Introduction etc.

I should have paid for WordPress. I should customize my blog to reflect myself and portray a person at least trying to have a successful blog, but I’m notoriously lazy. Instead, I created a free blog, planning on using every stock image and font they give me. 

Perhaps I should be more fair to myself and say that this is just me being economical, yet I prefer linguistic flagellation. People find scars more cooler anyway. Take Snake from the Metal Gear series, for example. He has a prosthetic arm and an eye patch, but no one is ready to give him the blue handicap card for his helicopter. Instead, Snake is a total badass. In truth, the eye patch probably constitutes the majority of the cool factor despite his prosthetic arm’s ability to launch like a rocket.

It is peculiar, no matter how you slice it, that an eye patch, which indicates the loss of an eye, looks so damn cool. I admit that I would like an eye patch, though I know an eye must be sacrificed. Why? Because an eye patch denotes a history. Like a fossil provides a particular sediment layer certain meanings, Snake’s eye patch lets us know that this man has a past. A story hides under it. Would the story be a trap door spider we shouldn’t mess with? Perhaps.

However, we all want to experience life, and Snake seems to have a lot of it. His taciturnity and wounds seem to follow the typical tough man routine. Can hoist the whole world over their shoulders, while their thoughts must be in a completely different dimension. Of course, this definition shares many similarities with a savior. Snake is not a savior. He is actually human.

Instead, his history has taught him silence. Of course, the game, Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain, investigates language. Language as an identity, as a tool, as a weapon. I never excepted such a deep analysis of language that needs to be treated quite seriously from a game. In fact, the game is actually more thought provoking than most books I’ve read on the subject. Sorry, but 60 bucks isn’t worth a book telling me that language is arbitrary. Perhaps I should tell Amazon that 60 dollars can mean anything like say, free, but I doubt they will agree. Oh well.

Wait, isn’t this an introduction? The christening of this blog that I hope will not end up at the bottom of the ethereal sea of the internet? Yes. So, you’re saying that my rambling is not germane to the usual structure of an introduction? Nonsense, I think my rambling has demonstrated the nascent thesis of my blog: to speak about video games. Any way I want to. 

Now, I know Ian Bogost has already outlined difficulties in talking about video games from the standpoint of interpretation, but I still want to try myself. Besides, he talks about the culture of video games in contrast with literature. It’s kind of surprising that Bogost denies video games any chance of transcendence often afforded to other mediums, such as films and literature. Oh well, we need to keep debating so we can continue to write all of those expensive university books. Whoops, thats a blog post for a different time. 

If you expect reviews with the following format: witty, nonrealated intro + paragraphs tangental to the game + an arbitrary scale of rating = no thank you. Really, I just scroll through the review and look at the score. Why not? If the score is good, then I know the reviewer probably had many good things to say about the game. If its bad, then probably had many complaints to voice. That’s all well and good, and I think reviews are important, but I can’t stand to write them. Oh, and that goes for journalism as well.

I know what you are thinking reader: what the hell is he going to talk about then? If its not reviews or breaking news coverage, then seriously, Jimbo, what the hell are you going to talk about? Answer: whatever I want to. After all, this is my blog, so if I feel the need to talk about how I need to play more horror games or how I felt looking at the sunrise, then you can damn sure well expect a blog post about that topic. 

“Wait, wait,” you still protest, “then you how can you call this a gaming blog.” Good question. I can because who says video games and sunrises have nothing in common? Who says I cannot write poetically and still talk about video games? 

We shall see where this blog goes. My mind wanders many empty, macabre roads that often provide nothing of value. Who knows, maybe I will, at least, make you laugh. But I wouldn’t expect too much, I’m notoriously lazy.