Three Months of GHG

July 14, 2014 by Mike

You know, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times where GHG felt like work. And not the kind of work you love, but the kind of work you dread. It took starting this blog to fully understand the laments of content creators not being able to create good content whenever they want.

It’s not the subject matter, though; I can write about games all day, every day. However, there are just some mornings where the topics don’t come to me, and even those I have stockpiled as easy backups? I’ll look at them, feel completely uninspired, and think to myself, “I’d rather take a nap.”

So what do I do when that happens? As much as I’d like to say that I run around town all Rocky-like with “Gonna Fly Now” pumping myself up full of ideas — which is a fantastic way to get energized, by the way — instead, I play something new.

I have a general rule where I like to stick to just 2 or 3 games at a time — usually from different genres — but if they’re longer games, that can get repetitive, even if I’m still having fun. I find that firing up something fresh is usually more than enough to break me out of that funk, and today, I was definitely feeling it.

So after about an hour of sitting around knowing I wanted to talk about the blog itself, I gave myself a figurative slap in the face, shook my head vigorously, took a look at my Steam library, and installed whatever jumped out at me. This time, it happened to be Guacamelee: Gold Edition.

Within the first few seconds, it was already making me smile with its clean, unique visuals and smooth controls. What beautiful music and funny dialogue too! I love it when games hook you like that, and you know almost instantly that you’re playing a great one.

I can’t wait to dive deeper into it. It’s been getting a lot of renewed attention with the Super Turbo Championship Edition that recently came out (but not yet for PC), and it’s always referred to as one of the better “Metroidvania”-style games, so it should be good. And if I do end up liking this, it will open doors for me to go back and play more of the Metroid and Castlevania series, many of which I have never played or finished.

In other news, I’ve been keeping my YouTube channel updated regularly with some random video clips, and I’ll be trying something new over the next week to make it a little more interesting, so stay tuned for that.

Editing the videos themselves has been a great experience, and it’s something I’ve enjoyed doing ever since high school. Although I haven’t done it for several years now, this has been a nice way to get comfortable with it again.

I use CyberLink PowerDirector 12, which is far from pro, but it gets the job done. Microsoft used to have a good built-in movie maker in Windows, but they ditched it in favor of something that became far too simplistic and limited. There’s probably a way to get that old version back, but that’s OK; it was worth upgrading to this instead. It’s stable, the editing tools are easy, previews are quick, and there are a lot of different output options, which is nice.

But I digress. Today’s update was supposed to be about the blog, right?

Last month, I was at 36,937 words across 48 posts. Today, it’s increased by 18,898 words across 20 new posts, or about 945 words per update. Total content has increased by 34%, so I’m keeping a pretty good pace in terms of new stuff. I wrote 7 reviews, which is the most I’ve done in one month. Previously, the most I’d ever done was 4, during the first month of GHG’s existence.

Thanks again for continuing to come back and read this little blog of mine. Your readership is important to me, so I’ll do my best to keep it interesting!

Happy Fourth of July!

July 3, 2014 by Mike

GHG will be back on Monday, but I just wanted to wish everyone a fun and safe holiday weekend. We’ll be checking out the fireworks show here during the Fort Dalles Fourth, the first in over 25 years!

I plan on getting caught up on a few games over the weekend as well, including Pokemon X (3DS), Nier (PS3), and Shovel Knight (PC).

I’m about 15 hours into Game Freak’s Pokemon X — this being one of the first games in the series I’ve ever put any time into — and I’m enjoying it.

There’s something irresistible about these cute and unique monsters, figuring out what skills to keep or replace, seeing what each monster evolves into, and understanding the various characteristics of all the Pokemon in this world. As a relative newbie, I’m still rather overwhelmed by the complexity and variety on display here. Just keeping tabs on what Pokemon I’ve caught and organizing them feels like a game in and of itself. The satisfaction of whittling down a Pokemon’s health and capturing it in a Poke Ball is also pretty great.

I’m particularly impressed with Pokemon X‘s soundtrack. I was expecting a standard and light set of tunes, but there have been many times where I’ve just sat there and listened to the catchy music found all over Kalos, like the “Gate Theme”, which is just so good.

Some things about the game annoy me, like how it can be a bit difficult to position your character to speak to NPCs, or the slow pace of battles even with the animations turned off. On the flipside, the game is very pretty, and small touches — like how you physically bend down to talk to children — show great attention to detail that give the game its unique charm.

Even though I’ve put a decent amount of time into Pokemon X, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. This is the kind of game I could easily see myself sinking many, many hours into, like I did with one of my favorite Nintendo DS RPGs several years ago, Dragon Quest IX.

I just started Cavia’s Nier a few days ago, and only have a couple hours logged. It’s a game I’ve had in my backlog since 2012, and after being urged by a friend to play it for at least the past year, I decided to finally give it a shot.

From the beginning, I didn’t think I’d make it past the intro. The game suffers from sub-par visuals and a combat system that — at least initially — feels simplistic and repetitive. The first battle in Nier seems to take forever, and for a moment, I thought I was doing something wrong.

I wasn’t feeling much better a little later, as the game’s inhabitants were perfectly happy to send me on countless, mindless fetch quests. However, after I played through and finished the first dungeon — including the first boss — I started feeling differently.

There’s a lot going on in Nier, with many ideas borrowed from genres you wouldn’t think have any place in an action RPG like this, but nevertheless, they’re in here and they work quite well. The story is interesting, which is elevated by some pretty good voice acting. It was certainly better than I was expecting, with the title character Nier and your early sidekick Grimoire Weiss having solid performances.

So far, Nier is proving to be better than I was expecting, and even though it has numerous flaws that can’t be ignored, I find myself compelled to play it, and that’s what’s most important: that a game be fun.

Finally, there’s Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight, which I just wrote about yesterday. Having put around 4 hours into it so far, I’m about halfway through. It’s just a fantastic platforming adventure with so much to do.

Challenge and difficulty feel just right, although if you are not used to playing side-scrolling games like this that have limited continue points and other consequences for dying, it might initially feel punishing. It’s not Mega Man or Ninja Gaiden levels of punishing, but players just wanting to quickly fly through the game to see its ending will be met with a quick demise. In fact, many rooms are designed in such a way that you’ll take a hit and usually fall to your death — or at least get knocked back to the previous screen — if you just run in blind.

I can’t say enough about how good the game looks and sounds. Art and animation are of the highest quality, backgrounds have a ton of detail, and the music gets in your head and stays there. Jake Kaufman, with some contributions by original Mega Man composer Manami Matsumae, outdoes himself here. “La Danse Macabre”, a song that will bring to mind a very popular vampire-slaying series on the NES, is one of many standout musical pieces in what is already an amazing soundtrack.

Shovel Knight would have to seriously pull the rug out from under me at this point to fail. What a game!

GHG’s YouTube Channel

June 25, 2014 by Mike

Uh-oh, we have to watch and listen to him now?

No, not quite yet, but I’ve been thinking about it. See, I’ve never been all that comfortable in front of the camera, and I’d say, oh, I don’t know… all of the video interviews I’ve ever done have been borderline disastrous.

I promised myself earlier this year that I would face my fears. One of those is the paralyzing anxiety I experience when it comes to horror films and games. And how’s that going? Well, let’s just say I haven’t gotten more than 30 minutes into Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and I don’t know if that’s going to change anytime soon.

So with that not-so-successful venture still fresh in my mind, I figured now would be the right time to step into the unforgiving — but totally fascinating — world of YouTube. I’ve been fine in the past speaking in front of large groups at work, but there’s something about that camera being right in your face.

Maybe it’s the permanence, or the fact that I’m just not used to seeing myself on video. With a blog, you have a protective shield of words and pictures around you, but with video, it’s all out there. It’s no longer just about the content, but equally about the talking head delivering it.

Even though that all does sound a bit terrifying, I’m really looking forward to giving it a shot! I think it’ll be a lot of fun, and perhaps I’ll discover a side of myself I never knew existed.

I just set up GHG’s YouTube page today. You can find and subscribe to it here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/grayhairedgamer

I’ll do my best to keep it updated regularly with content, although the blog will remain my primary focus. And with any luck, I’ll still have time left over to actually play some games.

Two months at GHG

June 16, 2014 by Mike

When I was younger, I remember my dad telling me, “Just you wait… soon you’ll be looking at your life in terms of decades instead of years.” Although great things have happened to me in my thirties — I got married to the love of my life, adopted a beautiful Rottweiler, bought and sold two homes, and lived in three states — they were certainly a blur. Some things are humorously coincidental, like the fact that exactly ten years ago, I was in a similar situation: between jobs, living at home, catching up on games, and thinking a lot about the future.

And here I am, already two months into writing this little blog of mine. It’s been a great experience so far, and it’s cool to see how it’s growing.

Since last month, I’ve added 22,798 words in 25 posts, for an average of 911.56 words per post. Some entries have definitely been longer than others, but I’ve tried my best to maintain some semblance of sanity with their length. Total content has increased by 61.72% over the past month.

I’m not sure how effective subscriptions are these days since most folks stay connected to website content via news aggregators and social media, but I saw an increase of 62.5% from 3 to 8. Not all that significant, but something to point out nonetheless.

Top keywords continue to be consistent from last month: game(s), like, time, good, just, and really. I just really like spending time with good games.

An all-time total of 1,146 views and 52 comments also seems low, but I haven’t done much to promote the blog. I might start looking at ways to broaden my audience soon, but I’ve wanted to stay focused on content up to this point.

Anyway, thanks again for visiting and reading GHG, as well as for the support you’ve shown on the various social media sites. The journey has just begun!

The King of Arcades is here!

June 7, 2014 by Mike

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is one of my favorite videogame documentaries. It’s such an interesting and surprisingly human look into the world of competitive gaming as it relates to one of the most important games of all-time: Nintendo’s 1981 hit Donkey Kong. Whoever’s side you’re on — whether it be the larger than life Billy Mitchell or the humble every man Scott Wiebe — you’re left with a new appreciation (and also sympathy) for those whose hearts belong to the arcades of the ’80s in pursuit of the High Score.

Fast-forward to late 2012, when a small Kickstarter project called The King of Arcades appeared, focusing on Space Invaders world record holder Richie Knucklez. It received little attention, and I don’t remember how I even heard about it, but once I read what it was about and who was involved, I knew I had to back it. It was slow going, but it successfully met its mild $40,000 funding goal, plus another 16%.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world was still buzzing from the wildly successful Double Fine Adventure and Wasteland 2 Kickstarters, which raised a staggering $3.3 million and $2.9 million respectively. While I think those are great and certainly set a strong precedent for crowdsourcing’s potential, I prefer the little guys. Problem is, they’re hard to find. I wish discovery on Kickstarter was easier, because I’m sure for every small gaming-based project I back, I’ve missed dozens of others that have been equally deserving.

And now, after a year and a half, the finished product has finally arrived. Like most Kickstarters, following the project from beginning to end has been a lot of fun, and Sean Tiedeman has kept his backers apprised of its progress every step of the way. He’s also a genuinely nice guy who responds to emails quickly, making me even happier that I was able to fund this project.

The DVD itself came double-wrapped, so as not to damage the case. Always a nice touch. With Garbage Pail Kids-inspired cover and insert art by Joe Simko, the packaging is attractive and really stands out. Also included is an extra insert signed by Richie Knucklez, Director Sean Tiedeman, and Producer Krystle-Dawn Willing. The disc is designed like a quarter, easily the one coin all of us arcade-goers associate with the most. Those and tokens, of course.

I haven’t watched it yet, but plan on doing so over the weekend. I’ve intentionally not read too much about its actual content so that I can go in as fresh as possible, and I can’t wait. I’m sure it’ll be a fascinating journey through the arcade-rich history I so fondly remember from childhood.

What I’m playing right now: Swords, Courts, and Karts

May 30, 2014 by Mike

My father-in-law’s now recuperating in the comfort of his own home and bed, which is great, but my wife came down with a pretty bad case of food poisoning last night. Long story short, we were up until dawn, and didn’t get to sleep until about 6 this morning. As they say, when it rains, it pours. Yin and yang, or something like that.

Anyway, after such a stressful week, I’m looking forward to some quality game time this weekend. Here’s what I’ll be playing:

A couple weeks ago, I started Fire Emblem: Awakening on the 3DS, even though I’m not a big fan of strategy games. I just finished The Exalt and the King (Chapter 5), so I have a long, long way to go, but I’m enjoying it so far. I’m playing it on Casual, even though I’m sure this irks Fire Emblem purists to no end. The game is still pretty tough, however, and vital units can get wiped out in a single turn if you’re not careful.

The amount of content in Awakening is impressive. In addition to the main quest, there are a number of sidequests to complete as well, so this game will be keeping me busy for quite some time. I’m extremely impressed by the game’s production value. The animated cutscenes by Madhouse are gorgeous, and put a lot of regular console games to shame. The soundtrack is equally impressive, providing great drama and tension to story and battle scenes alike.

About the only thing I don’t care for is the sporadic voice-over. It’s distracting, and tarnishes the shine of what is an otherwise superlative game. I’m also feeling slightly overwhelmed by the already high number of units I have at my disposal, but I’d rather have more to deal with than too little.

I played and finished the first Phoenix Wright game back in 2012. While I really liked it initially, it became tediously long and definitely wore out its welcome by the time it was over. This could be due to the DS version’s extra content, but whatever the case, I was relieved when it ended, only giving it a C+.

Now that a couple years have passed, I felt ready to jump back into the series. It’s very familiar so far, and I’m liking that. The mildly remixed music is nostalgic, and it’s great to see old friends and colleagues return. I’m enjoying the story so far, and the new cast has been quite eccentric. I wouldn’t expect anything less after the crew from first game.

I’ve only completed the first case, and that trial had a good flow with testimony and cross-examination that made sense. Some of them were so vaguely indeterminate to me in the first game that I had to resort to using a guide on more than one occasion. I’m hopeful that I won’t have to do the same here. So far, though, I’m digging this.

Finally, my copy of Mario Kart 8 should be arriving at some point today, and I’m very excited to start playing it! I’m not really the target Mario Kart player, though, since I like to play solo most of the time. I suppose that’s why most games in the series haven’t really done much for me. I’d rather have a goal/adventure-based format like Diddy Kong Racing instead of straight classes and groups of tracks. Seriously, why haven’t they made more games like that Rare classic?

In any case, I’m hopeful that MK8 rekindles my love for the series. I was addicted to Super Mario Kart on the SNES, and I haven’t liked any of the subsequent entries nearly as much. Maybe this will be the one that breaks that cycle. By all accounts and reviews, it looks like an undeniable gem of a racer. As a Wii U owner, that’s very, very good news.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for your continued support and readership here at GHG.

Cancer sucks

May 26, 2014 by Mike

Updates at GHG will be light this week since my father-in-law goes in for radical prostatectomy surgery tomorrow morning. This will change his life and the lives of those who are close to him in ways we don’t even know yet.

Although I am not ready to talk about it, one day soon I will. In the words of Wil Wheaton from one of my favorite films Stand By Me, my message to all cancers of the world: “Suck my fat one, you cheap dime store hood.”

5/28/14 Update: Well, after a long two days, we are back home.

My father-in-law had the surgery done yesterday at the Portland VA Medical Center. He went in for pre-op around 9:30 in the morning, and we didn’t see him until about 9 that night, so it was a long, long day.

The good news is that everything went really well, and that there was no indication that the cancer had spread anywhere else, which was a huge relief for all of us to hear! Almost miraculously, he was already up and walking around a bit today, had a good appetite, and his pain meds were kept to a minimum.

He was his usual joking self, although laughing would make his abdominal area hurt, so we tried — and our attempts were futile — to limit the funnies. We justified it by saying that laughing would strengthen his core and speed up his recovery, which of course, caused more laughing.

Anyway, with any luck, he’ll be coming home this Friday to continue the long road to 100% recovery. We are all very, very thankful for the doctors and staff at the VA. They were all caring, knowledgeable, and took great care of my father-in-law before, during, and after his surgery.

Despite the stress, lack of sleep, and emotion of the day, I did get some “gaming” in while we waited yesterday. Although I can’t claim to have completed the entire thing, this puzzle kept us busy into the evening hours:

It actually made me want to put more puzzles together, so I might have to buy a few in the near future. Videogame-themed ones, of course.

Thank you so much for the kind emails, messages, and calls we received over the past few days. In times like these, having so many caring and loving people around us has made all the difference in the world.

GHG’s 1-month anniversary

May 14, 2014 by Mike

As with any new goal, hitting the 1-month mark is a good feeling. It makes getting to future milestones — 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, even 5 years — that much more achievable. When I set out to create this blog, I made a promise to myself that I would write for it every day, unless something absolutely prevented me from doing so. Even if nobody saw it, even if a post could be read out loud in one breath, at least I would know that I did what I set out to do.

Although I mentioned the other day that I was not a fan of statistics in college, I do like numbers and the stories they can tell. Via Word Stats, seeing the “14,139” total words written over the past month is cool. Several more months of this, and I’ll have enough words for a book or a few screenplays. Sometimes I think I should be putting my time into that sort of writing, but the way I see it, keeping at this blog could evolve into something bigger. Who knows? Whatever the future may hold, games are at the core of who I am and what I’ve done throughout most of my career, so it’s exciting to be putting my energy into something I love again.

The top 5 keywords for GHG are: game(s), like, time, overall, and great. It comes as no surprise that I use the words “game” and “games” too much in my posts, and I do struggle with that! It seems redundant since this is a gaming blog, but it tends to get typed a lot, so I’ll have to keep a closer eye there. Same goes for the others. I read everything out loud before publishing to help with clarity, flow, and readability, and some days are more successful than others. Coffee and sleep do make a big difference. Looking back on some of my posts makes me cringe, but I see those as valuable lessons on what to avoid for future updates.

In closing, thanks for visiting and reading GHG, as well as for the support you’ve shown on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. You can find and follow me on any of those by clicking on the icons in the upper-right corner of the site.

Here’s to month 2!

A light Thursday update

May 1, 2014 by Mike

I haven’t been sleeping well this week, and I feel like I’ve been sapped of all my energy today… did a Shadow from Persona 4 cast Enervation on me or something?

Anyway, speaking of “light”, the PC/Uplay version of Child of Light is currently on sale at Green Man Gaming for $12 using promo code FUSWJT-B1DU64-JBV8UY. The code is good until 8AM on May 2nd (tomorrow). The code works for other titles as well, but as someone who grew up with and still loves beautiful and lovingly crafted 2D games, I wanted to call out Child of Light specifically. It looks amazing, and I can’t wait to play it!

I also gave in and picked up Tales of Symphonia Chronicles for the PS3, which is currently 50% off for PlayStation Plus subscribers, making it only $10. I haven’t played through a game in this series since the first Tales of Destiny on the original PlayStation. I really enjoyed that one, despite its insanely high encounter rate, so I’m sure it will be an eye-opener to see how the series has changed over the years. The Japanese version had one of my favorite intros of that generation.

Finally, I’m in mid-January in Persona 4 Golden. I was hoping to finish it today or tomorrow, but with how I’m feeling, I don’t know if that’ll happen. The bed is calling my name, as if I just came back from the TV World. My next update on this game, however, should be the review.

Weekends at Gray-Haired Gamer

April 19, 2014 by Mike

When I started GHG a week ago, one of the promises I made to myself was that I would write something here at least once a day. I want to treat it as seriously as I would any job that I love. However, over the years, I have also come to appreciate the importance of a healthy work/life balance. Not just to prevent burnout, but to spend time with my wife, family, friends, and to enjoy the vast world outside of gaming.

That’s why weekend updates here will be rare, or they may be of a more random, off-topic nature. They might also be quick recaps and reflections on what I’ve written during the week.

As the saying goes from the incomparable Calvin and Hobbes, “It’s a magical world … let’s go exploring!”

Gray-Haired Gamer

Gaming in my forties

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