1985

I was born October 10th, 1985. Here are some fun facts about this year.

- USA for Africa was formed in January of 1985, and We Are the World hit top charts for weeks on a row. Several Live Aid concerts around the USA to fight hunger in Ethiopia.
- Guns N' Roses was formed as a band in 1985, as well as Radiohead.
- A comprehensive analysis of the top albums of 1985 shows people were listening to pretty good shit in the year I was born. Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen was on high, shoulder to shoulder with the Dire Straits, Price and the Revolution and Phil Collins... and this.
- Uzumaki Naruto, from Naruto, shares his birthday with me - believe it!
- For those of you who love mecha, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam made its debut on Japanese TV in 1985 as well, and ran all through to 1986.
- Cinema in 1985 also had its shining moments. Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Day of the Dead, King Solomon's Mines, The Jewel of the Nile, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Red Sonja, Runaway Train all came out in 1985 and I would recommend every one of them.
- Yul Brynner died in 1985... and if you didn't grow up with cowboy movies, this means nothing to you, but he was one of The Magnificient Seven.
- Amadeus wins the Academy Award - pretty good flick, though historically inaccurate.
- In 1985 Nintendo was on the run, Super Mario Brothers having been released on September of this year, the NES coming to international knowledge. Atari was still on the race but losing it fast for the NES, and Commodore had just released the Amiga computer.
- Everyone is bouncing back from the videogame crash of 1983 - games are getting popular again by now, thank crow.
- A few good books also saw their release in 1985. Namely, Isaac Asimov published Robots and Empire, Clive Barker spawned The Damnation Game and Stephen King leaked The Skeleton Crew. The Dunwich Horror and At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, both by H.P. Lovecraft, were also published in the same year.
- In 1985 Marvel is doing crossovers like crazy. One of the joined pairs is Wolverine and the Fantastic Four. The clawed canuck was also put against Dazzler the very same year, a combination most Marvel fans claim to be hideous and barf-inducing.
- The Wolverine and Kitty Pryde miniseries, however, is running at this time, prettily in fact. Ogun is still alive and Wolverine wants his head (do check it out, it's rather interesting...)
- Several comics for several previously mentioned teams paralel to the X-Men began in the 1980's - Alpha Flight has its own airing time in 1985, but groups such as Excalibur, X-Factor and the New Mutants begin in the same decade. Psylocke, Forge and Rogue join the X-Men officially.
- Nobody gives a shit for Batman in 1985 - sales hit an all-time low, after which the hero is revised from the Adam West-esque thing it started off as, to the dark hero we know today.
- Mikhail Gorbachev becomes de facto leader of the Soviet Union in this year.
- Worldwide testing for AIDS is approved, once and for all, to try and gain a better control of the disease.
- This is also the year of the New Coke (or rather, Coca-Cola as we know it, since the formula was altered, for the dismay of many).
- The Unabomber makes the news in May by blowing up a lot of shit.
- First airing of the Discovery channel: June 17, 1985 - although we're still far from series like Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs.
- 40th birthday of the nuke that sent Hiroshima to the Moon.
- The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuts in November 18 of this year.
- Tetris is also created in 1985, for the delight of many, myself included just 6 years ahead.
- Graphic novel Watchmen is set in 1985 as well - an alternative 1985, but still...
- The world counts 4.830.919.000 inhabitants at this point. The actual count is almost twice as much.
- Some people also born in 1985: porno actress Eva Angelina, actress Keira Knightley, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo. I could make a thousand jokes from these three names alone.
- 1985 in other calendars: 2529 in the Buddhist calendar; 4621 in the Chinese calendar; 1405 in the Islamic calendar; Showa 60 in the Japanese calendar; 5745 in the Hebrew calendar; 473385600 - 504921599 in Unix time; MCMLXXXV for Romans.
- In chinese astrology, this is a Yin Wood year. Wood is associated with the liver in Chinese medicine, the East, Springtime, the planet Jupiter and the color green. Those born in it are under the sign of the Ox. Their motto is "I Persevere".

Twitter vs Hollywood

I read something a while ago which left me in a very good mood. It concerned Twitter, the popular social network which allows you to tell everyone when you're scratching your ass at the bus stop in real time, and movies.

In a society where people will still pay nearly 8 € for a movie and a large drink, you want to know exactly what to watch. Especially this being a society where there is also a huge pile of bullshit called Hollywood somewhere on the Northern hemisphere which approves any script with a number in front of the title. It's nothing short of shameful that American Pie had so many sequels we could set our watches by the time it took Jason Bigg's dick to get stuck somewhere. Reviews take time to be uploaded, and many of them are severely biased. Some, almost as much as the ones you get in newspapers. Unless someone marched down to the theatre before you and could tell if a movie was worth those 8 € or not, you'd pretty much sit down with your large drink and hope for the best. This is not fair. Hence why I don't blame anyone who will rip a movie off the Internet and watch it. Why should we pay so much without knowing there is some quality to the experience?

When I was a kid, the only way to be in the clear was the aforementioned: I would only watch movies on their last weeks at the box office, after everyone else did, so I could be forewarned. If the rumors about the flick were bad, I'd simply wait for it to come to DVD and rent it. I failed to watch good movies on the silver screen, and I also watched plenty of movies in theatre which weren't worth my time getting there or the money I paid to sit and watch them. The Internet helped, but the problem remained. Hollywood would get money anyhow, at least for the first two or three weeks, and if they kept getting money, it didn't matter how many Internet users went online saying the movie sucked balls after the first two weeks. They'd keep on doing it.

Twitter seems to be helping moviegoers make a difference in this process. Since it can be accessed and updated via cellphone or palmtop, you can find out if a movie is good or not by following other user's tweets. If someone watched a horrible movie in the morning, you'll know before you buy the ticket in the afternoon. This in turns forced Hollywood to improve the quality control of their scrips: there is no force in this world as strong and relentless as public opinion, and if they hope to change the way all those Twitter users talk about the movies, they must try their best, once again, to make truly entertaining and truly good movies.

Having in mind there are about 6 million users on Twitter every day, this leaves me in a very good mood. .

Forgiving Gameplay

So I was checking out a few trailers for Braid (you know - I sometimes do check things I know I'll never have, just to keep in touch with new games coming out. When someone tells me Old Franchise 5 and Final Sci-Fi [Insert Roman Numeral Here] are alike, I wanna know what I'm being told) and when reading a description of the game features, I came across this wonderful expression which I would like to approach for a while.

The expression is "forgiving gameplay".

This, my good people, is a direct copy and paste from Greenhouse's website. "(...) The game doesn’t force you to solve puzzles in order to proceed. If you can’t figure something out, just play onward and return to that puzzle later. (...)" Well then... can you tell me what the point is? As I recall, when you're playing a game - specifically, a puzzle game - you overcome certain obstacles to reach a goal. If you can just ignore a difficult part, play onward and then go back whenever you "feel like it", what's the point of having an obstacle?

It's hard to fit in my brain that I can pick a game already programmed in case I'm a little slow. I understand where they were going with Braid. It's a game made as a critique to the way most games do things, it's social and political metaphor... the problem is, it comes in a time and context in which much of that is lost. This is an era where 2 billion bozos can log onto the same virtual community, find naked mods to their characters and be general douchebags in complete anonymity. This is an era in which whatever puzzles we are faced with during gaming are so one-sided and simple anyone can figure them out. This is not an era when people like to think when playing games, and they seek the simple satisfaction of being able to shoot someone or something without consequences. I see where the creator, Jonathan Blow, was going with this. And I don't criticize Braid in ways other than this one: the story is open to interpretation, the game is aesthetically wonderful and it's a side-scroller like we hadn't seen in years. By the very philosophy behind the game, having anything other than forgiving gameplay would be paradoxical and useless...

Still, I read about the concept in Wikipedia, and the idea still wouldn't fit my brain: you can finish this game without solving most puzzles, so as long as you destroy bosses. In several conferences and intervews, Blow urged gamers not to consult walkthroughs and instead try solving the puzzles themselves. I'm all pro this as well, Blow, in fact unless we are playing a graphical adventure in which it is virtually impossible to make it without a guide (Persona 3, looking right at you), we usually feel much more rewarded for surpassing a difficult part of the game on our own. It makes us feel good, in harder puzzles it makes us feel like flippin' geniuses. And I'll quote Blow himself on this: "(...) unearned rewards are false and meaningless (...)". I absolutely agree - but the fact is that we're in a time when playthroughs are available on YouTube half an hour after a game's release, and further help can be found online. That was before, my good man. When I began gaming, we didn't have guides or Internet... we still finished games. You have made a pearl of a game perhaps, but you are giving it unto people who go by the rules of trying three times and then checking a guide. If there wasn't a token for finishing each puzzle, I can bet you anything most people wouldn't try to finish puzzles at all, and just side-scroll their way to the ending!

Then again, maybe I am wrong. Maybe people will take the challenge, and try to get all tokens, and do something with their brain for a change.

...or maybe not. This is an instant gratification society. This is a place where people will praise you for everything you do - every little thing! You have to either work really bloody hard, or not at all, for your accomplishments, and most people don't have to work hard. Everyone is so afraid of traumatizing their children they keep telling them they're special. So when running freely through the meadow of understanding, it comes as quite a shock to slam face-first into brick wall of reality. If people get praised for very little, they will never try to achieve the very hard. I see this everyday. So yes, this is a good concept and appropriate to the game - but I fear what this innovative feature will do to gameplay as we know it. We'll go from very easy goals to no mandatory goals at all. And if so, what's the point of playing a game?

And then again, maybe I'm blowing this completely out of proportion. I happen to think people could use a little more challenge, a little more of something that would make them think, a little working hard for rewards, a real chance to miss and fail, something that would make those two remaining braincells hump each other and produce thought... or a real chance to get stuck in a game unless they figure it out. It's just a game, after all.

Games of Old

My very first gaming console was Master System II. Check out that huge D-Pad, and the pause button on the console itself. Classy. I can still remember it. When it first came to my home, it only had two games: Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog, both spawns of SEGA. I was six years old and games were pretty new: this was 1991, the console had been out for a year worldwide but was new to Europe, along with the NES. The console became the most cherished appliance we had at home. I played, my Mum played, even my Dad managed to do a few levels from time to time.

Then we got a few more games for it (I recall there was a Michael Jackson game, and one called Psycho Fox which we all thought was awesome), and eventually got a hold of a Genesis. That was one of the golden ages of gaming in this household. There were games everyone could play: the folks especially liked Mega Bomberman and most platformers. We owned a Saturn for a while, although we didn't have many games for it, and eventually went into the PSX, Gamecube and Playstation 2 realms. The Playstation 2 is, after the Genesis, the console with a greater lifespan in the house. Before we sold a good deal of our games, we owned over sixty different titles, half were my brother's, half were mine, and a few were also picked up by my Mum. She found she was particularly fond of Final Fantasy titles and general RPG then, with the tenth game of the franchise coming out. It was also on PSX and Playstation 2 my love for horror and survival games bloomed, as well as stealth. Kid Bro became the great fighting game moolah mogul he is today on Playstation 2, mainly.

On portable consoles, we owned a Game Gear for a while, but it was bullshit. The best thing I ever bough on handheld consoles was my Gameboy Color: eight years afterwards, it's still up and running. I doubt any other handheld will have my appreciation as much as it. I also did quite a bit of playing elder games from SNES on emulators on my PC later on. Although I never owned them, I did play several games on NES, Dreamcast and even a Wii and Playstation 3, recently.

Why am I typing all this for you? Quite simple. To prove I've seen a good deal of the gaming evolution from the old days until now. And let me tell you something: there are no such things as master gamers nowadays. That is a title belonging to the past. Here's why.

Back in the day we didn't have as much luxury in gaming as we have nowadays. Most games didn't have a save system. You had a number of lives, maybe a number of continues, and if the lights went out for some reason, your game was lost and you'd be starting from the beginning. In one of my old neighborhoods we sometimes had blackouts, and you don't know how frustrating it is to be at the level before the last in a game and have to start at the beginning because lights went out. Nowadays, if you wanna take a little break, you save and turn off the console - back then, that was murder. I never did it myself because my parents would've killed me, but I had friends who started to play in the early morning and left the game on while they were in class, to continue when they came back home. You literally had to sit in front of the TV for hours unend to finish a game. And if you lost all your lives and/or continues, you'd go back to the beginning of the game. Not to your last save.

And even things like Pause buttons were not as common as you think. It's a true relief to be able to pause for a bathroom break once in a while these days. The Master System II had a Pause button on the console itself. The problem is, it didn't work with all games. For example, you could pause Alex Kidd, but good luck getting a break in Psycho Fox. The NES didn't have a Pause button. In fact, before the Genesis and SNES age, it was rare to get a gaming console with a Pause button. I look at controllers for Gamecube and Xbox, and I'm amazed: how did we get to this? I'm from a time when it was as simple as D-Pad, A button and B button. You had three buttons, canon: figure it out. Characters in games never had more than a couple moves: walk, run, jump, crouch. Whatever else you needed to do, you'd have to combine buttons to. Does anyone still know what up-up-down-down-left-right-left-righ-B-A is? Because if there's a code to remember, this is it.

But that's not all. Games were also harder. I know guys who can dominate everyone in Lineage, Halo, World of Warcraft, the works... and they can't get through the first level of Super Mario Bros. without taking damage somehow. I recently played a few levels of Sonic the Hedgehog, and it surprised me how much I sucked. See nowadays you have all sorts of games, but back then, it was platformers, RPGs, fighting, shooter, sports and puzzles. I mostly recall platformers, perhaps because that's what we played more at my place. You got an action or adventure game, chances were that they were platformers, and something that doesn't exist anymore called sidescroller. Yeah, start at the left, and the end of the level is at the right. Levels are apparently also gone: now you have chapters, arcs, even hours and nights, but "levels" seems to be gone.

It took skill back then. You had to memorize sets of buttons, or even worse: go real old school and mash them at random. It was simpler, yes, but harder. Nowadays, your job is to try to level up characters and weapons, but back then, unless you were playing for instance Mega Man, the guy you began with was the one you had to take with you til the end. Power-ups, yes, but leveling-up like we do today, we never had to do. Crow, someone who could make it halfway through Contra was a hero. I truly think games were harder, maybe because they were simpler. There are no more master gamers, nobody dedicated enough to a game to play it without fucking up or goofing off at some point, someone who will spend hours just practicing and having fun. And games are easier these days, so it doesn't take the same level of mastery. Hell I recall owning Genesis games I was never able to complete halfway try as I might (Contra, I'm looking at you again), and I hardly owned a PS2 game I didn't finish or near-finish. The title "master gamer" is lost with time, folks.

Not that I'm complaining about the newer generation of games. In fact, most of my favorite games came out in the past ten years. I'm just saying that when you hear that douchebag speak of how he owned ass at Unreal Tournament, maybe you should give him some Contra to play.

The Most Serene Church of Murphy

I have great news: I am starting my own church. Jehova Witnesses and the Mormon did it, so can I. It's gonna be called The Most Serene Church of Murphy, and it's gonna revolutionize religious cult as it was previously known. I just need a garage, warehouse or basement, a pulp and a few people half as crazy as me and just as angry to become followers. The premise will be simple: this is not a church which asks its deity for mercy, salvation or aid. In The Most Serene Church of Murphy, we know very well it's no use doing so, because Murphy is a bastard, and the point of a having a cult to Him is merely helping people into accepting His existance, His activity and teaching them when they should revolt and when they should up the white flag.

We can have aid groups for Murphy Doing Overtime Mondays, and hold special masses in the thirteenth of the month. Otherwise, service will be presential, in the Church, between 5 PM and 7 PM Fridays, so they can watch it, eat something and hit the bars. Believers can sit on old couches, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and jack, and listen to others testify (AKA complain). On occasion, the leader of the church -yours truly- will do sermons about ill luck, bad jojo and inherent pessimism. The Holy Book will be no longer than 5 chapters: who has the time to read more anyway? It will be composed of the Book of Boredom, the Book of Annoyance, the Book of Desolation, the Book of Ill Luck and Revelations (which will basically be a rundown of all things unlucky and several possible interpretations for Murphy's signs of disgrace).

Instead of the wine and bread, we'll have coffee and cookies. And our Commandments will go likeso:

1. Thou shalt not ignore Murphy. Murphy in all His Grace cannot, and will not, be ignored.
2. Though shalt not make offerings or ask for mercy, aid and strenght from Murphy, for Murphy not only refuses these things, but also in His Annoying Greatness, smites thee in return.
3. Thou shalt refrain from cursing Murphy outside service, for His vengeance is swift and terrible.
4. Thou shalt fear the Unholy Monday, and all days of the year which are numbered 13. For these are accursed days in which anything can happen and everything does happen.
5. Thou shalt not hope for better days to come, because they don't, and when they do, they foretell worse ones ahead.
6. Thou shalt not harm thy neighbor. Unless he has it coming. Murphy does a pretty good job fuckin' up everyone's day, He doesn't need any help.
7. Thou shalt endure. Thou shalt not sit down and feel miserable and sorry for thyself, thou shalt get off thy lazy ass and go to work or school like the rest of us.
8. Thou shalt not become emo and write some of the most horrible poetry known to Man at times when Murphy concentrates His Most Desolating Activity on thee.
9. Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie. (in memoriam George Carlin, 1937 – 2008)
10. Thou shalt laugh in the face of disaster, and it shalt be known you have finally gone insane.

I actually think this can go somewhere.

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