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The Corner of Randomness: Gen Con 50

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Gen Con is currently in full swing. For longtime readers of this site, you know this is usually my yearly pilgrimage to Indianapolis for four days of sleep deprivation, gaming, photography, forging new memories, and tons of laughs. Unfortunately, this is the second year in a row that I’ve had to cancel my plans to attend. Friggin lack of money and having to be an adult about it.

Not going this year is pretty hard for me. This was to be my last Gen Con that I’d attend. Not because I’m bored of it, but because the event has grown so much that just trying to secure a hotel close to the venue has become a massive pain in the ass. Gen Con has grown so much over the years that it’s practically out grown Indy. This year is the first time they have completely sold out. That means roughly 80,000 nerds, geeks, dweebs, and whatnot have descended upon Indy to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Gen Con. Crazy, right?!?!

I have a lot of great memories of Gen Con. From my first year going at the encouragement of a friend, my first time being an artist and sharing my toy photos with hordes of people, to just having a beer at The Ram. It’s been a fantastic convention to attend. Indy might not have been ready for this event when it first showed up, but the city has adjusted and adapted to the massive influx of visitors.

My first Gen Con was the first year they were in Indy. I believe there was something like 27,000ish people that attended that year. My last time attending was two years ago and they had crossed to the 69,000 attendee mark. That’s some healthy growth. Heck, some of the businesses in the area make 25% of their yearly profits over the four days that Gen Con is there. That just amazes me.

While I can’t be there in person, I am there with all my friends in spirit. I wish I could be there, but a small part of me is also thankful that I’m not smashed into that gigantic crowd. Here’s to you Gen Con. Thanks for all the memories and great times!

The Corner of Randomness: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

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Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice released this week, and it came with a few surprises. Now, I’m pretty broke so I’ve all but stopped looking for new games to play. Besides, Warframe and ESO are keeping me plenty busy. Oh, and that Stack of Shame is still there…being ignored. Yet, I was watching a bit of Twitch.TV over lunch on Monday, and the streamer I was tuned into mentioned how excited he was for Hellblade to release on Tuesday.

Tuesday rolls around and the game is finally available. Then the angry mob gathered their pitchforks and went to the internet. People are upset over two things they deem as issues with the game. The first is the all too common complaint that the game is too short. To that complaint I can only answer that people should be used to this by now. A lot of games that release these days only have a campaign that lasts a few hours. Take Resident Evil 7 for instance. That game can be completed in under four hours. Heck, there is even an achievement for beating it under that time.

The second issue was the bigger problem for people. You see, the game will delete your save file if you die too many times. Yup, all of your progress is wiped clean and you have to start over. If you die too many times that is. You can’t turn this off. There is no option to not play by these rules. It just happens and the only way to keep it from happening to you is to either play on an easier difficulty, or just get good at the game.

Now there are plenty of people arguing about this chosen design feature. As with anything, some are for it and some are against it. Thus I’ll keep my take on this short. I’m fine with this. If/when I play this game, I’ll just play on easy and have less worry of my save file actually being deleted. No big deal. I can still earn trophies/achievements, even though I opted to play on easy. These are the rules the game has set in place for me. I actually kind of like it as it means I’ll play a lot more cautiously. Dare I say, it even deepens my bond with the main character as I don’t want to see her story come crashing to an end just because I was playing recklessly.

All this complaining about various game features is really getting old. Either buy the game knowing what design decisions were made, how long the story is, and if it’ll be more of a multi-player type of game, or just don’t buy it and move along. It’s totally just that simple. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is $30. In the grand scheme of gaming, that’s a decently cheap game for four to eight hours of enjoyment. Yet, we now live in a time where people want to complain about everything and anything. So please, if a shorter story or the possibility of your save file being wiped clean bothers you, just move along. Let people enjoy the games they find fun. Is being angry over a video game really worth your time and energy? Yeah, I thought not.

Gaming Diary: What I Played on My Vacation

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Tokyo Xanadu

And I’m back from Japan! I’m jet-lagged as hell, and I’m doing practically everything I can to stay awake. The urge to nap is strong, especially when you work from home and your bed is just a few yards away. I’ve napped over the last two days, and I really need to buck the trend if I’m ever going to fully be on US time. International travel wreaks havoc on the internal clock. Good thing it’s all worth it in the end.

I brought all three of my handhelds with me—the 3DS, Vita, and Switch. Sadly, the Switch was never turned on, yet again. Both the other handhelds got plenty of use though, especially the 3DS. I carted it everywhere with me all in the name of Street Passes. Oddly enough, I didn’t get as many Street Passes this time as I did six years ago. I guess the allure of Street Passes has worn off in Japan as much as it has here. Plenty of Europeans vacationing there had the same idea as I, so I probably tagged as many of them as I did Japanese residents. I finished all of my Mii Plaza Puzzles, so that’s really all I cared about anyway.

Every night and while traveling on the Shinkansen, I played Tokyo Xanadu on the Vita. Such a fun little action RPG, and it’s ideal for pick-up and play moments, such as traveling.

When I returned, I had the Splatoon 2 strategy guide waiting on me. Now the Switch WILL be turned on! Can’t believe I’m finally finding time to play my new console. Life is ridiculous at times, I swear.

I do want to thank my fabulous partner-in-crime in this venture, Chris, for filling in for me while I was away. I couldn’t do this site without him.

The Corner of Randomness: What Happened to Punk

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EVO took place a couple weekends ago, and one of the players that was expected to go far was PG Punk. Punk has become a dominating force in the U.S. FGC scene. In particular, he is a dominating force when it comes to Street Fighter V. So what happened to him as of late?

Let’s look back just a bit. Punk was relatively unknown not too long ago. He was just some cocky kid who boasted big claims of greatness. Well, he made good on his claims. He is still pretty cocky, yet highly entertaining to watch on stream. Yet he really has made good on his claim of greatness. He’s won a few tournaments now. Even dethroning a few of the bigger name players.

Then EVO 2017 rolls around. Punk was expected to get pretty deep in the brackets. The Street Fighter V field was loaded with some extremely strong players. I expected him to place somewhere in the Top 10, but I never pegged him to get all the way to grand finals. Well, he proved me wrong.

Punk did indeed make it all the way to grand finals in Street Fighter V. He had to work his way through the losers side of things, but he put on a great show and bested some very strong competition. Ultimately, however, he would fall and take second place. Punk looked absolutely devastated at the awards ceremony. You could see he was fighting back tears. Keep in mind that this was his very first EVO, he is only 18, and he snagged second place. That is no small feat.

Last weekend Defend the North went down. Punk was once again a competitor in the Street Fighter V games. He would once again take second place. The thing I noticed while watching this tournament is that it seems Punk has yet to recover from EVO. He had lost some of that cockiness he had. His facial expressions were more of someone trying to figure out what went wrong. It was a bit heartbreaking to see.

Punk is still young, and his FGC career is only starting. Suffering a defeat at EVO is certainly taking its toll on Punk. Yet, I think he will go a long way in this career if he chooses to stick it out. Punk can’t win them all, but I fully expect to see him win at EVO in the future. Until then, hopefully he can shake off whatever it is that is weighing so heavily on him so he can once again become the cocky kid we’ve grown to know and fear.

Gaming Diary: Gaming with Friends is Fabulous

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This weekend I had the joy of being able to play some video games with some friends. I’m usually a recluse when it comes to gaming. I prefer to play on my PC while I stream a movie or Twitch. I must admit, it was absolutely fabulous to break that mold. It really made the games I already enjoyed that much more fun. It also made me hate my internet service provider even more. Curse you crappy network.

The weekend began with some Warframe. I’m glad I decided to try this game on PS4 as grouping with friends made it way more fun. Sure, I spent a good chunk of time on the game on the PC side, but having friends to group with made the game vastly more enjoyable. We went from mission to mission, just knocking stuff out so we could open up more of the map. This is ultimately so we can begin the farming grind, but it was still a good bit of fun.

Over the weekend we would bounce from this game to that one. We joked around. We conquered various bosses. From fantasy to sci-fi, the worlds we visited were no match for our group of three players. It didn’t matter that the three of us were physically separated by hundreds of miles. The internet connected us together and allowed us to share in a common experience. I do look forward to another weekend where we can all get together and do this again.

Sadly, those good times were brought to a grinding stop on Sunday night. My ISP decided it was time for another multi-state service issue. I’d connect to group chat, only to have my internet come crashing down just a few minutes later. I know it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but with so much of life moving to the online space, service interruptions can really put a kink in life.

While I still love my solo gaming experiences, this weekend reinforced the advice to play a game on whatever platform your friends are playing on. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a console, and thus less “cool” to play on. Being able to join up with people you know and enjoy being around is a far better experience than trying to find some randoms to complete some random quest/task on a “superior” platform.

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