Sunday, September 30, 2012

New poll: what if I was a money-grubber?

Last poll about consoles owned didn't have much room for surprises, with the obvious recent Nintendo consoles (including the Gamecube, not bad for a console that had 15% market share!) dominating:

(Out of 194 votes)
1. Nintendo Wii - 158
2. Nintendo Gamecube - 131
3. Sony Playstation 2 - 125
4. Nintendo 64 - 96
5. Sony Playstation - 88
6. Microsoft Xbox 360 - 75
7. Sony Playstation 3 - 71
8. SNES - 70
9. NES - 53
10. Sega Genesis - 40
11. Microsoft Xbox - 32
12. Sega Dreamcast - 25
13. Sega Master System - 13
14. Sega Saturn - 8

Okay, I lied, the Saturn being even less popular than the Master System was a bit of a shocker.

Today's question: how would you feel if I started monetizing my videos? Not that I'm thinking of doing so and want to test the waters, I just want to know how strongly you feel on that issue.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Waluigi ventures into the nuptial business.

Sorry, I'm going to need a new spleen. This is the BEST SITCOM IDEA EVER. Nintendo, make it happen!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Nine years later, I still haven't recovered.

WITH A MOBLIN. Seriously. Someone actually thought of it without being grossed out and thought, this isn't too far out of place in a Zelda game. And the ESRB rated it E. Yup.

Random question of the day: what's the most disturbing and out-of-place thing you've ever seen in a video game? Note that I'm not talking about most disturbing outright, like, say, the puzzle in Amnesia where you drill a hole in a dead guy's head, get some blood from it and inject yourself with it, because that's close enough to par for the course in that game. I'm talking, the game's all flowers and rainbows, except for that one part.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

New poll: which consoles do you own?

Last poll was about your anticipation for Mystery Dungeon 3, and the answers were pretty spread out, with 75 voters out of 187 absolutely tired of waiting for it. 46 are interested in buying it without being 100% sure, 21 aren't sold on it that much, and 45 just don't care. That's about the kind of results I was expecting, honestly.

Next poll is similar to a previous one, where I asked you which was your favorite home console. Now I'm asking, which ones do you own or have you owned in the past? Obviously I'm not including more niche ones like the Intellivision or the Jaguar, or ones before the 1983 game crash, because I don't want my blog to take a minute to load.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Whoever said gaming thrives on innovation...

...is a dirty liar.

A liar out of this world.

A piece of cow dung. (This is Moo Moo Meadows from Mario Kart Wii, Mushroom Gorge is also in this.)

Sunday, September 16, 2012

New poll + update on the Garchomp situation

Before moving on, let's have a look at the results for the last poll. As expected, a slight majority (108 out of 209) voted for the status quo, but the real shocker is that no less than 61 people want only Sand Veil Garchomp banned. Had I known this was going to be that popular, I would've divided this to ask whether these people would like to see Excadrill, Blaziken and Thundurus-I get the same treatment. You know, for coherency. A measly five voters want to get rid of Sand Veil altogether, and ten of both it and Snow Cloak, suggesting we don't get many Smogonites here... And finally, 25 want to allow Garchomp regardless of the ability.

Speaking of that, Smogon decided to make its move, and in a twist that can only be perceived as positive by most of us, the Council decided to let the players decide in an old-school suspect test. The general consensus is that Rough Skin Garchomp isn't close to being broken, so what they're doing is unbanning Garchomp on the suspect ladder - with both abilities. What this means is that we'll get to use Sand Veil Garchomp there, and see whether the continuation of the power creep that occured over the last year will make it less effective than when it was banned. The end result will be known in early October.

Now, on to the next poll: how much do you care about Mystery Dungeon 3?

Friday, September 14, 2012

I might have to take up a new hobby.

I mean, look at this.

Console fanboys, I swear. Why do they go to such lengths to make fun of the systems they don't have? It's just not logical! Are they THAT insecure with their purchases? I wonder how they'll behave when they have to make a much bigger one. Like a car. Are they going to emulate Pastor Maldonado and just smack into everyone and everything that doesn't drive the same brand? I mean, there's not even a competition, we all know Ford cars are the best. :P But seriously, death threats over the announcement of a franchise moving to a rival console. I can't wrap my head around this. Then again, I should know better, because LeBron James got the same treatment when he moved to Miami (though I will admit King James handled the situation with the delicacy of a gangrape).

Of course, PC gamers aren't that much better. Of course, they don't really have much of a competition to knock on in their sector of the market (insert obligatory joke about Apple computers sucking for gaming), but that doesn't stop them from shooting on everything that moves. Now, everything's been said about Diablo 3, and I will concede that what the game looks like now is what it should've been at launch, but I have another pretty disheartening example coming from Blizzard's own ranks. The beta for Starcraft 2's first expansion, Heart of the Swarm, has just begun a week and a half ago. And people are getting just a bit too passionate about it and the new units it introduced. The Warhound and Swarm Host in particular are just wrecking balls in general. Now, remember what I said before? The beta is JUST STARTING, and people are already out for blood and asking for everyone's heads. This despite the fact that both the Warhound and Swarm Host were already nerfed a few days in (though clearly that was insufficient). Of course the gut instinct of a QA team can't match lots of games played by some of the best players in the world.

All in all, the negativity and "everything sucks" approach many people are taking towards gaming is making me discouraged about my fellow gamers. And the worst part is, I can totally imagine other media falling prey to the same thing. Like Justin Bieber getting death threats on a daily basis - for all that I like his music as much as most people on the internet, it's certainly excessive.

And yes, this is coming from someone who never misses an opportunity to criticize something. The difference is that I try to back up what I say instead of just throwing gratuitous insults to the universe. And now I have no idea how to end this, so I'll just let you dwell on that. Or maybe it's better that you don't, if you want to have a decent morning tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Knights of uselessness

I don't know how much of my American audience lives in areas affected by the rise in Spanish use (sometimes culminating with Spanish monolingual businesses), but I hope there are enough that can relate to what I'm about to say. It's common knowledge that the province of Quebec is, for the most part, the last bastion of the French language in North America. And as such, some of its regions (read: Montreal and its southern suburbs) live a day-to-day struggle to try and keep French as the main language there. While this is a worthy cause in theory, in practice those who defend it make me want to slap them in the face. With a heated frying pan. I'm saying this because they're trying to preserve the language in all the absolute worst ways possible.

Today, an activist movement lodged a thousand complaints to the governmental organization in charge of the French language. A THOUSAND. Wanna know what these were about? Company names. No, I'm not kidding. Subway, Home Depot, Canadian Tire and friends have a secret agenda, which is to destroy the French language by... HAVING AN ENGLISH NAME. I'm quaking in my boots!

No, seriously, to them having an English company name contributes to Montreal immigrants not learning French and adopting English as their only language (which is the REAL core of the problem). Now they want to change the law to force any of these companies to add a French descriptive in front of their names. As if that's going to change anything. Who in the blue hell doesn't know what Home Depot sells? My father's English is absolutely dismal, and even he knows! What about, say, EB Games, who, sacrilege of sacrileges, already have such a descriptive... IN ENGLISH? BURN THE WITCH!

Goddamn this place. No wonder English Canadians can't take us seriously, with these knights of uselessness pretending to speak for the rest of us.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

New poll: Operation Sand Fail

Sorry if I've been neglecting this blog lately, been really busy with my new home and my new job. Anyway, last poll was about getting Pokémon Conquest and your progress in it, and after 212 people weighed in, two people claim to have beaten it 100%. Considering how incredibly long it must take, allow me to question whether they actually did it or not, especially since no one else said they'd beaten upwards of 20 episodes (there are 37 in total). Five of you have beaten between 10 and 19 episodes, 27, including me, answered they'd beaten the main story but less than 10 episodes, 23 are still in the main story, a whopping 85 don't have the game but want it, and 70 are not interested. Do the math, more people are interested in the game but don't have it than people who do have it. Is the game really this rare? I easily bought it at the local Wal-Mart (at least what was the local Wal-Mart until I moved away from town) on day one...

Next question is a metagame question, and a tough one to answer unless you're following the competitive scene! Smogon wants to get rid of Sand Veil entirely in order to bring back Garchomp. Is that okay? I ranted at length in part 40 of my White LP on why I disagree with it, so I'll refer you to that for my stance. But I still want you to answer honestly, okay? It's not like I can hunt you down and brutally murder you for disagreeing with me, and even if I could it's not like I actually want to. These polls are for honest answers, and I want to know if I'm the one failing miserably by clinging on to certain principles.

Edit: Wow, "the ban Sand Veil Garchomp" is surprisingly popular. I'm wondering, though, would you also do the same for Blaziken, Excadrill, and Thundurus-I?