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Usually stuff I’ve written personally, stuff I think is pretty good.

The On-Again, Off-Again, Gamer

The on-again, off-again gamer is a common breed. Also known as the casual gamer, or casualatis gammarati, many on-again, off again gamers exist today.

As a general rule, on-again, off-again gamers can be found in their natural habitat, whatever that may be. You see, on-again, off-again gamers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are teenagers, lured into an occasional Team Fortress game by friends, or even the small round of Left For Dead versus here and there. Others still play exclusively on consoles, shunning the cumbersome keyboard and mouse for the humble joystick and trigger combo preferred by on-again, off-again gamers everywhere. Many on-again, off-again gamers have normal jobs and lead normal lives, even with spouses, and in some cases, children.

The thing that characterises on-again off-again gamers in the wild is that generally, they will have heard of most mainstream titles, that is, anything that has been picked up by the mass media or heavily marketed. The on-again, off-again gamer is easily persuaded by whatever the media says is good (or bad), and will usually stick to one or two sources for gaming-related information.

The on-again, off-again gamer has a modest library of games. Perhaps nothing that stands out, but definitely all the popular ones. If questioned about his gaming library, the on-again, off-again gamer will respond with an all-encompassing statement about how he doesn’t have time to play a lot of games, or what precious time he does have for games that are, you know, actually worth his time.

On-again, off-again gamers are almost exclusively male, although some have been known to be androgenous.

The one thing that sets on-again, off-again gamers from the rest of the gaming community is simple: they very rarely finish a game. Sure, the on-again, off-again gamer will be more than happy to quote you all the famous lines such as “the cake is a lie”, but the on-again, off-again gamer very rarely finishes games, instead preferring to drag games out into year-long epics that would send any other type of gamer around the bend.

Don’t get me wrong, on-again off-again gamers enjoy the games they play — it’s just that they’re very rarely in it for the story; to the on-again, off-again gamer, any game (that has received suitable reviews from all the big gaming publications) is a game, and that’s usually good enough for them.

Gamerscore: 3752

Pokémon, Part IV: The Hardware

I feel as if there needs to be something written about the hardware that I’m using to play Pokémon. Not because it’s strictly that important, per se, but because it seems appropriate considering the circumstances (I’m a pretty huge geek about this stuff).

I’m using a Nintendo DS Lite. When I first started thinking about which console I was going to acquire I (naturally) looked up the appropriate Wikipedia page. Suffice to say I was spoiled for choice but eventually settled on the Lite — the original was no longer available (besides, I already had one of those before I sold it a couple of years back). The DSi looked impressive — hardware improvements all around, but the lack of a GameBoy Advance slot was a pretty big down side. Plus, the DS Lite also had the best battery life of all the DS models, including the XL and the current 3DS. No region lockout of games, and an older model (which meant a cheaper price) sealed the deal.

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Brisbane 2011: The Double-Barrelled Question

Alas, there was an amazing title for this post which seems to gave escaped my line completely. Perhaps I should have written it down at the time, but such is life.

Amazing! A blog post about an event less than a week after the actual event itself! Either this isn’t really Benny Ling typing here or he’s procrastinating some other task in between epic Bad Company 2 rounds (probably the latter).

Originally this post started out as a pretty basic recount of my time in Brisbane. Then I realised that almost no-one would want to read such cruft, so I scrapped almost everything and started again.

Another year, another train-the-trainer meetup in Brisbane. I’m yet to fill out the expense forms, but I spent a little more on transport this time around. I don’t drive, so the variety of transport options from getting from A to B appealed to me. The first night I actually ended up catching the bus to town to wander around the CBD a bit, and then catch up with some people from the internets at a small bar in the Valley.

I was in the CBD at one point and realised I had to get to the Valley at some stage. Having passed it on the bus on the way in, I knew it wasn’t too far — two, perhaps three, train stops away. I decided to give the train system a go as that worked fairly well last time around (catching it from Albion to Central). I get to the station and realise I have to buy a ticket. This is immediately followed by the realisation that I have no idea how to do so — the ticket thing is screaming “pick a zone, pick a zone!” at me and I’m all like “I don’t know which one to pick!”, so I just tell it where I am and where I want to go (King George Square, and Fortitude Valley respectively). That darn ticket machine then proceeds to call me fat as it mockingly points out that the Valley is only some 500m from where I am.

I decide to walk.

Brisbane is a pretty cool place. The mall is impressive, and I saw all the popular places — the flagship Commonwealth Bank branch, Breadtop, Crumpler, EB Games, a fairly large Officeworks, and a few others.

I’ve was pretty glad for my iPhone and its tethering abilities during my stay in Brisbane. Rather than pay the exorbitant hotel internet fees I simply used my iPhone internet connection — speeds were more than adequate for normal HTTP browsing, and I managed to chew through about 200MB while I was there, so my usage wasn’t too over-the-top or anything.

I’ve also never appreciated my iPhone compass + GPS as much as I have as when I was in Brisbane; stuck in pretty much a foreign city with only a basic sense of direction, I relied upon Maps quite a bit. At one stage I was walking the completely wrong way, and iPhone managed to correct me. Much love for iPhone.

Apart from those little observations, I didn’t get up to much. Spent a little time wandering about the CBD on the first day, chatting with a few people on the internets in real life that night. The next day was all about work — which I then managed to catch up with a mate from another Next Byte store over dinner. I managed to discover that much of our working experiences are the same, which is kinda weird — somehow I had this weird notion that other stores had completely different ways of doing things, but apparently not. It’s good to see there’s at least a little consistency in what goes on in other Next Byte stores, and not just in regards to training.

Of course, I also managed to hit up the Pancake Parlour on the second night, just like the last time I was in town. By that stage I had already eaten a pretty massive burger (if you’re ever in Southbank I can recommend Beastie Burgers — generous servings, decently priced [IMHO]), but there was no way in hell I was going to miss out on a delicious waffle.

It was, in two words, pretty amazing.

The next morning was pretty uneventful. Early morning flights are like that. Taxi to airport (some $40, along with our ears — the taxi driver had been to over 130 countries and worked in over 80 of those), really quick breakfast (the guy at Subway liked my wallet so much he asked me where I got it, I said dynomightydesign.com but that’s not strictly correct), grabbing the obligatory Krispy Kreme donuts to take back (strangely, none for me this time around — I already had two pieces of carry-on luggage and didn’t want to take up more than I was allowed), and that, ladies and gentlemen, was pretty much that.

So, double-barrelled questions? Kinda where you ask a question, then immediately follow it up with another question before giving someone else the opportunity to answer your question. String a couple of these together (which can happen if you’re trying to get a lot of information quickly), and whoever you’re asking the questions to can feel a little bombarded. See? I did learn something!

Pokémon, Part III: The Pokémon Renaissance

More than ten years have passed since the original Pokémon games (generation I)  came out, and I can safely say with some confidence that we have now entered the period of the Pokémon renaissance, a period where Pokémon culture is seen as popular and accepted, rather than just something that those nerdy kids at school play.

I guess you could say that there have been multiple renaissance periods, one surrounding every new game release, but my own Pokémon renaissance starts around the release of Pokémon Black and White.
The way I see it, everyone between the ages of say, 10 and 25 knows about Pokemon. Perhaps they’re a little less enthusiastic about it these days (if enthusiastic is indeed the right word), and perhaps they don’t show the anime on TV anymore, but the point is, everyone knows about Pokémon.

You could definitely say my own Pokémon renaissance was spurred on by my desire to play Pokémon, restrained only for my disapproval of the direction Pokémon had taken since generation I and II. I understand Nintendo can’t simply let the Pokémon franchise stagnate, but alienating existing Pokémon fans by adding (in my mind) unnecessary game mechanics and modifications only serves to curb enthusiasm, not increase it.

Which is exactly why I chose to play Pokémon once again — wait, what? I guess in the end my desire to relive old-school memories won out, or something. I saddled up with a (comparatively old-school) DS Lite (for GBA compatibility, more on this in a sec) and purchased a copy of SoulSilver and White, along with the strategy guide for White.

Forget the fact that there are now umpteen hundred Pokémon to catch, or that you can now grow berries, and that Kurt can now make up to 99 Pokéballs out of apricorns each day, forget all the game mechanics that Nintendo have added that either make the game more complex or untrue to the core Pokémon experience — for me, my personal Pokémon renaissance is all about reliving those old school days, regardless of whatever changes they’ve made since.

See, I don’t think you quite understand how much I enjoyed spending untold hours training and battling Pokémon. It’s pretty addictive once you get into it — combine that with a desire to finish the game and then catching ’em all, and you’ve got a pretty good recipe for success in the game market.

What’s the plan from here on out? Well, it’s pretty simple: play as much Pokémon as I need to. Starting with SoulSilver, as it’s a generation IV remake of the generation II Silver seems like a good a place as any to start, since Pokémon Gold was the very first Pokémon game I ever played. Once that is all done and dusted I think I’ll go back to generation III with LeafGreen, a remake of the generation I Green that started it all. From there, Emerald, also from generation III, brings the best out of generation III games, and then Platinum, also the best of the generation IV games. Finally, Pokémon White. Or maybe I’ll play Pokémon White while playing all of those. I’m not quite sure yet.

And so, with my DS Lite in hand and quite a lot of Pokémon ahead of me (I’ve sunk rougly 35 hours into SoulSilver already, and am probably about 25% though), I begin a journey of my very own — call it what you want, but it’s my very own Pokémon renaissance.

Pokémon, Part II: Intermission — The Trading Card Game

Part I: Prologue — The Pokémon Generation is just three posts below this one!

No picture this time around as I can’t seem to find my tiny, almost non-existent, collection of cards from the Pokémon trading card game.

There are many aspects of Pokémon, one being the trading card game (henceforth referred to as TCG). Despite being hugely popular when I was during my upper-primary school years, I never got into it.

Perhaps it was the fact that I was too young at the time to even fathom buying items for seemingly my own enjoyment, or perhaps it was because compared to the video games and the anime and whatever other aspects of Pokémon were popular at the time the TCG just seemed so boring and bland in comparison, I never got into it. Plenty of other people were, but I wasn’t.

I remember other people being awed by collections, and when “shiny” cards were produced people were awestruck. Perhaps one of the most famous cards of all was shiny Charizard, easily one of the most coveted cards of my particular generation.

I remember somehow acquiring a single Japanse card — it was either Psyduck or a Pokémon that I had no knowledge about (i.e. one of the ones introduced in generation III or IV).

I remember knowing the difference between a fake card and a real one, right down to the hue and intensity of the blue border on the back of the card itself, as well as the feel and texture of the card.

Mostly, though, I just remember not getting involved. I’m not sure whether it was the whole “collectors” aspect that didn’t appeal to me or the “battling” aspect that could be performed with the Pokémon TCG, but I just couldn’t care about it as much as I could the video game.

Which is interesting, because it was years later that I started to get into Magic: The Gathering. No real reason, but it seemed to be pretty popular in my early high-school years, and seemed like the right thing to do. I remember sitting the library at lunchtime and duking it out with the self-appointed master of Magic — but that’s a story for another time.

Whatever the reason, Pokémon the Trading Card Game just didn’t appeal to me. Shame.

Pokémon, Part I: Prologue — The Pokémon Generation

Original boxes for my Game Boy Color and Pokémon Gold

I am of the Pokémon generation.

Kids these days just don’t get it. I grew up with the original 151 in Red, Green, and Yellow, and later the 251 introduced with Gold, Silver, and Crystal (Generations one and two, respectively.)

Now there’s over 600 Pokémon to catch in generation five, and I’m really not sure how people are actually expected to catch all 649. Current generations actually go as far as encouraging players to only catch a small selection of Pokémon, but doing so is child’s play — not for Pokémon masters like myself.

My own Pokémon story starts way back in the 20th century, at the cusp of the millennium. The very first game I was exposed to was Pokémon Yellow, as one of my childhood friends had a copy along with his original Game Boy. Countless hours were spent at his house playing that game.

Then suddenly it was 1999 and Pokémon Gold and Silver came out alongside the Game Boy Color, and thus I entered the golden age of Pokémon. Those were the glory days — many, many hours were spent playing Pokémon, and many more hours spent training, honing my Pokémon to be fighting fit.

That year I remember my family went back to Malaysia, where even more Pokémon was played. One of my childhood friends there also played Pokémon, and as a present him and his family bought me a guide to catch ’em all, the Prima Official Strategy Guide for Pokémon Gold and Silver. I remember spending entire afternoons pouring through every detail, committing large sections of it to memory in order to apply it to game scenarios later on. I’m sure that if I look hard enough, it will still be around here somewhere…

People even complimented me on my Pokémon and how strong they were. I remember grinding through countless battles with the Elite Four, levelling up Dragonites to level 100 and then blowing away other Pokémon with the Hyper Beam move. Those were the days.

At the time, there also existed a set of “exploits”. Such exploits leveraged the use of bugs in the game to produce favourable results for the exploiter, such as the bug that allowed the duplication of Pokémon. It was this very bug that allowed trainers to gain access to Pokémon they normally wouldn’t have received otherwise. Legendary Pokémon were devalued somewhat with this bug, but that didn’t really matter, because catching them all was the main priority for a lot of trainers, myself included.

It was this duplication bug that allowed me to get such rare Pokémon such as Mewtwo, Mew, and Celebi through trading with other Pokémon players who weren’t afraid to trade away their legendary Pokémon as they had other copies.

Once upon a time I was also an avid swimmer, going a couple of times a week after school to swim for a couple of hours. It was during these swim sessions that I met a guy, and it just so happened that he was into Pokémon too. I can distinctly remember being in the change rooms one time — both of us had our Game Boys out, linked with the trade cable, and were swapping Pokémon. Looking back on it now such a scene just seems nothing short of ridiculous, but at the time it made perfect sense (we didn’t see each other at any time besides those swim sessions), and was perfectly normal for kids of our generation — the Pokémon generation.