Discussing: Where Are All The Old Sega Franchises?

Sega is a company with a long history in the video games industry. In that time, they created a lot of IPs and recognizable brands and franchises. The argument could be made that Sega has just as many recognizable, if not as revered, franchises as Electronic Arts, Blizzard, and even Nintendo. And why wouldn’t they? They did after all compete with Nintendo throughout in the 1990s and created lots of new games and characters in order to do so. However, unlike Nintendo, they have not given as much love and care to their franchises and have instead relied on the one that gives them the most success: Sonic the Hedgehog. As a result, the value of these once notable and influential franchises has diminished.

Discussing: The Benefits and Detriments of Emulation

I recently updated my Nintendo 64 emulator, Project 64, after finding out it had an update this past year, and downloaded new graphics and audio plugins, Glide 64 and Azimer’s HLE Audio. After doing this, I realized that two games that had major graphical and audio inaccuracies before on the emulator, Paper Mario and Yoshi’s Story, were now mostly fixed. I decided to take advantage of this and start playing these games. However, I also knew that I could buy these games on the Wii U and Wii, as well as the original Nintendo 64, which I do own. I was tempted to buy them but am strapped for cash. For now, I’ve decided to stick with the emulator versions but am still on the fence because of the benefits and detriments of emulators.

Discussing: The Reinvention Curse

I have this theory about certain video game franchises. This theory, which I’ve hastily called the reinvention curse, states that when a video game series reinvents itself with a new iteration and receives widespread acclaim, it is then cursed to attempt to recreate that one title but with worse and worse results. As most do, the clones, sort of speak, become less and less accurate and quality deteriorates. There are several franchise that could fall under this theory but the two best examples, and the ones I’ll be using to describe this theory, are The Legend of Zelda and Resident Evil.

Discussing: Falling Behind The Next Generation

Last week, it was announced that Mortal Kombat X for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 was cancelled. After months of delays, last gen owners won’t be able to play the latest Mortal Kombat game. I was disappointed by this news as I’ve really wanted to play this game but don’t own a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or a strong enough PC. However, what was worse is this cancellation confirmed something to me I knew may be happening but wasn’t sure it definitely was: I’m officially falling behind.

Discussing: Introduced by Emulation

I wrote a review for Metroid after replaying it recently on my NES. This was the first time I had played through the game in five years or so, when I first got my NES copy. However, the first time I played Metroid was via an NES emulator back in the early 2000s. And not only was it my first time playing the first Metroid, it was my first time playing any Metroid game. It’s the game that got me into the series. After playing it, I got Metroid Fusion and Metroid: First Mission for my GBA and rented Metroid Prime for my GameCube. I didn’t like Prime then but that’s another story that I’ve already told.

Discussing: What is Journalism?

Journalism is a field which has been criticized heavily in recent memory. Whether it’s the validity of the political opinions pundits on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC have to say or the quality of work those in video games journalism do, the question of what these reporters, investigators, anchors, writers, pundits, editors, and interviewers do has come into question, going as far as to even question whether or not what a majority of these people do is even journalism. As someone who considers himself a journalist and aspires to reach a professional level, I understand the frustration that comes from that feeling of being fed bias or incorrect information. I also understand that this will cause anyone to question if the whole premise is even valid. However, I’m also quite offended for not only myself but other likeminded people who respect the work and knows the work that goes into the profession. The idea that we can communicate information to a bigger audience that may be unaware or misinformed is a powerful one. So I thought I would take the time to explain what journalism is, as most people don’t even know.

Discussing: Polygon’s Race Problem in Games

Polygon, ever the popular cat on the internet, recently published an opinion piece by Tauriq Moosa. I won’t be explaining the article in its entirety here so I suggest you click the link in the previous sentence and read it yourself before reading this reaction post. That said, I will say that the post dealt with the subject of video games not being inclusive towards various races, focusing only on Caucasian characters for the most part. What’s more is the article decided to use The Witcher: Wild Hunt as its focal point. Polygon has the bad reputation to publish articles and videos whose purpose is to rile up anger and controversy, not for the sake of creating discussion on well deserved topics but for more traffic on their sites. I mention this because I am not one of those people who think this. The reason being that I haven’t read Polygon or watched their videos in the past and despite my experience with the video games industry, including now four years as a blogger, critic, journalist, editorialist, and video creator in the field, I have managed to mostly keep Polygon out of my radar. I’ve only now started to read the site and this is the first opinion piece that I’ve read from the site. So I don’t have the expectations those who have been reading Polygon for awhile would have. Therefore, my reaction to this article is coming from someone with no previous bias towards Polygon and can be seen as a completely fresh opinion to this article and this article alone.

Discussing: Does Gaming Influence Musical Tastes?

Aside from gaming, I’m very passionate about music. I love a variety of music, from AC/DC to Bruno Mars. I like most if not all genres and I’ll give almost anything a shot. However, I do have my preferences. I tend to like rock more than electronic music. So I’ll take AFI over Lady Gaga any day. However, I’m also aware that this puts me at odds with most music in video games. I noticed this pretty early on. When I was seven or eight years old, I was listening to my parent’s records of Elton John and Rod Stewart and then playing Super Mario World or Street Fighter II with a soundtrack that was consisting of bleeps and bloops.

Discussing: Guest Characters in Fighting Games

I know this is an unpopular opinion but I don’t really care for guest characters from other franchises in fighting games. With the recent announcement of both Jason Voorhees and the Predator are in the upcoming Mortal Kombat X, I started thinking about other guest characters in other fighting games and I have two problems with the concept.

Discussing: GameStop Stores

A lot of my video game shopping nowadays is done online. As a result, I don’t go to GameStop as much as I used to. However, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve gone to three different GameStop stores in my area.