Now’s a time as good as any to introduce myself. I’m Griffin. Senior in Japanese and Japan Studies, amateur translator and competitive Super Smash Brothers Melee player, among other things.

I have a long history with games. My mother and father played them, and I learned to play them through mimicry and late-night computer tinkering when I was too young to read. My mother still brags to this day that I was able to install Quake without being able to read the DOS prompt. Unfortunately most of these skills have not transferred to my adult life, and as such I have found comfort in critical discourse analysis in regards to games and other media. As the resident dude-who-likes-dudes, I likely have a very different experience with games than most; I hope my perspective adds something interesting to the collective discourse.

That is to say that when it comes to games, while I play many of them — probably far more than most people — I am first and foremost a critic. I figure, if I hold other forms of media up to a certain standard it’d only be fair for me to hold games up to the same.

As a result most of my writings on this blog will be somewhat technical, dealing mostly with criticism and analysis of the games I play. I will likely be writing about things I think are bad, though I will also attempt to highlight things I think are successful. Among some things I want to tackle are some of the popular notions of games (namely video) that I feel are actively limiting the medium, such as games needing to absolutely be about fun or enjoyment for them to be “good”.

I also will be involved in some larger projects, including one that I am very excited to get rolling on this blog sometime in the next week or two. Stay tuned for more information on that.

In closing, here are some of my favorite things so you can get to know me better:

I am a fan of horror, often of the lovecraftian variety. My favorite director is Yuasa Masaaki (I had the pleasure of video conferencing him once!), and my favorite novel is David Wong’s John Dies at the End.

I am pretty sure Demon’s Souls is the best game ever made. My favorite game of all time personally is Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. My favorite character in video games is most likely Samus Aran, though an honorable mention goes to Francis York Morgan of Deadly Premonition. I think Final Fantasy IX is far and away the best Final Fantasy game.

If you’d like to start an internet argument about this or any other topic, please post in the comments section below.