What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.
-Werner Herzog
Nintendo
I may not look like much, but I’m an expert at trying to be a ninja.
-Darynda Jones, First Grave on the Right
It is not about “life after death” as such. Rather, it’s a way of talking about being bodily alive again after a period of being bodily dead. Resurrection is a second-stage postmortem life: “life after ‘life after death’.”
-N.T. Wright
“Nintendo games are for children and you should be ashamed for playing them as an adult”. Guess what? They don’t care.
Nintendo censorship, a story from my childhood I’ve never told, and playing Castlevania for the first time ever.
Cut from the same cloth as previous Kirby adventures, Epic Yarn is sew good, at least it seams that way to me… but let’s not get a thread of ourselves… is it a “kiddie” game? Quilty as charged.
The emptiness of the cave where once his sweet but pilfered potassium-ey treasures lay put a mirror against the howling vacuity of his gorilla longing, and so DK and Diddy embark on a quest fueled by the awesome rage of revenge.
The point of me writing on this game over 25 years after its initial release is not to determine if it’s a good game or not, but rather, to spark discussion on its context in the wider setting of digital play, how its heartfelt story might resonate with players across cultures and generations, what its themes are trying to communicate.
Happy birthday! Here are 10 things I love and 10 things I don’t love about you!
I suspect that, like me, many of you were introduced to the Final Fantasy franchise through one of the main series, numbered titles. I am certain that when people talk about Final Fantasy Mystic Quest with less-than-favorable opinions, it is because they too had that same experience.
“Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?”
-Isaiah 10:15 [ESV]
“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.”
―Arnold Bennett
Metroid Prime was able to combine FPS gameplay with an iconic Nintendo IP full of exploration, science fiction, and fear.
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
-Christopher Reeve
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
“Know what? I thought of you the other day, and it filled me with warm,…
“Above all, video games are meant to be just one thing: Fun for everyone.”
-Satoru Iwata
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
-André Gide, Autumn Leaves
Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on—that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.
We are the Little Folk—we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!
Mistletoe killing an oak—
Rats gnawing cables in two—
Moths making holes in a cloak—
How they must love what they do!
Yes—and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they—
Working our works out of view—
Watch, and you’ll see it some day!
No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you—you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!
-Rudyard Kipling, A Pict Song
“Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course – the distance between your ears.”
-Bobby Jones
“When the brain is whole, the unified consciousness of the left and right hemispheres adds up to more than the individual properties of the separate hemispheres.”
-Roger Wolcott Sperry
“And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it.”
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Here I am, stranded on a toxic planet, fighting to survive, and yet I’m intrigued… I must research this fascinating creature!”
-Captain Olimar
“Mega Man has ended the evil domination of Dr. Wily and restored the world to peace.”
– Narrator, Mega Man
“Looking for an oasis on earth? You fool! Earth is already an oasis in the space!”
-Mehmet Murat ildan
No blogger is an island, NPCs! We help each other. We need each other. That’s…
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
