Blog Banter: getting to know me...

Welcome, welcome to the 3rd installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by the one and only bs_angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should go to here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post! This month's topic: "What games would you suggest someone play if they wanted to get to know you better?":

Hi! I go by johpan or soundboy depending on my game of choice but if there's a spy sappin' your sentry, your groovestats could use more tri-stars, you bank your star-power for when you're in the red, and are friends with Nightopians, you might speak my language.

Starting from the outside in, if you know me, or even if you just see me walking around alone, you can tell I'm a Music Junkie. I *heart* music and can't live without it. If you saw me around downtown or on campus, riding the bus or subway, or driving by me on the highway, you'll either see me wearing headphones, bobbing my head to the beat, tapping my feet, drumming to the rhythm, or a combination of the above. So, when you fuse music and gaming, I'm on that like a kid in a candy store.

I play some guitar IRL so Guitar Hero might help you get to know that side of me though I don't play too hardcore IRL. My favourite genre of music to play is punk while in GH3, I'm working on Through The Fire and Flames on Hard.

I'm not an aspiring dancer or anything but I'm a huge fan of the defunct In The Groove (and was previously a fan of DDR) and in my spare time, as I've mentioned before, I make stepcharts. I've even posted one on this blog but I'll be posting them on my music blog, boylikesmusic, from here on out. I like to say that I put a little bit of myself in each of my stepcharts so when you play any one of my stepcharts, you get to experience a little bit of me.

But somewhere deep inside, I'd really like to hone my composing and remixing skills which brings me to Beatmania IIDX. That game is chock full of songs and genres I try to emulate though I always like to put my own spin on things. I might try to experiment with different vocals or synth sounds or instrument filters - the possibilities are endless. A friend, whose interest in composing and remixing of electronic music compares or surpasses mine, proposed we release a made-for-internet friends-only CD release. I showed interest for it but with school and the limited time we get to chat, we haven't really had the time to follow through. We dream big though.

Speaking of dreams, I have a lot of things I'd like to do and achieve before I die that seem rather farfetched. I dream big but procrastination and plain laziness gets the best of me. In a way, you could say that I'm a Dreamer in need of Direction, or a Hero. This quality reminds me of an old Saturn game featuring a flying, purple-clad jester who defends the dreams of children all over the world (or Japan at least...) For those who haven't guessed, I'm talking about NiGHTS: Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn.

I played through that game at least 20 times. Our Saturn was quite strange - it wouldn't retain save files. It was hard to track down a memory cartridge back in the day from what I remember and we tried replacing the system battery a few times but nothing happened. Looking back, it was a blessing and a curse. Blessing in that I played through such a legendary game so many times. Curse in that playing RPGs was impossible (we did manage to score a memory cartridge which ended up failing on us after a couple of years... lol >_>). That game defined my childhood. If you watched Superbad and remember Seth's obsession with drawing penises, that was me, but with NiGHTS. How I wished every night that I could be Elliot and find my Claris who was just as much of a dreamer as i was. Oh how I miss them so. I think I'm going to load it up again and play right after I post this entry. And no, I don't have a Wii and yes, I do want to try NiGHTS but I tried it out for 30 seconds at my local EB and didn't feel the magic I once felt from my childhood. Maybe I should invest more time into it...

Before I get to that, a final game that reminds me of myself and one should play to understand my inner workings would be everyone's favourite murder simulator, Grand Theft Auto. Why you ask? It's definitely because I'm a wanted felon and steal cars and kill hookers for shits and giggles. Yup.

*Publish*

In GTA land, there are many things to do: you could advance in the game while performing missions, you could earn money by doing odd jobs, you can also run around and cause all sorts of mayhem. I find myself so bombarded with choice that I don't know what to do. I find that I'm so multifaceted that people don't know what to do with me. There are so many sides to me, I don't know how to act some times. GTA has its feet in many different genres of gaming: it's an adventure game, it has RPG type elements (body building, questing, etc), it's a racer, it's a flight sim, it's a tactical third-person shooter with some first person views, it's a gambling game, you get the picture. The thing is that it doesn't do any of the above quite spectacularly. I do many things and like to think that I have my feet wet (or at least moist) in a decent collection in skills, though I don't really specialize in one. One thing is that makes GTA so awesome is that you can do all those things in one package. I'll let you fill in what I was thinking after that sentence. Do I seem egotistical?

I usually don't write this much about myself but when I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll. When faced with a big group, especially of people I don't know, I'm usually the quietest one there. If you see me in a Team Fortress 2 server, I'm quiet unless spoken to. I don't do the whole trash talking thing. Too much effort. Which leads me to my final "getting to know you" point. I'm shy when my reputation and emotions are on the line. Watch me in any multiplayer FPS with voice chat with complete randoms. I don't say anything. Maybe the occasional "Spy as _____" warning to the comrades but nothing else. I've never made friends through gaming online. Strange, no? Anyway, watch me in a TF2 server, and you'll know what it's like to be around me in a crowd.

Do you feel like you know me now?



Participants : Silvercublogger, The Average Gamer, Game Couch, thoughts and rants, Delayed Responsibility, Boom Stick Brigade, Boom Stick Brigade 2, CrazyKinux's Musing, Gamer Unit, Draining Souls.net, 8-Bit Brigade, Zath Games Tech, Arm the Flag, Hawty McBloggy