Another Videogame Rant

So, for quite a while I brought in sheet music I had found to my piano lessons, all from video games. It was months before my teacher showed any interest at all in the subject, when she brought up Scribblenauts. And then I realized - she thought all games were first-person-shooters.

I began to wonder - how many adults think all videogames are violent and influence young people to do bad things? There are so many other genres, such as puzzle games (such as Tetris and Bejewled) and RPG's, most of which fall into the adventure category (too many to list here). Then there are platformers (like the Mario series) and arcade games (Pac-Man is my example here). There are simulation games (The Sims) and even more RPG's (like Lego Star Wars). Then, there are first-person-shooters (like Halo), which are what most teenagers play. I am a teenager, however, and I dislike those sorts of games. So why must all adults assume all games are violent? Tetris sure isn't violent! And what about games like Earthbound? Although it has fighting, you can hardly call it graphic, or even violent. Certainly not the sort of thing that would influence children to love violence. Oh, the poor misnomers like Chrono Trigger, that are wonderful (I haven't actually finished it though) but because of something in the name it is assumed to be violent. Well, Chrono Trigger is somewhat violent, but it's definately not even related to first-person-shooters.

People need to see the whole picture. Yes, first-person-shooters are the most common among young people, but adults need not assume that we're all playing mindless gory war games. I play RPG's. I play puzzle games. I play games like Wii Fit Plus. I play The Sims 2. BIG FLIPPIN DEAL. Mother 3's plot was more moving than most, no, any book I've ever read. And people have the nerve to suggest I play those sorts of games I hate.

Disclaimer: I have nothing against those who play first-person-shooters, just the games themselves.

Claus? WTF?

OMG. I have no idea what this is (find the original article here) but is it just me or does that look a lot like Claus? Okay, technically that would be the Masked Man, but whatev. Here's the pic:


W.
T.
F.

They like totally ripped off the Masked Man! And it's even more suspicious because it's Japanese. Nah, just kidding about that last bit. But Japanese people are more likely to have heard of the Mother series, or more specifically, Mother 3. It just came out kinda harsh.

So...yeah...that's all...bye! *dashes out*

how strange

Occasionally I get obsessed with some obscure little niche in a wide field. This isn't quite the same, but it's similar.

What is it this time? My favorite The Simpsons character. I mean, of all the characters I could've chosen from, I just had to pick the one that appears like 10 times in the whole series, didn't I? Well, you gotta admit: Sideshow Bob is somehow unlike the rest of the Springfieldians and fits in perfectly at the same time.

The first time I heard of Sideshow Bob was when we went to Universal Studios (the Hollywood one). I used to watch The Simpsons all the time when I was about first grade-ish. I remember this one time when the teacher showed some new items we could pick from the treasure chest, and one was a Lisa Simpson toy. She asked if any of us watched the show, and most of the class did. The Simpsons isn't so bad, but I wonder what the hell my parents were thinking letting me watch Futurama and Family Guy when I was that little. Oh well, it's too late to change that.

Anyways, I stopped watching it when I got to somewhere around The Age of Reason (AKA seven/eight-ish years old) and the next time I remember watching it was once in fifth grade. It was the one where Lisa is really sad and goes and plays saxophone with this black jazz musician in the middle of the night, which is really bizzare if you think about it. I know it was that episode because she says she's the saddest second-grader, or something along those lines, and my brother was in second grade at the time.

I didn't watch the simpsons again until the summer before eighth grade. Okay, maybe I watched it once or twice, but not very much, aside from watching the movie once or twice. We found that The Simpsons (can I stop underlining it now? I'm too tired to type HTML brackets...) was on while we were in Canada, and at the time, I had seen the movie a few times, but not the show. We watched a few episodes. I remember thinking some of it was a little mature for Gabe, as he was only seven at the time, but I ended up enjoying it a bit. Well, when the school year started, I had free time aplenty, and I watched more TV. We watched a lot of Malcolm in the Middle, which is a good show. Slowly, that faded out and was replaced by The Simpsons because of Adam, and at first I was annoyed. Not pissed, just kinda annoyed. I didn't have a lot of time to watch TV anyways, so it didn't matter too much. Now, I would gladly watch Malcolm again, but The Simpsons is all I really get to watch any more. I don't really mind, though. It's not a bad show (my best friend and I disagree on that, she thinks it's awful but I think it's a great show) and it kind of reminds me of Spongebob in a way: you can laugh at it and end up feeling better if you were depressed or angry. Also, the main characters of both are yellow. However, Spongebob doesn't make fun of everything under the sun.

Well, I suppose I should get back to Sideshow Bob. At some point I ended up watching a show with him in it, and at the moment I don't recall which one, but there aren't exactly a lot to choose from.

I looked it up, I think it was either Sideshow Bob Roberts or Krusty gets Busted.

ANYWAYS, I got kind of curious. A character so different from the others on the show, so strange, so hilarious but still classy...That's not really the sort of character a show should have more than one of, or, unfortunately, have appear very often.

So there you have it: what I think are probably the reasons Robert Terwilliger is my favorite Simpsons character. Partly to practice self-psychoanalasys, partly 'cause I am BORED.