Journey

I've been playing games...a long, long time.

I've played a lot of games with awesome stories and well written characters and phenomenal soundtracks and had goosebumps many a time because of those very things.

I have not, however, been moved to tears.

Until I played Journey.

This is absolutely the most beautiful game I have ever played. Never before have art and atmosphere and music come together so perfectly.

I just wrote a paragraph and some explaining the game and what it's about and what makes it so awesome, but I feel like I don't need to. It should be experienced.

I will say though, the seamless co-op where other players join and journey with you is genius. It's not required, and it's totally random (you can't see names or chat or anything) but adds so much to the experience. the last ten minutes wouldn't have been the same without my (complete stranger) buddy beside me. That's somehow, quite remarkable to say.

Anyway.

Perhaps it is my lack of sleep the last few days, perhaps I was just in the right "mood" or perhaps this game strikes some sort of chord that resonates some important life message without the player even really knowing.

I have no idea.

But I had tears in my eyes at a few points in the game, and by the time the credits rolled I was on the verge of a full on cry...and then I lost it.

Incredible.

PS. I am not gay.

HOOK IT INTO MY VEINS

yes, yes, YES, holy fuck YES.

So much other shit to play, but there's no way in hell I'm not grabbing this on Tuesday and vanishing off the face of the earth for a few weeks.

NO WAY.

Rambling.

I recently reformatted my computer, and in doing so backed up all my shit onto an external drive.

While I was doing so, I stumbled on a folder titled "in progress" on the old drive that I can't remember making. In it were 22 stories and random thoughts and jots all mostly forgotten.

In going through them, I am somewhat amazed. A few of them are exceptionally old (well, 2003) and reading them is strange.

Some are disjointed simple ideas and outlines, others are fully fleshed out (as fully as my crappy stuff gets) stories that just lack an end point.

It was awesome and depressing all at once.

I wonder why I don't really write much anymore.

I wonder why I ever started.

I wonder why I kept going despite the fact that, let's be honest as shit, I am not all that good at it.

I guess it was fun, a lot of what I was feeling at the time came out in those stories. Probably more than people will ever understand, but I think that's normal.

Even now, sorting through these old ones I can pinpoint the feeling of being up in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep, and turning to the computer.

In fact I'd say 95% of anything I've ever written was at night with a complete lack of sleep and a barely functioning brain.

I don't use that as an excuse for how bad it all turned out, it's just incredibly weird to me.

Maybe the cool thing to do would be to finish some of these, but I don't know how that will go.

Regardless, as I said, it has been somewhat inspiring, somewhat depressing and generally nice to reflect on some of those times.

That is all.

No, seriously, best show on television.

I'd always enjoyed the BBC show Top Gear whenever I caught it on TV, so I started watching it from the start a few weeks ago (thank you Netflix) and can now confidently say it is my favorite show on Television.

And I'm not even a car guy. I can (and do) appreciate the beauty and awesomeness in automobiles, but that's about as far as I take it.

It's the fact that it is so, so, SO wildly entertaining that makes it good. The car review bits are brutally honest, often hilarious and have great production value.

The celery bit fucking KILLED me. So random:



What REALLY makes it entertaining is the challenge/competition/race bits that they have.

Some of the things I've seen have made me laugh so hard I was on the verge of throwing up because my stomach hurt so bad.

And when it's not hilarious it is, again, just so addictive and entertaining that I can't quite explain it.

Take this bit for instance where the three try to turn a van into a convertible (some of the best bits are missing from this clip, but it's still awesome):


There's also an episode where Jeremy races the other two from Italy to England, him in a Bugatti Veyron, and the other two in a plane/train which was incredible



But so far my favorite has probably been the American road trip episode where the three go to America and instead of renting cars are given $1000 to each buy a vehicle and drive from Miami to New Orleans and are given a series of challenges along the way, one of which results in some intense and hilarious moments from rednecks while driving through Alabama that involves the cast and crew almost getting beat to death for the slogans they've written on each others cars (in an attempt to see who can get the other person either killed or arrested the quickest. haha)

It was probably the most entertaining hour of TV I've seen in years.

So far I'm still watching episodes that are 5-6 years old since I'm watching from the start, but the newer ones I've seen on TV (turning cars into trains because trains are awful, for example) are just as good.

So yeah. I could go on about hilarious moments and post a million videos that nobody will ever watch or care about, but the bottom line is that I highly recommend you watch this show even if you don't give a shit about cars and especially if you enjoy British style humor, cause it is here in spades.

some Zelda shit.

I got nothin.

I don't really care that it is a new year. I usually do the best of post out of sheer boredom and to be slightly silly about everything, but I couldn't be bothered this year.

There were a lot of games and movies and all that jazz that really blew me away.

I FINALLY finished Zelda: Skyward Sword (too me a lot longer than expected because of my gaming habits these days) and it is indeed a masterpiece. Probably my game of the year if I had to pick one...because, well...Zelda.

It got me to thinking about how funny it is that Zelda games (and a lot of first party Nintendo games in fact) are so outdated in a lot of ways. You know, no voice acting, tons of non-skippable text to read, some overbearing (in the start) hand holding segments and various other things...and yet, none of that matters. In fact, it's sort of...welcoming. It just feels right.

I swear that there's more life and emotion in some of these characters that comes out through brilliant writing than some games with full voice acting and lengthy cut-scenes. It's a true testament to the writers and the quality they bring. Even smaller characters and how everyone has this little quirk or phrase that is often funny. I love it.

But it makes me wonder what the next game in the series will be like, if we see it on the WiiU in glorious HD, will they take that next step and deliver a cinematic voice acty experience like everyone expects from every other game?

I'm all for changes to long running franchises. I'd also be fine if they stuck to the same formula forever, because it really is magical.

No game this year made me feel so happy just experiencing it.

The motion controls were pretty much flawless (no going back, for me) and it felt much bigger and more substantial than the previous 3D games. I also enjoyed that they actually set up the other games in the series with a lot of small details, and some huge ones near the end. I can't recall any other Zelda game doing that much timeline sorting. Really cool stuff.

It is experiences like Skyward Sword that keep me a Nintendo fan, even when it's hard to defend the company sometimes.

They'll always have that touch when it comes to these games. Always.