Entry #1: It's Hobbin' Time

    Hello there readers, I am Colin Sweeney. A man, a myth, a legend? No, not at all. I am however a person, just like all of you; a person with hobbies. Yes, it is true that I do not have many hobbies, but the hobbies that I do have are rather fun. Of course there's my main hobby which is just napping, but more often than not, it is more so just me passing out of exhaustion rather than an actual hobby. No, my real hobby is playing video games. On the surface level, that does not sound like much of an interesting hobby, but once delved into a bit more, it can prove itself to be very interesting with all of its amazing components.

    The first thing that makes video games so fascinating are their stories. Back then, stories were either thrown into the instruction booklet or did not even exist to begin with. Nowadays, a game can tell many stories due to prior limitations of the console. A good story for a video game can really enhance your enjoyment with the game, and in vise versa could also completely shatter your gaming experience. For example, "Red Dead Redemption 2" is a great game that is only further enhanced by its great story, whereas, "The Last of Us Part 2" is a bad game because the story is so bad that it actually weighs down the quality of the game. This does not mean that a game has to have an insanely complex and well put together story for the game to be good. Super Mario games almost never tell complex stories, yet their games are still great.

    Another thing that makes video games so great are the visuals. Visuals refer to how something looks, whether it be characters, environments, objects, and even a simple title screen. They are always evolving for the better, going from pixels, to low poly polygons, all the way to insanely high polygon counts that make environments or characters look completely lifelike. A games visuals are now completely up to the art style that the game has. Back then, there was not much choice in how a game could ultimately look. No matter what, they had to be sprites since 3D was not an option. This changed later on to where now games can choose if they want to have sprites or models dependent on the art style. Games like Sonic Mania choose to keep sprites as a homage to the original Classic Sonic game's visuals, as opposed to games like "Jedi: Fallen Order," which choose to use 3D models to make the game look like it came right out of the movies. If a game is to mix visuals in unusual ways, it can make the game look bad. Modern Pokemon games such as, "Pokemon: Sword and Shield," look bad because they combine low textures and low poly models with high end models. 

Home Menu of Persona 5 (https://mashable.com/article/persona-5-how-to-play-explainer)

       A story and its visuals in a game are important, but without good music that fits the environment or situation, it makes a game feel dry. Early video games such as the original Donkey Kong did not have much in the music department aside from little jingles and very primitive looped sounds to form the idea of music. Video Game Music (VGM for short) nowadays has evolved vastly from the simple sounds of Donkey Kong. Overtime, video games used soundfonts to make music. Soundfonts in simple terms are the sounds of the console that can be manipulated to make music. In this example, Sonic 3 uses the Sega Genesis' soundfont to make a song, which is why it sounds the way it does. As hardware evolved, the need for soundfonts was no longer a necessity, although in the same manner as visuals, can still be used to better fit the art style. Nowadays, a lot of modern video game music is completely undistinguishable from normal music as they now have the capabilities of adding lyrics, something that was impossible to do at the time. 

    All of these component are important, but all of these can also apply to movies. What makes video games unique is the fact that you can actually play them, hence the name video games. Gameplay out of all things is what matters the most. A game with bad gameplay is a game that just is not worth playing since the whole reason to play video games is to have fun. A game's gameplay can stand the test of time, no matter how old it may be. For instance, "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out" has outdated visuals, some jingles and one main song, and practically no story. The game though still holds up today despite all those flaws as it is genuinely fun to play. Games like, "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League." in comparison are awful because the gameplay is repetitive and genuinely boring, despite how new it may be.

    When put together and done right, video games prove themselves to be incredibly amazing hobbies that rival other hobbies such as reading and watching TV. Whenever I have free time, I pick up a controller and play a video game to truly have fun. Even beyond that I find myself listening to video game soundtracks all the time and even think about/discuss their stories with friends. To those who have not played video games much, now is a good time to press start, as once you start playing, you will want to hit continue on your new hobby.