Originally Published August 26, 2010

This might create a little controversy, considering how everyone seems to think that Tetris is the greatest puzzle game ever, but in my opinion, those people are wrong. There are two puzzlers I like more than Tetris, and they are Wario’s Woods and Dr. Mario. I’ll get to Wario’s Woods in another article. Now, I love Tetris and recognize it as one of the greatest games ever, but in my opinion, Dr. Mario is a better game and I will explain why.

1. It has a character- Yes, having a character helps out. It also doesn’t hurt that the character is Mario. Let me just say this: Mario. As a doctor.  Need I say more?

2. Better Visuals- I know graphics don’t make the game, but sometimes it helps. I’m talking about in game graphics here, not title screens or endings. In Tetris, there are blocks of different shapes and sizes. In Dr. Mario, there are red, blue, and yellow viruses that move around. The pills are also red, yellow, and blue. I also like how the screen is a pill bottle. The game is more colorful and better looking.

3. Better Music- This is just an opinion, but if you ask me, Dr. Mario has better music. The “Fever” theme is the more popular one and it’s also a great theme, but “Chill” is a great theme, too. It only has two songs, but both of them are really good and overall better than any version of Tetris.

4. Better Gameplay- The last and most important reason, Dr. Mario has better, more fun, and more strategic gameplay. In Tetris, you line up all the blocks in a row to eliminate them. In Dr. Mario, you need to match the pills with viruses of the same color, like blue pills with blue viruses, and in the later stages, it gets more challenging because you try not to screw up with the colors and it causes you to think fast or lose. Also, when you kill a virus, in the bottom left, whatever color virus is killed falls down, and when you eliminate all viruses of the same color, it disappears.

Like I said, both Tetris and Dr. Mario are great games, but I prefer Dr. Mario any day. That is all. Peace out.

Originally Published August 24, 2010

Looking at that title, you may be wondering what I mean. Do I mean different as in graphics capabilities or CD’s being preferred over cartridges? No, I mean different in terms of quality. Now this isn’t going to be a rant on how modern games and the people who play them are stupid, because I actually enjoy a lot of current generation games. No, this is an article explaining that I enjoy classic video games more. That may seem weird considering I’m only sixteen years old and most people my age prefer more recent hits such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Modern Warfare, and Halo, but the fact is I just prefer older games.

One reason is that most old games don’t need fancy graphics to be fun. Just look at Pong, one of the oldest, simplest, and least graphically impressive games of all time. Pong has incredibly primitive graphics, but thanks to it’s simple yet fun gameplay, it’s still great and addictive as hell. Another game would be Asteroids, which actually is a newer version of Spacewar!. It’s vector graphics may have been good and unique in its day, but it’s certainly not gonna get any Most Visually Impressive awards, but again, its simple yet fun gameplay makes it really addictive and shooting asteroids is just a cool concept, especially when they turn into smaller asteroids.

Now, you may be saying “Well, they’re too simple to be as fun as more complex games of today.” Well, you would be wrong. I have two points against that. One, does simple really equate to bad? I mean, do you really need a bunch of complex shit that you never use? Do fancier menu screens and game modes that you never use really make the game more fun? I think not. All you really need are a few concepts that sound good on paper and execute it well. Also, I wouldn’t call classic Zelda games or classic Metroid games simple at all. Those are both pretty complex games, but not being too complex to the point of feeling hopeless and stupid.

And another thing, many of the gameplay features of today’s games that people take for granted have already been done before. For example, people seem to love content creation and think it’s revolutionary. Really? Excitebike had a track editor back in 1984. And people say Spore is a revolutionary game when SimEarth did the evolution sim concept back in 1990. I’m not knocking Spore, I’m just saying it’s an updated version of an older game.

Overall, I would say classic games from the 80′s to the 90′s are the best, especially the 90′s. That is all. Peace out.

Hello there. I’m making an update and shit. I wish more people would visit my site. Perhaps I’ll advertise it some more. Well, I’m also here to give you a preview of things to come:

• Okay, I think I’m going to bring all my posts from my old blog, Retro Gaming Is Best, onto this blog, since the site I brought it to doesn’t even get updated anymore.
• Some “History Of” articles, on subjects from video games to grunge.
• Reviews of video games, movies, albums, etc.
• If I could figure it out, I might get guest writers who can write their own articles and whatnot.
• Perhaps a new design and a custom header.
• A lot more.

Well, there you go. And also, if you visit, tell people about my blog, goddammit!

Here are websites you should go to. 

Syd Lexia- This site is pop culture heaven, with great articles, a wiki, and some great forums. One of my favorite sites ever. Site: http://www.sydlexia.com

The Nintendo Domain- One of the best Nintendo forums out there. Has a everyone knows each other feel to it. Site: http://thenintendodomain.forumotion.com.com

The Video Game Critic- Fuck GameSpot and fuck IGN, this site has the best reviews you can find online. Great forums, too. Site: http://www.videogamecritic.net

Yes, visit these awesome websites because they are awesome. Also, I wish more people would visit my blog. Oh well. Someday I’ll be internet famous.

Yes, everyone knows that Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden are all making new albums, but we don’t know when. The reason I am excited is because all three are among my favorite bands of all time, even though I have so few albums by them. I need to get more of their older shit, too. It’s just so fucking awesome that three of my favorite artists are making new music. It just goes to show that great music will never die. And if you’re not excited for any of these albums, fuck you! Hopefully they come out sooner than later, because personally, I’m pissing my pants in anticipation for what will surely be excellent albums by excellent bands.

Ah yes, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as the Super Nintendo, Super NES, and SNES. Perhaps the greatest video game system of all time. What made it so great, though? Was it the excellent audio and the wonderful music of the games? Was it the crisp, attractive 2D visuals? Perhaps it was the controllers, with the revolutionary shoulder buttons. But the biggest reason the SNES was so great was the games, of course. Right at launch, it debuted with the wonderful Super Mario World along with Yoshi, the innovative and dreamy Pilotwings, the fast and intense F-Zero, and more. Right at launch, there were excellent games that that showed off the Mode 7 graphics. There were many games that were technically amazing for the SNES, from the Super-FX debut with Star Fox to the pre-rendered graphics of Donkey Kong Country to the 32 megs of Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars. The hardware was great too. Great examples are the shoulder buttons on the controllers, the Super Game Boy, which allowed you to play the black and white Game Boy games, in color, on your TV, the multitap, which introduced many people to 3 and 4 player, and more. A lot of the games were some of the best ever, like the greatest game ever, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, the combined platformer/RPG approach with Super Mario RPG, the great graphics and platforming of Donkey Kong Country, the genre creating Super Mario Kart, the chance to play as Yoshi in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, the massive amount of RPGs, great 3rd party support, and more. All great reasons to love the greatest system ever. Yes, I love the SNES. Always have, always will. Here’s my very short tribute to you, you little purple and gray wonder.

And it turns out no one visits my blog. I have a total of six views. Yes, from August 2010 up until now, I’ve only gotten six hits. Am I surprised? Honestly, no. For one, it’s extremely hard for any blog to get any sort of attention. Most blogs get very little views, and for now, mine isn’t any different. And two, it’s my own damn fault for not posting enough. This month was the first time I posted anything since August 2010. Yes, nearly a year without updating. Why would anyone want to visit a blog with such little content? Thankfully, this is free and I’m not paying anything just to get no views. Hopefully in the future, I’ll get visitors who like my blog enough to keep visiting. Until then, all I can do is work on my blog and make sure anyone who visits is interested enough to keep coming back.

Seriously, fuck you, assholes. It’s people like Jack Thompson (or Jackass Thompson, as I like to call him. Thank fucking god he was disbarred) that really piss me off. These are the kind of shitheads who think it’s a good idea to ban or censor violent or otherwise questionable video games. Why? Because you claim it makes people violent? Well I play video games and not once have I had any sort of desire to rip someone’s spine out or run over hookers. So why should you take away video games from me, when I’m a generally responsible and nonviolent person? Is it because kids get access to them? Well tell the parents not to fucking buy their kids Grand Theft Auto or Mortal Kombat. It’s not the game’s fault kids are playing it. Did you know video games can actually be good for you, somewhat? It’s true. They can be good for intelligence and they can increase mental capabilities, but that’s for another article. The point is, don’t fuck with our video games. People like me are responsible, mature, nonviolent, and can play a damn game without thoughts of violence. So fuck you and let me play my video games, asshole!

Seriously. Twitter is one of the most overrated sites of all time. What the hell do people like about it so much? I don’t see anything special about it, and I don’t know why everyone else does, either. I mean, they claim they want  to update to fans and friends. Well, that’s what a fucking blog is for. To be fair, though, Twitter is substantially more popular than any blog I know of, so I guess it is useful for updates, somewhat. However, my biggest problem is that it’s a micro blogging service, with a 140 character limit. Yes, 140 characters. And I thought YouTube’s character limit was bad, but this is just plain retarded. The worst part is that people are actually praising the limit as if it’s a good thing. How so? With a character limit like that, you get a lot of updates that look like these examples: “I ate waffles today.” “I just took a big shit.” “I went to the movies.” Is that what you call a good thing? I don’t think so. Perhaps one of you can tell me why Twitter is so great. Until then, fuck Twitter.

Spiders. I fucking hate spiders. I have really bad arachnophobia. If a tarantula was crawling on me, you know what I would do? First I would scream and yell for someone to get the ugly little fucker off me. Then I would probably start crying and I would definitely start freaking out. Then when someone finally gets it off me, I’d probably continue crying and run away from it. Then I would probably keep crying for a little bit. Now you probably don’t give a shit about my arachnophobia or you think I’m a pussy because I said I would cry, but I wanted to share my biggest fear with the world, and I can guarantee that I wouldn’t cry for almost anything else. Also, if I just saw the tarantula, I wouldn’t cry. I would still freak out and run away from it, though. In short, I wish spiders would all go extinct and get replaced with something else that eats twice as many insects and is a lot less scary.