Once More, With Feeling

So, my last attempt to kick the blog back into shape was an impressive failure for some very obvious reasons.  The first was that I was still pretty much depressed (though to be fair, I still am, but I've found a new way to manage it) and the second, biggest and glaring reason was that I thought a setup wherein I try to cover, what, two months-worth of posts in about two weeks? was a good idea.

It was not a good idea.  It was a very bad idea.  I do not recommend it.

I very quickly became paralyzed with the enormity of the task, as I literally invited onto myself the sensation of drowning in work, responsibility and obligation and it just killed all my ability to actually just sit down and write anything as a post.  My lack of attention span and focus didn't help either, but that's more of a secondary thing than anything.  As a result, as you can tell, my ability to write anything shot right to hell, scuttled my confidence and set me back another month, which, when you already have those feelings described before, it just starts to feel cumulative.

There has to be a point where it ends, though, and that's tonight.  And if you would believe it, Octodad: Dadliest Catch had a hand tentacle hand in helping me with that.

So we're going to go with a far more sensible plan.  I'm going to get back into things, trying to post every night, and dealing with the big gap in content when I can.  Some posts are going to be written as if on that date, since I have a lot of posts -started-, but other posts are going to be written explicitly 'from the fuuuuutuuuuuureeeee' and just post-dated to an appropriate date.  It feels like 'cheating' and I suppose that's because it is, but oh well.  I just want to write, and that's what I'm going to do.  These posts will all be funneled through the Comeback Tour Hub as before, which I'm going to make a widget for in the upper right corner of the blog.  Probably just titled what it is and then listing the latest update date so you know when there's new stuff to pick up and look at.  It's going to be purely when I can manage it, though.

Things will start up tomorrow with a piece on Octodad of some sort.  Not quite sure -what-, but it's going to happen.  Nobody will suspect it.

okay seriously this time, it's all good dudes

The Kupowered Come-Back Tour!

So, I've been gone and that sucks and I've been working on coming back.  Easiest way to prove that, however, is...by coming back.  So that's what I'm doing!  I'm going to use this post as a sort of Mega-Post (since all my posts that are going to fill in the gap will come before this one, meaning it'll be at the top of the list) to keep an update log of what posts go up and when until I'm fully caught up.  As such, just check back every other day or so to see if there's been another Wave posted and read at your leisure!  I think it's a good idea, at least, and it'll help you, the faithful reader, keep up as I work through this silly process.

Remember that I'm going to be posting these updates in waves so I can -actually- catch up, but I will be spacing them out a day or so in an attempt to keep from triggering spam flags or anything of the sort.  Because that wouldn't do, to come back and have to deal with that sort of nonsense.

Anyway, thank you for your patience and for sticking around - hopefully when I get back on track for real, you'll still be around as well.

Game of the Year Stuff - Wave 1 - March 4th

January 27th - My Games of 2013, Not the Top 10
January 28th - My Games of 2013, Not the Top 5
January 29th - My Games of 2013, Not the Top 2
January 30th - My Games of 2013, The Runner-Up and the Winner
January 31st - My Games of 2013, The Games That Weren't My Games

never thought this would be how I did a hub post, but oh well, whatever works

So, What's Going On?

Things have been a bit weird here on Kupowered!  I know this.  Generally, if there's a problem I tend to skip a night, but it's rare that there's two in a row, and without computer problems or something like that, I've never been behind more than that at any point in time.  I mean, I guess there's just a first for everything, but goddamn if I'm not frustrated with it.  In a sense.  The part I'm frustrated about is that I haven't really had a lot of time lately, and even when I -have- had time, I haven't really had the focus or ability to actually just sit down and type like I do.  Always something going on or something like that.

Most of it's....well, it's not bad things, but it's some things that I am exceptionally nervous about.  Without going into too much detail, it's related to a family member, and there'll be a fairly serious situation regarding that on Friday.  It's something that definitely merits worry, which I've been doing, but it's also something that -shouldn't- be worried about.  I've been working on that.  You know how it goes sometimes.

The other crazy part of my life is something that I've taken to explaining as "a Goddamn Anime".  (Used in a nice way, of course)  I won't bore you with the details (rather, I dare not share them) because the absurdity of the entirety of it all is unfathomable - even living it, I simply don't believe it.  Thus I surely can't expect others to do so.  Maybe I'll share the story one day when it's actually come to some sort of conclusion and I'm not in the dead center of it, but we'll see.

Now, the main reason I wanted to get this post out is that yes, I've been posting up posts rather late and dating them back to sequential dates.  The reason I've been doing that, aside from the obvious, is simply to get every page some visibility.  Besides, I have actually -started- these posts on the nights they're going up, it's just that I never really got to finish them.  It's cheating, sure, but I'm fairly sure you fine lot don't care too much.  Especially once I finally ht my stride and get everything set up nice and easy.

This week, whenever I get around to it, will finally be Game of the Year time.  I just wanted to say that I won't be going all-out this year and will instead be embracing a new format.  Or rather, an old one.  If you remember my Final Fantasy Tactics thing where I tried to make it a big deal as a way to ensure I would actually finish the game for once (and failed), I made extensive use of staggering pictures from side to side and for whatever reason I just really liked that.  Considering I have a -large- list of games this year (20, like last year) and considering that I about burned myself out completely last year doing them, I'm cutting it back to something much more manageable.  By...doing a staggered picture thing like that for aesthetics while saying a little piece on each game.  Of course, around the Top Five or so, I'll probably have -more- to say about each game and might go to something more traditional, but for everything before then, simply expect visually pleasing blurbs.  I think it'll work much, much better.

Thanks for all your patience, folks.  Sorry I've been a bit shite, but things have just been really...hectic.  Hectic is not the right word, but it's close enough.  It's been unlike anything I've encountered in a -while- and definitely not since starting this blog.  So it just hasn't been the easiest thing to juggle.  Still, I'm okay personally and I'm in good spirits, so that's all I'll need!  Probably.

bad Mogs, you don't want to try FFT again after reading those posts, stop it

It Keeps Happening

I hate these posts.  I hate making these posts, because I hate that I have reason to make these posts.  Because I don't honestly think I have a reason, but I can't deny that I'm just miserable sometimes and that they come and go and it's surely indicative of a problem, but it's not a problem I can really fix.  I also hate that, but that goes without saying.  I also just dislike using this blog as...well, a blog about -me- instead of a blog about things that I just so happen to have an opinion about, but I guess sometimes it's just unavoidable.

In all honesty, the problem is that I'm fighting with Depression, and by that I mean the real kind of it, not just "I'm sad all the time".  Of course, I don't have an actual diagnosis saying that because of a rather convoluted cyclical problem that starts with the fact that I don't have insurance.  I don't have insurance because I don't have a 'real' job that offers it, and I honestly don't make enough money to buy it on my own, which is going to be wonderful in a week or so when I have to sign up for it regardless and just figure out where the extra money is going to come from.  Which is basically "okay, well just get another job", which I would do...but I don't drive (yet).  Public transportation doesn't exist where I'm at (aside from school buses, but well) so that's out, and I've been counting on others to get to and from the job that I do have.  "So just start driving" is the sage advice there and it's fantastic and all, but it's not as if I've just decided for the past few years "nah, I don't want to drive" because I have some sort of luxury, but rather that I've had a very real anxiety about driving ever since the possibility was thrust upon me.  That could be solved with anxiety meds, I'm sure, but I can't get meds because I don't have insurance because I don't make enough money because I don't have a good job because I don't drive because I can't get anxiety meds.

It's lovely, isn't it?  I've been working with it, and by 'working with it', I mean slowly attempting to dull myself to the chest-tightening panic that sets in when I envision myself with hands upon a steering wheel.  In a sense that it's not going anywhere, I'm just trying to pay attention to it less.  Surely, this cannot go wrong.  Progress has been alright - I think I'm to a point where I can begin the awkward "holy shit I'm driving, I'm going to die any minute now, please every deity that has ever existed don't let me die" phase of -actual- driving, but that is going to take a bit of doing still.  Thankfully, I have a vehicle for when such a time occurs, but that means insurance which means -more- money that I don't yet have, so, well, it's going to be a fun few months here to start the year.

The issue with what's been going on isn't even the random bouts of, yes, sadness that occur, but rather the soul-crushing reality that I just cannot be excited when I'm in these fits, and occasionally just in general.  A lot of my earlier writing came from a place of extreme verve, that's obvious enough, and that's....how I write.  I put excitement into it, I put passion and energy into what I write.  I'm not just throwing words down, I feel like I'm crafting something when I'm truly 'in the zone' as they say, and that's quite the rush.  I can't do that these days.  I can fake it when something comes along that gets close to cracking my shell, like Drakengard 3, but in all honesty I can't bring myself to just be out-and-out excited and happy about it and that kills me.  I want to be able to sit here and bounce happily in my chair with the mere knowledge that the game exists and is being localized and I will actually get to own it, but I just can't.  Even typing that, I'm just sat here with a listless expression while I'm just struggling to form words in my head to go on.

It's not that I can't emote anymore, that I'm joyless or anything.  I can still laugh, I can enjoy games, I can find some form of fleeting peace and I can feel some sense of fulfillment from various sources.  It's just that...everything is muted a bit.  Everything is colored with the knowledge that I'm just eventually going to be at these low points again and that just sort of kills it.  There's not a lot I can do when I'm like this - I find it difficult to motivate myself to do anything, and it's even harder to actually create afterward.  So even if I play a game or read some news or watch a video, basically anything that I could make a talking point of, actually doing that...just doesn't happen sometimes.  And that 'sometimes' has been happening a lot more often, which is why I finally decided that maybe I should be a little more open about things.

I'm sure it's not too much of a surprise to you folks, as I've honestly touched on the subject before, but I don't think I ever just outright admitted just how bad it was.  Hopefully all that jargon about confronting and accepting things is truly the fastest way to get over them.  Maybe we'll find out.  All I know is that I am very tired of being tired, and I would like my energy and feelings back sooner rather than later.  That would be nice.

sorry, folks

Bonus Post - What's Been Going On Lately?

Above is the song that I linked to in the New Little King's Story post I made earlier, or rather, finished earlier, which was originally going to be used in a post the previous night where I just grumbled loudly about bullshit I didn't/don't want to get into and not actually talk about -anything-.  As noted in said NLKS post (which was supposed to go up last night, meaning the rage post was from the night before last) I hit save instead of publish and then closed the tab because I was, well, pissed.  So last night, I went "Oh, that was silly, but no sense in fixing my mistake and posting it since it's got no content and is just anger" and instead started the NLKS post which explained the lack of post from the night before.  While I was writing that, as I noted on my Twitter, there was a little friend drama occurring that I got dragged into.  I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but when two of your friends are having a -large- fight, and you end up on the blamed end because you didn't stick up for either of them (because they were both wrong), well, it kind of hampers morale.  So, what does all this mean, exactly?

It means that it just hasn't been a good week.

Rather, August just wasn't a good month in general.  I was on-and-off with allergies, and while my mood was mostly stable, my inspiration and my actual -ability- to write sort of fluctuated which I'm sure is residual from my moping around and such from The Great Mogs Funk of 2013.  Of course, at the end of the month here, I started working again and my current work will go on until at least the 20th of this month, if not til the -end- of September.  It's not easy work.  It's manual labor work, it's intensive, and it's something that requires proper timing and precision over several hours.  It's tiring, is my point, and going from not really working to being ridiculously busy is not an easy transition to make in ideal circumstances and I am clearly not in ideal circumstances by any flip of the coin.  So it's just a lot of stuff all at once as it usually happens and it just gets in the way and is annoying.

What -hasn't- helped things is that my pool of topics to talk about of a night has shrunk considerably for the bulk of summer, and I think that has shown itself at several points.  As I've stated before, during the summer it's simply -too hot- to play my PS3 for extended periods of time because it'll just erupt into flames and drag $170 out of my wallet for a replacement for a unit that I don't even want anymore.  I have an old 80 gig with backwards compatibility and not to sound like a jackass, but I don't even want that.  I don't use it because what if my PS3 seizes up and dies while I'm playing like, Shadow Hearts:  Covenant?  Drakengard?  Those aren't easy games to get anymore and yes, while you're -supposed- to get your disc back when you get the replacement unit, who knows if there's edge cases where they go "Oh, sorry, it was lost/destroyed" and who knows what happens in that case?  It's simply easier to just -not- deal with that nonsense.

That's why the goal has shifted as such.  I believe I mentioned it in the past, but I was giving serious consideration into the 500 GB GTA V Bundle at GameStop, and when I went there this past week to pick up Killer is Dead, I did it.  I put down $50 of the whole purchase and I feel good about it.  The Super Slim is a device that I actually like the looks of, it's small, it runs cool, it doesn't draw a lot of power, and if it breaks, I can open it and get my disc.  But, of course, it's not going to break - I'm confident that, like Microsoft with the latest and greatest models of the 360, they've figured out that over-heating thing something fierce and it only happens in the edgest of edge cases now - like Store Demos and the like.  So for $270 ($220, technically since the 50 is already down) I'm getting a PS3 that would otherwise cost $300 in a different bundle with Grand Theft Auto V, something I was already going to pay $60 additionally for, and another Dualshock 3 so I can have proper couch-multiplayer if I so desire and have someone else around.  Or if I just want to switch controllers.  It seemed like a no-brainer, especially because the cool system and the 500 gigs of on-board storage means I'll...actually look into downloading PS3 games I've gotten from Plus, which is a bevy of opportunity on its own merits alone.

So what's been going on lately is a lot of change.  Which means a lot of stress which means a lot of wasted time which means that I don't get a lot of work done.  Obviously, I apologize for that and it's a silly thing overall, but, well, y'gotta have pride in whatever you do, and I certainly do here.  I'm pretty certain that people read this blog nightly, judging by the view counts, and I imagine you people are the few and the proud, as it were, so you deserve a little transparency when I can offer it.  And that's what it is.  The next few weeks are going to still be rough, but when Grand Theft Auto V comes out, I'll have not only the game, but a new PS3 that I can use and abuse wholly for entertainment purposes on an unprecedented level which will allow me to get through my backlog and allow me to provide some more content for you guys where it might otherwise be absent or lacking.  It's not too far off.

As always, thanks for reading, folks.

as if I needed another reason to be excited for GTAV, I mean have you even seen that game

Bonus Post: The Fiction of Kupowered

Folks might notice that I've added a little something to the sidebar, something that might seem rather curious at first glance, but it should become fairly obvious as to what it is in short-order.  Still, I didn't want to just throw it up there (especially at the top) without giving it a little explanation first.  Especially since it's kind of a big thing for me.

The new gadget that sits atop my sidebar is "The Fiction of Kupowered" which is something that I'm going to use to collect and keep the posts that I do in a sort of story-like manner.  It started back last year when Far Cry 3 inspired me so damn much I had to tell my story of a completely random situation I found myself in while playing the game.  A situation that was more or less unique to me thanks to just how many random elements were involved.  I was impressed with Far Cry 3 itself because of this and I was also ecstatic for the story that came of it.  And what do you do with good stories?  You share them, of course.  My blogpost that night served as a nice little way to do that and while I don't get a lot of feedback, generally, I did get a few of the people who I know check the site out every now and then point that post out specifically as a good thing.

It was something new, something different, than what I'd done with this blog before and it felt good.  It still does.  Story posts are things I can't obviously do every night, but when I get to do them, they're something quite different and fun in a different way than other posts.  I specifically started this blog as an attempt to write more consistently and thus hopefully improve my skills with it, and my story posts are a bench-mark of that progress I think.  I have mixed feelings about them in all honesty because I like them and am excited about them, but there's always the under-current of "perhaps I'm too close to them" or "everyone is their own worst critic, I should be harder on them" that keeps me....nervous(?) about them, I suppose.  Basically, I like them, but I don't want to seem like I think they're awesome super-great pieces of writing that you should like.

Personal things are always a bit awkward to explain, I suppose, which is why this is weird for me.  As I've said, however, Story posts are rather fun for me, so I intend to keep writing them, and some feedback has indicated that the story posts are also quite enjoyed, so I wanted to feature them in a way.  I worry that top of the blog is a bit much, so I -might- move it down, and as I write a lot, I might have to condense it further somehow, but for now, it's what it needs to be.  At least, that's what I think, but I'm always open to hearing otherwise, of course.

I would like to end this bonus post by saying Thank You to all of the folks who do read this blog on at least a semi-regular basis.  I write because I like to and I want to, but I enjoy constantly doing it at the pace that I do because there are people that like what I put out.  It's encouraging and humbling and all sorts of positive things.  So honestly, thanks to everyone who reads this and I hope you continue to enjoy as I hopefully keep improving.

Grumble Grumble Raaaaaaage

So, ever since my Twitter gadget broke and I had absolutely no recourse but to remove it, which annoys me to no end still, I've been a little annoyed with things on Blogger.  Yes, I realize the Twitter gadget I was using was third-party, so Google technically has no need to assist in fixing it or even assure that it works.  Yes, I realize it is a very small thing and yes, I realize that I can probably find one that works beyond the list of gadgets that blogger 'supports' in the "More Gadgets" tab when you're looking to add a new gadget in the whole layout thing.  The thing is, it's fucking Twitter.  It shouldn't be a goddamn issue to imbed Twitter in my goddamn blog because social networking is fucking everywhere and especially Twitter is everywhere.  Everyone uses Twitter.  Hell Chance is even on Twitter!  That they can't have a third-party relationship that is enough for an 'official' gadget is just baffling.

But, you know, whatever.  That's a thing, it's not acceptable, but it is since there is technically some measure of it being out of respective hands.  I don't like it, but I understand.

What isn't acceptable, however, is when one of the official Blogger gadgets isn't working.  And especially not when all it is is a fucking custom search bar gadget when Blogger is owned by fucking Google.  This is an entire level of absurdity that I would never imagine in my wildest suggestions or ideas because this is elementary shit right here.

Go ahead.  Give it a shot.  The little gadget on the side that says "Big Enough to Need This Now" because my blog has over 700 posts now and damned if I'm going to search through them all when I need to find something I've referenced in the past is the one that I'm talking of.  You type in anything, "review", "Playstation", "Yakuza" anything that you know I've talked about before or anything and hit enter and it always comes back "No results found." for what is, and I'm being truthful here, no damn reason.  It has effectively become as useless as the Twitter gadget before it 'officially' broke in that -now- you can't even add it back as an element anymore, but before that, it was just a fancy "Follow me" button.  Which, coincidentally, they don't even offer that in the third party gadgets.  (Well, there is one Twitter gadget that has a few revisions....in spanish.  I think.)

Thank God there's three individual Google+ gadgets, though.  Don't know what we would do without those.

My only real line of thinking here is that perhaps it's not working because I have not update the layout in a while and I do believe that Blogger was pushing new templates -hard- a while ago, if only because I think I remember Chance talking about changing his up.  But I don't quite remember if he changed to something even newer than -mine- since his was...obviously before mine, or if he's using one of the same templates I had to pick from.  I would assume the former, given that his search bar works just fine, whereas mine....doesn't, but I really doubt that would be why.  All I really know, obviously, is that it's not fucking working and that's really bothersome.  So bothersome that it was really the only thing I could think about tonight.

So...there's that.  Raaaaaaage and all that.

Hey, I Didn't Forget

I am 1 for 2 in terms of New Year's Resolutions.  This is a thing that is official that I've been meaning to bring up, just forgot about it until now.  Seeing as there's something of a weekend lull, and I only made it about ten minutes into Assassin's Creed 3:  Liberation after beating Persona 4 Golden, then this is a perfect time to discuss it, for it is a thing that is to be discussed.  Some of you might have been around last January when I set my second ever New Year's Resolution of making my own game that would be a board game, styled something after Metal Gear Ac!d because goddamn if I don't love those two games and cards.  Cocky off my recent resolution win of doing this blog, I aimed to shoot for the stars and, well, life kind of caught up to me.  So, at this point in time, I'm disappointed to say that I don't have anything close to a prototype of the game to play with, meaning I failed that one.

As a side thing, I always kind of figured that it might not have gotten quite finished, but I expected, at least, to be a little bit into the actual card-making process which is currently still a point off on the horizon.  I have characters and factions drawn up (so to speak) and I have some base mechanics considered, but that's about the bulk of it honestly which is not really indicative of a years-worth of work.  Of course, it's not technically a years-worth of work, since there were entire months where I just couldn't even consider working on it because of the stuff that has cropped up, but I don't aim to excuse it, really.  Not like I have to, really - I wanted to do something and then I didn't.  Big deal.  A good part of the excitement really came from being able to have something to share and that's not gone, so there's not too much of an issue.

In all reality, the only reason I bring it up at all is because I'm just going to be renewing that resolution for this year.  It's a bit lazy and a bit counter to the entire idea, but really, it's just a formality.  Things that people want to do, we do regardless of reason or anything like that - the whole concept of being a Resolution is just an attempt at galvanization towards a certain goal that is generally considered a larger thing than we might ordinarily contest.  So what all this means is that I -still- want to make my game, and that I -hope- to make strides toward that goal through this upcoming year.  With the knowledge gathered last year at just what kind of a task this is that I have at hand, I hope to make some better strides this year, since I -know- which way I'm going, it's just the getting there that's the problem.

The issue with actually sharing this project, I'm realizing, is foresight.  Both in whether I might want to sell this thing in the future and whether I could, were I of a mind to attempt to.  There's not a whole lot of protection in just posting things up on the internet and hoping nobody takes them, after all.  But that's a bridge I'll cross at some later point - I'm sure if I keep -some- of the information back, I'll still have something I can build on, so I'm not too fussed about it.  Whenever I can update it, I promise that I will, but that might be a while in the future here - I'm working on other things and dealing with life as it comes, after all.  I've got the whole of this year to mess around with, though, so I am anticipating -some- progress.  In fact, I'd say it's a little impossible that there won't be any.  So that's a thing!

New Years Stats Time!

Do you like numbers?  Well, if you do (Like I do) you're going to love this post!  This year, much like last year, I'm going to share some specific numbers about Kupowered, if just because I -can-.  I certainly don't know if anyone's interested, but I think it's fun to do and it's my blog after all, so I'll do it if I like.  And I do.  So I do it.  It's been a trying year to say the least, so actually sitting down and looking at these numbers will be something that I'm doing for the first time as I write this, which I think makes it partly more fun for me since this is all new to me.  I get to look at the numbers and then figure out a way with which to express them in a way that isn't just A, B, C.  Or at least a little -more- entertaining a version of A, B, C like the last years post was.

The first glaring number that stands out is 2012's post count total - 307.  A full year's posts would have been 365 and my post count last year was 349, a whole 42 posts more.  Still going by the "Every other day" rule of 183 posts (which I fell on a lot this year), I'm still up by 124 posts which, hey, I think is pretty respectable.  It's not 165 like last yeah, but the fact that I actually have two years to compare to one another is a miracle unto itself, I should say.  This is the part where I start wishing I could break down views by year but that's simply not offered in Blogger's overview (or if it is, I'm struggling to find it), so I'll just have to update the All-Time views which will account for, you know....All-Time.  Last year and the year before.  (I'm just realizing that it is technically 2013 so Whoops)  Still, that'll be neat because it'll still give me numbers to compare it to since I guess I just filter out the differences and that'll be the year not accounted for.  You know, with math.

Coming in at the top of the All Time posts is once again "Really Tired", which if you missed me explaining it last year, was simply me being silly and doing a silly post about dragons.  Silly posts are fun, but I don't intend to do them all the time even though that one ended up being rather popular because of a particular picture used in it.  Its post count currently sits at 5,071, up from 4,069 from last year's review meaning it's only been viewed 1,002 times last year.  Only.  "Guilty Pleasures - Yakuza 4's Hostess Maker" is still second with 739 views, up from 290 last year, meaning it's been viewed 449 times in 2012 - not bad at all.  Third place is where 2012 shone, though, with "Zone of the Enders 3 is a Thing in Development" coming in at 590 views for 2012 alone, simply because it was -in- 2012 only.  I believe I can safely say that means it was the highest viewed post of 2012.  Second to receive that honor was "Kupowered's 501st Post" which came in at 248 views for some reason!  Overall, that post came in 7th, however, behind "inFamous 2 - My Thoughts on the Story and Endings (Spoilers)" at 547 views, "What Went Wrong - Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon" at 414 views and "The Regular Show is Pretty Great" at 399 views.  Because 400 views would just be too easy.

Trying to use the Page View Graph this year is just as unfeasible as last year, perhaps even more so, so unfortunately, I won't be doing a month-by-month thing since, well, I have no idea when those are properly updated.  Trying to navigate the graph takes me from January 2011 to February 2012 which....isn't correct, so, yeah, it's a bit silly.  Raw numbers will suffice.  My "Pageviews Last Month" figure comes up as 2,457 views, which I suppose might be for the full month of December, or like half of November and half of December or something.  I bring that up solely because that figure is higher than any single month presented in last years figures (the highest being 2,297 views) which means it's about in line with things so I'm keeping steady.  Or, rather, perhaps 'last month' was a low month because my All-Time Pageview History number now sits at 46,580, a full 29,751 views more than last year and, in fact 12,922 views more than last years All Time History of 16,829.  This is where I wish I knew how to do percents so I could figure what percentage growth that is, but looking at the numbers just says "a lot" which is pretty cool nonetheless.

Clicking on the Audience tab brings up something rather surprising in the sense that things have sort of shifted via countries that view Kupowered.  Like, dramatically.  America is still at the top with a whopping 19,799 views (up from 7,987 last year or an increase of 11,812 views), but Russia came out of friggin' nowhere at second place with 5,589 views (up from 485 last year for a 5,104 view increase) which...should I be worried about that?  I don't know.  The United Kingdom pulls up third with 2,210 views (up from 892 last year for a 1,318 view increase) and it's not until we get to fourth place that Canada finally shows up at 2,155 views (up from 1,123 views for a 1,032 increase).  If you're interested in the rest, the full list is as follows:  (Country - Pageviews - Increase):  America - 19,799 - 11,812, Russia - 5,589 - 5,104, United Kingdom - 2,210 - 1,318, Canada - 2,155 - 1,032, Austalia - 1,576 - 695, Germany - 875 - 411, Indonesia - 775 - 636, Brazil - 606 - 470, Ukraine - 436 - 302, and France - 430 - N/A.  All this only adds up to 34,451 Views, so the rest of the  12,129 views is smattered across other nations in smaller numbers.  Firefox again is the most used browser at 19,171 (or 42%) of views, with Chrome and Internet explorer switching places this year at 11,398 (25%) and 9,162 (20%) respectively.  Windows is still the most widespread OS to be used to view at 34,413 (75%) where Linux has bumped up a little, coming in at 6,296 (13%).  Mac at 2,133 (4%) is the only other number to brag about with Android and iPhone representing 1% each with 872 and 634 respectively and the remaining five of iPad, iPod, PSP, PS3 and BlackBerry are all <1% with 350, 260, 179, 178 and 168 in order.

I haven't really made many new 'types' of posts since last year with the notable exception being, appropriately, "Gaming By The Numbers" of which I only have two posts for - Dynasty Warriors Next and Trails in the Sky.  These posts are basically just ones in which I take a game and turn it into full-on Number Porn somehow, either talking about the hours of time needed to do something specific, or just how easy it is to do something, taking into account the most 'profitable' means with which to do it.  Or you know, whatever.  It's number porn so it's about numbers in whatever form I can take them in.  Somewhat like -this- post and the last year's review, I should say.  Most everything else has been either a stand-alone thing, or part of a 'type' I established the first year, which is just fine, I think.  I don't need to make a whole bunch of different things for my posts to fit into and I probably established the most that I'll need in the first year, though there's always the future to tell.

Compared to 2011's three reviews, I did a surprising nine in 2012, which is still a really small number, but considering the amount of work that goes into every review, it's not something that I can do all the time unfortunately.  Those reviews are, in order of post date:  Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Alpha Protocol, Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Resistance: Burning Skies, Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble, Sound Shapes, Gravity Rush, Assassin's Creed: Revelations and  Final Fantasy XIII.  Obviously, I linked them in case you wanted to check them out again (or for the first time, if you've missed them) and if not then at least it's nice to keep these things together for something in the future.  That number would have been ten, but alas, I still haven't finished the likely vitriolic review for Final Fantasy XIII-2 which is unfortunate, but that's just how these things go sometimes.  Still rather impressive for me, I think.

I imagined if I tried, I could pick up a few of some posts that I really liked this year (since I can't play Favorites), but really, I'm pretty happy with them all.  If anything, I remember the Gaming by the Numbers posts more than the rest for the simple fact that they were number porn posts and those are ultimately really fun to write.  While it's still recent, I do also still remember the two posts I made for a concept I dubbed a 'MoveShock' which is a theoretical controller that would combine a DualShock with two Move wands, offering a 'best of both worlds' scenario where one could expect to use both methods of input simultaneously instead of giving up one for the other.  I've rarely been as excited at a prospect as I was with that, and while I doubt it's going to happen, it's still nice to dream.  Because honestly, it's a pretty cool concept if it would work in the scenarios I put forth.

And that's about it for 2012.  It was apparently a year of highs and lows, but while I didn't like the year, it was still a rather productive one, all-told.  Hopefully 2013 will be a better year, both in me keeping up with posts and just....you know, being a better year.  It's got a chance as it is now, but it's only two days old so, well, a little early to be wondering, I suppose.  If you've read this and enjoyed it, then I thank you and I hope you'll stick around for the posts as they come this year.  I mean, again, number porn so your mileage may vary, but I certainly had fun with it!  Here's to 2013 kicking 2012's ass in all the relevant facets!

Technical Difficulties

If only this said Technical Difficulties instead of Art Director.  Would be perfect.  Is that bad?

So, I have been playing Persona 4:  The Golden lately.  I have been enjoying it a lot.  I tried to convey that in words tonight and it didn't work out at all.  In fact, I've tried to convey a lot of things in words here lately and just haven't been able to manage it.  I have no less than three blog posts in my head that refuse to siphon themselves through my fingertips and it's the height of frustration.  I'm trying to work through it, but it's not working perfectly just yet.  So with that, I'll just have to ask that you bear with me while I try to work through this latest funk in the series of funks this year has provided.  I'll figure out something here eventually and then everything will be hunky-doory.  In the meantime, friggin' buy Persona 4:  The Golden if you haven't already.  Seriously.  Believe the hype in this one, because it does not disappoint.

So, I've Been Slipping Lately

To make up for it, enjoy this video of someone in a Deadpool outfit having some fun with Gangnam Style.  And then briefly consider that it's entirely well within his character and ponder just how awesome that is.

In all seriousness, things have just not really gotten a whole lot better and I imagine that they will not for a while.  This is the part where I just say "Hey, bear with me" because, well, I'm trying.  It's not easy on the easiest of nights to really come out and write up something that I hope is informative, entertaining or a combination of both, and if I didn't -really- enjoy it, I probably would've stopped.  Well, no, I definitely would've stopped by now.  But I really do love having this outlet to actually sit down and clear out thoughts in my head or even make some things a little clearer in some cases, simply by typing it out and really trying to form cohesive thoughts about it.  It helps a lot, and while I hope there are people that read this blog and actually enjoy it, right now I need the outlet more than I need anything else.

Of course, there's just going to be nights where I just can't do anything with that outlet which is very, very frustrating for me, but it's not something I can change.  I can't force it, and I doubt anyone would want to read the results of if I were to attempt that feat.  It wouldn't bother me so much if the Twitter gadget on the sidebar would actually work, but with Twitter's recent updates, it seems it went and borked gadgets all around, so maybe it'll fix itself eventually, or maybe it won't.  At least I know it's not just -my- gadget, as I have looked around to see others similarly affected, but it's annoying nonetheless since I wholeheartedly doubt there are people who know my twitter exists outside of seeing it on the sidebar.  But that's another thing I just can't change.  I can just say that if I feel like I'm not up to writing, I'll probably point it out on Twitter.  It's still here and feel free to check it out if you'd like, but by no means am I trying to make it a thing you have to keep up with.

So yeah.  While I'll try to keep things fairly steady here for myself if nothing else, I can make no guarantees because, well, things just sort of happen and it's by and large not been positive lately.  I'm sure I don't have to explain how that might just not be very good for a lot of things, including writing.  I just know that low points have to even out eventually and then I can build back up and get back to fairly normal.  Between now and then, there might be some fits and starts and such, but I'll try to keep them at a minimum and I don't plan on making this the place where I go boo-hoo about things since you're not interested in hearing it and I'm not interested in sharing it.  I (mostly) just want to talk about video games here, so that's what I'll continue doing.  Though, I have been interested in watching a few movies again lately that I want to do up a Popcorn On for.  And I've wanted to do something about Burn Notice for a while...But, that's all future stuff.  For now, that's about it.  If you haven't read the Final Fantasy XIII Review, it'd be cool if you did that, since it was an effort, but no worries.  Hell, just watch the Deadpool video again if nothing else.  Because, again, it's pretty damn cool.

Something Like An Update Post

As we all know, when it comes to things that are bad, they never come in, stroll around for a moment and then leave without so much as a second thought.  They come in with a few buddies, also bad, and hang around for a little while until you're ready to strangle something and you don't really care -what-.  That's been what it's like here since the last time I posted, and that's directly responsible for the -why- I haven't posted.  I'm still not in a good place as it is, but I realized that there are possibly people who use this as their sole venue to know if I, as a person, am doing alright or something like that, and it'd be kind of a shitty thing for me to do to -not- update those people if I can help it, which I can.  Because, you know, I'm just a nice guy like that or something I suppose.

The situation is thus:  I'm pretty alright.  I lost internet the night after I posted last, hence the first night of non-posting and it was kinda sucky for me and such, but nothing too bad.  The next day, we (by we, I mean my family) got some news that is....well, pretty bad.  I don't want to throw this out here because I don't need attention nor sympathy or anything like that, but suffice to say that there could be some severely bad news about a close family member in the coming week or two.  So that's been weighing on me since and it does wonders for keeping any enthusiasm or verve I could muster for anything at bay, which is why it's been particularly hard to even consider posting since I've just not been in it.  I'm still not, but I suppose I'm managing fine enough, might start again normally depending on how things go.  The other issue is that I'm sick-ish again.  Because, you know, why not.  Nothing beyond waking up with a surplus of mucus for now, but given how things are, I'm not liking my chances of getting better without getting a little worse.

I've been keeping busy, though, which is good.  Between the first and likely only chapter of Corpse Party that I played which I suspect has made me a worse person overall because of the things that are now in my memory that I cannot un-remember, Ragnarok Odyssey that has the most adorable Slimes that I have murdered by the hundreds already and Youtube videos on the Vita App (which I'm still not entirely happy with, and it could be fixed with just a little more 'robust' channel viewing, and by more robust, I mean any at all), I haven't had a moment to say that I am bored.  Of course, I have work, Final Fantasy XIII and the recently-finished Costume Quest  to thank for that as well, which is to say that it is a good time to do what it is that I do, I just wish the conditions were a little more conducive for enjoyment.

That's been the most noticeable with Costume Quest, which I finished in two sessions of plays, getting 100% of the trophies while I was at it.  (Of course, there's only 11 and they're pretty simple to get)  It's a light-hearted Halloween-themed romp that I played, in fact, because it was just Halloween and I did nothing else to celebrate than eat candy and....well, I ate some candy.  It was, in fact, delicious.  I suspect that any other time, I would be able to fully appreciate it for what it was, but instead I could only find the mechanics boring and grating, much like Final Fantasy 13's own, and glare at my screen whenever the FPS dropped noticeably as all Double Fine games seem to do, and do a lot.  It was fun and I liked it, but I also wasn't playing it to enjoy it, simply because I felt like, hey, I should play it because of that time and, when I played it about halfway through, because I was almost finished with it.  I worry that that might've hampered my opinion of it overall, which is why I decided not to continue with the Grubbins on Ice expansion, choosing to instead save that for the Holiday season, with hopes that my natural excitement during those times will help the game put an exclamation point on it.

I did purchase Assassin's Creed:  Liberations as well, and I have been avoiding playing it for much the same reasons as I've listed already.  We all know my opinions on the Assassin's Creed games, particularly AssBro and AssRev (though AC1 and 2 are both spoken of as well in those) and they are not ever universally positive when I'm in the best shape I can be.  So trying to go into such a game and expecting that I will walk away satisfied in the least is lunacy which I will not attempt - I want to like Liberations or at the very least give it a fair shake.  I'm in no position to do either at this juncture, but when I am, you will probably hear about it because that's sort of what I do.  With any luck (I notice that I say that a lot) I'll be back to posting tomorrow night, and there's some genuinely interesting things to speak of that's come up lately, so I'll have plenty of things to cover.

Heads-Up Quick Post

Since it seems like the Twitter gadget is good and broken, likely because Twitter is upgrading, I'm using an old Blogger layout or some other nonsense, I really don't think I can rely on it to deliver updates for me when I might not be on to make a post.  I mean, maybe I just have to take it off and put it back on or something simple like that, but I'm not going to pretend that it's even close to working currently, and that's really goddamn infuriating.  Since I don't want to do that whole "Hey, follow me on Twitter for all sorts of updates!" because honestly it's about 70% me talking about random things (most of it K-Pop) and 30% actually talking about anything of relevance to Kupowered at all.  I mean, if you -want- to follow, then hey, that's totally cool, but don't say I didn't forewarn you because I totally did.  Just right there.  That was me warning you.  Also telling you that I warned you is kind of warning you.

Speaking of warning you, as no doubt some of you might have noticed, and this is the main reason why I'm doing this post - Hurricane Sandy, the Frankenstorm or whatever nonsensical title it's been given is heading up the East Coast and then projected to move inland to be a giant sandy bitch.  That's a broad area, I realize, and that area contains the area where I live, meaning I may just be affected by it, whatever it ends up being.  It could do anywhere between raining a little bit and, like....rampant destruction, so I'm just going to cover my bases appropriately.  What that means is, if I'm completely unheard of for a day or so, then that means that the power has gone out or something and it'll likely be....well, a day or so before I can get back into things.  I'm not exactly predicting ultimate issues or anything, but losing power for a couple nights is certainly an option because it happens all the goddamn time apparently.

Don't worry though!  I have my gaming bases covered at least, in that I'll have a fully charged Vita and DS should the need arise and between those, I've got enough to keep me busy for a while, provided I can maintain a charging program.  Which, well, I -can- through the magic of generators if needbe.  For reasons that are far, far beyond me, I actually did start Corpse Party and it is....well, it is very, very frightening.  I am a sucker when it comes to atmospheric horror, as most noted by my attempts to play Dead Space, and Corpse Party likes to touch all of those buttons over and over again.  Of course, being a complete, total and absolute idiot as I am, I have been playing the game with headphones as is recommended.  This is, of course, going to go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes anyone has ever made, but I'll just have to rol with it I guess.  Gotta get the 'full experience' and all.

With any luck, this is all going to pass.  Pass without complications, that is, since regardless, it's going to pass.  That's kind of what nature does.  I mean, it'd be weird if the storm just started to hover in a single spot for absolutely no reason.  But in any case, I like giving warnings whenever something like this is looming mysteriously over the horizon, and since I can't just give a quick tweet and -know- that it's easily accessible on this site, I figured I could go a little in-depth into the thoughts about it and what I might be doing in the meanwhile.  So you can possibly know what to look forward to when I come back if I actually have to -come back- at all instead of just...you know.  Doing this.  Like normal.  Because if I get to do this like normal, then nothing's gone wrong!  And that would be a good thing.

Just Doing a Bit of Maintenence Tonight

Because I'm a bit bothered by stuff tonight as usual, as well as having a bit of troubles with my allergies, I think I'm just going to spend a few hours going through the backlog of posts and doing a little work with them.  Resizing/relinking pictures, just doing a bit of tidying up and the like because I do see the virtue in doing that, in going back and treating old posts like the newer ones.  I also have just been putting off dicking around with old posts in general for far too long unless I link to them in a new post or something of the sort.  Simply because it is a bit of a chore to go into the blogger....-thing-, whatever it is where you have access to everything and tick off post after post after post.  But doing them all now might just get me in the habit of keeping up on them in the future so I don't have to do another big thing of this.

The pictures is really one of the more important bits for me, as I've toyed around with resolutions and figured that, for my current layout which I'm likely not going to change dramatically, tweaking the resolutions of most pictures to 520x293-ish (depends on the base picture, generally 400x225 is how it is when you set it to large, then manually altering the HTML to the new numbers which are just 1.3x bigger a piece) is the sweet spot.  They're nice and big at that size without being, I think, -too- big, and they definitely do not break the barriers at that point as setting them to X-Large or, in most cases, Original Size, would do.  This is also where my Flickr for Kupowered comes in handy, as some pictures (generally the ones I take on the Vita) are hosted through that thanks to the mostly terrible Flickr App for Vita.  (Seriously, if you try and look at a picture in the app, it crashes it.  It's only good for uploading.)  They have a resolution that is 500 by something which, as you can tell, is just about in line with what I figure on anyway, so that certainly works for me.  Anything to make it easier on my end, I guess, since I can throw those in, slam "Original Size" and be done with it just that simple.

Something else I'm considering is cribbing an idea from Chance and getting together a post that is where I keep the reviews I've done.  Or, rather, handy links to the actual review posts themselves so you can just take a look, click, and find out just how the game tickled my fancy.  Since it may also tickle your fancy in much the same way.  And then there will be much fancy tickling.  ...I'll stop that now.  Thing about that is that I haven't actually done very many proper Reviews (the actual number as of this writing is, in all honesty, probably 9) so it seems like some work to do for what is, basically, "Here is what I think of nine games."  Perhaps when I get a few more up, I'll do up the post or I'll take some of my other posts that are -basically- reviews and do up a section in said Review Repository thread for that purpose.  I mean, I'm getting close to 600 posts here, so I'm well-beyond the point where a little more organization and quick-reference is necessary.

Beyond that, I probably won't mess with a whole lot.  Now that I've done this for a while, my Tags list has piled up so I might throw a few extra ones onto posts where required, but that's about it.  Really, I've been putting this off much like the other stuff to do with the blog itself.  For at least two different posts, I just need to do a bit of research and a bit of effort into some things before I can actually just bring them up as posts, but I just haven't done them because I've found it easier to just pick something out of the news.  Of course, the news has been a bit scarce through the summer, less the deluges of things here and there, so it has been a risky strategy of late.  Though I still maintain that it's a good sign that I can sit here and -want- to write something, even if the what seems a bit sketchy for far too long because nothing interesting or relevant personally has happened and/or is pointed out at places I trust.  So, with any luck, I'll be able to get at least a bit of that stuff worked out so I can do something a bit different than lately.

Kupowered's 501st Post

There's a little bitty something about Kupowered that I didn't really think about when I started up last night's Review of Resistance:  Burning Skies, and in fact, I didn't really realize it for a little bit afterwards.  That thing is that yesterday's post here was the 500th post made in this blog.  And it's not really since the last number special that I've done one of these and I don't really want to repeat myself, but daaaaamn.  Unfortunately, there is no movie out there titled '500' that I have seen, so this might be a little bit of jibber-jabber, seeing as I want to acknowledge this milestone, yet there's not really a whole lot to talk about in terms of things 'changing' or anything like that.  Since it seems like keeping the course as is is working out quite well if the five-hundred posts prior to this one is any indication.  Just read that to yourself and get a nice big smug grin on your face and you can imagine that's pretty much what I'm like, currently.

I suppose, however, it's worth mentioning that it's a little funny that my 500th post was a review, considering when I started up this blog, I never thought I was actually going to review things here.  And in fact, I sort of had to talk myself into doing it, but since then, it's gotten a little more and more natural.  I only have just over half a dozen reviews at this point (all of which can be easily accessible by slapping in "Review" on the search-bar gadget on the side, or, since I'm feeling a little bit charitable tonight, I can go ahead and just link them since this is sort of a looking back type of post.  Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Star Ocean: First Departure, Yakuza 4, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Alpha Protocol, Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, and, of course, Resistance: Burning Skies.  Despite it being literally the post under this one, it's nice to keep all of them handy in case I keep doing reviews and have to (or simply decide to) keep them together in a single post for a quick reference.  Because, as is obvious, Kupowered is just going to keep going well past 500 if it made it well past 100, 200, 300 and 400.

While I wouldn't say my reviews are my most important posts on the board, I will say that they do take a good bit more work than most of the other things I post which are basically sit down, look for something interesting, look up some information, and then try and post that in a form that is interesting for myself, since if I like it, others probably will as well.  At least, that's the plan, but I almost never know if it's the reality or not.  Still, I tend to get positive feedback, so I call it a win regardless.  Of particular note, as in, posts that I always like to point out (and I always think about it) is my Character Spotlight series about Caim from Drakengard, which -might- be my favorite posts, or at least the ones I would like people to read (aside from the spoilers of course).  So maybe those are what I would think of as my 'most important' posts, but then again, I just have a big ol' spot in my heart for Cavia, so I'm totally biased on that.  (But still, it's a big read.)

I'm not going to drag this post out and there's really not a whole lot going on.  In the post-E3 time, we've just got people reflecting on what they saw during E3, people complaining about this year's E3 (mostly deserved), and not a whole hell of a lot else.  Considering Netflix actually works on our terrible internet, I'm celebrating this milestone by gorging upon on-demand TV and other such relaxation means.  Hopefully there'll be something to talk about tomorrow, or that I can at least come up with something!  Because I'll need a post for something that isn't "Hooray, 502nd post!" because that would just be too much, clearly.  I'm still holding out hope that there was a hidden gem in -somebody's- E3 floorshow or something.

Personal Note - Some Stuff Lately

I really, really wanted to avoid having to make this post, since I figured I'd work through things without it being noticed, but it's just really not working and I think it's having a fairly adverse effect on my posts lately.  I really don't like to do a post like this since it's only going to be relevant now, but I guess a lot of posts are like that anyway, and I've learned recently that only by talking about things or actually putting them out there that I can really work through them.  So that's pretty much what this is going to be, and I apologize right now since it's very likely that this won't be interesting in the least and border on self-serving for the simple fact that I sort of believe actually coming out and saying it, putting it out there will help.  I guess I'm just a bit desperate for that by now.

Since the Tuesday before last, I've been single for the first time in five or six years.  It's....been going about as well as could be expected.  Which is not very.  It's sort of weird as it's not exactly new in a few senses; the relationship was long-distance, so it's not like I was waking up with someone, just the knowledge that there was -someone-.  On top of that, the last few months were fairly trying; to say communication was strained would be understating thing, so I pretty much felt alone in that aspect.  So I figured, y'know, when it was official, it wouldn't be that much different and let me tell you, I was wrong.  It wasn't really so bad at the start, really, as I actually was working on my Harvest Moon DS post before the ex and I had 'the talk' and while I was upset, I obviously ended up finishing it before shuffling off to the world of Youtube to console myself with Happy Wheels videos.

The day after, however, and truthfully a few days following, I simply did not want to get out of bed.  So....I didn't, at least not for a while, spending hours after waking up (far earlier than I am used to, by the by) just laying there, idly listening to the Television and thinking about nothing.  I lost a goodly bit of motivation unfortunately, and I personally think my last few posts haven't really been up to snuff which is more or less why I'm writing this now.  I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I certainly have and you know me, I have to acknowledge these things.  I've been getting a bit better about it, slowly, and the hope is that I'll get back to posts that I'm happy with soon, since I've at least still -wanted- to post and still -managed- to post which I am happy with at least.

It's hard to explain, I guess, in that my brain just isn't working the right way.  I use to be able to sit down, figure out what I want to write about and just go at it.  Any distractions were handled easily and I got back to it.  Now I find myself starting a post, finishing a paragraph and going off for half an hour to do something nonsensical so that when I come back I'm just in a completely different mindset.  It feels disjointed and I think it kind of translates, but again, maybe I'm just being a bit over-critical.  It's a bit to be expected that I'm thrown off my game, really, but accepting it just isn't good enough, frankly, since I want to just get back to how it was.  And I'm -going to-, but I don't know how long it'll take, so I guess the overall point of this is just to ask you guys to bear with me until I'm really back into the swing of things.  With any luck, it won't be much longer.

Happy Birthday Kupowered!

As you might have seen in the Year in Review by the numbers post I made last month, January 5th of 2011 marked the first post of Kupowered and, given this is January 5th of 2012, that means an entire year has gone by and this is still going strong.  It occurs to me that, had I not done a 'by the numbers' post already, that this would be another great time to do it, but it's done and linked, so if you're curious about those numbers, there you go.  And I guess another thing to do here would be to say how good of a year it's been and talk about what I plan on doing this year....which I have also already done.

....hrmm.

Note to self:  Next year, think this over better.

There's honestly nothing really to talk about tonight.  Nothing newsworthy other than former-PSN Exclusive 'Amy' getting official release details/pricing for Europe and a somewhat sketchy-sounding release/pricing for NA.  It seems the Playstation Network version will be $12.99 where the XBLA version will be, more or less, $10.  The fact that it's a dual-release suggests there's content parity as well, so I couldn't even suggest that we PS3 owners are getting more bang for our buck.  Perhaps there'll be an announcement down the pipeline talking of exclusive 'free' DLC or something, but any interest I had for the title, personally, has been shot.  Not that I'm feeling some sort of outrage against the devs, simply I'm not even going to consider paying $13 what others pay $10 for at the exact same time without a little extra assurance of getting that full $13-worth.

But that's a fairly sour note to go on (all things considered) so why don't I just end this post with one of my favorite trailers of 2011, if just to remind you all that it's coming~

Mmmm.  I can't wait.  Heads will roll!  Literally!

Resolution Time!

Some of you who read this blog might actually not know that a New Year's Resolution is what really spawned this whole thing.  Last year In 2010, at the end of December, I decided to actually make a resolution that year rather than just being dismissive about the whole thing.  So, I had been The Games of Chance pretty heavily and decided "Hey, writing is a thing I want to do and I quite enjoy reading his blog, so maybe I could do something like that of my own!" and after getting a few pieces of advice from him, I started it up.  The mission statement of at least a post every other day, the commitment to delivering actual content beyond a paragraph or two or just a link to something, it all spawned from me resolving to really jump into this whole writing thing head-first, so I'd say being 1/1 is a pretty good record.

So, of course, this year I just have to one-up myself because that can't end poorly, right?  In all actuality, I've set two resolutions for myself, but I'm only going to be talking about the first one as the second is....well, a little more personal.  They're both a little ambitious, but likely the former (i.e. the one I'm talking about) is the more ambitious of the two.  I wanted something challenging, but something not cliche', so no weight-loss, quitting a 'vice' or anything like that for me, since I am mostly terrible about 'quitting' things.  But I've obviously found something I'm fairly good at, so I'm going to go with that.  So, much like my last resolution, this year's resolution is going to be all about creation.

I've done quite a few posts here about what I'd do if I was making a game, whether it's the series of posts I did about my 'dream game' or the posts I've made about mimicking a Metal Gear Ac!d game with another game as a base, I have very much been vocal about what I'd do if I was going to make a game.  So, hey, put up or shut up time, right?  I haven't talked about all the different ideas I've had in mind here even, and I'm not planning on making a -video game- since it is far, far beyond my capability at this time, but I've been tossing around ideas for either a Table-top RPG style game (Like D&D) or actually making up a card game in the theme of Metal Gear Ac!d (but not exactly like it, of course) so I think it's time to actually get one of them done.  I'm obviously not talking professional-level stuff here; by January of next year (If we make it that far, hurr hurr Mayan Calendar) I'm not expecting to have something I can pitch to someone to be an actual 'buy this at a store' game, but at least something I can pull up with some friends, do a quick explanation of it, and get a game going.

I don't know which I'm going to go with officially, but I've got an idea, so once I have a few things firmly in place, I'll be liable to share them here I'm sure.  And this won't be like "I'm going to make levels on LittleBigPlanet, for serious, and post pictures and stuff about the creation process, I promise" because we all know how that turned out (I'm officially waiting for LBP Vita for that now.  >.> ) since this is my resolution.  This is a -thing- and it's going to -happen-.  'Where making this happen' for reals, and I think it'll be a pretty interesting thing to actually talk about every now and then.  The lucky thing is that, in either case, I already have a few ideas made up, so if nothing else, the first couple of posts about whatever I pick will be easy enough.  And with that, that should prompt me to continue on!

We'll see how it goes, but I hope you guys are interested in seeing what I've got going on!

New Year's Eve - A Year In Review

On Wednesday, January 5th, I posted my first post of this blog which more or less presented the mission statement to any who decided to read this as well as to myself to have something that I really wanted to accomplish.  I also sort of have one on the sidebar to the right, but the first post basically says "I want to write, and I want to write consistently, so I'm going to make it a 'thing'" and I would say that Kupowered is officially 'a thing'.  Though not without its hiccups in activity thanks to poor weather and computer issues, I have pretty much stuck to that goal of consistency to the best of my ability and for that I'm pretty proud of myself.  I really wrestled with whether or not I'd be able to do it, more because I worried it would become a 'chore' over time, but (mostly to my surprise) every day has been as exciting as the last, if not more, when I sit down here and actually really get into hammering out one of these posts.

I love doing this blog, doing this writing, and that's why it's going to be so easy to continue doing it into the new year.  While I don't always know what I'm going to write about until I actually start doing it (sometimes halfway through a post, I'll notice it's dramatically shifted gears and make a few changes to the title or the earlier body of it to reflect that) I always -want- to write which is likely the most important point.  That want, the desire, is more or less why this has kept going and why it's improved over time (at least, I like to think it has) as I've more or less fallen into a way about things or a style even.  With any luck, my ability will eventually match my ambition for it and I'll be able to make this a lot better than it is currently; if just by delivering on  few promises I've made throughout the year.  (Like actually explaining the Romance of the Three Kingdoms period in my own way and getting an actual logo going.)  But even if I don't, I bet if I keep at what I've been doing, it'll work out all the same.

Since this is a year in review and I really like statistics, let's have a go at the blog by the numbers.  Not including this post, I made 348 posts this year - 17 posts fewer than a full year's worth (365).  Since the stated goal was 'every other day', which would have been 183 posts (rounded up), I beat my goal by 165 posts which is quite a wide margin.  My most viewed post (according to my stats page) was my "Really Tired" post in which I was silly and decided to talk about Dragons in a fairly casual way (even by my standards) as an attempt to make myself (and hopefully others) laugh with the way it went.  At 4,069 pageviews, I'd almost wager it did....if I weren't convinced that 89% or so of those pageviews are actually links to one of the dragon pictures used in the post.  My search keyword section constantly has about four or five different entries for 'dragons' or 'cool black dragons' which more or less leads me to believe this which is a little disappointing, but hey, views are views.  This is all reinforced by the second most viewed post, "Guilty Pleasures - Yakuza 4's Hostess Maker", which came in at only 290 views All Time.

I'm almost loathe to actually use Blogger's All Time graph for pageviews per month since it's not actually by month (seems to skip every other month and some months have two entires when hovered over), but it's kind of all I can think of to use right now.  January 2011 is listed as 538 pageviews between that point (wherever it was in January, perhaps at the end?) and December of 2009 (which, of course, the blog did not exist then).  After a little dip in March('s second entry) of 338 pageviews, there was steady growth from that point on to December('s first entry) of 2,297 pageviews which is my all-time high.  The second entry for December, which I imagine isn't the solid end-point of it, is currently at 2,217.  I honestly don't know how I'm getting all these pageviews, but hell, I'll take 'em.  As long as people are reading it's all good, I guess.  The part next to the graph that says "Pageviews all time history" has a total of 16,829 currently, which is a number that I can't even figure on.  (This is all with the 'Don't track own pageviews' unticked, however I doubt my own views are skewing things that dramatically and considering I've typed all this up, I'm not going to chance turning it off and making myself look silly.)

Moving on to the Audience tab, my top-most country of viewership is, possibly unsurprisingly, the United States with 7,987 pageviews.  I don't really link-whore my blog around (which, honestly, I probably should?), but if I do, the majority of the people I link to are in the US.  Up next is Canada (thank you Chance!) with 1,123 posts.  Australia brings up fourth with 881 views (that are likely not all made by Haplo, but I'm just guessing) and the country with the least pageviews is Denmark with 113.  Beats me how Denmark is even on the list, but hey whatevs.  (For those interested, the full list is such (Country - Pageviews):  United States - 7,987, Canada - 1,123, United Kingdom - 892, Australia - 881, Russia - 485, Germany - 464, Indonesia - 139, Brazil - 136, Ukraine - 134, and Denmark - 113.  Which only adds up to 12,354 so I guess the other views are a mish-mash of a smattering of views here and there.)  The bulk of these viewings was on Firefox apparently, as it accounts for 7,461 (or 45%) of my views.  Next is Internet Explorer with 4,081 (or 24%) and coming in third is Chrome with 3,461 (or 21%).  And of those total views, 84% (14,071 views) were done on computers running Windows OS, with the remaining 16% comprising of a mishmash of different OS's.  Linux and Mac get 5 and 4 percent respectively (901 and 826, again respectively) and Playstation 3 and PSP are both in the <1% category with 165 and 123 respectively.  Something completely surprising to me was that my site was apparently viewed on iPads 124 times, iPhones 111 times and iPods 61 times.

That all might not be interesting to you and I apologize if it's not, but it's absolutely fascinating to me even though with most cases it's just "Hey, these are big numbers that involve your blog".  I just think it's a neat little look into the back-end of things, into the mechanics of it rather, and that there might be a few people out there as interested in it as I am.  And what better time to cement these numbers than tonight, the end of the year?  Though I have to admit those are probably a little dry, so I do have a few more fun numbers to go over.

Since starting this blog, I've made about 26 different 'types' of posts, including "A Look Back", "Giant Robot On", "Weekly Wrap-up in Gaming", "Why Won't They Make These", "LittleBigThings", and "Misadventures in Bargain-Shopping".  I quantify these as 'types' in that they're...well, titles for very specialized types of posts.  While most of the time my posts have been bringing up something news-worthy and offering my opinion and thoughts on it, these posts are more or less based on my personal experiences and opinions on things, like presenting a specific game or type of game, describing it, and wondering aloud about how difficult it would be to make more of them, wherein the answer is usually 'Not very, but it won't sell well either'.  (Why Won't They Make These)  Or like talking about anything and everything involving LittleBigPlanet regarding news, my own personal excitement, or my adventures in the wonderful world of LittleBigPlanet.  (LittleBigThings)  There might be a few others I could include and likewise a few included that might not need to be in there, which is why I said 'about', since it's just a rough gauging.

One of those types of posts was the 'Review', which my first one was made on Monday, July 25th for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.  The game was so galvanizing that I couldn't help but be inspired to do with it what I hadn't done before and what I indeed told myself I wouldn't do in actually presenting something that was not just my opinions, but my overall judgment of the game (which are two very slightly different things).  Since then, I've only reviewed two other games (Yakuza 4 and Star Ocean: First Departure) because they've both struck similar chords as Ghost Trick, albeit in widely different ways.  It's probably a safe bet to make that I'll review more games in 2012, but that my focus will remain on relating my opinions on the games I play rather than rendering my judgments.  Again, they are different things, albeit barely, and I think they're both important enough to have a place here.

While I don't think I could ever pick 'favorite' posts of the year, I will point out a couple of my more memorable ones.  In recent memory, my series of two (spoiler warning!) Character Spotlight posts about Caim from the Drakengard series (again, spoilers up ins them) were probably a couple of the posts that I've got most excited about doing.  I've said it many times before, but Drakengard is a series close to my heart and Caim and his presentation are a couple of the bigger reasons as to why that is.  So getting to really elaborate on that is something that I really wanted to do and that I'm glad I got to do it.  Also memorable was (again, spoiler warning!) my two-part What Went Wrong - Chrono Trigger DS series in which I got to elaborate on how bothered I was that Squeenix took one of my favorite games (if not my absolute favorite) from my childhood and, well, really did all they could to try and screw it up.  Because they honestly did and thank god there likely won't be a third Chrono game (well, fourth) since all attempts aside from the first have been pretty abysmal.

That's about it, really.  It's been a great year and I wanted to be able to really express my achievements with this blog in both personal reasonings and raw numbers and I believe I've adequately done that.  I'm sure there's quite a few other things I could've elaborated on and pointed out here, but I covered the major points, I think.  I hope everyone who's read this far has enjoyed it and will continue to do so well into the new year while this just grows and grows.  Here's hoping for great things in 2012!

300th Post Special

So, I completely forgot that I actually planned Tuesday to do this post yesterday, but I'm happy with what I did yesterday anyway, so it doesn't matter.  Only reason I'm bothered at all is because I scrambled for an hour at least to find something to write about and then completely forgot that I already had an idea until I hit post and it told me the post was successful.  Right at that moment, even; "Post Successful!" "Damnit, I had an idea."  I briefly considered doing an immediate Bonus Post for this, but then decided to just roll with doing it today, hoping I'd get a little more in mind with the subject here sometime between last night and posting tonight.  I didn't, really, but I've watched 300 enough times that I remember enough.

Anyways, yesterday was my 300th post on here and while I've said I don't want to make a big deal about every iteration of 50 or so, there's kind of a stark difference here between "Yay, I have 150 posts" and "Man, 300 posts already".  I'd venture a guess to say the same gap is present between 300 and 500 and 400 will likely go by without so much as a whimper.  Maybe, I don't know, we'll just have to get that far first.  Anyways again, the idea with this post is that, since it's the 300 301st post, I will spend a little time talking about making 300 posts and then move on to the movie 300 which I am pretty happy with.  I probably won't get as into it as a Popcorn On, but more than just a passing mention.

I really don't know why, but 300 feels like a really important number to me when it concerns the amount of posts I've done.  Maybe it's because it's actually right there on the side that confirms, yes, 300 posts, or maybe it's because 300 is pretty close to 365; the amount of days in a general year.  While I've missed days here and there, I still think 365 posts is a good day since it means, irrefutably, that I definitely kept up my New Year's Resolution and stuck with this for at least a year.  Not out of a sense of obligation or anything like that, but just because I actually, really enjoy doing it and exercised a little responsibility in ensuring that I kept doing something I enjoyed.  Which, while it doesn't sound difficult, I'm pretty sure there are those out there who understand that it really is not easy to keep up with something even if you enjoy it.

Regardless, that's enough of me saying "Yay, 300 posts is cool", time to move onto saying "300 the movie is pretty cool."

So, longtime readers might know that I really value plot and story above all else in such a way that I'm willing to forgive other short-comings if something offers me something well-thought-out, well-performed, and/or is just very good.  Obviously, 300 does not fall into this camp as the story is pretty much history but kind of dumb.  On the other hand, 300 doesn't need to be smart because it makes no attempts at thinking it is more than eye-candy; not in the most obvious way of course, but in the way it's so stylized and the way it unfolds.  An overabundance of  slow-mo either annoys you or brings up that primal satisfaction hiding within us all as slow-mo is pretty much when all the awesome things happen.  Spears impaling enemies, a heroic deathmarch by one of the main protagonists, etc., the slow-mo is there to highlight the moments that might go unnoticed otherwise, for better or worse.

For those outside of the know, 300 was based on the historic battle of Thermopylae in which a small group of soldiers (More than 300, of course, some sources would number the entire force of about 7,000 men, though the affiliations were varied; some Spartan, some Thespians, etc.) under the leadership of King Leonidas of Sparta, survived an attack of the expansive Persian army for seven days before being surrounded and, later, routed.  Though the initial force was in the thousands, after the second day of combat, Leonidas dismissed the bulk of the forces when he learned that they had been betrayed which would ultimately lead to their demise.  Thanks to the strategic location of the Hot Gates, even the small force of ~1,400 troops was apparently able to last quite a while, resulting in a fantastic last-stand tale if nothing else.  Were a road not basically handed to the Persians that allowed them to destroy that strategic advantage, it's difficult to say just how much longer they could have lasted.

Obviously the only thing the movie really captures in relation to actual history is the spirit of the battle and some characters involved, but, well, when it comes to movies not really much else is needed.  When you just want to sit down and watch a badass action movie, that's all you want to do and you sometimes just need to have certain things that fill that niche.  300 will do that and do it well, provided you aren't against fast-forwarding through parts that....really have no bearing on the movie whatsoever and are unfortunate inclusions that serve to only bring the overall product down.  For every scene involving Leonidas' wife, for instance, we could just have more scenes of Persian death and that's what we want from this movie, nothing else.  But again, I make no claims that this movie is perfect, merely a clear choice for someone who wants to sit down and watch a stylish combat movie that doesn't pretend it has a 'deep, involving' plot.

So there's that.  Happy 300 posts to me and such.  I finally found a way to talk about 300 (the movie) without doing a Popcorn On for it, and it's actually double-topical since, on top of the post count, in less than an hour, theaters all across the East Coast will start showing The Immortals which is, if you didn't know already, made by pretty much the same team who did 300 and is kind of the same idea.  In that it just wants to be a badass action/war movie.  So there you go.  Coincidence or carefully crafted plot?  You decide.

(It was a coincidence.  A happy one.)