Released: February 9, 2004Played on: 3DS (Virtual Console) We all have our strengths and weaknesses. With effort and work, these weaknesses can be improved upon, and their prominence can be minimized by other factors, such as our overall investment or interest in the task at hand. Of my many weaknesses when it comes to playing video games, the Metroid series has always seemed to be a nexus of the worst of them. Poor ability to keep track of previous locations? Check. Poor ability in combat/platforming requiring tight controls? Check. Solving environmental puzzles requiring lateral thinking? Check. This has kept me Continue Reading
Foundation Year: Sonic the Hedgehog
Released: June 23, 1991Played on: 3DS (Sega 3D Classics) As with most video game enjoyers, the holes in my personal Video Game history are defined by the consoles I was fortunate enough to have access to growing up. I have had access to a PC for pretty much my entire recorded memory, but my first console was an N64. We made the switch to an Xbox to get in on Halo, followed by a 360, and then a switch to PS4. I had every Nintendo handheld at one point or another but was mainly a Game Boy kid. Notably, I Continue Reading
Video Games Foundation Year Syllabus
As I have grown older, I have experienced what many of my ilk have also experienced – I listen to more podcasts and read more posts about my hobbies than I actually partake in them. Nowhere is this more the case than with video games, where the siren’s call of yet another Madden or NHL franchise save eats up the majority of the time I actually have to sit down with a controller in my hands, and Pokémon eats most of the rest. I have tried to catalog and organize my backlog, but this does not solve the issue, and Continue Reading
Why Did The Twist in Knights of the Old Republic Work?
or PLEASE DO NOT ADAPT KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC In the post-Rise of Skywalker era of Star Wars, fans frequently call for the return of material from the Expanded Universe (EU) or Legends. Dissatisfaction with where ROS left the story has left fans eager to revisit material from an age when they were happy with Star Wars. This sentiment has only grown with the work of uber-fan Dave Filoni and his Mando-verse, which has reintroduced favorite Legends characters into canon. Recently, for example, Ahsoka brought Grand Admiral Thrawn to live action. As Filoni works through the top of the Continue Reading
2024 Denver Broncos Draft Thoughts
By “2024 Denver Broncos Draft”, I of course mean “Bo Nix”. It’s been a number of years since I’ve dedicated enough time to pre-draft research to have informed opinions about any but the top draft picks, and the intervening years have convinced me that even a lifetime dedictaed to researching and analyzing college prospects will only marginally improve your ability to project success at the pro level. A few weeks of crammed reading of others’ analysis might be interesting or fun, but it isn’t useful. With that said, I do enjoy thinking about team building, and I am a Broncos Continue Reading
Narrative and Complexity
NOTE: I wrote this on November 11th, 2016, and then let it rot in my drafts folder. I’m publishing it now because, well, why not? Please excuse this self-indulgence. I’m a well-off white man who lives in Canada who has a great family, a great fiancee, and all of the privilege that comes with those things. If you want to dismiss this for any of those reasons, go right ahead. It’s also worth noting that nearly none of these thoughts are my own – This is merely the attempt I am making to fit them together.
A Liberal Amount of Change?
Here is a freelance assignment I wrote for CAAR’s The Communicator on what to expect from Liberal Ag Policy under the Trudeau government.
Uptown Special
I was writing a post on my favourite music of 2014(and early 2015), and when I got to my section on Mark Ronson’s newest album, I just kept writing. So, I decided to make it its own thing. The other post will come out, but for now, here’s my take on Uptown Special.
Interstellar
This is going to be a tricky needle to thread. My relationship with Christopher Nolan’s movies has been had its ups and downs, but it has taught me one lesson more than anything else I can think of – The value of expectations. So let’s go back to his last work. In the lead-up to Inception’s release, I was wildly excited. Memento is one of my favourite movies, and I had baited breath for Nolan to do another one-off mind bending thriller. I went into the theatre to watch Inception more prepared for a movie than I ever have been. I Continue Reading
The Unknown Known
One of my favourite documentaries of all time is The Fog of War. In it, Errol Morris uses his clever Interrotron to interview former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The movie plays a bit like a monologue; Morris’ voice is hardly present. The movie is structured on MacNamara’s “11 lessons”, which are given to us as he moves us through his wildly fascinating life. Ever present in The Fog of War was the invisible elephant in the room of Iraq. McNamara had, for the vast majority of his life, maintained that former Secretaries of Defense should not criticize current ones. Continue Reading