Let's talk about being a gamer.

A rant before I wander off into sleep, and because theirs some good music playing and I don't want it to go to waste. Let's start from something I believe to be essential. Where it all began.

Out of pure spite and also admirance of my brothers. What you people know of to be the people I call my brothers used to be completely different. In that, they were dicks. And in being dicks, they were also my "parents", as my real parents were never truelly around. So, watching them play games, thats what I wanted to do. I'm a gamer by inheritance, and therefore by nature. Either because I just wanted to piss them off by occupying the system when they had just rented a game, or because I had just rented a game and knew they were only just occupying the system, I had a strong desire to play. Which soon created an even stronger desire to win.

When the SNES was out, there was a huge lack of multiplayer games, an even bigger lack of competitive games, and an even further gap of multiplayer competitive games that I was competent at. The N64, in a sense changed this, and with that came about the almost NEED to become the best. Though, you could never show it. You could never boast you were the best with out being somewhat ironic, otherwise you were "taking it too seriously", though everyone knew just how important it was to be the best. Or maybe that was just me, being the smallest and having to prove myself in any way shape or form. Either way, 007, mario kart 64, smash bros, and many more all reset the proving grounds of who had their moment of fame in the house that night. Who could sleep more soundly knowing that the others couldn't. Who could get bragging rights to the console next so that they could get in more time so that they could get better. In a sense, even though I didn't grow up in the arcade scene the way others did, I still had that idea of "if you win, you keep playing". In short, you really had to want it.

Lets fast forward into the future. I'll keep this as less about street fighter 4 as possible, so lets start with my brother Joshua, and smash bros. Before Luis left the house and began the sepperation of us all, the order in Smash bros, and therefore of all games, or so it was perceieved, was Josh, Luis and then myself. We could all argue otherwise, but once it game down to controllers being in hand, thats how it truely played out. After awhile, I became second, but somehow, SOMEHOW, my brother joshua remained 1st. Even though he was the only "non gamer", and I have yet to this day to figure out how he did that. Now adays thats changed, if only because he barely touches the game, but then again neither do I. So who knows.

On the note of smash bros, I like many other fighting game enthusiasts do not take it seriously enough. This is sort of a sub-story to my entire rant but this is how it goes down. Smash players (both melee and brawl) don't take any other fighter seriously. Everyone else doesn't take smash seriously. It's actually really amusing. Of course, I side with the non smash, though I will say that melee is much better of a competitive game then brawl is. On this same note, just because you play Brawl does NOT make you a gamer. Onto my next rant, non-ganers who play games.

Playing Halo does not make you a gamer. Playing MWF2 does not make you a gamer. Playing GoW does not make you a gamer. These all make you a bro gamer, or what ever derogatory term you want to use at the time. Playing Smash, along with all of these, does not make you a gamer either. Well, brawl anyways, you can have your fits with Melee since this is done on a much lesser scale with melee and has nothing but elitists fucks who think they're the shit. Brawl is nothing more then one giant fanservice. Ironically, many "gamers" who play brawl are also the same people who played one or two sonics on either the GCN or Dreamcast and entranced them so much that they made themselves a sonic character. Read: furry. Or even just anime nerds. Somehow brawl attracts them also. Either way, these people are not gamers, they are just people who like one game, know the history of other games (read:JRPGS) but don't know the joy of beating a final boss. Don't know the joy of anything in those games aside from the story. Bah to them, I say! Though, they did find one game that they enjoy the gameplay of. One that caters to the new, the young, the un experienced, in short, a game dumbed down by those who thought they deserved a chance at high stake wins with out wanting to put in all the time and practice. Sound familiar Blizzard?

I won't even get into how pissed I get when WoW players think themselves of "hardcore" gamers. Come back 5 years ago, and maybe. But now it's no different then buying shit off of popcap, or getting a DS game/Wii game.

While we're onto this topic of "real gamers" i want to say this. REAL GAMERS ARE NOT PEOPLE YOU CAN MARKET TO!! I hate seeing shirts and things of games that obviously everyone has played, being marketed to "gamers" when really anyone can wear them and not feel dumb. This is a stupid trend that started four years ago, and at the time was cool. We had a way to sepperate ourselves normally. But then everyone started doing it. Being a gamer became "trendy". And you know what real gamers did? We said "fuck that". At this point I'll just be restating what many have said in that, we did not go years being social outcasts to just let everyone be apart of us. No. You have to work just like we did. You have to know your shit. I don't care if you know the konami code. I've never had to use it and I don't know it. Tell me what the boss order and name of the bosses in SMRPG are. Or tell me what the feather does in Zelda, any of them. Tell me why knowing how to do a hadouken or srk is useless info with out textbooks worth of other knowledge. Explain to me the frustration of having shaman gear drop as alliance. What are all of the robot masters weaknesses, in ANY of the megamans. Shit, most of us only ever got one. These make us who we are.

By the way, making something new for gamers, then marketing it at us and saying "all gamers are doing it" is a quick way to get us not to do something. We hate conforming, All of us. I don't know why. Ironically, we also have fanboyisms. If other gamers are doing it and we're not already, then we're not going to do it. What, you got a sega? I hate sega. No I have never played it, but I don't have it, so therefore it sucks. And so do you.

Unrelated, why did the batteries in rumble packs last for years with no replacing? Always confused me. I've been playing alot of old games lately, if only for nostalgia. I'm playing SMRPG right now, and to be completely honest, I'm only doing it so I can hear it's music. I know how everything goes down (for the most part, everynow and then theirs something I've forgotten and I get kinda pissy) but I'm only doing it because I love the music and I just wanna get to the next part to hear some good ole fashioned Square. Also been trying to beat all of the megamans. It's funny, really. I've gotten to the point where I beat Megaman X just because I can. In maybe 2 hours. I did it with the arcade stick just because i wanted to be able to say that i could. And I beat it with 100%, meaning I got every secret item etc. etc. But any of the others? Aw, fuck no. Fuck wily. Why is he more difficult then a robot virus thingy? Fuck him. Fuck is robot masters. I LIKE robot masters shaped like animals.

Also, I predict CAPCOM to be the next EA, or Activision or any other giant gaming corporation. Yeah they're already big but I know they're gonna try and dominate every genre they can.

I'm going to bed now.