Alright so I will not be posting this to the forums because apparently self promotion is bad, even if I am a paying yearly member of the Giant Bomb, and I'm still not sure what I'm actually getting out the deal besides a gold sticker next to my name.

Alright anyways, for those of you who don't know who I am, and somehow mysteriously landed on my blog, my name is Charlie Hawkins, I am an independent video game news and review editor. I tried to make the next Giant Bomb, IGN, or GameSpot, but of course there are so many sites out there just like me that I got swallowed up. Then it dawned on me, there's a ton of games that no one talks about, unless the developers get really lucky, and that's independent games. So now we focus almost completely on Indie games. Sure there are times where we want to play a could of big titles that we have been dying to get our hands on, but the majority of the time, for reviewing purposes, we are playing indie games.

We started a campaign over at Patreon to ask for help from fellow gamers and others to help us continue to do what we do, and to help us expand on what we are able to do, as well as increase our quality. Now to do this we need pledges, we are not looking for hundreds of dollars, we are looking for whatever a person can give, and that can be anywhere from a couple of cents a month to whatever you can afford. So here's the link to the site, Altered Confusion's Patreon. I hope to see all of you over there, or at the very least checking up on some of the indie games we have been able to get our hands on lately.

Why is it that it always seems like life is going at a million miles an hour, and god forbid you trying to catch your breath because you have fallen behind on work, on life, on the latest movies, books, games, etc? It is crazy, and then you've got the wonderful world of energy drinks that pep you up for a bit and then pile-drive you into the ground. Now I know about 5 hour energy, and to be completely honest with you when I took it I felt like my face was wide awake and my body was able to move, but I continuously felt the fatigue that I was trying to mask. 
 
Now as part of this wonderful world of fatigue, to which I'm feeling a lot of, thanks to being on call at work for the week, I have to say that the brain is going quickly. You ever had one of those moments where you've constantly got stuff running through your head, and yet when you say it it comes out completely different, or in a way that makes no sense whatsoever? Yeah that's what I'm experiencing now. I wish I could say that the fatigue was do to power sessions of gaming for Starcraft 2, or WoW, or something gaming related, but the painful reality is that I've been dead on my feet and the best  I've been able to muster is about an hour of LIMBO before I'm finding I have relocated myself to the bed. The real fun part is that once I'm there I can't sleep, so I end up reading, and instead of reading what I need to read I end up grabbing a graphic novel and pounding that down. Beginning of the week it was Kick-Ass, now it's Scott Pilgrim.  
 
I almost feel like this has become one of those dear diary moments in one of those shows my wife loves, and I'm just wondering how much longer before I can turn the 360 on to play something. That's another thing, I've got a wife, 2 dogs, and a house in the middle of renovations. Oh and by the way I run a website that does game reviews, gaming news, a webcomic, and a weekly podcast. I think I put in 80 weeks (40ish for the company that pays, 40ish for my site). Oh well whatever, I enjoy doing the work on the site, and if I could have gotten into the situation that GiantBomb got themselves with Whiskey Media I'd do it full time in a heartbeat. Well I guess that's enough dreaming for this exhausted fellow, but I feel like I've gotten something accomplished simply by letting the fingers fly and allowing my brain to autopilot for just a little bit.

Sorry have to rant for a second... for some god awful reason the work computers have McAfee installed on them and while I'm all for the virus protection, I have to say having to end the process of McAfee and all its parts over and over again so my computer will unlock and I can do work is a pain in my ass. Then again maybe I can claim that a higher power is telling me to just take the rest of the day off... but if that was the case I'd only be working for about as long as it takes me to open up Outlook, as that is what causes most of the scans.

Its always fun to be able to write something that isn't a game related story, a game review, a comic, etc. So I figured since I've got some downtime, and I think I'm basically up to date on all that I have to do that I would write something just because I've got the time, and I need to write something just so that my brain doesn't rot away completely. There's so much to talk about and yet there's nothing to talk about, but isn't that always the point. There's just so much happening 24/7 in today's world and its damn near impossible for one person to absorb all that there is, and yet I know I'm not alone in my attempt to always know about the latest and greatest, be it news, or getting the latest overly hyped game that I'll probably play through once and then it will join the ever growing collection of neglected games. I know that there are those out there who would say, "hey just sell them back to GameStop". Well I would but I feel dirty doing so. Though at the same time I have no problem getting a used copy of a game. I just feel that my games haven't lost as much value as GameStop wants me to believe, that's all. 
 
Now of course this dilemma of trying to keep up with everything doesn't just extend to games. There's also a mountain of books, movies, TV shows, sporting events, music concerts. How the hell is someone suppose to be able to take all of this in? The answer is that no one can, people can get close, but by doing so you're letting your life bleed you completely dry. With trying to do everything you're forced to schedule out your time. There's no spontaneity, there's no room  to get yourself lost, to day dream, to allow yourself to relax. Stress is a killer, and I think its safe to say that my day job has enough of that already, why would I want to continue to do so outside of the 9 to 5 hours. now of course I say that, but even I know that I'm still stressing and planning every little detail so that I can at least feel like I accomplished something, even if it's simply catching up on the latest episodes of Warehouse 13. 
 
Now that I think my ranting or rambling is subsiding I will close this blog, it may get read, or it could just go into obscurity, but in the end it has accomplished what I needed it to do and that was to allow the brain free rein of the fingers to just get some pressure off the brain. So what do you think people of the interweb, and giant bombers?

I think I can handle writing one post as I do tend to write at least one hopefully more a day over at alteredconfusion.com. Don't worry though, I'm not going to start cutting and pasting what I write there here into a blog format, much like my reviews. As much as I would love to pepper another location with all that goes through my head I'll refrain for sanity sake, and also if I pull too much stuff off my side and redistribute the need for a site in the first place dwindles that much more. So if you're curious to see what is going through my head, probably 24/7 you can follow the twitter feed that is connected to this account alteredconfusio, or you can follow my more random one which is more than just an RSS feed @wizothorns. 
 
And with that I have writing a blog entry, and tried out yet another feature within the GiantBomb site.

I would say a little of both. It's hard to say that I've played all that I want from last year's games, but at the same time I'm dying to play this year's. So I'm trying to juggle all the games that I can play. For example I'm going to be playing Mass Effect 2 and Global Agenda, but I'm also going to be putting in some time with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers. Then of course there's still that drive to play the games that might have come out early 2009 or maybe late 2008 that are still on my radar of games I need to take for a spin.

To answer the question as simple as possibly (Do you care any more about games on iPhone or other mobile platforms than you did a year ago), I'm going to have to go with yes and no.  
 
No, because there's still a shit ton of crap out there where people are still thinking that they can turn an easy buck. There's also those developers out there who had a great entry game but have just been giving the world carbon copies of their first game with little or no change in them, but upping the price. 
 
Yes, because there are those developers out there who are starting to get better and better with working with the hardware. Its easier to point out the iPhone, in this regard, but overall phones are starting to have some nice hardware to go along with making phone calls. Its also great to see some of the big name companies actually making real games on those platforms instead of none or extremely watered down versions of their game.

I'm going to have to say without a doubt, though it is an older game Eternal Poison. I might be a bit OCD, and I have my perfectionist moments, but that game is just bad. I can't imagine how people are able to play what I feel is an epileptic's worse nightmare. The characters are doing a constant twist, all that's missing is some Chubby Checker. I just felt that it felt dated, and wasn't nearly as good as some PS1 tactic style games. 

 I do indeed buy downloadable games, but not all of them. If the downloadable is exclusively in that form meaning I can't go to the store to buy it then it greatly enhances my chance of buying the game. If I can get a copy in my hands, physically, then I'm going to get it in that form. 


I don't know what it is but I feel more accomplished of a gamer when I'm able to actually show off my games, and the way that downloadable games are starting to push themselves into the foreground, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do that. 


Soon, I think it will all be about the list of games associated with your account that everyone can see. Well it's kind of already like that on XBOX Live when people are trying to see what your achievements are, but happening on all consoles.