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When I heard the premise of the most recent Monthly Musing, "The Forgotten," it literally became both a dream and nightmare. A dream in that it was a topic I had extensive knowledge in. A nightmare because I had so many possibilities that I didn't know where to start. There were so many deserving choices, so many games I had played that so many others had shoved aside. It was really, really, really hard to pick just one out of them all.

But what ended up coming to surface in my mind was a series of games from a franchise that are so forgotten, most people don't even know they exist. Prompted by a list of rumored characters for the rumored Street Fighter IV Dash, I soon found myself with a series even I had forgotten about: the Street Fighter EX series. Yes, a series I guarantee most of you forgot about or didn't even know existed until I just mentioned it this very second. And it's honestly a shame that's the case.  view full story + comments

[Editor's note: NihonTiger90 talks about how playing as himself in videogames help keep his dreams alive. -- CTZ]

Dreams, we all have them. Some are way far out there and some are very realistic. Over time, they can kind of get lost or shot down, mostly because situations change and expectations change along with them. I'm no different; many of my childhood dreams have either come true (going to Japan, for example) while others have not (still not the best Mario Kart player on planet Earth or even close). For the most part, my dreams have kind of taken a backseat to reality as I've grown up, realizing that I can't do everything I wanted to do.

But videogames have helped keep one of my dreams alive. The dream that maybe, someday, I can make it a living as a soccer player. And it's a story that, perhaps, I share with other people. 

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Talk about big news: News site The Huffington Post is now reporting that Sony will post their first loss since 1985, and it is a big one: $1.1 billion, or over 100 billion yen, for the year 2008. Yes, Sony is a conglomerate, but that is a huge number for any company to have to post as a loss. And one line in particular is of concern.
From the story:

"The losses are coming from the company's core electronics division, which has long been a steady source of profits, the reports said. The Nikkei said Sony's operating loss could balloon to as much as 200 billion yen ($2.2 billion)."

That is not good. I don't know if the writer or if Sony groups SCE with the electronics division, since the PS3 is as much an electronics device as Bravia flat-screens or Sony's Vaio laptop line, but there will likely be repercussions as a result of this. I posted yesterday that the PSP might be in trouble due to slow sales and potential developers shifting resources elsewhere. This might make that potential trouble into reality. We'll have to see what Sony does in response, but layoffs are likely and some studios (maybe 2-3) are probably going to get shut down if things are as bad as they seem. The PS3 is safe, though, as are the PS4 and I would assume most of Sony's first-party titles that are well into development.

But the money to patch this loss has to come from somewhere. The question is: where?

[Editor's note: NihonTiger90 takes a look at Final Fantasy VI's big twist for his Monthly Musing piece. -- CTZ]

The end of the world: it's become something of a cliche now a days, but there was a time when this was almost unheard of. Yes, there was a time when the world the game was set in wasn't massively destroyed. Maybe on a rare occasion, a city or something, but not the entire planet. There were threats, there were grand evil schemes, but they were always foiled. The villains were always stopped at the last second and everything turned out okay.

One game really changed all that for me, though: Final Fantasy VI. Squaresoft's sixth installment in the RPG franchise is legendary for a number of reasons, but one scene in particular stands out: the big cut scene just over halfway through the game on the Floating Continent.

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[Editor's note: NihonTiger90 takes a look at a couple of classic games for the Apple IIe for his Monthly Musing piece. -- CTZ]

When I started out thinking about this month’s Monthly Musings, I had only intended to write one, maybe two. But the more thought about it, the more I came to realize that a lot of games had an impact on me and that one or two games couldn’t highlight all of them. On top of that, I've begun to realize I was a gamer long, long before the snowy Christmas morning when I tore open the big box under the tree and found a Super Nintendo waiting for me.

This story is one example of just that. It’s sometimes easy to forget when you’ve been around videogames as long as I have just when the whole thing started, but I’ve now rediscovered a part of my past I had once forgotten about because I was so young at the time. It was this little part of the past that gave me my first taste of gaming and set the path for what was to come almost 20 years later, thanks in no small part to two games: Lode Runner and Choplifter. More after the jump.

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[Editor's note: NihonTiger90 takes a look at the games that make us become like Gods for the April Monthly Musings. Damn it, I really want to play SimCity 2000 now. -- CTZ] 

When I saw this month’s Monthly Musings, I could think of one thing and only one thing that I could write about. Something that had been an important part of my formative years as a gamer that made me into the person and the gamer I am today:

I am a Sim-aholic.

You name it, I’ve played it. If it has Sim in the name, it’s come into my hands at some point. I consider Will Wright a visionary God, on equal footing with Shigeru Miyamoto, and dare I say maybe on a higher level.

But what’s most important is what the Sim games are all about. It’s not about the crazy amounts of expansions, no. It’s about being able to step into the shoes of an all-powerful being, to construct, to cultivate, to destroy. It is about what I call God Mode. The real God Mode.

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[NihonTiger90 takes a look at the silent protagonist in today's contribution to the Monthly Musings. -- CTZ] 

One of the biggest issues in gaming that has and persists as a major debate is the nature of the silent protagonist -- the guy who doesn't speak, but still manages to get the point across anyway.

But is this a bad thing or a good thing? It's not always easy to decide, but there are strong cases for both. Hit the jump on what I think are good and bad examples of the silent protagonist. 

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