30 Insights of a Diluted Mind (August '18)

I usually try and post my ‘30 Insights’ once each month, but July was all over the map for me, and I wasn’t sure I could string together more than a couple of thoughts, so hopefully I can pump out thirty things from the ol’ melon without it getting stale and boring. Without further adieu… 1) Happy to get my latest video out in my History of WWE Video Games series. It’s taken me longer than I thought it would to release them, but I’ve really wanted to ensure that it hasn’t felt like a chore, rather than a hobby I enjoy doing. My creative elements are supposed to be fun. I don’t do it for money, monetization or any other reward other than personal satisfaction. The fact that I was able to spend a few hours recently and get this latest video together was a lot of fun. 2) The next video in my series will be WWF Wrestlefest. As much as I enjoyed recapping Superstars, Wrestlefest is one of my favorite games of all time, and might just be in my top three of all-time wrestling video games. I’m really looking forward to this next video and am hoping to start writing the script on it very soon. 3) Recently, I was on vacation and I thought it would be the perfect time to start planning a creative outline. Not necessarily a schedule where I made a point of everything I wanted to do, but more of a wish list of things I wanted to accomplish. I had packed my laptop, hard drives...everything. I was dead set on hammering out a plan for myself. When I opened my laptop and sat down to figure it out, my only thought was, “What the $#*# am I doing?” 4) I have been striving for more balance in my life lately. Long story short, I once needed video games and creative outlets to ‘escape’ and express myself due to where I was at in my life with a growing family, pressure-filled job, etc. Life was always good, just stressful, and I looked for things to help me cope. Over the past couple of years, things have changed and I don’t feel the need for that ‘escape’ like I used to, so I feel that I’m ready to reassess what I’m doing with my time. 5) That’s not to suggest I feel the need to play video games or walk away from them. Far from it. But I don’t feel I need to dive in, head first, and get lost in something to help balance me out. Life is balancing itself out more naturally and I’m in a really good place, mentally. The hardest thing is breaking the routine. It used to be work, home, kids, games. And that was the same routine, every day. The hardest thing right now is breaking that routine. 6) I feel like I need to reconnect with things other than video games, or my computer. I need to read more. I need to be more social. I need to be more active. I need to learn more. And above all of this, I need to retrain my brain NOT to put every penny of ‘found money’ towards games or eShop/PSN vouchers. 7) Also, I should reiterate...I don’t *need* to do all of the aforementioned things listed above. I *want* to do those things. 8) I’ve been unbalanced for awhile. I’m glad I’m finally making a point of realizing this need to spread myself out a little bit more and ‘smell the roses’ so to speak. Like I said, I’m not getting away from games or creative projects. Just...sprinkling in a better balance and, in the process, likely enjoy those two elements even more than I do now. 9) Special thanks to a pair of Erics for lending their ears lately. Thanks, fellas. It’s very much appreciated. 10) But how bout ‘dem video games though? I just recently put down Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon on the DS and it’s been a fun but frustrating journey. The story is fine, and I really love the gameplay mechanics of FE, but the entire game has been pretty smooth up until the final chapter. I entered the FIre Emblem series with the 3DS releases, so the concept of ‘perma-death’ was unknown to me until I played this game for the first time. I got slaughtered during my first play through a couple of years ago, so I figured I’d be more diligent this time around.

I really enjoy this game, but turns out I’m not as good at it as I thought

11) A few months ago, I finished Path of Radiance on the GameCube and was aware that losing characters in battle was permanent so I would reload my save every time someone died during my play through. I did that with Shadow Dragon up until the final few chapters thinking it wouldn’t be as big a deal, but losing a couple of key soldiers seemed to make things a little more difficult in that final chapter than I imagined. 12) I also spent more time levelling up mages and clerics, which is something I never do in RPGs. Well, that turned out to be a dumb idea because in the final chapter, I employed about five of them in my team of 15 and they all suffered one-encounter deaths and were pretty much useless. I couldn’t swap them out for Paladins, Archers or anything else because the remaining soldiers I had in my party were under-levelled and weak. Needless to say, my ability to hold off the enemy in the final chapter was fruitless and I’m pretty much done with this play through. Maybe in the future I’ll try one more time and spend more of that effort building up actual soldiers. Stupid magic users. 13) I only picked this game up again because I was leaving on vacation for a week and had the itch to play a FE game again. I left my Switch at home and took my 3DS and Vita. It was FIre Emblem or Final Fantasy X. I chose the former. FFX never hooked me like I hoped it would, even though I didn’t give it much time. I’m either going to pick it up from my last save (from a couple years ago) or start it over altogether. Or burn it. 14) Not sure why I would even attempt to start another RPG when I’m right in the middle of Lufia II. Man, what a great game. The first one will always hold a special place in my heart, but I think the sequel/prequel is a better game. I’d probably be done the game by now if I wasn’t so worried about capturing footage for it. I would play in small instances so that captures weren’t too big in file size, which limited my play times. And that kept me from really getting invested when I sat down with it. Last night I said, “f*ck it” and played it without capturing it. I’m not sure I’d ever do anything with the footage, but I have enough from the first half of the game that if I ever wanted to do something, there’s something there. 15) For the record, that non-captured gameplay was the best time I’ve had with the game since I started playing it, since I was just able to sit and play without doing anything else with it. What an amazing concept. Play to play. It’s all about that balance, you know? 16) I wrote an article a couple of years ago about how buying games at launch makes little sense since they typically get price reductions rather quickly after their initial release. I don’t think I’ve bought a game at full price since last October and it’s saved me a ton of cash but also allowed me to enjoy the games I want at a fraction of the price. 17) That said, I DID throw down $180 to get this Ric Flair Collector’s edition of WWE 2K19. Call me a hypocrite. I NEED IT.

I’m weak.

18) Further to this last point, the only two franchises I really don’t have a problem paying full price (or more) for is the NHL and WWE franchises. Those games see the majority of my playing time and I get more than my money’s worth with both. I’m going to try and hold out on NHL though, since I usually don’t get into the game until EA Sports releases opening night roster updates, and by that time the game will likely by $20 cheaper. It’s hard to do since I really start getting the itch to play hockey once the regular season starts. Here’s hoping! 19) I recently won a copy of Franchise Hockey Manager through an online Twitter contest. It’s a hockey management sim, which I’m a BIG fan of. I haven’t played it yet, and reviews are mixed, but there’s that ‘itch’ I mentioned before so I may dive in one of these nights. I play a lot of Eastside Hockey Manager, another hockey sim which is older and not developed anymore, but I have close to 1600 hours played on record… 20) As for other games, I’ve jumped back to a pair of games that I put down for awhile and recently revisited and, suffice to say, they land on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. The first is Catherine on the Playstation 3 and man...this is some game. I won’t really go into the storyline/plot details, but it’s basically a puzzle game intertwined with a messed up storyline. Its subject matter may be difficult for some, but the puzzles are just enough to frustrate you to the point where it’s oh-so-satisfying when you progress to the next one.

A puzzle game, you say? Alrighty then.

21) The other game, is Life is Strange. I downloaded it when it was free on PS Plus and just recently decided to play it. I played the first episode about a month ago and was really intrigued by the story and last weekend jumped back in and finished episode two. The game is doing a good job of grabbing at me emotionally and I think I’ll get back and finish episode three this week between plays of Lufia II. 22) Back to creative projects...I think I may end up just sticking to the wrestling series moving forward. It’ll give me more than enough to do, and quite frankly, I just don’t have a fresh enough take to add to the retro games of the world that have been covered umpteen times. I’m terrible at reviews (despite doing that with the WWE series) and I’m not invested enough in many other franchises to really come at consumers with a different thought process or anything of that nature. And, there’s also the simple fact that I just haven’t played a lot of video games. 23) I’ve played a ‘lot’ of video games, but not a wide-range of genres or consoles to have an expanded palette, so to speak. While I will enjoy the many hours I will dump into the NHL and WWE franchises this fall, I’m really hoping to expand my gaming time into other generations of consoles that I never really got into. 24) I recently tweeted that the three consoles I’d like to explore more are the Sega Master System, the Nintendo DS and the GameCube. You could throw the Game Boy Advance in there as well, but there’s so much there that I’ve never even tried, and I think that could keep me busy. And not just the consoles; the genres, too. Platformers, shooters, adventure...I just need to try and stay away from RPGs. I always allow myself to have one on the go, but that list is a mile long, so...I don’t think I’ll need to explore any more of those on other platforms any time soon. 25) I have three computers, but I’m not sure that I quite need all of them. I have two PCs (one for gaming, one for everything else) and an old iMac. My gaming PC is ok, but nothing special (i7-6700, GTX 1050ti, 8GB RAM) while my other is an older i5 with simple Intel graphics. My gaming PC is more for emulating and the odd newer PC release, but I don’t dabble too much with PC gaming at all. 26) My iMac has been a soldier for 8 years now. It’s a mid-2010 iMac and the only additions I’ve made to it has been an increase in RAM (16GB). I really only use it now for web browsing and video editing. Despite it being 8 years old, it edits video quite well but has problems with newer, 3D based graphics and titles so...it does struggle from time to time. If it weren’t for the video editing (Final Cut Pro X) I would probably find something else to do with it. But it’s my old, humming baby and it’s still a fantastic machine. 27) Throw in a couple of Raspberry Pis and I have more tech than I really need right now. (If that is such a thing!) I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate some of this tech into other projects but I’m just not that creative. Maybe something will stand out someday, but for now, it feels like wasted tech collecting dust. 28) Reading back on a lot of these thoughts...I’m really becoming a crusty old bastard aren’t I? 29) Final creative thought and referencing back to thought ‘22’, I think I’m going to keep all my gaming ‘creative’ to the wrestling series and then if any other projects come up (like the Brasel colabs or things of that nature) then maybe I’ll branch off into other ideas. Or a hockey series, similar to what I’ve done with wrestling. Either way, I’m not sure, but what I’d like to do is explore other wrestling themed videos and finally do more with my old ‘Cartoon Chronicles’ idea. I hate the name and the first video I put out, so I’d like to start that over completely. 30) I can’t believe summer is almost over. Did this year fly by for anyone else? All of these thoughts and ideas of balance is hitting me hard due in part to feeling very mortal for the first time in my life. I never felt like I’d live forever and I know I’m not quite at ‘mid life crisis’ stages of living, but I’m feeling my mortality for the first time ever. And it frightens me, greatly. Thanks for reading.