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No, Handheld Gaming is not Dying… Stop Saying that!

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Guess which one is the worst handheld console. (Hint; It’s the iPhone)

In the past year, I have been getting furious with articles popping on the Internet such as:

I’m sick of tired of seeing them. When I see these headlines, I get annoyed since mobile gaming is garbage. This is why I don’t use my iPhone 4S for gaming anymore since the games are boring. It’s also the reason why I have a 3DS and a Playstation Vita, to play real games. Still, some analysts can’t get it in their thick heads that mobile gaming is a fad that will eventually end. So, I’m going to share some crucial reasons why handheld gaming is better than mobile gaming:

  1. Controls: If you want to play real games, you must have a D-Pad, control stick and buttons. Smartphones don’t have these since they are not designed for gaming. Sure you can use the touchscreen, but it limits what you can do in the game. Also, on-screen controllers are not a solution since your fingers cover up the screen. Not to mention, Bluetooth controllers don’t count, they need to be built in on the device.
  2. Upgrade costs: With a handheld gaming console like the 3DS and Vita, you don’t have to worry about having to upgrade so you can play the latest games. The fatal flaw with mobile gaming is that Smartphones changes every so often and not all these devices run the same version of the operating system. You will end up spending more just to upgrade so you can play the latest games, especially if you want to do an early upgrade.
  3. Battery:  The advantage of handhelds is that you can play them until the battery runs out and it’s not a big deal. When you start using your phone as a gaming system, your battery will start draining fast. I know since I own a smartphone and the battery starts going down relatively quickly. Once you use your phone to call someone, your might be stuck if the battery goes dead. This can become a big problem if you have an emergency like having a flat tire. You will be stranded
  4. Game Experiences: If you play any good handheld console game, you realize that it has a lot of depth that will keep you playing for several hours. The problem with mobile gaming is stemmed from Sturgeons’ Law. Since the games are easy to make, the developers put little effort to make a quick buck. In turn, this leads to very unsatisfying experiences which people play for 5 minutes before deleting the application.

Overall, I think mobile gaming is terrible for the fact the games are horrible and it’s a scheme to milk everyone’s money with worthless in-app purchases. Also, handheld consoles aren’t dying any time soon as no real gamer will game only on a smartphone.

If you are wondering about the games shown in the picture: Pocket Monsters Black 2 (DS), Shining Hearts (PSP/Vita), Mario Kart 7 (3DS) and the infamous Angry Birds, which is crap by the way.

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No, just no! (Anime Nano Rant)

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When I went onto Anime Nano this morning, someone decided to flood it with this nonsense. Apparently, this is worse than the news sites as this is someone’s personal tumblr that surprisingly slipped into the cracks. Blogs like these should never be allowed on the site unless they are writing constructive posts and not just sharing pictures.

So yeah, Anime Nano is crap until they start moderating this type of content from the stream. To save your sanity, use Anime Blogger Antenna, Google Reader or even an RSS reader like NewsNetWire.

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Rant of the Week: Smogon’s Tiers are flawed

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I have to admit, Smogon is the most informative website for competitive Pokémon battling. It’s a known fact that I use most of their suggested move sets and EV spreads on my Pokémon for use on Wifi battles, Battle Frontier and Battle Tower. However, there are two things that bother me about Smogon. They are banning Pokémon like Salamence to Ubers and the NU tier is flawed since it contain Pokémon that could destroy many of the very weak Pokémon like Plusle.

While I agree that Garchomp should be banned since it’s relatively difficult to counter/check without having a Weavile or bulky waters with Ice Beam. On the other hand, Salamence while strong is pretty fragile. Stuff like Stealth Rock, Ice Shard, Stone Edge, Ice Beam can OHKO or 2HKO Salamence easily. Most bulky waters like Vaporeon, Suicune, Milotic and sweepers like Weavile, Starmie could basically take Salamence out. To me, banning Pokémon with the exception of Garchomp to Ubers is not a solution, but a big cop out.  If you going to do it that way, you may as well ban Tryanitar, Dragonite, Scizor, etc. because they are too powerful and everyone’s using it.

This also brings up another point, battle emulators. With emulators, planning a good team takes knowledge, but it’s not difficult compared to breeding and training a mountain load of Pokémon. When you battle in game, the possibility of having perfect IVs doesn’t happen very often. Unless you spend the time breeding for IVs/moves, training for EVs and all that stuff, it’s going to be inconsistent. This is the main reason why I don’t battle with simulators, since they take the fun away. Doing battles over Nintendo DS or Pokémon Battle Revolution is the only genuine way to enjoy battles to the fullest.

Lastly, I feel that Smogon’s tiers for Generation IV are flawed since it’s not based on merit, but on popularity. In the past, tier lists were based on merits that depended on the Pokémon’s base stats, move pool, ability and typing. Nowadays, these lists are generated through the use of simulators like Shoddy Battle and Pokémon Online. The disadvantage of this method is that some of the good Pokémon will end up in the undesirable NU, the tier that screams horrible, novelty, and unwanted. As a result, you have some Pokémon like Espeon1 that ends up NU, which makes the whole tier broken. Instead of shoving all the formerly powerful Pokémon in NU, UU should have two subsections. Upper UU for the Pokémon that is used frequently and Lower UU for the Pokémon that aren’t used that frequently, but too powerful. Then, reserve the NU for extremely flawed, weak and novelty Pokémon like Luvdisc, Castform and Plusle.

  1. Because Alakazam is butt ugly ↩

Typography is Serious Business

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kimaguresan: fuck this conversation
kimaguresan: this is so god damned moronic i can’t take it anymore
kimaguresan: i’m out
Tsumugi Kotobuki: sorry if I offended you
kimaguresan: the level of stupidity here is ruining my train of thought
kimaguresan left the room.
Tsumugi Kotobuki left the room.
Flak: wow

Rule of thumb: never mention anything about typography, ever… or you might have a conversation like this. I learned the hard way. 🙁

Is it me or MyAnimeList made more unnece…

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Is it me or MyAnimeList made more unnecessary changes, like messing with the lists? Found this tweet made by @Yumeka36

Does anyone like the fact that MAL took away the “Show All” feature for lists? XP http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=218454

From http://twitter.com/yumeka36/status/16005991374

At Melative, we will never pull shit like this*… So if you can’t stand the changes the owner of MyAnimeList force on you, do yourself a favor and switch to Melative or AnimePlanet. That will make him listen or not.

Notes: To clarify, RyanA will never change anything that major without notifying the users. In this case, the owner of MAL failed to notify all the users that he is changing the functionality of the site. This is why he is getting a lot of complaints from many users.

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