Video Game Design and English

Hey everybody.

I want to talk about something called the nit-picking. Recently, in my effort to waste as much time as possible on the internet, I found myself examining a couple different things that were evaluations of video game mechanics. Not necessarily the programming aspect; rather, the overall design, taking notice of inconsistencies, superfluous elements and more. This may sound incredibly boring to you, but I when I discovered these, I thought to myself "OMYGODDDDDD I LOVE THIS!"

Why? Because I am a prick about that sort of thing when it comes to everything, and these were evaluations of the design aspects of the games, while at the same time focusing on nit-picky little details! I found myself enchanted!

Admittedly, it's nearly 20 minutes long, but that fits in well with my afore-mentioned goal! Also, he says "fuck" a lot. Seriously. Not just a shit-ton. Like 10 shit-tons.

In contrast to that glowing praise of Megaman X, I read myself an article criticizing one of my favorite video game series, and more specifically a game that I have played through numerous times, on interface flaws present almost in every aspect of the game. I am going to use this entire sentence to link to that article, because I loved it lots.

Why did I love this? Because it's interesting! It's not talking about the jargon, it's talking about how stuff should be according to these basic rules of design!

All this being said, I have no intention of becoming a designer.

But this same sort of system, of having "proper rules", also extends to the English language. I am an absolute asshole about this sort of thing. Recently I was reading an essay my younger brother wrote, and it basically took all of my creative writing abilities, threw them on the ground, and stomped on them a bunch. What did I say while reading it though? "You spelled assistant wrong. You spelled it "assisstant"." That's right. I criticized his English.

This relates to the video game stuff above because it's those little things, those errors of the basic rules, that get to me more than anything else. To some extent it's an annoyance, but to be honest I actually love correcting other's stuff as well. I'm fairly terrible at evaluation when it comes to emotional or creative quality in works, but goddammit I am going to make some comments about your English, or little inconsistencies. Wanna know another thing I noticed in his paper? One word, just one out of the who knows how many, was a different font.

Dammit, Janet, this post sort of went off on a tangent and stuff. Oh well. I'm a judgmental person, and I will rant and rave about it.

I hope you all don't mind.

Some Nights

Okay, so this post is totally going to be about music.

You know how like, last post, I was all "OMG NEW ISLANDS SINGLE!!!!!"? Well that album came out this week, and is one of the few albums I actually own! I pre-ordered it and it came with a sweet card signed by the lead singer! If I had a camera, I would post some pictures of it, because it's actually pretty funny.

That being said, in less than a week, another of my favorite bands is releasing a new album! It's fantastic, though admittedly I may not buy it, if only due to lack of cash moneys. Anyways, the band is called Fun. and the album, Some Nights, is their second one.

Now, I absolutely LOVED the first album, called Aim and Ignite. The songs on it are incredibly pop-y, and it is one of my most listened to albums, with songs that almost always can cheer me up.

This song, The Gambler, is almost definitely my favorite song on this first album. While I suggest you listen to all of the songs on it, as this one was not initially my favorite, the more I listened to it the more I loved it. I mean, it's cheerful but at the same time full of emotion. I don't really know how to explain it better than that. I just really like this song.


Now, the new album takes a slightly different tone. I mean, it's still good, but the first album had a sort of sincerity in it's music. When hearing it, the songs seem like when heard live they could only sound better.
In the new one, it seems less so, considering LIKE HALF OF THE SONGS HAVE SIGNIFICANT AUTOTUNE USAGE.

That being said, I can't hate them. I actually quite like the new album - not as much as the original, but is good individually. So yes, I do dislike the autotune, but thats just me being a crotchety 17 year old. You should listen to them, and love them anyways.

Also, I realize that I have been a terrible blogger, as to be honest, this is my 4th post within like 6 weeks or something and I'm already running out of ideas. I mean, look at this! The past two have been about music coming out within the next few weeks! ERGH.

But I shall persevere, as I like to think that you people actually enjoy reading these posts.

P.S. Here's a link a Some Nights stream: http://soundcloud.com/fueled_by_ramen/sets/fun-some-nights