#i finished choreographing the fight and its gonna be SO COOL!!! obsessed with how their techniques interact with each other

[missingn000]

WHO'S FUCKING HYPE FOR YUKI VS CHOSO

[aurimeanswind]

Long Week, Longer Days—Sunday Chats (3-19-17)

Long, stress-filled week. Longer days each ending with poor, or lack of sleep. It’s been a rough one, but we carry on. Two years of writing don’t stop for bad weeks, but this one has been a rough one indeed.

Complications

To pull back the curtain, part the kimono, if I may, on what’s been going on in my life, let’s run down the gambit. Not looking for pity, just looking to give context for what’s been happening to me this week.

My dad got surgery this week. It went well, but he didn’t think he needed to tell me until the day before. He is okay, but in a lot of pain, and that’s just been stressing me out since Wednesday.

Some person was using a picture of me as their twitter picture and sending mean/rude things to folks in the Kinda Funny community and the video games industry. Obviously they didn’t have my twitter handle, didn’t hack my account, or anything too out there, but the confusion is still something to take advantage of. What hurts me is that someone was specifically doing this. A person was behind this. I don’t know why someone would consider this okay, or would want to do this to me. They’ve since changed off of my picture, but it still hurts me that someone hated me so much that they’d want to do that. :/

Obviously PAX work is good work, and there is so much amazing PAX East 2017 content up on IrrationalPassions.com, that you should check out, but it’s very stressful. Being in high stress while these other factors go on is not good for me. It’s made me anxious and depressed in a way that isn’t good for me.

On top of that, my weekend in Boston was very rough around the edges. A lot of interpersonal drama that had me on edge. In addition to worrying for my team, trying to make sure everyone was having a good time, and making sure folks got to their appointments on time and got their work done (and still need to get their work done), it was a bad meeting in the middle.

Colin Moriarty leaving Kinda Funny was hugely upsetting to me. Say what you will about the man, he is a massive part of why I entered the video games industry. I feel as though his perspective has changed a bit over the last six to nine months, sure, but I still respect him a great deal, and he has been a massive influence on my life. I was genuinely heartbroken this past Monday.

Good things that came out of this past week as well, including some incredibly kind things from my friends and compatriots in the video games industry. The amazing work that my team of professional and talented writers at IrrationalPassions.com have done. The amazing support that folks have given Irrational Passions over the last week. I’m surrounded by seemingly infinite kinder and more talented folks that give me way more adoration than I deserve, but that kindness pushes me, encourages me, and drives me forward. As much as two wrongs absolutely don’t make a right, they make things worse, I firmly believe that kindness begets kindness.

Pay it forward. Be good. Be kind.

Please.

To get to a slightly darker place, a reflection of my inner thoughts of late:

Lost in Commitment

I feel terrible about my work ethic lately. My rut has only marginally gotten better since February. I promised that I’d get Case Study running by the end of this month and I just can’t imagine that happening. But we’ll see.

I haven’t finished anything substantial lately. I want to sit down and get some scripts done, or write a really in-depth feature like my Twilit Ghost Towns piece again, but I am so garbled and disconnected. I can’t focus through any writing project now.

Things need to change.

Maybe it’s just my depression killing me, but I’m working on a piece that’ll go up soon (hopefully), and then after that I am gonna try and get some real, long-form projects done.

But I hate it right now. I hate myself right now, insofar as work ethic is concerned. Everything I start writing I hate. It sounds terrible, or melodramatic, or bullshit artsy for the sake of being bullshit artsy. I know I’m an esoteric writer, and it’s in my nature to be like that, but I’ve been hating it so much lately. So. Sooooo. Much.

We’ll see. It’s just been boggling me down as of late.

And back to a happier place...

Lost in Hyrule

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is maybe the game I’ve played the most of in over two years. I guess The Witcher 3 would still be more for me, but I plan on playing much more Zelda, probably up until the moments when Persona 5 comes out.

Never before has a game enchanted me in a the way this has. Never before have I wanted to stop and look at the scenery, to take the world in, to pop a squat, take a knee, breath it all in. It’s beautiful, it’s engrossing, and it’s almost literally all I can think about. I haven’t felt this giddy or joyous playing a game since the last visit to one of my all time favorite games ever. Maybe Persona 4 Golden was genuinely the last title I played that brought such raw joy out of me.

It’s definitely been difficult for me to stomach criticism. I speak of it a lot, that sensitivity to any and all criticism to the things you love the most. I speak of it so familiarly because it’s something I must reconcile with myself on a near constant basis. For me, in my experience, this game is stellar and masterful in almost all ways, to a degree that it’s difficult to believe it could not be for some other folks. But most assuredly it isn’t.

If anything, playing this game, I’m surprised that so many people do like this game. It’s mechanics are so raw that if anything, it should be off putting to more people. I think there is a merit to it’s execution that so many folks are finding many things to love with this game.

But we all have to take that step back. Recognize that experience is personalized. That someone can love this can. That someone can hate this game. It’s recognizing and respecting the craftsmanship and also the experience of others that we shouldn’t lose sight on. This is true of both sides of the argument.

But uh, I love the game. I’ll make that obvious here so that if maybe you don’t like it as much, you don’t have to begrudge me. Not that anyone has, I just don’t know how well I’ll take it when someone inevitably comes at me at an 11 saying that the game is overrated and bad. I’ll try and be dignified, but this game is currently sitting at #2 on my all time favorites ever list, and that is quite a feat. It’ll be difficult for me to come down from that to have a discussion as to why it’s mechanics work for me and maybe not someone else, but hey: i’m gonna try.

I’ve played about 90 hours of it. I can’t wait to play more.

What’s on Tap

Other things I’ve been playing...

Spectre of Torment

I’ll be reviewing this for IP at some point, but I do want to put out there that I’m digging this new Shovel Knight piece!

It seems a little stripped down by comparison to some of the charming set dressings of the original and the Plague of Shadows DLC, but it’s still very cool.

I’ll say I think it plays a bit better and a bit smoother than Plague of Shadows did. The scythe mechanics and using them as angular double-jump-esque attacks is very cool. Using attacks in traversal is fun in a way I wouldn’t have expected.

Iron Fist

I did want to talk about this a bit, since I have been obsessing over it, as I do with all Marvel Netflix Series.

First of all, I think I like the show a lot more than most folks. There seems to be a total lack of respect for the amazing cinematography, and good GOD is the music soooooo so good. It’s very cyberpunk/Deus Ex/Stranger Things, and I love it so goddamn much.

That being said, the acting on this show seems like, the worst of all the Marvel Netflix shows? It’s so hard to believe Danny Rand sometimes. Like he can be so bad, especially around midseason where I am.

That, and around episode 7/8 the show just feels like it completely loses its focus. Like, why are the things happening, happening? I have no clue. Where in gods name does it go from here? Where’s the focus or thru line? I mean, Daredevil Season 2 faced this same problem, but it felt like it had surprises left ahead of it. I have no fuckin’ clue where Iron Fist is going and it just seems like nothing would make it more interesting.

There was actually a scene where someone shut a car door, and the camera cut to a shot of a cell phone in the car then falling from the armrest between the two front seats falling between the seats because the car door closed so hard, and I out loud said “what the fuck is this shit” to no one in my home.

Like, I am still angry about that completely dumb and arbitrary plot point. Fuck that so much.

I like how the fight scenes feel like river motions though. People have been complaining that they are over-choreographed, but I enjoy how fluid and in control Danny seems in his fights. I think it’s cool. It can be weird sometimes, but for the most part I think it works.

Questions

Good lord. I don’t know. I think I might spend tomorrow (my day off) just away from it all. Phone off, twitter closed, and away from things.

I really wish I could focus. I can’t write or start something without hating it a day later. Maybe I just need to start writing some all-in-one-day pieces. But I wrote above about how I’ve been feeling terrible about my work and work ethic lately. I just don’t know where to go, and I want to get more video stuff done, and I need to get more video stuff done if I hope to get a job in the industry, so maybe finding a place to focus in on that would help get this anxiety building up in my out, and help me decompress.

It’d also be real nice if I could get away from some drama for a bit. It’s been out of my life for such a good long time, and just got too much of a hearty does of it this past weekend.

Honestly I don’t know. Open to suggestions? I just need something to help me not feel as shitty. Maybe some good music.

Ohhhh man. This is a tough one.

I won't spoil any of the main things here, since the dungeons and the things around those, which are a lot like action set-pieces are so rad that they’re worth seeing before hearing.

But I’m gonna talk about some stuff.

Getting the Master Sword was amazing. How it all happened and working up to getting it was absolutely fantastic. It’s such a good way it goes about things, and then using that thing to fuck UP some Guardians was like... Man, it was fucking incredible. Holy shit.

I also engaged in a fight with a Blue-Maned Lynel, one of the centaur monsters from previous Zelda games, which manifest as maybe the hardest enemy is this game, and HOLY SHIT. It was SO GOOD. It was genuinely as satisfying as some fights in Bloodborne/Dark Souls have been, and these dudes are essentially standard enemies.

There was a side quests that involved climbing a snowy mountain and helping a very massive creature that was absolutely fucking breath taking. Climbing the mountain, fighting some beasts, and then facing that massive thing were all amazing. Holy crow.

I could name probably fourteen other cool things, but I’m just gonna say this.

Eventide Island.

Goddamn.

Wow. Pretty passive aggressive putting me on blast like this on my own weekly write up, don't you think? 

So i guess never now. Good job Quin.

Kidding. Honestly, I keep forgetting who all I want to have on that have still never been on. I think I’m gonna make a list. We are going to be Nabeshin-less for a couple months after next week, so we need fourth chair fillers. You’re on the list bud.

Hrm. This is a tough question. I think my younger self would be humbled honestly. One, the places I’ve gone and the people i’ve met (sing song in the background), but when I was younger I always considered myself lazy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still fucking lazy as all get out, but at least I’ve gotten shit done. When I’ve set my mind to it, I really do things, and they get done. It may put my younger self a bit at ease to know that I am going for my dream, I’m doing cool things along the way, and I’m (for the most part) really happy doing it.

At least, I’d hope.

Haha, I love you too buddy.

But that’s not a fucking question goddammit Trevor what the hell? 

Just kidding <3

Overall in games media, it’s easily Ryan Davis. Every single opening I do to Irrational Passions Podcast is an homage to that man. The kindness he showed me when I first met him, as the first person I ever met in the games industry, is something I try and show everyone I meet to this day. Folks I follow and am friends with don’t know him very much if at all now, and it’s such a massive bummer. “Hey Everybody it’s Tuesday” is a part of my very being. It’s part of who I am. That sensation of having your guard destroyed and feeling like you’re best friends with someone as soon as you meet them, I try and give that to every person I meet. I know I’m not nearly as good at it as Ryan was, but I try. 

But in the industry today? I may honestly say some of the Easy Allies. A combination of Kyle Bosman’s skepticism, Michael Huber’s hype, and Brandon Jones’ honesty. The three of them I think are all distinct influences on who I’ve shaped up to be over the last year, with obvious voices like Colin Moriarty, Jeff Gerstmann, many of the other industry vets from around the country. The long-timers speak to me and my sensibilities a lot more than the more fresh faces, that’s for sure.

Oh, and Austin Walker and Patrick Klepek, of course. The two of them are the homies.

Brb, on my way.

But for real, I hope you know cool places we can hang out when I come hangout in July. I just hope that you don’t get sick of me after 20 minutes.

As far as favorite character in Clue...

Well I’m about to be the biggest disappointment in your life. I’ve never seen Clue, the film, the cinematic experience. I’ve also never played Clue, the home-entertainment marvel.

But like, if I had to take a stab, a genuine guess knowing me and my sensibilities... Well, I’d probably say...

I’ve not seen the hip wiggle, but I’ve heard a lot of chatter about butts in regards to this game? I guess? Apparently there is a large obsession with butts, on the internet, in video games. WHO KNEW?!

I would very much like to Play Nier Automata, and I don’t want to sleep on it, because I think I’ve slept on too many Platinum games in the past. I need to see this game for myself! And I know for sure Nabeshin loves it, and that’s enough for me.

I DID know that, see above.

As for his birthday? See below.

I am A-okay with recycled questions if they’re good ones.

This is tough. There are plenty of genres that I bet if I had gotten in on day-one I would have loved but never ended up doing so, like RTS with Starcraft/Warcraft or Driving Sims with Forza or something like that. 

Here are a couple.

I wish I had gotten in on Halo 1 instead of just a couple years ago. I feel like I’d have a much great reverie for that series if I was “in on the hype” and playing multiplayer with everyone at the same time.

Hitman is also a really good one. This latest Hitman seems like a real gem, but I know if I went and played it now I’d just power through all the content and not play it like almost everyone else did, trickling away at everything there is to do in each area.

I wish I had jumped in at Mass Effect 1 instead of Mass Effect 2. This is a huge one I always talk about, but I definitely believe that even though I love Mass Effect 2 to this day, and it’s one of my all time favs, I’d love it even more if I had played ME1 years before.

Those are all I can think of now, but I’m sure there are more. That’s a really great question.

Special Birthday Shoutout 

I do wanna take a moment to give a special birthday shoutout to my dude Trevor Starkey. It’s his birthday today, and he’s really sick, and I love that guy. He is lovely and wonderful.

Happy birthday dude! I hope you had a relaxing and wonderful day Mr. 32! Crazy to think we’ve been friends for almost two years.

Go check out TrevorTrove.com and see his cool PAX East content, and of course listen to Trove Talk!

Okay, for real, that’s all I got. I think I am gonna order some pizza, snuggle up under some blankets, and respond to some emails.

Thank you all for your support. Thank you all for working and pursuing your dreams. Thank you all for your positivity. Thank you all for being there for me, and to making me believe that the internet is a good, wonderful place, when for a lot of other folks it isn’t. Good begets good, don’t forget that.

With all that said and done, we out.

Keep it real.