Yesterday I met up with a friend of mine, who I haven’t seen for just over 6 years and he contacted me to see if we wanted to meet up since he moved back in the area. Like me he was an avid gamer and we always talked about games, so he was a really close friend. I was curious how much he had changed over the years. So I went over to his house, and we caught up on what we have been up. Luckily he was the same person he was when he moved and was still a gamer. When I went to his room the first thing that caught my eye was this . . . .

Honesty the amount of ps3 games he had was four times the number I currently have and he almost has every single ps3 game released to date. He told me hasn’t played them all and I noticed that some had their plastic wrapper on. The reason why he brought so much games is not for the fun of it but for the trophies and achievements he could gain and show on his profile. We got into a bit of an discussion with me taking an opposite view that games should be played for the interesting story, characters and fun of it.

Ever since the xbox 360 and ps3 was released every single games on these consoles have trophies and achievements for playing the game and meeting certain criteria. One way it is good because if you are a trophies/achievement fanatic such as my friend. It will make you play the games fully to gain 100% completion which can mean value for money and games have a longer life. But I find some of the conditions for achieving certain trophies/achievements pointless, but you need them to achieve full completion. However I am the type person that only play games once unless it is really good, and I only buy games that interests me. Since more and more games have some kind of good or bad element to it, especially on RPGs they make players want to play again. There are some games out there which I find pointless and that it is a waste of time and money. So I ask, are you the type of person that play games for the fun of it or just for the trophies/achievements?

It’s that time of year where every student in the UK are busy revising for their important exams, which can have an effect on their future. If you are preparing for A-levels it could affect which university and course you end up in for the next few years. If you are preparing for GCSE’s it could mean if you could stay in the same school to carry on studying A-levels, if not you have to find another school which is usually a local college. For me I am busy preparing for my university exams. Well we all seen that in a typical anime involving a school there is usually a element of studying/revision for exams for a episode.

The way these characters study/revise is very stupid in that they only require a few days to revise and they more or less pass. Which is typically not possible for those exams in real life which examines everything you gone in the past two years. I speak from experience when I was preparing for my As exams, which is the first year of A-Levels. I left my revision to the last minute and did poorly in my exams. Why did I leave it to the last minute? Well maybe I was influenced by these anime, or maybe it is an excuse for me not bothering to take my exams seriously. I was very much hooked on watching as much anime as possible during that year which affected my studies. I had in my mind that there is always next year, looking back on it the next year was hell for me since I had alot of exams to take including those I failed. But eventually passed them all through hard work, remember if you fail to prepare then prepare to fail. So don’t confuse fiction with reality and don’t revise your exams the anime way.

Since this is old news which was reported in Sankaku Complex a few days ago, Atlus is in a bit of financial difficulty. I recently started to get into the games made by Atlus especially the Shin Megami Tensei games. The reason why for the lateness is that it takes bloody ages for games that are released in America and Japan to be released in Europe. Which is a pain because by the time we get it over here, gamers from Japan and America would have completed it and would be getting the next batch of new games. Atlus makes very good quality RPG and I have thoroughly enjoyed the persona games. The story is interesting and the long play time so it is value for money. I am playing both Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 (which came yesterday) at the moment. Since there is a lack of interesting ps3 games at the moment and am enjoying these games, which were meant for the ps2 platform. So I am worried that it would affect the quality and number of games to be released around the world. I hope that the video game business side will survive and that they continue to bring quality games. If they are having problem financially maybe they should shorten the time intervals in releasing games in each region. Also they should consider release all their games that they have already made to Europe and America if they haven’t done so yet.

Being a gamer myself, I am always expose to comments such as gaming is bad for you in various ways, especially if it affects your education. For me it is my main hub for enjoying myself. In recent years games have become more matured with content such as violence, sex and drugs becoming common themes in games. This has led to a variety of sources, such as newspapers to say that playing these games lead to increase violence, to people becoming hikikomori. One company, Rockstar games have made successful titles like GTA to the controversial Manhunt, especially the Manhunt 2 game received much press attention, which lead to a delay in the game being sold in the UK.

However in the past few years many game companies, especially Nintendo have turned their attention to the masses, normal people who do not usually play games. With the introduction of the Wii they have been very successful, also they have introduced motion sensor game play which has led to a new way of playing games. Games are becoming more expensive to make, so companies are trying to maximise the amount of profit they make by appealing to as many consumers possible.

Edge a really good magazine and website on gaming just written an interesting article on the benefits of gaming. The article is very well rounded, in providing a positive side to gaming. The one I found interesting is that surgeons using motion sensor games on the Wii, to help them train to have steady hands. Which is funny, because if you ever are in a unfortunate situation to have an operation, your surgeon could have been training on the Wii.  So whenever you are told gaming is bad for you could use some of the examples in the article to justify gaming.

Welcome to the start of what I hope will be a entertaining blog. Since this is my first entry on this blog, I am relatively new to this. The reason why I have decided to start this blog is by the influence of other blogs and I wanted to contribute to this exciting community. I wanted this blog to look different but with my lack of skill and knowledge of web design, I have gone for a plain look, hopefully I will be able to evolve this blog to something better as time passes.So what will this blog be relating to, well it will probably be your average anime, otaku and japan relating stuff. Looking around there are many similar blogs out there, but the main thing for me is that I would hope to enjoy writing and sharing my views on these topics with readers around the world.

I have been watching anime since 2003 and there have been some memorable ones and some that I wonder why the hell did I watch ones. Around the same time I have been reading blogs relating to anime. So I have a bit of knowledge in anime and blogs. Since I am beginning to waffle and boring you I will stop right here.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog.

later KC (Kaphillca)