Monday, February 25, 2013

Politics and Gaming, and Retrospective Rules My take on Link for President, cool retrospectives/movie concepts, and how my My Gaming Timeline series will run Sep 07, 2012 2:01PM PST

So since temporary unemployment recently reignited my videogaming love, I've been traveling back and forth between IGN and 1up on top of my usual facebook, youtube, blip, factcheck, and politifact visits, and came across this gem of substandard democratic processes.
Yes, the concept is not entirely new, and the random battle system of voting IGN is using is getting panned in the comments, but the humor of it is welcomed, at least by me, and I have to say someone who says nothing, and gets shit done is the President I want, hands down.
In fact, the similarities between console "wars" and elections has me surprised I don't see this idea as often, or at least don't remember the idea being played out in recent memory. And once we get past the 16 bit "era" in my My Gaming Timeline retrospective, you'll know just what I mean by that.
Speaking of elections meeting nostalgia, anyone see Clinton's speech Wednesday? Having been born in 1990, I never got to know how great of a public speaker he was; granted, due to my dad's support of the Republican party, I heard plenty about what a liar he was, which goes hand in hand with political public speaking, but, surprisingly, his speech to the DNC had both the most specific numbers, and least backlash from fact checking websites of any of either party's convention speeches. His lowest rating on politifact.com was a "Half True" for saying Obama had cut taxes for 95% of Americans, when in fact those cuts only affected workers, shrinking it down to 75%. Otherwise, while admitting some claims were cherry picked and exaggerated, factcheck.org's article on the womanizing former President was titled "Our Clinton Nightmare," both for the amount of facts they had to check, and their inability to find the claims untrue, at least in the way they were framed, seeming to suggest the Rhodes Scholar can keep grounded, as long as he's not under oath.
Of course, I'm very much biased, knowing nothing of the politics that occurred when I was 9 or younger, so rather than a complex knowledge of his battles with Newt Gingrich and Republicans over welfare reform, I just remember him as "that guy that got a blow job when my life consisted of Super Nintendo and ice cream."
Allow me to clarify that I'm unhappy with either current primary party candidate overall, and plan to write in Rocky Anderson, unless something changes.
But enough about politics, I mostly wanted to point out a fatal error in my initial post regarding my Retrospective My Gaming Timeline series: leaving out Arcade games. Rest assured, my memories of Aerosmith shooting people who like modern black music in the face with them newfangled Compact Discs, ESPECIALLY people who enjoy Run DMC, will be integrated into my retrospective series.
I plan on this series going in chronological order, the way I hinted at in my previous blog, with Arcade being either integrated with, or set in the blogs before or after the SNES portion of my retrospective. My timeline for this timeline is a new entry at least every Sunday, but subject to change, starting the 7th (this Sunday). This will allow me to do daily blogs, if I have them in me, on different and more modern subjects, with the "main event" being a weekly one.
I'll also consider giving you all a list of what games I'll be discussing, since I plan on using Wikipedia lists to make sure I don't forget to include a memorable rental or something.
Until next time:
- Have you guys heard of Did You Know Gaming? They've got a cool set of videos with retro facts, including one about how a Zelda boss was coded to mimic the movements of an Arwing in their Star Fox video. I reccomend checking them out.
- Who else is excited to see Wreck it Ralph? I'm hoping the real videogame references, like the scene in the ad with Street Fighter and Mario villains at a group therapy meeting make up a good part of the script. I mean I enjoyed the references in Scott Pilgrim ok, but I enjoyed that movie as a good, stylish action flick, and I'm hoping Disney pulls through with some good digs at videogame tropes and tendencies, if not necessarily licensed characters. I feel a 3D movie that revolves around the world of videogames is long overdue, frankly.
- Got my car inspected, so I'm good for another year. I damn well better be, since I already had to repair its alternator and just bought it this summer. Still, the costs so far (and getting it in such good condition relatively for a relatively cheap price from a family friend who works as a mechanic helps) are worth the freedom and self-worth that at least being able to say I own my own vehicle, if I'm stuck in my parent's house after college, brings with it. Any of you have expenses you don't mind cause of the payoff?
- Hopefully, I'll get a job soon, as the teller I was speaking with today said there are some banks hiring, and my degree and service experience should give me an edge. Wish me luck!

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