jmoiron.net

A3k; prevayer of the world famous "Beyond the L" quote which so gracefully sits atop my rather short list of worthy away message quotes, was over being addicted to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night last night. That little excursion; chillin with someone who I don't see that often; has made me realize that I need a constant flow of new people. Freshman year was great most likely because it got me out of the rut of knowing the same people for 13 years in a row. Now that its died down and im sheltered from dorm life; a vehicle which facilitates social.. ism.. I've gone back to my old close minded sarcastic ways. I think that in order to keep true to myself and in some ways to the world is to meet new people. I've been really terrible at that, but recently I've been doing things which facilitates hanging out with people who I at least don't know very well. My Brusah, and!, my sistah! I need to once again keep it real. And it all comes down to just being myself and doing what I want to do.

And on the subject of doing what I want to do, I've been watching a Japanese live action drama (only the second one I've been exposed to) called Strawberry on the Shortcake, which revolves around a love pentagon between two guys and 3 females. Its pretty interesting, but I think that the people in the show have pretty good lives, even though they are messing with some really delicate stuff (eachothers lives). I noticed something that has made me think differently about life; has made me act differently in the past week or so (although I have started this trend before i watched this.. it only solidified the concept)... the characters in the show are not defined, as I have often defined myself, by what they do in their free time. In this way, we really know nothing of any of the main characters. I suppose this is typical to dramas, but I find it very odd that you can know a character well without knowing what the hell they like to do. The only elements of free time activity that have been released as of episode 5 (about 4 hours of runtime) are a sister and her brother playing catch, and a little boy playing a PS2 game. Moreso than finding the story fascinating; love triangle/square/pentagon.. hell, octagon (marmalade boy) is not something that, even if done really well, is all that origional a concept to me. The way the story is told; the way the knowledge of the whole picture is split so evenly and in some ways viciously between the characters; an almost meticulous attention to every meeting between them, every dialogue and every facial expression; its really quite well done. Back to what defines these people; its their interactions with eachother. They don't do a god damn thing; and in fact, If i knew them in real life I'd probably think they were really boring. But in some ways I think it has made me realize that I downplay the importance of social activity; and im not talking hanging out with friends, because everyone does that; its hanging out with people who aren't your friends. For some odd reason; thats where the real fun starts.

Out of the social front and into the old school; video games; the antithesis of social activity but the ambrosia of the holy mind and spirit, have been dissapointing me more and more as time goes on; so much so that I've started playing Final Fantasy in an attempt to do something besides Jumping around like a mo-ron, which is admittedly fun as hell.

Since the good old days of games, up until not so recently but moreso currently, game systems have had a few hardware specs that have created glaring differences between a video game and real life. A video game and a life simulation. Most importantly, a video game and a movie. As time has moved on and expression and storytelling through video games has advanced, it seems that nobody developes just a game anymore; theres always some story behind it. Even if its stupid or totally inconsequential; I mean, Colored blocks are attacking the city, man! Even Mr god damn driller has a story; Rockman 1 didn't have a story, but Mr. Driller does. But thats not that bad; its tolerable. The real advances have come in the graphics and sound arena.

With newer, more powerful systems, its possible to create a score like the soundtrack of a movie and then put it in a game. When you think of your favorite video game music, what do you think of? Odds are its a Nintendo or SNES game; and odds are it sounds like a midi. Sure, some people might say some modern masterpiece like anything Nubou Uematsu has touched since FF7; Sephiroth's march made the game worth while and the opening song of FF8 was the best thing about the game... But there are just some classic moments in classig cames that cannot be contained, they are just too good. Ryu Hayabusa's father dying to that sad tune in the Ninja Gaiden opening.. "Why did my father..." Perfection, damnit. What about sonic games? The second level of sonic 1, or how about the second level of sonic 2? Hilltop Zone, or just the damn boss music? What about the Legend of Zelda theme? Mario 1.. do do do, do-do do; do. Theres some stuff you just know, and im not so sure that its because they are masterpieces of composing; in fact a lot of them just take off on previously composed classical music; its because the sound that those machines were outputting; the nes, genesis, Snes; they were unique to those systems. You don't get those things from some piece of classical music; you don't get the beeps and the electrical interference wind.. you don't get those limitations which make all of it so memorable. Now adays you don't have to repeat the same 15 second mod or midi to fit it into the 128k cartridge; you get 4.7 gigs of space; enough to fit like 8 or 9 hours of VCD on.

Some people say that video games are an art form; and to some extent I agree. But why can't video games just be video games anymore? Do they have to be an art form? Do they have to try to be some interactive movie? Im grateful for stuff like DDR which screams "hey, im a game damnit". I miss the innovation that the limitations which are now gone (sprite size.. sprite size damnit!) had once almost forced out of people. And i miss the terrible sound synth out of the old systems; screw fully orchestrated sound tracks; If i wanted to listen to that I'd tell my roomate to pump up the volume, give me beeps and poorly emulated drums. I don't want a video game to be like a really long movie; i want it to be like a really long game. But maybe im just alone in that opinion.

I'll post more after im done looking through tons of webcomics. Saturday morning Coffee is pretty good ^^