Real Neat Blog Round 3

And another one! This time I was nominated by Red Metal of Extra Life. They do very in-depth game and film reviews. Check em out if you haven’t already. Also, thank you for the nomination.

For those not in the know here are the approximate rules for this tag:

• Thank the person who nominated you (done)
• Answer their seven questions
• Ask 7 of your own questions and nominate 7 (or 4) people to answer them

Let’s get into it.

1) What is your favorite variety of meat? Or if you don’t eat meat what is your favorite meat substitute?

I really like fish. Part of that stems from only really being introduced to it as an adult, so I haven’t had years to get bored of eating it. It is also easy to cook. I find it a lot easier to tell when fish is fully cooked compared to the other meats which I’ll usually slightly overcook because I’m less confident they’re done.

2) If you could permanently remove one installment from a series you like (which would erase its existence from everyone’s memory), which one would you choose?

I don’t know. Most installments I’d want to do this to already have more than a singular unfavourable entry, so it’d be a bit of a waste to only remove part of the problem rather than the whole problem.

I suppose I’ll go with Paper Mario: Sticker Star. That game was what originally got me to jump from the DS to the 3DS and I still have animosity because of that. It is entirely devoid of the personality that made the games which came before it, yes even Super Paper Mario, so enjoyable. Even the music feel completely uninspired. Someone out there might miss this game, but I certainly wouldn’t.

3) If you lost a bet, would you rather read the worst book, play the worst game, listen to the worst album, or watch the worst film that you know of?

I regularly lose bets to my friends and am forced to play games they know I won’t like because of it. That’s how I got roped into playing both Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and Hyper Dimension Neptunia RE;Birth 1, both of which I didn’t enjoy largely for the same reasons. We always wager games because…well we all play games.

That said, games would not be my choice here.

Of the four options available I’d go with watching the worst film. The reason for this is that films are the most passive experience out of the listed options. Plus movies have the added benefit of, generally, being about two hours in length. I could even be asked to sit through the much longer The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies again if it meant I got out of having to play a terrible game.

4) If you won a bet, what kind of punishment would be in store for your friend?

As explained above, if my friends make me play games I’m not going to enjoy what do you think I subject them to? Now to be fair, all of the games I nominate as their punishment are games I think are good. I very deliberately select genres or mechanics I know will bother the recipient. As an example, my friend who doesn’t like backtracking or platforming was made to play Hollow Knight following one of the bets I won. Great game, but not a great fit for his tastes.

5) What is your favorite month of the year?

I don’t have one. March and April are when the oppressive Canadian winter stops, but they never have a consistent stat holiday due to the ever changing date of Easter. June is the month of my birthday, which automatically makes it terrible, plus it has no stat holiday. July through September is far too warm thanks to the summer heat. October through February are almost invariably a shit-show of terrible weather, made worse so once the winter actually starts.

. . .

I guess it’s May. May is my favourite month by virtue of not having terrible weather, always having a consistent stat holiday, and not giving me an additional arbitrary reason to dislike it.

6) What is a piece of obscure trivia you like to mention during social gatherings?

I try to let other people do most of the talking at social gatherings so I don’t actually have a piece of obscure trivia to mention. Perhaps I should acquire one and keep it in my back pocket in case a scenario that requires it ever arises, much in the way I keep a joke, current politics, and sports related news handy.

7) If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose? In this hypothetical situation, assume your choice would grant you complete fluency in the area’s official language.

Somewhere where the winter isn’t as oppressive. With more mild temperatures throughout the year. Does anyone know of such a place? Let me know in the comments if you’re familiar with this holy land. If such a place doesn’t exist I’ll stay where I’m at. I’m content here even if the weather sucks. It could always be worse.

8) What is the longest amount of time you’ve ever driven a car or other vehicle in one sitting?

I don’t have a license anymore and never bothered to go beyond my learners permit, so forty minutes maybe? It’d have been one of my DriversEd classes and those were about thirty minutes with some start and stop time variance. I don’t particularly care for driving entirely because of the other people on the road.

9) What is the most annoying fictional character you can think of?

The Handler from Monster Hunter: World. I wish you could kill NPCs in that game. I’d have already killed her. She is an absolute tit. Come to think of it, I don’t think this is the first time I’ve complained about her on my blog either. And my hatred for her was only strengthened with the Iceborne expansion.

10) What is the most underrated fictional character you can think of?

Professor Oak is pretty cool. He’s set several generations of kids up on their first Pokémon journeys and he doesn’t really get any credit for it. You keep fighting the good fight, Oak.

11) With the decade coming to a close, would you say this was a good period for films, comics, animation, music, literature, or video games?

Generally speaking: yes. I don’t know if there was as many big leaps in improvement or innovation compared to previous decades, but there were still a number of notable successes critically and commercially throughout the decade that I’d say put the entire decade in a net positive state. The two examples that had the biggest impact for me were the rise of the indie game and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While I got into the movement late, the rise in digital distribution saw a huge serge of successful smaller titles released in the last ten years. Games which simply wouldn’t be viable as big budget games have been developed and released to a lot of success. Genres I really enjoyed which weren’t being serviced adequately by the main stream were finally able to flourish in this new environment.

My favourite part of this has been seeing the Metroidvania scene explode to the point where some people groan now if a game is described as one. While several games try to get by simply imitating the greatness of what came before, there have been a few notable releases within this sub-genre that I think raised the bar for the sub-genre. Hollow Knight is one of my favourites for having such a well realized non-linear map and progression. And Gaucamelee infused brawler mechanics that had both combat and exploration utility. The influence for these games is clear, but they manage to become so much more than mere imitations.

As for the MCU, while some outspoken members of the film industry may not like them, they are a huge multi-media success on a scale that we haven’t ever seen before. If you were told in 2010 that super hero movies would kick off a decade long series that would culminate in 2019’s Avengers Endgame with millions of people worldwide cheering in theaters would you have believed it? I wouldn’t have. Typically the individual films aren’t more than popcorn muncher action flicks, but the combined success of the whole franchise is noteworthy. At least I think it is. I don’t know that we’ll ever see something like this again – not for some time at least.

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Holy Moses. Some of those were long answers. I hope I didn’t put any of you to sleep. Red Metal is out here asking all the interesting questions. Again, thank you for the nomination. I had fun writing up the answers.

I said I would actually nominate people and ask questions in my last one of these so here are the questions and the nominations. Have fun with them.

1) Have you ever been really excited for a game only to be disappointed by it?

2) Is there any aspect of your life, big or small, that you’re not completely content with and that you frequently think about changing?

3) Can you tell me a joke?

4) I recently read that how evil a company is directly correlates to how honest and heartfelt the company tries to appear in their advertising. Do you think there is any truth to this?

5) We all have post styles, or series that we create on our blogs. What is your favourite post style/series on your blog?

6) Light theme, or dark theme?

7) What’s something you accomplished in past several months that you’re really proud of?

Pete Davison – Moe Gamer

Pix – Shoot the Rookie

NekoJonez – NekoJonez’s Gaming Blog

Quietschisto – RNG

Thanks for reading!