Friday, February 22, 2013

Greatness Jaded and how 1up is a community not a cult plus King of Kong Aug 27, 2007 6:02PM PST

Sooo... I've done pretty much every thing a single player can do with Elite Beat Agents ie all highest rankings on every song and overall highest rank possible. Sure I could get insane about it and do every level literally perfect but what's the point (or fun) in that? (Although I did do just that with the first level on easy) But if you never played EBA, don't worry that's not what this blog is about. It's about how when I get really good at something I'm jaded on it and that's annoying. Of course, Elite Beat Agents used to be hard. I had no idea what cues would come up next (or where, which is more a fault of the game; cheap under-the-hand out-of-sight bull%^&*) and it seemed to go inhumanly fast on the hardest difficulty. I was nervous when I tried to get somewhere. But now that everything's been done I'm completely calm every time I play and get high ranks on hard levels with great ease, even feeling it's a bit too slow. It's almost the same with guitar. Now not to toot my own horn but I can play a few Metallica songs I thought were insane the whole way through or close to it and now I'm a tad dissalusioned by those songs. The difference here is that I'm still very impressed by the songwriting, but to keep this in context now that I can play the guitar parts I used to find mindblowing well enough myself the experience of listening to said songs is different and in an odd way makes me appreciate simple music (not that every single Metallica song written is exactly hard; For Whom the Bell Tolls ain't exactly a Final Boss-level song). What do I need? Another player. See with single player when you've done all you can do there's not much else there. But any multiplayer experience is fresh and unpredictable in some way whether the n00b gets it right for an entire game or some asshole won't stop respawning next to the golden gun. Guitar analogy of that: I have plenty of my own ideas, but no where near as many as I could have if I had other brilliant minds with me. I've heard "OMG I can totally hear a bassline for that" from complete strangers jamming with each other for the first time with songs neither has heard before. So why am I so disallusioned and just don't find some people? Differences of interest. With EBA it's a simple explanation, really: no one I know owns it and I have no online connection. With guitar, there are people I could jam with but live way too far away to be a regular member of any band. Then there's the people I know a year behind me that share my interest in metal, but I don't like all their taste in metal and if accepted in any band they created would probably not enjoy the lack of freedom to create softer music like "Sniff Hymnal" (see myspace.com/thecolorviolence) and then there's bands formed that I know people from but are in bands that while good don't really do anything complex that I'd like to play. And then there's basketball, which I am a damn good shot (I shoot with one hand which seems to be my signature style, I may make a vid) but could I compete physically? I'll see when I try out.. my senior year (bad choices I know, quiet). So where do I go? Here, where I can have a ridiculously pointless debate over the word "epic", bring up political issues with more intelligent rebuttals than drunken fighting, and post stories I've written without getting slagged for it. In short, 1up's my place to go when no one else is there. Here's the thing though: some people talk about this site with a but too much love. I have real life friends they're just not always available. It's unhealthy having this as your only source of friends. Not being a jackass, I'm just sayin' there's more to life and this is a community not a cult: for God's sake get out there and make real friends. In the meantime, cheers to the temporary boredom subduing! And I need to see King of Kong now. I have seen zero bad reviews for it and in a week where Roeper and guest liked almost no movies they both loved this one.

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