You Play, I Watch: Video Game Playthroughs
July 26, 2015 § Leave a comment
I first started writing this post two years ago when I was actually going through this phase. Back then, video game playthroughs (also called Let’s Plays) were niche. Nowadays, Pewdiepie is practically a household name, Twitch sold for $1 billion and the phenomenon even got its own South Park episode. What a time to be alive.
Why would you spend your time watching someone else play a video game? is the resounding question from the confused masses. Back in 2013, I told a friend about my newfound pastime and he unflinchingly called me a loser. LOL.
My main reasons were usually a combination of:
1. no money
2. no time
3. no skills/too lazy
But the bottom line is, once you find a YouTube personality that you like, it’s simply entertaining to watch his or her playthroughs. (I don’t watch the ones without narration.) Since I already watched other vloggers on YouTube, it was a natural leap to combine that kind of casual, friendly familiarity with a love of video games. For me, it only works for certain games that have a story worth watching, but with the right narrator, the experience can be just as fun or engrossing as a good movie. And all for free!
Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness
Two years ago, Pokémon XD was inadvertently the first playthrough I watched. I already subscribed to TheJWittz‘s channel and the series caught my interest because I had started but never finished the game myself. This can wholly be blamed on Yawen’s brother, who back in the day somehow managed to delete everything on our Gamecube memory card, thus wiping all my progress. I was too distraught (and lazy) to play through it again.
It was interesting to see the game played from someone else’s perspective and compare JWittz’s battle style with mine. More important, it opened my eyes to the world of playthroughs — no longer did I have to be deprived of experiencing games old or new just because I didn’t own the right console or couldn’t finish a game.
Unfortunately, JWittz got sidetracked by the Pokémon World Championships and Pokémon Rumble U (which I found dull), so he stopped uploading XD videos.
Journey
Weeks later on a particularly boring weeknight, I found myself lying around the apartment and looking up lists of the best recent indie games so I could check them out. I decided on Journey, a beautiful game that I never would’ve been able to play myself because I don’t own a PS3. It’s a short game, and the whole thing lasted about the length of a movie.
I liked GhostRobo’s upbeat narration. He seemed just as amazed with the gorgeous landscapes as I was; it was like we were journeying together!
Skin Laundry NYC Review
May 3, 2015 § Leave a comment
I first read about Skin Laundry right before they opened in Flatiron; it was also right around the time I was lamenting the lack of high-tech skin solutions in the U.S. (or just New York?). It seemed like Asian countries have new treatments popping up all the time — Thermage, IPL, etc. — whereas Americans were content to stick with our drugstore brands while glomming on to Korean fads and occasionally getting high-end facials* if you’re rich.
Even if these new-age treatments are available in the States, I feel like they’re so rarely written about or treated as a regular part of the skincare regimen. It’s simply a different culture.
Anyway, I was mostly ready to jump on Skin Laundry’s wagon. The company, which started in LA, offers only one treatment: the signature 10-minute laser facial. In short, you get two doses of lasers to clean out your pores, then one dose of IPL (intense pulsed light) to even skin tone and stimulate collagen.
I was skeptical at first because every review I read about Skin Laundry sounded like effusive advertorial. The Yelp reviews for their other locations were marginally more helpful. The only semi-skeptical piece I could find about it was on LATimes.
Still, I went ahead and tried it, mostly because I managed to get my first treatment free when I RSVPed to their grand opening in March.
Not The Mario Party I Remember
March 25, 2015 § Leave a comment
I have very, very fond memories of playing Mario Party on Nintendo 64. It combined three of my favorite things: board games, video games and the Mario franchise! I don’t think I’ve owned any since Mario Party 3, but I’ve always tried playing them when I could, even the more recent Wii versions.
Needless to say, I was psyched about the the newest version, Mario Party 10; J preordered it so I could play it on release day. I hadn’t read any reviews, partly because all game-related websites are blocked at work (boohoo) and because I wanted to go into it with an open, unspoiled mind since I was planning to buy it regardless.
Well…I didn’t fall in love with the game. But let’s put good news first. My unexpected favorite thing about MP10 is its badminton game (found under Bonus Games). Why is it there? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be a minigame that you could play under normal party mode circumstances…it’s like they just happened to make it and stick it in randomly.
And it’s strangely good! I’ve never had the honor of playing a badminton video game (it’s a fringe sport in this industry I suppose), and I couldn’t get the controls quite right (Peach kept lunging and falling down), but it was fun and evocative of the actual sport. Well done.
That said, here are my least favorite things about Mario Party 10:
Death In The Family
March 1, 2015 Comments Off on Death In The Family
My grandpa — 爷爷 — died this morning.
He was more than 90 years old, and his health had been declining for years. The most recent pictures I saw were of him lying in bed in some kind of hospice, curled up with his eyes tightly closed and a thin tube wrapped around his head going into his nose. He didn’t look comfortable.
My dad told me last month when he showed me the pictures that my grandpa was no longer able to eat or digest food, thus the feeding tube. 爷爷 wasn’t tall from what I remember, but he was still healthily hefty just a few years ago, but had wasted away to skin and bones.
He had dementia for the past number of years as well. He had started forgetting who we were even in 2008, the last time we went to China as a family. Grandma would admonish him to say hi to us. “Who?” he’d say. Dad would have to introduce himself. “It’s me; your son.” 爷爷 would smile and nod. “Ah, yes, good.”
I have a picture of him from when I visited Shenyang by myself in 2010, when he could still feed himself and get around slowly with his walker. “Sometimes grandpa remembers who I am … but usually not,” I wrote.
auradis 