The Liebster Award 2, Revenge of the Liebster

If you’ve been rolling around the internet for a while, you may have come across the Liebster Award a couple of times.  For the uninitiated, it’s something small-time bloggers nominate each other for, seemingly as a means of getting everyone to know each other better, foster good will, all that fun stuff.  Well, Lost to the Aether was recently nominated for the Liebster Award by esteemed Filmmaker/Videogame Player/Entrepreneur/Possibly Millionaire Playboy Superhero Paul Michael Egan!  I greatly appreciate and am very honored by his nomination.  Also, if you enjoy what I’ve been doing here, it’ll likely be worth your while to check out his blog.  He’s been going through and reviewing what seems to be his entire videogame collection, and I know I’ve learned about quite a few games I’ve never even heard of since I started following his blog.

I know some of you that have been following the blog for a while might be thinking, “Now Aether, you modern day Adonis.  Didn’t you already get nominated for the Liebster by the illustrious Mental Gaming?  Is it really properly sporting of you to make a second Liebster post?”  And that’s true, we have previously gone through the whole Liebster rigamarole.  But the more observant of you in the audience might see the idea of passing up the nomination for what it truly is: absolutely no fun at all.  Turning down a nomination and the interaction with my fellow bloggers does not really strike me as being within the spirit of the award.  Besides, I’m sure that if you ask anybody who knows me, they’d all agree that I’m at least twice as Liebster as the average person.

So!  Same format as last time!  Eleven facts about myself!  Let’s go!

1. In honor of Mr. Egan’s filmmaking background, I figured I’d lead off with this.  I’ve been volunteering with our regional film commission, a non-profit that looks to stimulate our local economy by drawing more activity from the film industry, for the past couple of years.  Usually I just put in a bit of time handling the finances and paperwork of the commission, but the organization recently lost its director and I’ve lately been filling in that role while they try to find a new one.
2. As a child and at the urging of my father, I once had a bit out of raw elk heart.  This is what happens when your parents are jerks.
3. I’ve also eaten alligator, although that was considerably less raw and I was much more willing.  I think this officially makes me higher up the food chain than your average man.
4. If you’ve read a couple posts here, you’ve probably figured that… I take a slight bit of pride in my physical appearance.  Fact is, I spend more on personal grooming products than a lot of the women in my life.
5. It’s pretty rare that I watch television shows as they air.  I usually prefer to binge on my shows, so I’ll wait until the entire program is out on some easily accessible format and work through them in large blocks of time.
6. Even though I fanatically enjoy my videogames, it’s very rare that I’ll get them anywhere near their release.  I’m both patient and cheap, so I usually end up waiting until I can get the games I want at a heavy discount. In fact, the last time I bought a game at release date was Skyrim in 2011, and I haven’t paid the full MSRP for a game since I bought Xenoblade Chronicles late last year.  I save good money this way, but this does mean I’m not able to enter the discussion about these games until everyone else has already moved on.
7. I have one dog, four cats, three mice, and a house that’s never quiet.
8. I really enjoy Arkham Horror, the Call of Cthulhu board game.  I’m pretty sure that I’ve burned all my friends out on playing it though, having pushed for it whenever we get groups at my place.
9. I have a harder time than one might think coming up with eleven interesting factoids about myself.
10. I have a birthmark on my chest.  When I was a child, my grandfather told me it was because my grandmother tore off that part of my skin when I was just born and it grew back the wrong color.  I believed that for way too long.
11. I went through middle school with the nickname ‘Slick’, so-called for my smooth moves at four-square.  I’m kind of glad now that didn’t last.

And so, onto the questions from Paul Michael Egan:

1. Which type of starting Pokemon do you choose?

I don’t follow the types strictly; I usually just pick whichever one looks the coolest.  I have chosen the fire types more often than anything else though.

2. Who is the better Captain, Picard, Kirk or Janeway?

Hmmm….  Janeway was probably the most capable captain, by which I mean she was probably the best at running the ship and managing her personnel.  Picard was probably the best at completing the mission, though.  He got a lot of distance out of his diplomatic skills, without being afraid to throw down when the situation called for it.  And I found him the most interesting captain as well.  So we’re going with Picard.

3. What is the best Zelda game?

I have to go with the boring answer and pick Ocarina of Time.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve played through that game.  It just gets everything right.  Twilight Princess is a very close second, however.  That game comes as close as possible to the heights Ocarina reached, and it never seems to get the respect it deserves.

4. What are the worst games you’ve played?

I think the worst game I ever played is Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero.  I knew that game was bad when I bought it, but I was a big Mortal Kombat fanboy at the time, and I figured if it was Mortal Kombat, it kouldn’t be that bad.  I was so wrong.  That game tried to cram the traditional MK engine into a game that wasn’t near to being able to support it, and it was just an absolute mess.

No More Heroes was one of two games to insult me so much I never even thought of returning to it.  Basically, you have to grind for money with the world’s dullest minigames in the world’s most empty sandbox city in order to play the missions.  I had been doing that, up to one of the higher levels.  The level in question, which took me a significant amount of time for, ended up just being a straight corridor sparsely populated with enemies.  It was absolutely boring.  I got to the end, ready for an epic boss fight.  My enemy appeared, tension was building… then a random NPC killstole the boss from me in the cutscene before I even landed a hit!  Then, to make matters worse, I was kicked back out into the sandbox and told to grind some more before I could move on to the next mission!  That was just too much for me.

5. What are the worst films you’ve ever seen?

I used to be a massive Star Wars nerd.  I collected all the movies, had bookshelves full of expanded universe material, and just in general immersed myself in that world.  Then I watched Star Wars: Episode II.  That movie single-handedly shattered my biggest fandom of the time.  It was just so slow, character motivations didn’t make sense, and it felt like they were just ruining everything that had happened in earlier movies!  I actually liked Episode 1, but this was the last straw for me.  The film made it clear it’s creators had no idea what was good about their franchise, and it sucked all the appreciation for the IP out of me.

Ong Bak 3’s another one of my most despised movies.  I like my stupid action movies.  In fact, the first Ong Bak is one of my favorites.  Yet there’s a reason they don’t tend to put a whole lot of plot in these action porns.  Ong Bak 3 showcases it perfectly.  It is full of ill-advised emotional manipulation, breaks its own rules frequently, and stretches a plot that would fit in a single half-hour episode across the whole movie.  Also, there’s barely any fight scenes!  What’s an action movie without fighting?

6. Do you prefer fast or slow zombies?

Slow zombies.  I find the idea of zombies representing people’s fear of crowds/mobs/the ‘others’ getting themselves mobilized to be the most intriguing part about zombies, and that works best when the zombies are slow, and must attack in groups to be deadly.  Fast zombies are pretty much just people gone mad, and I find them more interesting when zombification changes the nature of humans a bit more than that.

Also, slow zombies work better with the whole mayhem fantasy factor, where they just exist to be slaughtered.  That has to be said, as well.

7. Do you prefer films shot on film, digital or can you not really tell/care/

Most of the time, it doesn’t really matter to me.  I’m still rocking a standard def TV at home, so the difference doesn’t show up enough to make a difference to me.  At the theatre, I do have a slight preference for works shot on film, but I can’t usually tell the difference unless I’m looking for it.

8. Why didn’t you buy a Gamecube when it was released?

I totally did!  I was a die-hard Nintendo purist up until this last generation.  I didn’t even get a PS2 until after I had already gotten my Wii.  I rarely felt I was missing out with the GameCube.  I certainly missed the RPGs, but the first party games definitely made up for it.

9. What is the scariest game you’ve ever played?

Fatal Frame 2 is the only game in recent memory where the fear stayed with me after turning it off.  I had to be careful while playing it, else the game would cause nightmares.  And that was just what I wanted out of the game.

10. Should video games focus on realism or fun?

They need a mixture of both.  If a game’s boring, its not usually worth playing.  However, most games need some sort of grounding.  ‘d hate to see all games focus on just one or the other.  After all, if every movie was a wacky comedy, the entire medium would be much worse off for it.  I would expect games with serious plots to have more realism, while games with wacky plots or no plots at all to focus more on fun.

11. Who is the best Doctor?

I’ve only watched Nu-Who, so I’m going to have to go with the boring answer again.  David Tennant.  The man just brought the perfect energy to the role.  Special mention goes to Colin Baker, however.  I know he’s not exactly a much beloved Doctor, but I caught his panel at this year’s Denver Comic-con, and that was my favorite panel at the event.  He did better in front of a crowd than the likes of Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, or William Shatner.

And…  that’s that!  See you all later!