My Valentine this year? Snow Queen Elsa of Arendelle.

So it was Valentine’s Day a few hours back, which coincided with the Chinese equivalent according to the lunar calendar. Big deal for some, not so for others.  As for me, today itself was not really special; some of the days before were. And a few days of last week as well.

As most people would, I enjoy going to the cinema with friends. I also enjoy going to the cinema alone, more so than I enjoy going with friends, in fact. This is because I get to watch what I want, (almost) when I want without needing to worry if someone has already watched something. And, if I feel like it, I can watch it again, without guilt-tripping my friends who wouldn’t want to watch something that someone has already watched, even if said someone does not mind – or even actually wants to be – watching it again. So, in light of this, I, Ian Chee, will, for the first time, be doing a brief movie review on a few movies I’ve watched recently. So here they are, in no particular order other than the bad ones first before the good ones (except for the last one, which was kept last for a few reasons). Oh, and spoiler alert. Most can’t be helped because when the shitty bit is the story, it’s difficult to complain about it without mentioning it.

First is ‘I, Frankenstein’. This was one which I looked forward to watching, but left me with mixed feelings as I left the cinema. The movie starts off pretty much where the original novel ended, with some changes. Victor Frankenstein tried to kill his monster, Adam. Adam was not happy, came back, killed Victor’s wife. Victor was not happy, proceeded to hunt Adam. Adam escapes to the cold north; Victor pursues but dies due to the extreme cold. Then it starts to get a little crazy. Demons show up wanting to capture Adam but were stopped by gargoyles. Gargoyles, of all things.

To see why this is a problem, we first need to know what gargoyles are. Gargoyles are originally ornamental drains used to let water flow out of buildings. Because of their beastly design, they are said to either protect whatever they happen to be guarding (or whatever they happen to be on, essentially) and scare off evil spirits, or are evil spirits themselves. So the guys making the movie must have gone with the first idea and then decided to take it up to eleven by making them the soldiers of the archangel St. Michael.

Then there is a major inconsistency in the plot. Gargoyles can only be killed by soulless beings, like demons and living corpses or zombies like Adam. So at some point Adam manages to kill the gargoyle captain. Then further down the plot it is revealed that demons can only possess soulless beings, such as living corpses or zombies like Adam. But somehow Adam survives a possession unscathed. The transition was never revealed; it just sort of happened.

Then there’s the character himself. Adam starts of like any other abomination; self-aware of his unnatural state of being, socially awkward. Then he suddenly becomes a chatterbox.

Other than that, the plot progression was alright, the fight scenes were not too bad and the CG was actually good. Though for those who have not watched it, I wouldn’t recommend doing so; you’re better off spending your money watching something better, like some others in this list of mine. But before we get to that, let’s get another rubbish show out of the way.

And that rubbish is ‘The Legend of Hercules’. Cheap CG, poor characters (especially the main character), and a very draggy story towards the end. In fact the CG is so poor it looks worse than the worst from Hong Kong, and that’s saying something considering the best of the CG bits in Hong Kong movies look like they’ve been done in under three minutes. Then there’s the cheap soft-core porn scene which was not cut, a rare thing in Malaysian cinema. Maybe this was because the movie was so dreary that the old creeps of the censorship department got sick of watching the whole movie that they missed it, hence why it was not cut out and kept for their own pleasure. Bottom line is, don’t watch. If you get a free ticket then watch if you must (personally, if I got one I would burn it), but don’t ever give it to a friend; the only thing crueller you can do to said friend is give them AIDS.

The next one also left me a bit ambivalent. ‘The Monkey King’. Obviously meant for kids, this is another movie with cheap CG (not surprising this time as it is movie from Hong Kong), slow pace and puppy love. Keeping that in mind, this isn’t all that bad. The only problem is the cast. Donnie Yen as the Monkey King (you wouldn’t be able to tell with all that fur makeup anyway), Chow Yuen Fat as the Jade Emperor and Aaron Kwok as the big baddie. Yes, let that sink in: the stereotypical good-guy character as the big baddie. That said, it wouldn’t be a waste of your money if you do decide to watch it on the big screen, although I do maintain that you can do much better.

Then there’s ‘From Vegas to Macau’, your typical Hong Kong gambling flick. It was entertaining, but saying that it’s good is a bit of a stretch. The story, while respectable, is getting too clichéd and overused, and the plot twists, while you may or may not see them coming, you won’t be surprised they happened either. Then there’s the slightly confusing ending, because while Chow Yuen Fat plays the main character in this, another of his character from the ‘God of Gamblers’ series of movies makes an appearance, namely the God of Gamblers himself. All in all, worth your money, but won’t really blow your mind.

Now we come to the gems of the season. The first is one that I didn’t expect to be this great, considering it’s a Malaysian movie. It’s called ‘The Journey’, and it will probably drive you to tears. The story is about a girl who was sent away to the UK by her father when she was eight, and returns with plans of getting married to her Caucasian boyfriend. Along the way the story presents very relatable dilemmas of the modern day population of young adults, with the main ones being the generation gap between the X and Y generations, their different takes on tradition as well as the cultural differences between East and West and difficulties that arise when they come together. Speaking of the generation gap between X and Y, this movie also highlights the problem of how some old folks, in this day and age, insist on staying inside caves and getting water from a river or well instead of a tap, and how some of their peers have managed to move with the times into a modern world.

This is a story too good to spoil, and is pretty much faultless anyway. The only problem is the female lead. Seeing as the character is one that has been in the UK since she was eight, is it really too much to ask to get an actress that can actually speak English? You don’t need someone with an accent; just someone who speaks English! Someone who doesn’t say ‘troubow’ or ‘respek’ or ‘considellate’ or ‘deaw’ or ‘wif’. I could go on forever.

The point is, the perfect Malaysian production movie is potentially spoiled by their inability to find someone who can speak English instead of Engrish to play the female lead. This gargantuan fly in the ointment aside, this movie is not only perfect for a Malaysian production, it is perfect. Period. Full stop. I would recommend you to watch. I would also recommend you recommend it to others. Especially older folks; they can really learn to deal with modernisation from this movie.

This next one is good and not surprisingly so. It is ‘RoboCop’. Slightly different from the classic RoboCop, which might irk older fans (myself included, even when I’m not that old myself), but otherwise, a good modern take. Not much spoiling here since the plot is largely the same as the classic, albeit with a few twists. Characters were good, iconic lines were said (though sadly, only once), story progresses at a very comfortable pace. Massive man versus machine theme, and on a very personal level. What more can I say? Other than ‘go watch it if you haven’t’ that is. Oh wait, there is something else I can say. There is a making out scene between the main guy and his wife, and the part where he takes her clothes off were cut, eventhough she was in her bra and garters. I speculate that there are two reasons why this was so, first is because it was one of the scenes in the trailer, which was strangely left uncut. The other is that the old creeps from the censorship department saw this and decided that it wasn't an appropriate scene for the adult (18 years and older) viewing public, eventhough stark nudity in 'The Legend of Hercules' was. So they cut it out so that they have some fap material when they get home.

Then we have ‘The Lego Movie’, one of the most hyped movies since last year. I went to watch this half expecting to be terribly disappointed, and was pleasantly surprised. The story started off slow, but as soon as it reached the first main plot device, progression became fast in a comfortable and not-too-rushed way. There are some pop culture references as well as multiple cheesy clichés but they all add to the comedic atmosphere of the movie, which is pretty much the opposite of what most clichés do. I won’t mention the main theme as it is a very big part of the story, but I will say this: it is similar to that of ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. This is one I highly recommend to watch, but I must warn you that if you choose to bring friends or any other company with you, please make sure you don’t bring someone that has been living under a rock. While you don’t need to be living in the internet to get the pop culture jokes and references, not getting them really kills the vibe, even if they are few and far in between.

And finally we have ‘Frozen’, the bombshell of bombshells.

Before I continue I need to elaborate on a fact. As far as I can recall, there have only been two movies before ‘Frozen’ which I have actually watched twice on the big screen, even though many, many others were also worthy of another big screen viewing. One was ‘Pacific Rim’, which the second time I watched with a friend because he hadn’t watched it and I offered to go with him because it’s that good (and he wasn’t aware of the fact that I’ve seen the movie). The other was ‘Rurouni Kenshin’, which, incidentally, was aired in cinemas beginning Valentine’s Day 2013. I watched both times alone, mostly out of nostalgia, but also because it was just such a damn good movie. The only problems were the utter destruction of Han’nya and my favourite character, Saito Hajime being quite untrue to the original. ‘Frozen’ is the first movie that I watched twice in the cinema alone for different reasons; the first time for the story and the second for the sake of seeing a single character.

As is the way of Disney, ‘Frozen’ was based on ‘The Snow Queen’, with the typical Disney adaptations which results in the very dark original story turning into a very cheesy and clichéd happy lovey-dovey ending; the same thing happened when Disney decided they wanted to retell the story of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, among others.

Also as is the way of Disney, they make their movies with some of the most extreme polarities, which makes me hesitant to watch some and generally leaves that ambivalent aftertaste. Some of their movies, like the first ‘The Lion King’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Mulan’ are great, while some others like (in my opinion) their version of ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and subsequent ‘The Lion King’s are so bad it’s an insult to the properly bad things like the Black Death and the Holocaust. ‘Frozen’ sits comfortably with the former bunch, but for different reasons.

Allow me to elaborate. The first ‘The Lion King’ was good because it is basically an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, so there is very little where they can go wrong. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was good (to me) because I liked the concept; the Beast as the good guy. Pretty much the same reason why I loved the ‘Devil May Cry’ series of games, excluding that ‘Dipshit may Crap’ by Ninja Theory. ‘Mulan’ was good because, for the first time, we have a Disney Princess who didn’t sit on her arse for the entirety of the movie. Quite the contrary, in fact; she fought throughout pretending to be a guy (feminism right there, ladies and gentlemen). ‘Frozen’, on the other hand, is good because it somewhat breaks Disney’s tradition of cheesy lovey-dovey clichés while still ending on a happy note. How it breaks the tradition, you ask? Go find out yourself. There are two to look out for, the first of which was viral on the internet at some point. The only problem with it was their choice of main character. Watch the movie and it will be instantly obvious what I mean, and I’m not alone with this opinion.

So there you are. A movie which I watched a second time on the big screen (forking out money unnecessarily) just because one of the characters was so perfect. Perfect looks, perfect character growth (but unfortunately not explored in enough depth because she’s not the main character), perfect voice. And yes, it’s a she.

And on that bombshell of bombshells, adieu to y’all.

The Dilemma of an Introverted Gamer

So I’ve spent my first month as a jobless bum (again), with me not being as productive as I originally planned; instead of continuing what would be my novel (or one of, at least) I got distracted by some other life events which inspired another short story. Which is also left hanging because I am (again) facing difficulty organizing the stuff I draw from the pool of infinite ideas that is my own wild imagination, and (I never thought I’d say this) my poor vocabulary makes this harder than it needs to be. While I wait for a response to my next job application (damn you, slow government departments), I have, as you’d expect, spent more than a fair amount of time gaming, the latest heavy investment being Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Online. As a result of this and me poking my nose into somewhere I swore to myself not to, I realize that I face a dilemma which is probably not unique to myself, but few others share.

If you’re one of the few who read this, then you probably have been for a very long time, which means you should know that I consider myself an introvert. If you just happen to stumble upon this page not knowing of its existence until now, well, now you do. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, introverts are generally people who are not socially anxious (needs mentioning, this) but prefer to be alone most of the time, don’t like social situations and are usually awkward or quiet or both when they find themselves in such situations. The only exception to this is when they are hanging out with truly close friends, and even then may seem quiet by others’ usual standards. The reason I’m stating this is because it is one of the two important points that make up the dilemma I speak of.

The next thing you’d know about me (relevant to this dilemma) is that I consider myself a hard-core gamer. While there is no standard criteria to adhere to when deciding what category of gamer that one falls into or indeed an official categorization, I would consider casual gamers not gamers at all; those who play simple games, usually web-based JAVA games such as those you find of Facebook, or other simple, mindless mobile games like Angry Birds and the like for the sake of killing time instead of for the sake of the game itself. Then there are the semi-hard-core who might pick up an RPG or other time consuming game, but put it down the moment they clear the story without replaying for other side quests, Easter eggs or other hidden, unlockable content. Hard-core gamers such as myself pick up a game and don’t let it down for weeks, sometimes months on end, exhausting every bit of feature and content available, especially if I have to pay for it. Now, I’m not making this distinction in a condescending way, just like, say, I wouldn’t be treating sports car owners condescendingly if I had a supercar – neither of which I can afford – or like how I wouldn’t treat those without a degree condescendingly just because I have one nor do I expect to be treated that way by those with masters or doctorate degrees. I’m making this distinction because it affects hard-core gamers more than semis while having no impact on casuals at all, because casual gamers tend to have other things on their mind and only play such games only to kill time while semis play for the sake of story – not unlike why you would read a book or watch a movie – or to kill time in between their other activities, while hard-cores have their games as their activities, and probably do some reading or something in between.

Seems like a perfect match of characteristics to have, right? Being an introvert and a hard-core gamer, one can avoid unwanted company by choosing to indulge and drown in their games. This might be the case before. But surely not anymore. With the new age of multiplayer gaming, many games (or rather, their developers) skimp on single player content and pump out loads on the multiplayer end. Take GTA V for example. 100% completion needs less things to be done than previous GTAs and its online component is treated as a standalone game with its own patches, content updates and all that.

This is my problem. How does an introvert play multiplayer games? Of course, it’s not that hard, and there are two methods – obvious ones, at least – to deal with this. One is just to play said multiplayer game like a single player, and whenever the compulsory multiplayer bits show up, just play with random strangers awkwardly like one would when interacting in real life. This, of course, gets boring after a while and defeats the purpose of playing a multiplayer game. Then there is the second method of playing with friends, the no-brainer solution with no compromises other than the fact that you need to be playing the same game at the same time, which is also easily arranged if you have time to be playing games in the first place.

However, I do have a problem with this solution. Of the handful of friends that I have, only slightly more than 10% of them I can consider gamers, and less than 5% I consider hard-core gamers. And with such small numbers, the chances of so few people having the same tastes in games is even smaller. Thus, I face problems like we don’t like the same kinds of game, we can’t afford to buy games that the other fellas have or not having or being able to afford the console to play the same games on; some of which, like the first, shouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

This is my problem. While I do enjoy playing what games we do manage to play together, I wish we could all be able to play all the games that everyone has together. I also wish more of my friends were gamers. Then these problems of mismatching interests, platforms etc. would be better than they are now, at least.

And I only realized I face such a problem thanks to my sticking my nose in matters not concerning myself, and that I have, with great difficulty and to great lengths, convinced myself that I want to know nothing about anymore. So I guess curiosity can really kill the cat and that the burden of knowledge is indeed a heavy one. No wonder ignorance is bliss.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Misconception

Or rather, deception. This word defines the world we live in. Think of the most pleasant sounding thing that you’ve ever heard or read of describing something you have no experience with.  Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I guarantee you that when you get down to it and get your hands dirty, you’ll soon realize that ‘dirty’ is not what it sounded like, even though it is what it actually is.

I’ll give you an example. People talk about campus life like it’s heaven on earth. It isn’t. I can guarantee that no one can put their hand on their heart and say that it is. Sure, it may be heaven in comparison with working life, but that is like saying the shit in your toilet is gold compared to the shit in the sewers. Those who claim that they can actually honestly say they enjoyed their campus life are liars, and if anyone were to tell me that I haven’t been living my campus life properly or to the fullest, my response to such people is simply that they haven’t been born properly or to the fullest either.

But I digress. Back to deception. This is not seen as a problem by many people, as they’d say “y’know, that’s life. That’s how things are in the real world.” Maybe so, but it shouldn’t be. Why it is so is simple. Being straightforward puts people off. It’s like fast food. Tell them up front that they haven’t been prepared to suit individual needs and are therefore generic and may cause health problems isn’t going to sell the product as embellishing with lies, saying fast food help you make up for lost time, bond with families and all that other nonsense you see on fast food ads, will. And it doesn’t end there. Deception is found everywhere. Get a job thinking the only people you are going to meet are your colleagues and bosses and half the time you get endless encounters with people you don’t care for but have to mingle with anyway for the sake of the company’s profits. Or you get a job thinking you’ll be an artist by the conventional sense and you end up being a photographer and videographer.

In the corporate world, I get it. You need to please the source of income. So you need to be subtle about reality and embellish every single detail to ensure that the first impression people get isn’t ‘shite’ until they really take a closer look. However, there are times when you have to be so subtle that people can’t read between the lines because there doesn’t seem to be any. Then these people get baited and feel betrayed but they cannot blame the source of their feeling betrayed because they’re told they didn’t look closely enough. But that’s fine, because it’s all so that people can make a living, right? Like hell it is.

I remember reading this old joke from an old newspaper column in a museum-ish place in Cameron Highlands. It was generally about the campaigning periods that precede elections. It went like this: a few guys died and were told to choose if they wanted to go to heaven or hell. They checked heaven out and decided it was okay; serene, calm, relaxing but rather uneventful. So they decided to see what hell had to offer. What they saw was unending feasts, booze, flamboyance, extravagance, debauchery and every imaginable pleasure known to man, guilty or otherwise. So the guys chose to go to hell. But when they actually got there, it turns out that they had to do manual labour, had no rest, consume excrements and bathe in fire with oil as soap. In other words, nothing like the impression they were given. They went to the Devil himself to voice their dissatisfaction regarding the deception, to which the Devil replied “oh we were campaigning, so of course we had to seem more desirable.” Moral of the story was simple; know that what you see is not necessarily what you get, so choose wisely. This was a lesson I learned the hard way, which made me understand the need for deception.

But I can’t help but think that this just isn’t the way to do it. Because of that, the company that had my services for three months (bless them) had a half-arsed worker who did things half-arsedly when doing social related work, and being generally enthusiastic otherwise. They could have had someone who was genuinely enthusiastic about the whole package. And I don’t have to deal with social chores that I couldn’t care less about, but admittedly this is just me whining about work.

Speaking of university, recent events have reminded me about how I went in without anyone knowing me and left just as I entered; without anyone knowing or remembering me. However, I do remember a number of people. The nosy fellas, the overly social dudes (neither are necessarily bad traits, come to think of it), the intelligent and analytical one who feigns ignorance, the ladies who can tell the difference between stimulating and revolting drama, and the ones who were there to go with the flow but end up being in the spotlights. These are people who, for better or worse, I would like to remember or don’t mind remembering. Then there are the lying whores, passive-aggressive bitches, ruthlessly selfish and hypocritical pricks and the turncoats that shift every time there is a light breeze. These are degenerate vermin I wish I never met and would love to bludgeon them to oblivion with their own empty skulls. Why do I have such animosity towards them? Deception, simple as that. If only they could comprehend the irony in some of the filth that escapes their mouths. It makes so little sense that it’s funny when I think about it now. Then again, I hope they never will, unless the one enlightening them is one of their own kind. Or an axe murderer. All I know is that I will not be the one to do so, unless I turn into an axe swinging psychopath.

Before I go, I wish to talk about that newspaper column I mentioned. This was written in a time where, I imagine, there was less fuss about political correctness and people don’t look between the lines when there are none. As the local newspapers evolved into the way it is now, I can only wonder how people tolerate, let alone condone, this kind of overly deceptive writing, and how people actually live with it. As someone who reads only the newsy bits and throw everything else aside if it wasn’t written by Jeremy Clarkson, you can imagine how I yearn for such brutal honesty, even if it is exaggerated. But that might not happen because someone politically influential will read between non-existent lines and end the writing or even literal life of the writer.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Reviewing the months

Going through these three months of mine at Write On Media, which incidentally will be merged into Blue Inc. soon, I discover that, to my disappointment, as a writer you are still a journalist, meaning you still go out to meet people you don’t care for for the sake of having something to write about. That’s a major problem for me as I count myself among the people who chose to go into this profession to avoid meeting people. A terrible misconception on my part, caused by the equally bad misleading conception perpetrated by the Internet. As a result, I am taking an escape route which leads me straight into the very pit from which I was trying to escape.

Even so, it’s not all barf and crap, as I am a tech writer to be specific, so there are some benefits, such as getting news of new headphones, speakers and computer parts entering the market, promising to turn your entertainment world more real than the real world itself. It’s not all moonlight and roses either, because, more than anything else, you get news, most which no one cares for, like some telco having some deal with some other company for some reason or other; unless you own said companies or have some major shares with them, I doubt you would have a drop of rat’s piss to give.

Then there’s the next problem I have with this field of work: photography. What was once a hobby of the rich is now a job of the poor. Sure, some people may enjoy it, and these people are called photographers, and are paid to do nothing but that. That’s not the case anymore; with every Tom, Dick and Harry having a DSLR following the DSLR boom, everyone is expected to be expert photographers as well, including people like me who couldn’t give a flying toss about following dumb trends of what’s ‘fashionable’ and believe the eye to forever be the best camera. And this is a problem because whenever stuff comes in to be reviewed, we need photos of it to go together with the writers’ opinions of it and since the Internet is as unreliable as it is helpful, we have to get our own hands dirty and get shots of our own.

Now let me just get things straight: I have no problems whatsoever with people who are into photography. I believe it can be a form of art and that photographers deserve their madly high pay because they are artists. But to force this onto people who are less than uninterested is just too much for me to handle, not to mention the bandwagon that is the DSLR boom, birthing twits who claim to have a passion for photography but setting their unbefitting DSLRs (which deserve better owners) to full auto mode. That is, as I have said many times before, like having a gaming mouse and playing nothing but solitaire and minesweeper. I’ll admit to committing the crime of using a DSLR on full auto, because I simply couldn’t care less and have no choice because I know nothing about DSLRs when I was being sent away to take pictures during events, but this sort of thing is just inexcusable for people who claim to be passionate about something. I mean, wouldn’t you willingly go and find out more about something you like doing? Sure, people are unwilling to admit that they’ve jumped on a bandwagon to follow a trend, and this is precisely why they are twits.

I find trends to be like a pandemic disease; something the whole world has or is doing, most of which I’d rather not affect or get anywhere near me. Notable ones were the Sony Ericsson Aino from over five years back and DSLRs a year later. And there’s the elitist iPhones, which I don’t remember when it started (somewhere around 2007 I reckon), but is the longest lasting one I can remember. And Samsung, which started shortly after but is now competing with Apple to be the longest lasting disease in human history, not to mention slowly becoming equally elitist as shown by their Galaxy Gear, which only works within the higher ends of their own range of phones. And I hate them because people get it because it is ‘cool’ and then drop it a second later. Sure there are people who pick up a DSLR and keep on learning about photography and end up being pretty good photographers themselves, but most, like I said, get them to take hi-res selfies and then leave them somewhere or other to be a dust magnet. Same with the phones; people pick them up because everyone has it, then buys a new one whenever a new one is released, even if it is released a day later, and is the exact same phone as the previous one except in name.

But I digress. Point is that I have to deal with stuff that I don’t care for, and that just makes me hate them when I initially didn’t, and other things which I don’t care for but don’t mind doing. Then comes the thing that I came here for in the first place: reviewing games. Despite only getting two at most, this is the only thing that’s stopping me from storming out the front door and never returning at the end of the first month. Some are not really satisfying (such as F1 2013), while others, like Pokémon X and Y, were a major source of joy. This is as close to living the dream for me as it gets. Unfortunately, as always, sweet dreams end abruptly and sometimes you get nightmares instead of pleasant ones. As mentioned, I only get to do two a month (there are only so many games being released every month anyway, and I’m not the only writer around), some of which are crap anyway, and your words do not remain your own when you have an editor looking through your final product.

Before I continue, let me just say it up front that I respect my editor. In fact, I respect everyone here, as they really know what they’re doing. The only issue is that, when two styles do not match, the writer may lose his at the discretion of the editor, simply because the writer writes his opinion in his own flair and flavour, while the editor needs to make sure that readers know what the writer is on about. This is a problem for me because I like to write in long and convoluted sentences (as you can see) and leave some ambiguity in game reviews. This is especially so when a game is as good as Pokémon X and Y where I want to hint on certain features without revealing too much, not to mention the word limit lest I fill the whole magazine with one game. The editor does his job and makes necessary amendments which, alas, makes me feel a tad disappointed because when I read the version ready for print, it feels as though I didn’t write it, but someone did attempting to mimic my style of writing. I don’t blame him, but it just doesn’t feel right for me.

Then there's the fact that I only get to caption pictures which I provide myself. Might be because I'm new, but I don't get the full press access to game images, and I'm sure as hell I can't just Google them up, as one does not simply take screenshots of a 3DS. Sure, there are some phone cam pictures, but I can't use them firstly because they suck and secondly the magazine need high res pictures so that the graphic designers have some room to do their job. Not sure exactly how that works myself, but that's the way it is. At any rate, when I don't get to do my own captioning, it is up to the editor to do it and since I cannot know what images he has chosen to use and how they caption them, errors, like in this month's issue where Venusaur has been misidentified as Bulbasaur, are bound to happen. I say that because, after all, you don't expect the editor who watches over the entire magazine to research every single game being reviewed, do you? 

Actually I do, and especially when it comes to Pokémon. But then again it can't be helped because as it turns out I'm the most knowledgeable one when it comes to Pokémon in this company, despite my missing Generations 4 and 5. So I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much when I wish that trivial mistakes like this are not made because trivial or otherwise, they are still mistakes, and when you cater for a narrow target audience, they are bound to be nitpickers such as myself and thus do not let mistakes slide.

Incidentally, GameAxis, or GAX as it is now known, will soon cease publication, with the December issue being the last. From then on, it will be integrated into HWM as a 10-page section, the way the original (Singaporean) GameAxis apparently did. This saddens me, as the only surviving English gaming publication is Malaysia is finally dead as a standalone publication and maybe for good if they later decide to kill the 10-page section altogether, and all that’s left for Malaysians are English imports, mostly from Britain and some from America, and countless other Chinese publications from who knows where, and woe be unto readers if they mirror content from China the way PC Gamer Malaysia did with the original from Britain. I say this not out of contempt of any kind, but merely due to the fact that the land of the greatest pirates can really show the reason behind their resorting to piracy. Keep in mind that they have news mistaking a buried fap tool for a mushroom of some kind so they are evidently not the brightest bunch, though such gullibility might have something to do with their addiction to censoring as many things on the internet as they can. Make no mistake, though, that the brilliant among them can be truly brilliant and are the reason China is rising as an economic force to be reckoned with.

But I digress. Again. So yes, 2014 will be Malaysia’s first year of having no more English gaming publications and everyone will be going online to keep tabs on new developments (which, I guess, everyone is already doing), and with that, my affiliation with Write On Media; it's the sole reason I wanted to be here so badly in the first place, and the only thing that made the other nonsense that no one else cares for even bearable. And in the process I have reconsidered the possibility of being a shrink. That’s just maybe. What I do know for sure is that Pokémon‎ X and Y are awesome and I will be spending some time as a lifeless bum on it the way I did with Emerald, and probably the first game I will consider properly playing competitively, despite the amount of luck involved to prepare for such a thing.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

The Emergence of a New Heart

A simple comic I found today has completely disrupted my ability to do anything but cry for the whole day. I mean literally cry, with tears actually flowing down my eyes. This is the comic on question:

By Lark. Original comic here.

This is testament of my emotional instability; a comic based on a game I have never played before affecting me so strongly makes me feel really miserable about it. And yet, it conveys such a strong and inspirational message, using equally powerful words and drawings that I can’t help but going back to looking at it more. And ending up crying some more.

For those who do not understand, it is about a player who has played Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the Nintendo 3DS, who stops after the release of Pokémon X and Y. Isabelle, the secretary of New Leaf’s mayor (who is the player) laments that the mayor may extend her adventure with the release of Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies and The Legend of Zelda: a Link Between Worlds shortly after, but sincerely hopes that the player will one day pick up Animal Crossing again.

Frankly, I love it. I love the fact that someone’s deeds are appreciated and remembered, even if the deeds are unreal and are appreciated and remembered by mere data. I love the fact that said someone’s presence makes the lives of others whole, their departure mourned and their return so eagerly anticipated. A part of me wants to experience this, because it feels like a priceless emotion to feel. I want to have the same feeling, in such a scale, because it is something I have never felt and something tells me I will never feel. And yet emotion of this magnitude is beyond what I can take, that every time I so much as think of it, I break down in tears.

I also love the message that old games should be picked up again every once in a while. Pleasant experiences deserve to be rekindled occasionally and the same goes to friendship. Especially friendship, even if said friendship is with fictional characters. That said, this may be the nostalgia addict within me speaking, as I myself do not have many of such powerful and pleasant experience to speak of.

And so ends my quest for achieving emotionlessness. Every time I manage to discard my heart and soul, new ones emerge in place of the old ones, only slightly harder, but infinitely more brittle, than the previous ones. My emotional instability grows with every attempt, and now I question myself if I have the right to ask others to not be affected by emotions if I myself break down this easily.

As I write this (and flood my keyboard in the process), I have decided that I will do all I can to not forget this comic. Despite the emotion being too much for me to handle, I cannot bear to let go of the inspiration that it provides. It is also a reminder to myself of how much I can be affected by the experience of another, and how strongly I feel for it even if I myself have had similar ones.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

The Lock of the Past, the Key to the Future Finale

The ghost of the past haunts me no more,
Never have I felt such freedom before,
To no longer be shackled to the ground,
To which for so long I have been bound.

Now from immense burden I am free,
Two thousand days of pain now behind me,
Free from darkness and free from light,
Free from the duty of an out phased knight.

Along with my soul I cast away my heart,
Nothing left to end, nothing left to start,
The vortex of the void now in place of my mind,
Nothing left to hold or leave behind.

Free at last from the lock of the past,
Unshackled by a key to the future,
Free from the die that has been cast.
Free from pain and free from rapture.

I now bid farewell to the ruby rose,
As the gates of the ruby castle I close,
The one who gave me life as I tore my world apart,
The one to whom I dedicate my works of art.

With no more pieces left to mend,
From mortal coils I now ascend,
As the final chapter comes to its end,
Total control I now extend.

Keeping up with technology.

So recently my father has just bought a smart TV. I’m not sure what the salesman told him when he was out shopping for it but now I’m getting the impression that said salesman probably said something along the lines of “it can read your mind and change the channels without you needing to lift a finger and download the entire internet for you to browse whenever and however you like.”

Many people have mentioned that technology isn’t like a TV drama series where you can record and watch whenever you like; fail to keep pace and you’re left trailing behind forever. It’s thanks to people who do not move with the times like my old man that stand-up comedians have things to joke about. That said, not every old person is stuck in the past. There are old people who are completely in touch with the times without forgetting their age. Well, not forgetting their age is really beside the point anyway.

Sometimes you have people who are so badly behind technological progress they tend to fly years ahead instead. Most of the time these are overly egotistical people who are afraid of being wrong. Such as my father. The kind of people who think “ooh I have a smart TV or a smartphone or whatever so I will now want to surf the net without using my laptop.” Yes, because typing in the address of a webpage on your smart TV browser using the remote control’s arrow buttons to select individual letters and numbers and then inputting them one by one is so much more convenient that typing it with a keyboard.

Maybe this is just me having a sluggish smartphone, but whenever I have my laptop easily accessible, I would chose to surf the net with it rather than using my smartphone. I would think that even people with tablets or the latest flagship smartphone models would still prefer a laptop or a netbook, even, over other mobile devices for the sheer convenience of a keyboard with physical keys that don’t compete for space with whatever your screen is displaying.

And now thanks to that, I’m feeling that the full potential of the smart TV is wasted on merely watching TV or some pirated low-res DVD movie. Maybe I should convince my father to get a PS3 as well since, let’s face it, he has no chance of using it to its full potential without me and it’s unfair that only he gets to use it to its full potential in his way.

And on that bombshell’ adieu to y’all.