Your Favourite Worst Nightmare: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Your Home Town: You’ve just about forgotten the day you stepped off that train into a life of Inadvertent Leadership. Neighbros have come and gone. Friends have visited your larger than life world with its zen garden, and the lonely lighthouse keeping watch over the cliff as it ushers Kappa safe passage to the Island. Your house now looks fit for a king as you sit in front of your fireplace every night wondering when next that horse will make an unannounced visit. Your museum has reached a new level of cultural sophistication and yet there’s still so much left to explore.

Your Favourite Worst Nightmare: The “Single White Stallion” Edition

My Layton vs Your Phoenix, Part I

It was just shy of two years ago when I popped that unassuming DS cartridge in my 3DS. It certainly was an unattractive little cartridge that was an ugly blue with a white silhouette of a character loved by many but unknown to me. I remember not being overly impressed upon a play through of the first few chapters... but yes, I was incredibly impressed by the start: a body on the floor, blood slowly pooling around the victim and a heinous plot hatched by an evil looking, twisted faced man to blame an innocent passerby. Then in came a short monologue, cheesy courtroom drama channeling all sorts of early 1990s Law & Order music and a bumbling idiot named Larry Butz who you had to defend. The shift in tone made me scratch my head: exactly what had I gotten myself into?

Flashback Friday: Family Woes!

The 14th day of February never really meant that much to me. With retailers’ ploys to grab at your hard-earned cash to be spent on lots of wasted paper and cheap chocolates; I never understood why a special day had to be set aside for those shenanigans. But I remember that one year I got something incredibly special as a Valentine’s Day present. It was gifted to me by my awesome Father during a time when I was still a student and without the means to buy games for myself. It was presented to me unwrapped, and behind the red paper cut out heart that read “ To My Little One, Happy Valentine’s Day - Love Daddy” was a menacing, half-eaten zombie face. Indeed, my father with his amazing sense of humour had gifted me a bloody Valentine of Resident Evil 2.

Observations on Video Gaming and Reflections on Life in Trinidad, W.I.

 
With its ice-cream coloured houses, congested highways and local roads, higher food prices, the scattered produce with all manners of tropical fruit, and live animal stands for your fresh goat’s meat lining the country roads; there are many ways in which life in Trinidad has remained the same but in so many ways, it has changed significantly. The changes are glaring and evolving with every new visit and I think my sister said it best when she remarked that it’s as viewing the country with a different pair of eyes every single time.

Story Time and Pajamas: The Dream Team Launch Event at Nintendo World, NYC

Another Mario Luigi and Mario RPG game is out, everyone (as if you all did not already know)! It's called Dream Team, it's for the 3DS and I have not even opened up the game yet. Nope! What I did do on Saturday however, was skip to Nintendo World for a Pajama Party complete with musical chairs, story time, popcorn, drinks, cupcakes, the chance to dance with Luigi and Mario and of course, the ability to purchase a copy of the game a day before release.

Mushroom Hunting

It was always on those mornings when I had just enough time to scour the freshly cut, dew laden lawn for those tiny mushrooms that dared to grow, that I knew the day would be a decent one. "Hey!", my sister would threaten, "what are you doing?! Don't do it..." With a knowing, mischievous chuckle I would kick one of my finds down. Sometimes the cap would stick to my shoe along with grass blades. But it was the ones that went flying clear across the lawn that made me laugh triumphantly. The other morning I found a few scattered about after having not seen them for some while. One down. Then another. However, my usual joyful glee - at having destroyed the imaginary fairies resting atop their mushroom capped stools - turned pensive.

August is here and my thoughts usually turn to Christmas of all things this month. Maybe it's that I have an utter dislike for August as it's so dull that I prefer to look forward to things I care about such as Autumn with its orange glow, Halloween and the Holidays. I know better times await in September where life feels like it begins anew. The yellow buses make you late to work, the daylight fades earlier and gives pause for quiet reflection in those oncoming chilly nights. It is in those moments that I would find myself looking forward to new adventures on the train. In that two hour commute, I usually would spend the time diving into a new game or listening to some new music.

When It Rains...

I am beginning to fear all these feelings will be lost on me in 25 days or so.

When I saw the mushrooms in the yard I knew there was a story there to be told. I was not sure which direction it would. I kicked a lot of ideas around, one being that I was going to inquire about everyone’s favourite hunting and exploration songs when it occurred to me that I have not felt like adventuring through video games at all lately.

I pondered if everything I have turned on is just not engaging to me. Where is the sense of wonder that I felt when I first booted up Final Fantasy VII? Where is the tale of woe I want to be tortured by as with Dragon Quest IX? I thought Breath of Fire IV could capture my imagination but 16 hours in I put it down and instead spent my days being terrorized by psychedelic rams and horses with stalker personalities in Animal Crossing. I am still holding out hope that that wonderful feeling of immersion will happen whenever I start playing Ni No Kuni.

Then I realized the problem is not in the games sitting on my shelves and whether I think the newer ones just do not have that intriguing quality that begs you to get lost in their worlds. (Goodness knows that my times spent enjoying meteor showers and turnip pricing stresses in Animal Crossing have been nothing but amazing).

Sometimes...

...sometimes, it's the little moments like these that give me pause for quiet reflection. As… Read more zarnyx.​kinja.​com

The problem lies with me.

My heart is not fully in it. I know that worries stemming from unemployment and guilt outweigh my desire to allow myself playing anything and having fun are partially to blame.

I miss the Rock Plaza farmer's market too...

I miss the routine of scheduled two hour commute playtime. As hectic as life could be and as much complaining I did whenever work got in the way of spending time by myself and managing a few hours a week to play something, there was always a purpose there. Playing games then always felt more rewarding.

My situation is not unique and my current status is a temporary set back which I perceive as an opportunity for me to explore other options. I recognize that I'm fortunate that I have a first world problem of trying to choose what game I want to get into next, if at all. However, my other concern is the one I’ve been feeling for a while: maybe I am losing the will to play anything.

The act of getting me to start a new game can sometimes feel a bit of a chore. I know once I dive in I'd probably have all the fun in the world.

Curse these limitations on "Zarnyx"! Zarn's okay though. Or maybe I should have called him "Zyx"! Meh. Too late now. Either way it's very inspired, right?

And so I started Earhbound hoping for an adventure to get me out of a slump. I'm no more than an hour in but as with most JRPGs, at start I was prompted to name the one I would control. In that one prompt screen alone where the first thing the game asked me was to "name him" by that odd gesture, I felt a smile drawing across my face. The next screen appeared and I started having a little bit of a laugh, "Name Her too". Well, I thought, this game is going to be quite the bizarre and ridiculous little thing everyone claims it to be... and to have even more fun, I began sprinkling my current life and some of the aliases I knew into my future adventure.

Of course. As long as my eyes do not get pecked out.

I named my other friend GBD due to his love of all things Nintendo. This though...maybe I was just being a bit of a jerk. A loving jerk!

I wanted to include everyone and I am expecting hilarious things from this inclusion.

I think this just about covers it.

Yeah, I have no idea why my brain failed me right here. I cannot wait to see what happens with this though. I hope it makes me swoon.

I'm actually enjoying my adventuring thus far. Who knows what the future will bring for me in the 25 days from now, just as I don't know what lies ahead in the however many hours I will spend with Zarn, Swan, GBD, Habbo! and TAY with my love of meat and Loki, saving the world from an alien invasion or whatever strange little twists and turns await.

Ah yes. I knew I was not wrong naming things as ridiculously as possible. It's criminal to not name things as ridiculously as possible!

In 25 plus days, a few things will happen with an almost certainty: the air is going to change to feel crisp and refreshing, the twilight will come faster, the buses will be lined up to carry those excited, curious and/or down-trodden children to school and life will move on. There's hope and adventure in everything and those mushrooms will continue to dare to grow. And I will continue to hunt them and kick them down with a joyful glee just as I will continue to seek the thrill of an adventure created for me in the stories my video games will tell, even if I may need a little push some times these days.

I'm looking forward to it all and dreading it at the same time.

Yes, yes I am.

Brooklyn Barcade: Getting Your Drink On

With my Adventure Time t-shirt and my Gorillaz Chuck Taylors on*, I trekked my way into unknown territory last night. For the first time ever in all the years that I have been living in NY, I set foot in Williamsburg, NYC. I figured I needed to dress the part some because to infiltrate and understand the hipsters, you must become one like the hipsters. I don't think I'd ever fully be able to succeed in that regard and my War on the hipsters continues but the point of the evening was for something far more entertaining than made-up wars in my head. I went to play some classic, glorious video games on some glorious arcade machines and met up with some like-minded awesome people at the Brooklyn Barcade.

Oh, how clever a name! The Brooklyn Barcade is exactly what you think it is: a place where you can not only get your gaming on but for getting your drank on as well. It's so much more than that though. It houses some great machines and waves of nostalgia to immerse yourself in. Even if you never had the opportunity to experience some of the games before, there's something undeniably charming about a lot of them in their routine simplicity. There's love in the way they are presented. My memories of Ms Pacman (though my sister and I preferred Pacman Jr.) were joystick related. Here though, there's magic in the feel of your hand on the arcade stick. It's all in the environment of an arcade that gives it so much feeling; it's in the immersion of you and the machine in front of you; and inserting quarters into the slot, hearing it drop in with that beautiful sound of 'acceptance' and bringing up that screen that tells you to press start to play.

Of course, a couple of the machines ate some of my quarters. $3.50 was all I had to my name to be shared among my friend B and fellow TAY'er UI 2.0 but I was pressed for time too and we made do. But you know, even the machine eating your quarters is somehow part of that experience. Sure you feel all mad and there's the moment of frantic tapping on the start button to see if you can get the game to start up, along with your cry of disbelief of "...this ?$@!#!$! ate my quarter!" (yep, you totally shout it out in Q*Bert style**. Of course! It's the only way to do these things).

I've only been to a few arcades - some really colourful ones in Japan with their sensory overload on colours, sounds and pigs; and the Chicken Arcade in Chinatown, NYC - and being in the Brooklyn Arcade felt a bit much like the arcade in Chinatown but less shady, less cramped and more relaxed. It's dark, with the glow from every machine helping to light the place while calling to you in an enticing manner. The machines sort of silently stand there and lure you in with their little demos jogging your memories while displaying exactly what sort of fun you're about to dive into.

Flashback Friday Fun Times: So Many UFO Catchers, So Little Time

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I did not have a lot of time to spend at the arcade unfortunately and so choosing which games to play was a hard one. Being that there were three of us as well meant we tried to pick a game where we could all die together. And die together we did with our choice of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

B took Donatello, UI played as Michelangelo (mmhmm, no surprise) and I was Raphael (why would I be any other turtle?)

B and I had been eye-balling the Tapper machine since we stepped in because who does not want to play a game where you serve beer to angry customers in a video game bar while you're being an 'angry' customer with your beer in hand in a bar that houses video games? That's right. Think on that.

Ah, the memories of the Swan and her master like skills and her gracefulness at Tapper.

I don't know what it is with my like of swinging from vines in any of my games but the fact that the controls were "jump" and "knife" made me quite intrigued by Jungle Hunt. Unfortunately, my jungle jumping skills are not so skillful and I fell to my demise before I got to any knifing.

When I do swing though, it's all stylish like. Look at that. It's the fall you should be ignoring. That never happened regardless of what I just told you previously.

With my 3Ds in tow, I got quite the number of hits but this trip to the arcade was not just for the appreciation of the awesome gaming machines with their awesome siren song games but also to meet and greet with NYC-based video game critics and writers. I got my 3DS out because I saw our very own Jason Schreier from Kotaku at the bar. At some point I had my head down clearing my Streetpass Mii plaza, and when next I looked up there he was chatting away talking about all the 3DS Streetpass features and the clearing he needed to do as well to be able to tag UI and myself. I will forgive that he could not quite hear me or "know" who I was, while secretly shaking my fist, but I finally tagged (and met!) Jason after missing my opportunity to do so the first time at the Legend of Zelda concert.

Flashback Friday Fun Times: ...It's Dangerous to go without an Ocarina!

Your legs aren't wobbly, the air is not thinning, you can breathe and you're not having a … Read more

He was quite fun from just the few minutes I got to spend with him and utmost respect to him for his Zelda 3DS edition too. High Five to you, Jason! And yes, a 3DS XL is so much more beautiful in screen size but hey, I'm just going to keep dreaming that a Majora's Mask edition will come out and only then will I be able to live a peaceful, happy life.

But no high five for the lack of pink pieces to share in the Puzzle Swap. In fact, this was the only one I could take from him. What the stuff, man?!

I also got to shake hands and chat a while with Tina. I think she realized I was milling about to make an introduction and I felt bad for that but I did not want to be rude and blast my way into her conversation. Tina was very sweet and it was great meeting her and just having a little bit of a chat. Unfortunately she gave me the bad news that Evan was going to be there a bit later and seeing as I had to go, I sadly missed meeting him and finally putting to rest and confirming that Zarnyx is indeed female (and maybe try to push secret shameless plugs for TAY... shhh, maybe next time on the TAY business TAY-folk. Only kidding! No one saw anything!). 

It was quite the pleasant evening: I had laughs with UI and B, I got my @#$!?! handed to me by Rocksteady, I tossed some beers into the wall while taking a moment to watch the Can-Can girls dance, and left with new memories built on top of old memories from some of my favourite games. I intend to go back one day for a longer period to play more of those games, even if it means walking into enemy territory*** once more.

*Yes, I also wore pants before anyone says anything.

**For a Memorable Conversation in the language of Q*Bert, click here.

Memorable Q*Bert Conversations of Last Evening

***No Hipsters were hurt in the making of this post.