For those who care, thanks for being here.

New year approaches, and I think that maybe perhaps a new look is required. More inside.

Hello.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it. Some of you might care, and if you do; thanks. The rest of you who don’t; thanks for being here anyways.

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter.

For the past month and some weeks now I have been pondering doing something a little different with my blog and channel. Without beating around the bush too much here, let’s get right down to the brass tacks of the situation.

I find myself playing a lot of games that have a lot of philosophical concepts in them. While I don’t really want to talk about politics during my streams/recordings; or here… I can’t deny that I tend to enjoy playing games that have these things in them to some extent or another. How so?

Civilization should be a no-brainer on this one. It’s basically impossible to not talk about anything potentially political with it, since the game is literally ‘civilization building’ which involves politics, philosophy, religion, economics, society crafting; etc. Sure, it’s done in a nice package of world domination in some way, shape or form; but that doesn’t detract from the fact it is chock full of potential politics. And then from there, if you are like me at all in being a bit of a smart ass about shit-talking the A.I. when it starts getting sassy or pissed off over losing, or some jazz like that… well… let’s just say that it’s only a matter of time before some hair brained, heart sleeved dipshit gets their knickers in a knot over something they think is offensive (even if it isn’t).

Alright, so that’s civ, but what other games?

Democracy. No, not the real world thing where people vote and think they actually are part of a system that doesn’t actually give a flying rats ass about their opinions. I mean the game ‘Democracy’ Democracy 3 and 4 to be more exact, since those are the only ones I have. These games are literally politics as a game. So much so, that if I were to do a proper stream of playing it, I would have to basically put a disclaimer at the beginning of it that states “The choices made in this game do not reflect upon my personal opinions or beliefs, as everything done in this game is meant to win the game; just like how politicians only do or say what they do to win politics.”

Why would such a disclaimer need to be made? Well… let’s just say that it’s only a matter of time before some hair brained, heart sleeved dipshit gets their knickers in a knot over something they think is offensive (even if it isn’t). Yes, recurring theme is recurring.

Next up is Humankind. Let’s just sum this one up under the same situation as Civilization games, since it’s basically just ‘Amplitude studios via Sega as publisher decided to try to beat Sid Meiers via 2K as publisher at making a Civ game.’ And boy oh boy did they ever not try to keep politics out of their game. From the very get go. So it’s basically a repeat situation of the other two so far. Only a matter of time before some hair brained, yadda yada.

But what about something that isn’t a civ building or society crafting game?

How about ‘The Witcher’ series?

Yeah, politics abound in that game too. Philosophy too. Life choices, the weighing of good/bad; etc. If I were to do a playthrough of that game, you can bet for sure that I would be discussing some of those choices made in game. Geralt surely makes quips about them; why wouldn’t I? Right?

Okay, what about Final Fantasy?

Assuming I can somehow get away with playing that without having Square Enix get all up in my copyright strikes zone, etc… Yeah, FF is full of PP (Politics/Philosophy). Especially philosophy. And mythos, which tends to carry some form of religious, philisophical or political ideals.

Alrighty then, so not even RPG’s are safe huh?

NOPE. Even Tales of Symphonia is literally ‘Idealist teenager with friends tries to save the world from the bad guys, only to find out the bad guys aren’t so bad after all even if still kind of crappy, but still pushes his ideology onto them anyways-the game… cause we gotta save the blonde haired girl-the game’

Some of you may have never played the Tales of series at all. Let’s just say that while the newer iterations of the games may be more along the lines of helium inflated storylines used to pad out fan service-the game… the older iterations actually had some effort put into them. The story can be actually rather deep in some ways; but ultimately it’s somewhere around the end of the Gamecube/ps2 era where the games began to take a nose dive and went full fan service with the ps4 era and onwards. (I also stopped playing them almost entirely around that time as well. Tales of Xillia for ps3 was the last one on the consoles for me, and I gave it one last shot on PC with Tales of Zestiria. Why? Cause it looked like they might have gotten back to their story line roots with the last one.)

I might actually do a stream of these, since Bandai-Namco is more chill than Square about their games being streamed. I’ve read the EULA’s. Believe me on this, Square is not chill about their games being streamed. They try to put on a good face, but they suffer the same issues as Nintendo does. Bandai-Namco is more chill like how Sega is. They realize that it’s basically free advertising for them, so long as they basically just back up, fuck off, and leave us the hell alone.

Square, I doubt anyone in your PR department is reading this, but if anyone there is reading this; take note of what I just said about free advertisement. You really do need to back up, fuck off, and leave us the hell alone. All of us.

Nintendo, you need to just fuck off in general.

OR… that’s what I used to think. Turns out Nintendo actually has gotten a bit more chill about things as of late while I wasn’t looking. I was wondering how/why so many people were getting away with streaming their games when Nintendo used to be super happy to smash streamers with copyright hammers. Truth is, they still are more than glad to as I understand; but you have to be using legitimate copies of the game and legitimate console hardware to be safe.

I think they even started to be less punchy about using emulators. Not that I would use them… but it’s nice to know that maybe I could in the few edge cases where emulation is far superior a method for some games to be played. Which ones?

Soul Caliber 2 comes to mind for me. Immediately. That game, when optimized via emulation, and the GPU/CPU are tweaked to the point of less than 0.00001 frame drops (i.e stable as fuck), and input latencies are reduced to near 0… that game just runs perfect on PC. Load times are practically nothing. Every attack combo lands flawlessly. (provided you are actually good at the game) Every character looks great and not like a jagged pixelated mess.

It runs, perfectly. *chefs kiss*.

But on the original consoles it was released on? Let’s just say that once you have tasted perfection, it’s really hard to go back. So if I were to ever get a gamecube up and running, with a copy of Soul Caliber 2; I’d probably still be emulating it instead.

But you might be wondering “how does Soul Calibur fit into the whole philosophy/politics angle?”

Well, on this front it’s the real world side that comes into play. I would be stating things that have to do with our real world situation, with the laws and politics involved in the fact that streaming said game via emulation instead, or at all (since Nintendo doesn’t like to share much), is how it comes into play.

And yeah, I would be making some pretty scathing remarks. Despite the fact that generally speaking I have always bought a copy of every single Nintendo console to come out to market… until recently.

The switch, is where I switched on that front. See, Nintendo released the Wii U, I bought the Wii U, and then they didn’t properly support the Wii U. Why? Because it was basically a prototype that was released to help garner the cash flow needed to finish it and release the switch instead. An in-betweener console if you must.

Not acceptable in my view, especially when the switches controllers are barely sub-par. Want a good controller? Gotta shell out an extra 70-90$ depending on the exact price of the ‘pro’ controller where you are. Meanwhile, the Wii U’s giant gamepad, while big and bulk; actually has a working controller embedded into it. That doesn’t drift. (As far as I know).

Let’s just sum it up and state the pretty specifically obvious here. I am not exactly a fan of having to buy a switch to play just a few games I can’t play anywhere else. Especially when one of those games I can play on the Wii U instead. Zelda.

Which is part of why I bring up Nintendo. Legend of Zelda has it’s own roots in philosophy as well as some politics. How so?

#GanondorfDidNothingWrong

Wait wut!?

Yeah, you read that right. Ganondorf did nothing wrong.

Hylian’s are racists, didn’t you know? *smirks widely*

Okay, maybe calling them racists is a bit much; but it’s not entirely wrong. If you go back through the games history, you’ll find that the Hylian’s tend to be rather… xenophobic. Holier than thou attitudes abound as well.

The Zora are often depicted as being xenophobic as well; but mostly really actually only against the Hylian’s. In some games they are depicted as enemies, where as in other games they are allies. Depends usually on whether or not they have been ‘tricked’ by the dark lord Ganon. Or some such like that. Same thing basically with the Goron, and Deku races.

In Ocarina of Time, each of these races (except for the Kokori) are pretty open to letting Ganon just stroll right into their kingdoms and make them offers of power and shared rulership over his new kingdom. Even the Hylian’s…

But of course it’s all a trick. Why?

Because Ganon only cares about his own people. His own ends.

SO? How did Ganon do nothing wrong?

Well… when your people have been cast out of society and into the wastelands for seemingly an eternity; and you find out you have the ability to undo all of that… wouldn’t you?

Think about that long and hard before making any sort of answer in the comments section.

I suspect the more intelligent readers who may want to comment will understand where I am coming from on that front. It’s only the dullards who won’t get it.

But we happily just run around as Link, smashing all of Ganon’s ‘progress’ towards what he see’s as a more ‘fair’ system. Which is part of why it’s not really all that fair, since he’s taking his hatred for the royal family out on a bunch of simpleton yokels with superiority complexes.

So he’s not exactly a good fella. But is he really wrong in trying to undo the wrongs done unto his own people, the Gerudo?

Or at least, that’s the kind of picture painted for us to observe in many of the main line games of the series. In other versions, like Four Swords Adventures, you get stuff like this…

“Hundreds of years later, in Four Swords Adventures, Ganon is reincarnated following his death in Twilight Princess.[26] In this game, Ganondorf is referred to as a desert nomad, recently expelled from the Gerudo Tribe by breaking their taboo and exploring the Desert Pyramid as part of his plan to usurp the powers of others and coat Hyrule in darkness.”

So, what gives?

Well, Ganondorf the ‘person’ is a different entity from Ganon ‘the monster’.

We find this out pretty succinctly in ‘The Wind Waker’. Ganondorf never really changes in his ways of doing things; but we end up getting to hear his side of the story more and more through these games that were released after Ocarina of Time. We find out that, ultimately, Ganondorf just wants his people the Gerudo, to have the same thing the Hylian’s have.

Is that so wrong?

Perhaps his methods could be better, sure. Perhaps he could have been less power hungry and just worked out a deal with the Hylian Royal Family… Sure.

But, then again. Probably not. It’s been shown time and again *pun intended* that the Hylian Royal Family is both not willing to trust the Gerudo at all due to their sheer adherence to prophecy (I.e. Superstition) and their gullibility tops it off with it making it all too easy to just trick them instead.

Or rather, the kings gullibility and Zelda’s adherence to prophecy; usually as teachings via her Sheikah protector Impah.

Basically, Ganondorf is presented with a situation that basically begs for him to just do things a certain way, cause all others will probably fail. Cozy up to the king? Naw, Zelda says no and get Link ready to go to battle. Get rid of Zelda somehow? Naw, King will just get Link ready to go to battle. Get rid of both of them somehow? Naw, Link will just respawn somewhere on an island as a kid, and go to battle at behest of the reincarnated Zelda after using the king as a sail boat.

See, this guy just has nothing going for him.

And all he wants is for his people to be treated like… well… people.

→ Ganondorf : My country lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... Death. But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind, I suppose. It can only be called fate... That here. I would again gather the three with the crests... That I should lay my hand on that which grants the wishes of the beholder... That when power, wisdom, and courage come together, the gods would have no choice but to come down... The power of the gods... The Triforce! He who touches it will have whatever he desires granted! Already, the crest of wisdom is mine... All that remains...
——————————

Remember, it wasn’t ‘the gods’ that banished the Gerudo to the desert. Not really. It was Hylia, who is the basis of Zelda’s existence, which is the basis of the Royal Family existing at all.

So, let’s leave that at that. The game is full of philosophy, and politics; just wrapped up in a candy coating that makes it palatable for adults to let their children play. It’s only when you crack through that candy coating that you find there is a quagmire of ‘what the actual fuck’ hidden inside.

Thanks Nintendo.

So. Why all of this?

Well, I’m thinking of changing the name of the blog, and my YouTube channel.

Whether or not I actually do this, depends on a few things. And it’s not going to happen yet for the rest of this month of December. But come January…

You might find that I have gone with a new name for both.

or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just do what I am going to do regardless with my streams/recordings; but keep my name the same. Who knows.

But some things are definitely changing, because I am finding it hard to avoid the philosophical and potentially political topics from occuring while playing some of the games I like to play.

So the name might change to help reflect that; but then again it may not. BUT that’s not all.

I’m also thinking of doing some tech videos as well soon here. What kind?

Linux based ones. Especially tutorials for things like ‘how to install X on Y’ for instance. Why?

Well, because my gaming rig is probably going to be a Linux gaming rig here soon. Most of the games I play run on Linux now, and the few that don’t… are the ones that have anti-cheat software involved. And even they are starting to work just fine on Linux too now. Some of them at least. So… since I have long been waiting for this day to come, and the dawn of a new era is upon us; I figure a new year is a good time to do it.

2023, year of the linux gaming rig?!?

Perhaps.

So be on the lookout for 2 videos specially for that.

One of them will be a “install Arch Linux on a purely AMD system, with KDE Plasma GUI” video.

The other will be “Install Gentoo on a old Intel laptop with Nvidia dGPU” video.

The second one might take longer to get done, cause well… You compile everything on the machine itself when installing Gentoo. And this old laptop is an original dual core. From prior to all the management engine BS. So it’s just 2 cores, at 2ghz, and nothing else. That said, having some of the better ram sticks from back then, at 4GB in total, will help. Especially the SSD for some storage speed. But at the end of the day, the bottle neck is definitely that CPU. A CPU I intend to replace with a slightly better one, but also the very last of its kind prior to the ‘i’ series.


Anyways. That’s enough for now. You all have a good day, and hopefully with the new year I can get some things I have been wanting to get started properly, finally done. Truth be told, I was originally not going to start doing all of this blogging and streaming until 2023 to begin with, because I didn’t feel like I had enough of the stuff I think I need to get going; but I got started anyways. Maybe it was for the best. Gave me time to consider some things before going in head first full tilt.

So, thanks for reading. See ya next time; whenever that is.