Posted by ASandoval on September 22, 2009 under Games, Misc. | 
To my fellow readership – Which means Bren. And Jim Klein on occasion. Maybe some people from the formerly-Chrono Crisis forum.
This site is mostly an experiment on my part. In some ways its where I can stretch my legs in my increasingly limited free time in the world of personal blogging/video game journalism. In others, its so I can have a website to put on my personal business cards and resume. Now it’s going to be a bit more of an official experiment, that of a class project for my online journalism class.
So starting tomorrow, you’ll see a post on the relay introducing the site and myself. That might seem odd, given I did that when I created the site two years ago. But with this new introduction, there will be new people reading, new people commenting, and a lot more content. After all, the new content is going to be required in order for me to get a grade.
I’m not saying I won’t return to the more informal format when this semester is over. I’m not saying there won’t be less content (Or more for that matter) when I don’t have to worry about a grade anymore. I’m saying we’ll see what comes of this. Since I’ll be having the class (which consists of some gamers) reading this blog, I may get readership, comments, and that may be motivation for me to upkeep the site afterward. Or maybe it’ll die off and I’ll go back to the once every other month I feel like talking about something. Who knows! Either way, it’ll be a ride.
So consider this post the heads up for the selective amnesia I’m about to have tomorrow.
Posted by ASandoval on August 11, 2009 under Games, Misc., Movies, Music |
Nearly a year ago, a friend of mine was taking part of a group discussion along with myself about a game mechanic idea that she had. I don’t remember the exact details of my reply, just that it left a bitter taste in her mouth. In the end, I was left with accusations of being overly critical and, in her words, of being “Mr. Negativity”.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this; actually I’ve been dealing with accusations of being generally negative and critical for many, many years. It’s no wonder then that I have such an interest in media journalism, as these are the same words being uttered by the internet hive mind about any professional writer who says something they disagree with or just generally don’t want to hear.
Personally speaking, I feel as though I’m fairly laidback in my view of media, because regardless of whether or not they write about it, geek culture is fueled by cynicism. I can hardly ever have a conversation with any of my non-journalist friends and talk about music without talking about why mainstream music is a blemish compared to their musical tastes, but I can generally turn on a radio station and chill out to whatever is playing. I’m also fairly opinionated about movies, but Matrix Reloaded stands as my favorite of that trilogy, I think Ghostbusters 2 is hilarious and while not living up to the ridiculous standard they had to live up to, I’m generally pleased with the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Yes, all three of them.
But even for all of those examples, I have a rhyme and reason for it. I’m not satisfied with merely liking or disliking something, I have to understand why I feel that way about it and why someone may agree or disagree with me. That is the true nature of being critical about something. This leads me to what I’m driving at: since when did being critical become synonymous with being negative?
Certainly you can be negative when being critical. In fact, it seems that when someone is opinionated, it’s the negativity that other people choose to focus on. That’s all fine and good, but does someone having a different opinion than someone else have to be taken so personally? Moreover, should it influence a person’s opinion of the kind of person the critical one is?
And being critical about something you dislike is not always about negativity as well. To use a personal example, a good deal of my friends, including myself, are not fans of the Halo series of video games. For a couple of them, they feel as though the game is an abomination, even going as far as saying the only reason people like such an “average and un-unique” game is because its popular (This is a logical fallacy known as circular logic, but again, geeks = cynics). While I’m not a fan of the game and believe there are better shooters (or to be more precise, shooters that appeal more to my interests), Halo has many positive merits and I can understand why someone would enjoy the game, such as perfectly paced level design and compelling A.I. that does not rely on cheating (See Mario Kart’s infamous rubber band A.I.) or smokes and mirrors (See Half-Life).
Right now, the world of media journalism is rough. There has never been any set standard or rule like there is in news journalism (although whether that is followed itself is debatable, but I digress.) which gives readers an incentive to lack credibility in media journalists, to an almost unfair degree. Even worse, with the economy the way it is and trade magazines falling left and right, it gives publishers/studios an edge against publications when it comes to controlling information, meaning people should be more worried about journalists becoming slimy PR reps rather than being opinionated dickheads. Thus is another benefit of someone being critical: at least you know they’re honest with you.
I don’t expect to change any minds with this article; I don’t even have a real readership to influence. But highlighting myths about who I am and the way I think makes me feel better about myself, so at least there’s that.
Or maybe I’m just being negative about others. Who knows?
Posted by ASandoval on June 30, 2009 under Games, Misc. |
I didn’t really want to miss two weeks of Weekly updates, but at least I can say they were justified. Two weekends ago I spent my time pushing knowledge of my company via manning a booth at Wizard World in Philly. Last week, the time spent was on something far greater: Setting up our new office.
I’m not sure how much I can tell the internet world other than my company, Island Officials, has sold our first game and that we’ve moved into our new office as of this Sunday. I didn’t get to stay for the full set up, but I got to put up some cubicles, desks, and partake in the first meal in our new break room. Mundane activities that seem much grander with the feeling that the past five years of my life now seem oddly justified.
Breaking into the game industry is hard, that goes without saying. It goes doubly if your skills aren’t tantamount to that of a genius in programming, art or music, so the odds were always stacked against me. Yet luckily, all of the pieces seemed to fit together; A game design program at a college not even 40 minutes away, a publisher for small developers around the corner from that, and a lot of shared vision amongst a key group of people. I won’t go as over the top to call it fate, but I am happy it worked out the way it did.
There’s still a lot of road ahead, however. We’ve got our break, now we have to prove that it’s justified. But at least now we have a comfortable work space to make progress go that much more smoothly.
Posted by ASandoval on September 3, 2008 under Misc. |
The blues being that it’s pretty much over.
My first day of ‘actual’ college (as opposed to the fake colleges I attended before) went off without much of a hitch yesterday. The lack of books was a small problem, but that should be rectified tomorrow now that I have the necessary funds that were given to me from our gracious government – God bless America.
I am wondering how the change of pace to a more fast paced environment is going to effect me. I don’t necessarily mean will it make me a better writer, because I can already tell it will (Maybe people will even read this site! … or maybe I’m getting a head of myself there) but just the new sheer overload of work that goes along with it. I’ve only been to 2 of my 4 classes so far and have a grand total of about 8 or so papers I will be doing for the year, one which is due by the end of this month.
Actually I’m not so much worried about writing papers. After all, I write here all the time and I’m fairly certain I put as much content into simple blog posts as I’m expected to in these papers. Let’s take the report I’m expected to have finished by the end of this month; It’s a 1200 word paper where I have to take a news story, feature article, political ad or something of a similar nature and spot any inconsistencies or contradictions in the article in claim and point them out using documented evidence.
This in and of itself is not a problem. 1200 words is about what I speak in a minute, let alone type, and what’s more is, I get to play Phoenix Wright for a bit. That doesn’t sound like busy work, that sounds like fun. Making people out to be liars? I’m freakin’ there.
But the fine print, as usual, comes to bite us in the ass. I need at least 6 independent sources, one of which being someone I interview who is knowledgeable about the subject, all of which need to be cited. 6 sources? For a 1200 word paper? At that point you might as well get 6 people to write the article for you! Never mind the fact that if I do find a subject to write on, I doubt it’s anything where I’ll have direct access to an expert on the subject.
Of course, this is probably just a little culture shock making me more nervous about it than I should be. The college is a new and interesting experience, and in one day it already feels radically different than my entire time at either of my former community colleges. The trick is to not be overwhelmed, but that’s pretty damn tough when you’re already expected to go beyond your normal means on the first day, ever.
Special thanks goes to whoever made that Phoenix Wright motivational picture. Congratulations on mixing Photoshop with an internet generator, as it helps this place to look a little less bland.
Posted by ASandoval on June 11, 2008 under Misc. |
So the website is done. Astute readers may notice the finish product removed all the options from the front to just add a link to bring them here. This is probably the smartest thing I could’ve done.
While there are additions I will make either in the near or far future, my own motivation willing, really this blog is all I needed for the most part, as the whole idea is to be a journalist or something like it anyway. Really, do I need this site to be a webzine? Especially considering no one reads it right now anyway?
So instead, it will remain a place for me to stretch my journalistic muscles. Really, that’s all it needs to be.
Posted by ASandoval on March 30, 2008 under Fail, Misc. |
Woah, I’m still logged in? Sweet.
So I had my first real post planned out, but it got diverted by the common cold, effectively sapping any chance I had at being somewhat productive on the one week where I had anything resembling free time. So instead I played video games and continued to let my life fall into a shallow crapper rather than do my usual routine of making it rise out of that. On the plus side though, I beat my first RPG in like, 2 years. That’s a stunning accomplishment given that my attention span is far less than what it once was.
I think my blog is going to become kind of a less focused aspect of this site, at least for now. I wanted it to be the highlight, and I still kind of do, but without the necessary features, such as my portfolio, it doesn’t really have much sustenance or really any kind of point. So I’m sorry to say you (Whoever you might be) will be stuck with short, pointless posts like this one while I concentrate more on aesthetics for the time being.
In fact, let’s have some fun with this. My deadline for a fully finished website is the end of May. Let’s see if stating that publicly will change anything.
Posted by ASandoval on March 2, 2008 under Fail, Games, Misc. |
So I don’t think I’ll be getting around to my project I mentioned earlier, not until it’s too late for anyone to care. For the curious, it was going to be a video/audio slide of some of the events at GDC. One day, there will be something more stimulating than text here, but I just don’t have the time for it now.
And yet, I still want to set time aside for building an arcade cabinet.
Yeah, it’s true. For those who don’t know, I live on the fourth floor of an apartment… Not the easiest place to get an arcade machine in. My theory is that an empty cabinet, or a cabinet in pieces, should actually come up the stairs quite nicely, so I’d like to get a MAME Cabinet set up in the dining room that no one uses. I’ve looked into it; it’s a time and money consuming project, but I’d love to do it. For the record, you know it’s costly when one of the cheapest items is the computer needed to run the software.
I’ll keep a log of that project up here, complete with pictures, as things get rolling on that, but I don’t know when I’ll start. After all, I got a whole back log of video games I want to keep up with on top of that. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…
