Archive | Promoted

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

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

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.

Brisbane 2010 wrap-up

Hey, look, it’s been almost a year since this happened, but I am fantastic at procrastinating such tasks like these that involve a recount of a particular event. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I have a couple of ideas for things that need to be written, but those things depend on the very existence of this post (maybe not quite that much, but this post does play an important part). If this doesn’t make sense, read on anyway. I promise things will become clear by the time you reach the end.

Like I said, it’s about a year now since Brisbane 2010 happened — around this time last year I was in sunny Queensland, doing secret things with not-so-secret people. The fact that this is only being written now is testament to the fact that I am, if nothing else, a brilliant procrastinator.

In any case, Brisbane 2010 was mostly about doing a training course with work. That’s probably about all I’ll say about the purpose of the trip, suffice to say it was exciting and pretty awesome to go to Brisbane for a work-related thing (and ALL BY MYSELF) rather than with friends or family. Considering the last time I was in Brisbane was when my family decided to drive to Brisbane all the way from Tasmania, I felt really grown up, and it was great.

During one of the sessions, as part of the introductory-type, get-to-know-you things, the leader guy asked why we had chosen to participate in the program that we had been selected to participate in. If that reads like we were chosen, it sort of does — it was opt-in for sure in that we had to do a basic application for the position, but we were chosen on the basis of our applications. I think, anyway. I kinda got in by default, but that is neither here nor there.

Continue Reading →

1000 Posts!

via Buttersafe – Updated Tuesdays and Thursdays » Archive » Lightning Safety.

Have you ever had an idea that made total, complete sense at the time, but looking back you see that that couldn’t have been further from the truth? Hindsight, after all, is 20/20.

That’s pretty much what the above comic illustrates.

1000 posts, huh? This doesn’t have anything to do with hindsight, apart from the fact that I’ve never regretted a moment of it. Seriously, I’ve had a blast — when this little blog started up at the end of July 2008 with a massively profound video from Steve Jobs, I had no idea what to expect.

Hopefully this blog has been a little slice of the internet as experienced by myself — from the notorious “is awesome!” posts to every post that contained a part that (usually) didn’t have a “Part I”. From all the posts that were posted via email from Posterous (that I’ve now stopped using), to the post that explained why social networking is hugely overrated (oh, wow). Through all the good times, the bad, and all the cute girls inbetween, it’s been awesome.

So, dear reader, it’s late and I have work tomorrow — here’s to the next 1000. Perhaps if I feel like it I’ll post up something a little more meaningful a little later on, but that’s it for now.

Oh, you said you wanted a pic for proof?

Minecraft — it’s not you, it’s me!

As much as I have enjoyed playing Minecraft so far, the honeymoon that we once shared is all but well and truly over. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doomed to a never-ending stream of lacklustre mining expeditions, though — read on, dear reader, to explore my Minecraft journey so far and see what turned me off.

At first, I didn’t get the point of Minecraft. “So you build stuff in an environment that’s totally made out of blocks? Cool story bro.” It just didn’t seem all that appealing. I mean, I get the whole 8-bit appeal and what Minecraft as a whole represents to indie gaming (as evidenced by Mojang going up big guns like BioWare in such showdowns like The Escapist’s March Mayhem among lots of other prestigious gaming awards that don’t quite come to mind now), but what really is the point of it?

It wasn’t until very early this year that I realised that yes, Minecraft is one of the better games I had ever played. Some say this epic tale starts with seven friends bored with their existing repertoire of multiplayer games, wanting to try something new that all of them could play, some say that it was two of the seven introducing the others to something that they would go on to spend playing until the wee hours of the morning, forgetting things like meals or toilet breaks (that latter part may not be entirely true).

Continue Reading →

Benny Ling's Bling

Computers are like a bicycle for our minds.