One rather hilarious trend I've seen in discussions about sales figures and financials is the comment that "Nintendo hardware sales have dropped continuously ever since the SNES came out." It conveniently ignores the Wii, which sold more than the Gamecube and N64 combined and is far ahead of the PS3 and 360 in sales. In a gaming community that will pick apart even the smallest numbers to prove a point, the way they ignore the Wii's higher hardware/software sales and profits is quite fascinating. It says a lot about just how emotionally invested people are in financial figures, and the way they'll twist and contort around stats they don't like to protect their world view.
So yesterday turned out a little more exciting than I had initially anticipated/hoped for. While on the highway on my way home from work my car had a blowout in the rear wheel on the passenger side. Fuck me, was that scary. I managed to keep control and pull over luckily enough which was good. So I’m there on the side of the highway, flashers on, with my car jacked up, when I realize that no matter how hard I try, I can’t get the fucking nuts to loosen on the tire. Of course it was cold too. Bloody hell. Very luckily, a tire service truck passes me and stops to see if I need any help. This absolute gentleman was able to loosen the nuts with a pneumatic wrench and had me on my way pretty quickly. What a fucking relief I tell ya. Most annoying thing is, I’m like two mins from my house this whole time. Oh well, it could’ve been a lot worse.
In these years I was going to private school and lost touch with my neighborhood friends who still went to the public school and so didn't play much on home consoles anymore. However, my friend Phil (also a private school kid, not going to the same school though) and I hung out and rode our bikes all the way to the the arcade in the Mall. It was five miles and one mega hill away. I was an athlete then and it was just fun to climb that hill on the way back every time.
I'm trying to solve a mystery. The mystery of why it took me so long to type this blog. So far, what I've uncovered has revealed much, yet my story seems to make less and less sense as I go along.
This is just going to be a short blog today. I have talked with many people and observed how a lot of people treat their favorite games. They usually have played through it a million times, mastering mechanics and memorizing details of plot, gameplay, everything. Now I don't know how you guys do it but I am a much different kind of beast.
Yesterday I finally wrapped up The Last of Us. I've been chronicling my experience in the forums. So those of you who have been following along via those posts surely know that it wasn't my favorite game. It's nothing awful or anything, it just didn't strike me as anything particularly special.