Archive for the ‘Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany’ Category
Like the 500 million people who downloaded the thing (according to Venture Beat) and its 21 million daily users (according to SurveyMonkey), I am a little bit fascinated by Pokemon GO: the social aspect, the use of augmented reality, and the incentive to get out and wander around new and/or familiar places. It’s kind of amazing to see how many people this little free-to-play game is bringing together through a shared interest, giving folks who might otherwise have trouble socializing an easy ice breaker and an excuse to go meet people.
But one of the most interesting discussion topics that’s arisen from this Pokemon resurgence has been “This is a cool idea, but you know what I’d really love to play? (Something else) GO.”
That “something else” potential grabbed my attention. People in my office were speculating on how you would play Harry Potter GO. People I knew on Facebook were pining over mockups of Fatal Frame GO. An idea for how to make Persona GO viable came to me and still refuses to leave.
It was around this time that I realized just how versatile this GO game template could be for a number of different IPs, franchises, and fandoms beyond Pokemon — how easily a lot of other ideas could plug into this same app and get fans out and about, meeting new people through a shared AR game.
So why not explore that hypothetical rabbit hole a bit further?
GO read more
Tags: apps, AR, augmented reality, Fatal Frame GO, Ghostbusters GO, GO games, Harry Potter GO, Legend of Zelda GO, Persona GO, Pokemon, Pokemon GO, thoughts, video games
Posted in Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany, Video Games |
Ever notice how in any movie, show, or game with singing, if the villain gets a song, it’s the best one on the soundtrack? Makes sense; everyone knows villains are more interesting than heroes, which means so are their tastes in music.
Know what else makes sense? Combining all the best villain songs into one evil, awesome soundtrack. Putting this album together has been a project I’ve been meaning to get to for a while now. And since it’s almost Halloween, I figured I’d also share it here so others can go out and do likewise.
So partly in the spirit of the holiday, and partly because it’s just a good idea anytime of the year, here’s my Ultimate (So Far) Villain Song Soundtrack. I reserve the right to come back and add to it as new villains with new musical accompaniment arise in the stuff I watch and play.
Read on. Mwaha. Mwahahahaha.
Tags: halloween, music, playlist, songs, soundtrack, villains
Posted in Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany, TV and Movies, Video Games |
If you’ve never heard of Epic Rap Battles of History, then you’re hanging out on the wrong parts of the internet. With almost 10 million subscribers and over 1 billion views so far, ERB has become one of the most popular channels on YouTube. Even when you don’t know much about the combatants pitted against one another, they’re still fun. And when you’re already a fan of whoever’s throwing down, it’s awesome.
One of the best things about the battles is that each side gets equal quality treatment – there are never any gimme battles. Even Hitler gets a fair shot at his opponent (which is troublesome for this particular project I’m doing here, but more on that in a minute). As such, there is never a verified winner of a battle.
Until now.
Read what I’ve decided
Tags: best lines, Epic Rap Battles of History, EpicLLOYD, ERB, Nice Peter, rap battles, review, who won, who's next, YouTube
Posted in Internet Miscellany, Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany |
Some of my all-time favorite video games are in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series, which I was introduced to by the excellent Persona 3. Since then, I’ve had a huge blast following the games’ casts of colorful and interesting characters while also discovering just how many demons and mythic figures I can find swimming around in my own head. This massive plethora of personas to discover and collect is obviously a huge reason why these games are so fun – in this respect, Persona is like a darker, more mythical Pokemon, only with legendary heroes and gods instead of a hundred different types of rodent and bird.
With so many different personas on display, though, it stands to reason that some will stand out more than others. Picking just one or two that are better than all others is impossible, as is picking just a single favorite. So instead, I’ve decided to narrow down the roster to just my top 10 favorite personas, explaining how and why I find them so appealing.
Read on to the truth
Tags: Faust, ItsSuperEffective, P3, P3 FES, P4, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, Top 10
Posted in Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany, Video Games |
(Warning: For those who like this show but haven’t caught up on Season 4 yet, or for those who want to start watching this show but haven’t gotten around to it, know that this article is gonna contain some massive spoilers. The title also contains a pretty glaring spoiler, while I’m at it. Sorry about that. No real way around that one. All titles come with a price, I suppose.
Ahem…)
I don’t watch a lot of TV, but occasionally a show will come along that demands my attention and continued interest. ABC’s Once Upon a Time is one such show. Fairytale character crossovers aren’t a new idea, but they remain a good one. I haven’t seen an attempt so far that I haven’t liked (after the second or third Shrek movie, anyway), but Once is definitely one of the better ones. And by far the biggest reason for this is the character of Rumpelstiltskin.
Read on, dearie
Tags: character, Dark One, fairy tales, Mr. Gold, Once Upon a Time, OUaT, plot twist, Robert Carlyle, Rumpel, Rumpelstiltskin, Storybrooke, TV show
Posted in Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany, TV and Movies |
I sit with my girlfriend in a plastic booth at McDonald’s and watch as Ms. Li unwraps her McFish sandwich. She had paid for it, and for our McFood as well, with a hundred dollar bill from the early 1900s that the cashier lady had to counterfeit check twice before just about emptying the register to make the change.
Spreading the McFish paper out carefully on the fake marbling of the plastic table, Ms. Li bites open a packet of mayonnaise, which she squirts across her fried McSquare of McFish. This is followed by a full packet of grape jelly, which plurps down over the squirt of mayo and sinks through before Ms. Li replaces the McBun.
Before we leave, she’ll wrap our last two unopened McKetchup packets in a wad of about fifty McNapkins and shove them into the unseen depths of her musty purse. Right now, though, as she eats, she explains to us in her broken and confused English that she doesn’t ever go to the dentist because dentistry terrifies her. According to her, a friend or sister or cousin (I couldn’t discern which even as the story was first being told) went to the dentist once to get a tooth pulled and her gums just never stopped bleeding afterward. She eventually bled to death from the gap in her teeth, and that was enough to damn oral hygienists everywhere in Ms. Li’s eyes.
I’m not sure I entirely believe the story. I’m not sure I entirely believe anything about Ms. Li.
Read for yourself
Tags: character, Georgia, McDonalds, Ms. Li, nonfiction, old lady, story
Posted in Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany |
I keep realizing, forgetting, and re-realizing that the first step to any writing project is forcing yourself to start.
I love writing, but even after more than a decade of doing it for both work and fun, I still have to drag myself to the page or screen & force my hands to move at first. I’m not sure why – maybe because writing is an industrious hobby and I default to leisure when left otherwise unemployed. Maybe because the acts of creation and production so impress me that to begin either of them myself on any scale feels, for a moment at least, like a grand undertaking, the beginning of a long journey. Maybe because my perfectionist outlook tends toward the nitpicky at times, and so commencing a thing grates a bit when there is always so much more that I could do to prepare first.
Read more rambling
Tags: effort, ramble, story, thoughts, writing
Posted in Off The Shelf: Media & Miscellany, Writing |
