Been blogging at Grinding Down now for six whole years

Technically, if you dig through my archives, you’ll see that I actually began this ol’ Grinding Down blog of mine back in March 2009 with a smattering of posts, going silent until July 2009 for an additional whooping three posts. However, August 2009 seems to be where I really dug my heels in and stuck with it, eventually turning this place into a melting pot of things, the majority of which are, honest to supreme being in the sky, off the cuff thoughts and ramblings–it is, more or less, the only way I know how to write. And so here we are, six years later, sticking it out.

At first, I tried to treat Grinding Down as a blog styled after the bigger gaming websites I followed, which meant writing previews and reviews littered with line item details and even a number score at the bottom. Maybe this was, in its own way, my tactic for being noticed and hired off the Interwebz to work at one of these fancy gaming sites. Eventually, I drifted from that mentality and found a groove where I more or less wrote about whatever I wanted, how I wanted, using a pic atop each post with hopefully a clever phrase written on it in Showcard Gothic. Here’s a list of links to a few posts I’m still pretty proud of today:

• The Top Five Most Horrible Videogames I Own
• Spirit Tracks: Blowing, Not for the Faint of Breath
• The top five greatest things about L.A. Noire
• Nintendo is stealing my ideas
• When the timing is right, a fetch quest is pure delight
• Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion plunges into an ocean of thinner
• Waiting for you, Silent Hill 2, to unravel in my mind
• I did a whole week of posts devoted to Chrono Cross
• There’s also that time I played through Fire Emblem: Awakening with permadeath, detailing every fallen soldier as I went (you have to backtrack through the tag to see all the posts at this point)
• Lastly, discovering the healing radio frequencies in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater earlier this year was downright pleasing

I tried to restrain from compiling just a list of “top five” articles. If you think I missed calling out some other solid posts, by all means, link ’em in the comments. Truthfully, the posts that receive the largest amount of attention from Google searches, according to my stats, that is, are directly related to all things Pokemon. Like this heavy hitter. Anyways…

Things here will likely continue on as usual and pick up steam now that summer is beginning to wind down. Expect plenty more haikus as I polish off what’s currently on my buffet plate (Metal Gear Solid IV on PS3, Lara Croft: Guardian of Light on Xbox 360, LEGO Jurassic World on the 3DS, a bunch of mini things on my phone, and the never-ending Time Clickers on Steam).

At the beginning of the year, I had aspired to come up with some new features for Grinding Down, but alas, none have really materialized yet. Hmm. Perhaps I need to implement some sort of strategy to at least try some of the dozens and dozens of downloaded titles I have sitting quiet and collecting digital dust while I take my time and tip-too through Final Fantasy IX. I also continue to think about doing a podcast–the Grindcast, if you will–but can’t really find many cases where a one-man podcast is something people like listening to.

Out of fear of leaving someone out, I’d like to just thank anyone and everyone that comes by Grinding Down and reads my words. It means a lot to have your support, especially for my certainly random ideas and topics. If you want previews or Early Access impressions, along with review scores, go somewhere else. This is Grinding Down, a gamer’s guide to nothing. Here’s to another six years of waxing muse and grinding onwards. Also, if I have still not played my copy of Katamari Damacy by 2021, please yell at me.

Better blogging on Grinding Down next week, me promises

I realize that this week’s postings on Grinding Down have been less than stellar. Two 2011 Games Completed posts, and one lonely musings post on my first StreetPass notification. That’s it? Yeah, that was it. I’m sorry for that, but I also have an excellent excuse: I’ve been crazily prepping for MoCCA these last few days. And the con is this weekend, meaning that once it’s all said and done, I’ll be back to my usual standards of randomly pondering about videogames, doing that 30 Days of Gaming meme, and complaining about all the letdowns built into the Nintendo 3DS.

I’ve completed Pilotwings Resort recently–or completed as much as I want to–and am close to finishing Costume Quest, making for another two posts on my 2011 completed games list. Plus, I’ve barely even mentioned all those games I bought last week during Xbox Live’s sale frenzy. Plenty of fodder all around.

So yeah, there should be more content next week. Please stay tuned.

Today’s my first day off from work this calendar year, and the wife and I will be heading to New York City later. Gotta make sure my 3DS is charged and ready to hopefully StreetPass some folk.

30 Days of Gaming, #8 – Best soundtrack

To be completely honest, I usually don’t listen to a lot of videogame music unless I’m hearing it as I play the game. For me, there’s plenty of other things to listen to–currently digging Freelance Whales and lots of Connie Francis and Regina Spektor–and if I was to generalize, I’d say that a good portion of videogame tunes are unlistenable when they stand alone.

That said, I simply adore the soundtrack from Chrono Cross, the 2000 follow-up to Chrono Trigger. Composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, the official soundtrack features 67 tracks spanned across three CDs, hitting about three hours of music in total. That’s a whole lot more tunes than some games get. A few tracks subtly recall themes from Chrono Trigger, but it’s the new stuff formed for Chrono Cross that really make it unique, memorable. I’ve found it’s wonderful background music for drawing and writing, ranging from up-tempo town songs to battle music to somber undertones.

My personal favorite is titled “Reminiscence ~ Sentiments which Cannot be Erased,” a haunting piece of piano and echoes. Please listen to it as you continue on with today’s post:

One of the hardest things to write about is music. I know this for a fact; as a journalist for my college paper and alternative zine, I covered concerts and new album releases. These ranged from holiday choir specials to the latest Butch Walker CD to seeing a bunch of bands play live at summer festivals. At times, it was a grueling task. Describing how music is heard, understood, taken to heart–it’s a complex process, and it can be very hard to not seem overenthusiastic or fanboyish or simply in love with pretty sounds. Plus, how can I, someone who can’t sing, really critique those that can? So, yeah…writing about music has its tricks. It can also lead to pretty lazy sentences like, “The drums were totally kicking!” Not that I did that, ever, but the temptation to play it slack was always there. Music is meant to be heard, not read.

For this post, it’s best if I just link you to some of the finer moments from Chrono Cross‘ soundtrack:

“Dream of the Shore Bordering (Another World)”

“Leaving the Body”

“Garden of the Gods”

Enjoy!

Here’s some unused Grinding Down images

As my dear readers know, I like to do things a certain way here at Grinding Down. Specifically, I’m talking about how every post is headlined with a photoshopped image a la LOLCats. I take a lot of pride in finding the right image, adding the right words, and tinkering with it to follow the right format. And by right, I mean my format. Anal-retentive Pauly is anally retentive.

However, sometimes I create images in hopes of posting about them, but then things happen, life gets tossed upside-down, and I never get around to musing about X and/or Y. Here, then, are some images I was gonna use as topic starters. Have fun figuring out what each one was gonna be about:

There you go. A little behind-the-scenes glimpse into how things work around here. Isn’t blogging just fascinating?

30 Days of Gaming, #1 – Your first videogame

 

This meme starts off with a doozy, and it’s a rather tricky doozy for me. See, while I’m going to talk about Super Mario World here as my first videogame, it most likely isn’t able to claim that title truthfully. Unfortunately, my gaming history from the early days is fairly foggy, and I know I played a lot of NES games over at the neighbors’, as well as bowling alley arcade machines and those weird solar-powered handheld things. I have very strong memories of a baseball one that traveled with me during long car rides. And I can’t quite place in the timeline when I got my GameBoy.

That said, Super Mario World–and the SNES is launched on–were truly my first, the very first console I ever opened on a Christmas morning, hugged, and called my own. It was the first videogame I could play, turn off, and turn back on an hour later, or the next morning, or whenever–because it was mine, and I was at home, not a friend’s place, and I could play it as much as I wanted. What we should also consider is that, having gotten no other games to play with the console for Christmas, I was extremely thankful the system came packaged with Super Mario World, which kept me busy for many snowy vacation days. And this trend of giving gamers a freebie is still somewhat followed by Nintendo (Wii Sports for the Nintendo Wii; those AR games for the Nintendo 3DS). It was a move that would ensure many would play it, burn it into their upbringing, never forget about it.

Two paragraphs in, and I’ve yet to really dig into Super Mario World. It’s that same ol’ story from previous Mario games, wherein the princess gets herself kidnapped by Bowser and it’s up to Mario Mario and Luigi Mario to save her. They’ll travel across themed lands to get her, too. However, a new savior joins the party, and it’s my personal fav…Yoshi the dinosaur. When ridden, Yoshi can eat enemies, spit fire, and allow Mario to reach new heights thanks to a higher jump. The saddest thing anyone can witness is when an enemy hits a ridden Yoshi; the dinosaur cries out in horror, tosses its rider off, and makes a bee-line run for the nearest deathpit. It’s sickening, I say.

As a youngling, getting to the next section was all that mattered. And this game taught me how to jump, to run, to move effectively from left to right more so than any other game. I remember barely squeezing by on extra lives when beating World 4: Forest of Illusion and skipping over to the dreaded World 5: Chocolate Island. As I got older and revisited the game, I discovered that it harbored a great number of secrets. Things like Warp Whistles and holding down for X number of seconds to hide in the level’s backgrounds, but these were mostly about alternate exits and unlocking colored blocks throughout the worlds. Such things as alternate exits blew my mind back then; stumbling upon one where I accidentally had Caped Mario fly too far over the end goal on to discover a second end goal was like–I can only assume here as I don’t eat such dredge–finding two toys in a box of cereal purporting only one plastic army guy.

Awesomely, the game still stands up on its own today. Sure, some of the levels feel very short, and large chunks can be skipped if you are able to fly high enough, but the challenge still sits around medium. Those chargin’ football players always give me trouble. The graphics are just as colorful, and the music invades your head in ways you’d never expect. Hearing the bwwwwoooo-oop at the end of the level as the screen circles in on Mario and then goes black is pure cocaine.

And if older games had Achievements, I’d have ’em all for Super Mario World. Yes, even the one for opening up the EXTRA mode, which changed the colors of the levels, as well as messed with in-game sprites. This was accomplished by completing Star Road, which is not the easiest of tasks. But I had much more free time then to devote to a game, and no secret sat unturned. It’s most definitely a legendary title, and the fact that I’m considering it my first makes it all the more special.

Anyways, here’s a moment in time. Me with my wife’s copy of Super Mario World, a game now 20 years old. Enjoy the nostalgia, dear readers:

Next up on 30 Days of Gaming…is my favorite character? Hmm. Spoiler: it’s not that jerkbag, Milich.