This Month’s Flashback (February ‘08)

Wow! This month went by pretty quickly. I wrote quite a bit of articles this month, and I realized that I will eventually have to devote a “page” to the best articles of Silvercublogger.

Anyways, over the weekend I found out that I had Windows Movie Maker on my laptop. I have no idea why I never noticed it before all of these months. I messed around on there for a bit, and hopefully I will be able to make videos and put them on YouTube. That would be awesome.

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Flashback

Synopsis: I started off the month with a Final Fantasy article, and went on a roll from there. I figured out that the width of my blog is a little over 420, which is good to know when putting pictures on here. Looking back on February, I wrote only one review – Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore, and I also realized that some articles were a bit boring. Lol, isn’t that right? So I will be writing less of them (I’m looking at Jokes of the Week… *yawn*).

Here are the best articles of Silvercublogger for February:

• Final Fantasy Fanatic [#4]
• KR: AIE Review
• Grand Canyon Skyway
• Blog Banter [#3]
• Editorial on Video Game Journalism
• Spotlight on Audiosurf
• Its Overused and Abused!

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Blog Stats

Best Day: 103 (2/14)

Total Views: 1276

Comments: 72

Posts: 33

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Yahoo! Over 1,000 hits this month! That is a first, and hopefully many more. Surprisingly, my Grand Canyon article got the most hits for some reason. KR: AIE review was not too far behind, followed by my Blog Banter article.

Thank you too everyone who drops by, and especially those that leave comments! Remember, if you are ever looking for anything in my blog, feel free to use the search bar on the bottom right corner.

Hope to see you all in March! : )

Quote of the Week [#11]

“Associate yourself with [people] of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for its better to be alone than in bad company.”

- George Washington

“It’s Overused and Abused!”

Video games have been around for quite awhile, and the one thing that has been around far too long is the recycling and reusing of genres. Excuses ranging from “updated graphics” or “updated roster” does not make a new game. Especially not your $60. Since we are the consumers, I think it is time to say “no.”

Many people judge a video game just by its advertisements, and to be honest, why not? Sure its not a detailed review, but if the ad can make you buy a game, then that’s wonderful. The question is will you enjoy what you purchased? Many gamers are quite casual, so they will not be as meticulous as others may be – so it really is all up to the individual and their tastes.

What I am really wondering is do people really want to read paragraphs upon paragraphs of others describing and reviewing a video game? Quite frankly the attention span, especially in America, is getting shorter and shorter as time goes on. There will always be a group of people that won’t have any issues reading “the never-ending story,” but for the majority, people just want to know is the game good or bad, and is it worth their time and money?

Getting back to the origins of this topic, I believe its important that there needs to be fresh new games in this industry. Do we really need Dynasty Warriors 21? Or Madden Street Ultra 2012? Or another generic game based on a movie?

 

Below are the following three genres that are being overused and abused, and scream “please stop.”

• The Shooting Genre: Ever since Goldeneye 007, the amount of shooting games being produced is just one too many. With hardly any new innovations, its very difficult for a game to stand out, unless it has tons of advertisements and press coverage. That’s when games get too over-hyped (Gears of War for example) and fail to deliver in many consumer’s eyes. Ever since Halo 2 arrived, I have yet to experience a better shooter. It really upped the bar and set the standard — and every video game that has come out after that is either a slight improvement on its system, or a step back.

You can have as many artistic styles as you want (Team Fortress 2 for example) but when it comes down to it, its getting tiring. Shooting games are getting very boring and repetitive.

• The Generic Game based on a Movie: This is getting out of hand. It became very popular in the 80’s to do this, but come on video game designers! If there is an awesome movie that is being released, and you are making a “fetch and quest” game, that’s not right at all. Maybe that’s why there really has not been any video games for any of Miyazaki’s movies. Because these movies are so special that everyone is too scared to step up to the challenge and create a video game for his movies. It is appalling seeing a game like Shrek the Third being sold. I purchased this game for $4 new, and that is perfect considering its weird gameplay aesthetics and mediocre animations. Once in a blue moon a video game will do a movie justice, and that’s great news – but I still have yet to experience that “wow factor.”

• The Sports Genre: This is ridiculous. I understand having 2008 slapped next to a title is a great marketing tool – but think about it – wouldn’t it be so much better if that game had so much more than a few new features and updated graphics? Instead of churning out a new sports game year after year, video game companies need to create a franchise where each sports game that is released gets a significant overhaul. Many features can be added as downloadable content, so stop with the yearly version .2 and .3 – its been tiring since the Super Nintendo days.

While there are quite a few more genres that could use a slap in the face, these are the main three that are very well known.

Once in awhile we can get wonderful games out of these three genres, but for the most part its getting more stale than the bag of crackers sitting behind your cupboard.

Picture of the Week [#11]

The Circle of Life [#3]

In today’s world, many people’s ego’s are a bit too high – and many are too low. Whatever the case, many people always want to be right, even if what they are saying is wrong.

I know a few people that always want to be correct, and it drives me nuts. I am not quite sure why some people can’t say “Okay, you are right.”

I can.

I don’t like to argue, so I try and resolve things as quickly as possible, which brings me to what Mrs. Krulik has to say:

3. Sometimes being right can turn out wrong (or the demise of the words “I told you so!”)

Why is it so important that we be right all the time? It isn’t. But we sure do put a lot of energy into being correct – and making sure that someone else knows he or she is wrong. Many of life’s questions have no real right or wrong answers. And most of us would be a lot happier if we stopped focusing on proving ourselves right – and started focusing on making ourselves happy. Just think of all the fun things you could do with the time saved by not arguing!

This Week’s Flashback [18-24]

Hi! Another week has flown by, and this one was a very busy one for me. Hopefully I will end off this month strong…

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Flashback

Synopsis: This week was not very exciting in terms of video games being released – in fact I have not purchased any games since February 6th. But what did happen this week was the Game Developer’s Conference, which did seem awesome, and that was pretty much it. In terms at Silvercublogger, the amount of articles this week was small…

One interesting article to read:

• Spotlight on Audiosurf

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Blog Stats 

Best Day: 49 Views (2/24/08)

Total Views This Week: 291

Comments This Week: 9

Posts This Week: 7

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This concludes another week here at Silvercublogger. Here’s to the last few days of February… Super Smash Bros. Brawl.. here I come! March 9th has never been so close! ^_^