind and talk about stuff.  It's kind of like a journal, except other people can read it (although not many choose too).  BTW, just because I'm not popular doesn't mean I can't own a blog.  That's the beauty of it!

So if you're that bored, try doing something creative.  Doesn't mean you have to stop gaming, but learn something new while you're at it.

2. If you've seen the movie Field of Dreams, you'll know about this:



Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come. 

I believe that if I get up here and I keep stirring up the Sega hopefuls that I will be able to bring about SOMETHING good from this...it's only a matter of time.  They will yearn for the old days of good racing games...  People will come...to talk about DAYTONA USA and SEGA...it will never die.  Never let those Mario Kart/Burnout/FnF pinheads wash it away.  Never give up, never surrender.  Hopefully we'll touch the nerve of some Sega higher-ups and be able to bestow some good fortune upon them.  People may question my purpose, but I'll remain steadfast.  We've got to do our part, people.  I tear up just thinking about it.

This blog is just the first step.  Then we will make that new Sega racing game and then truly people will come and be blessed by it.  And they may say "What the hell are you thinking, this game won't sell," but we won't be stopped.  But it will be a good game.  Reviewers and Average Joes alike will tremble and drop the controller in awe after what they've seen.  Then Sega will be revived and all will be okay in the gaming world.  By God, I know it.

 

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME