Update on this blog thing

So it has been about a month and a half since I started 8-bit Smirk. I think it's been working out alright, although it feels like there's always so much I have to do and so much else I want to do. That's pretty typical though. I started the blog to essentially be a journal of sorts and in this respect it's been a success. Not so very long ago I had a friend tell me he wanted to start cutting gaming out of his life to focus on other pursuits, not least of all the noble goal of improving himself to be a more well rounded and knowledgeable person. I respect that decision, but it's not one I would ever see myself making. If this makes sense, removing gaming from my life would amount of removing much of me from myself. Gaming is more than just a hobby, it's one of the few things I have passion for and gives me motivation to deal with the things I don't want to be bothered with. More than that though, it is one of the things that defines me as a person. I am a writer, I am an outsider, and I am a gamer. For a more general defense of gaming, refer to my introductory post.

It often feels like there are so many games and so little time, especially when I think of big series I've yet to really explore like Mass Effect and Persona, and when it comes to writing this blog it seems like I'm always getting behind on what I'd like to get posted. That has particularly been the case for about a month now due to some major disruptions in my life. I had to change apartments and I have also been undergoing what I would term epic computer problems. Due to these things I was a bit scattered in what I felt like playing while my Diablo project fell by the wayside.

Recently I started a third character, a mage, in the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. While I liked playing from a new perspective, the character has been the most difficult to play as and so far the least enjoyable. I've played and beaten all the main Elder Scrolls games and I've never really enjoyed magic-using characters in the series, so it's nothing new for me. Eventually I want to do a whole writeup on Skyrim and really get into some details, but that time is not now. Perhaps sometime around when the first DLC, Dawnguard, is released. I will say at this time that the game will be a strong contender for one of my top favorite games ever, although that's a decision for after some time has passed.

When I am out and about on the weekend I typically like to keep a pick up and play sort of game with me, and for the last couple weeks that game has been Castlevania: Circle of the Moon in my trusty Game Boy Advance SP. Sometime I'd like to really write on the Castlevania series, which has many games that rank highly with me. Circle of the Moon is among this number and it's position has considerably improved over time. When it came out alongside the Game Boy Advance, the system it was designed for, played it in a way that was just barely visible. Every other system afterward that could play GBA games has been an improvement on visibility and this has helped the game greatly. It also has great replayability: I'm currently toward the end of my fourth playthrough. How the different unlocked modes switch up how the game plays offers some good variety. The player character, Nathan Graves, is also among my favorites of the series' vampire hunters. He has a great name, great look and he pretty much ignores the game's annoying rival character who eventually just ends up embarrassing himself basically. Anyway, great game.

I mentioned my Diablo project a bit ago, which I will be resuming where I left off at now that I have a computer I can use for it. First I will be completing Diablo 2, which I stopped playing shortly after the end of Act I when the epic problems began more than a month ago, and write a similar overview of my thoughts on it that I did for the first game. Don't worry, it'll be quite a bit more positive. The idea of the project was I fully go through D1 and D2 before finally getting to Diablo III. I'd intended to be ready for this eagerly anticipated game when it was released May 15, not a month later, but as Philip J. Fry once said: time makes fools of us all.

Introduction

Greetings. Welcome to my blog. My name is Ben Baird and for some reason or another you have stumbled onto my blog. Generally I plan to be writing about whatever I feel like, but overall the majority of the content will be video game related. I'm going to start rambling on now for a time about myself, my interests and to further explain my blog, 8-bit Smirk. The warning is given: it will be long and of dubious interest.

I graduated in 2007 from Central Michigan University with a major in journalism. Why did I choose journalism? Before going to CMU, I attended Henry Ford Community College and while there I struggled for about two years to figure out what I should pursue (anthropology electives I had there were fun). I liked stories, reading and writing, so I tried an English major to start. Eventually I decided I should change my major to something that would offer expanded career opportunities (to put it delicately). So I switched majors to education and made English my minor. The education thing didn't last long though. I went into it thinking I could be an English teacher, but after only a semester I decided I wasn't cut out for teaching since I was never good at public speaking and explaining things verbally was also a weakness (writer). Next I tried the college's single journalism class, liked it, and when it was over I asked the professor to recommend a school where I could have a journalism major. I ended up going to CMU for journalism and I made the choice to stick with it.

My dream job was (and is) to review video games. When I was at HFCC, I did some game reviews for the Mirror News student publication, but beyond that it's an interest I have to do something more with my primary hobby. I didn't have strong expectations this was actually what I would do with journalism as a career, although it's certainly been a thought.

I could talk some more about my experiences at CMU, which were good, or about my career in journalism afterward, but I think I'll hold off on those narratives. Suffice to say I managed to form a relationship with the exact newspaper I had my eye on, the News-Herald, which is the local Downriver newspaper I grew up with. I consider myself lucky to have received the opportunities I've had with the News-Herald, the Press & Guide, and with the overall Journal Register Company. Currently I am the police and court reporter covering Washtenaw County for Heritage Media within the same parent company as the previously mentioned newspapers. It's a position I have held since November 2011, and it has worked out good so far. The stories I write typically appear among the eight Heritage West newspapers, which can be accessed at heritage.com (my Twitter page is a reliable way to find links to all my stories @BenBaird1). While I have the option to make 8-bit Smirk my staff blog, I am choosing to keep it my own project.

My history with video games is also something I would like to very briefly overview. For me it all began one Christmas morning with an NES, the copy of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt it came with, and the Legend of Zelda. Gaming has remained a big part of my life since and, while some might disagree, I think it's an important part. To quote my friend Elena: "I consider it time well spent." Video games are becoming more and more mainstream, but it seems to me there are still many who belittle and disrespect gaming as an entertainment industry.

Playing games is an interactive experience. It's not about sitting there and staring at a screen. For me, it's about visiting other (or alternate) worlds and exploring them, whether it's a massive and immersive epic like the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a sandbox game like those of the Assassin's Creed or Grand Theft Auto series, a traditional RPG like those of the Dragon Quest series, or a simple side-scrolling platformer like the aforementioned Super Mario Bros.

Do I love all games? No. If you're trying to figure out how big of a dork I am this next bit might clarify, but I've never been interested in sports; so as you might imagine I also have no interest in sport games. Puzzle games are also something I'm not fond of, unless I'm in a Tetris mood or it's physics based (like Portal or World of Goo). I like some first-person shooters, but usually only if they have some degree of RPG elements like Deus Ex or System Shock 2. I have never played a Battlefield, Call of Duty, or Halo game, and I don't have any interest in ever doing so (not that I wouldn't review games I otherwise don't play if I ever become a professional video game reviewer).

My idea for this blog is to pretty much just write about whatever it is I'm currently playing or otherwise interested in. I switch between projects (a word that is very apt to describe how I approach games) frequently based on what I feel like at the time. Game reviews will be among my posts, but I'll also be taking things in other directions. Maybe I'll just want to talk about what I'm doing, discuss some element of a game, or do some sort of commentary on multiple games. One note I'd like to make is that even though I am a journalist and will be mostly sticking to AP style if only out of habit, I will not be strictly adhering to it while writing here (hence these side thoughts in parentheses; they make writing out what I want to get across much easier for me).

So there it is, my first blog post on 8-bit Smirk. I'll be doing another one soon on how I came up with that name. Hopefully if you made it this far you didn't find my introduction post to be boring, but I'd certainly understand if you did. It was just something I wanted to do to get some background on the record.

Be awesome; stay awesome.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. The Legend of Zelda is copyright of Nintendo. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is copyright of Bethesda Softworks.