I've been a fan for LeBron James for a long time. It has very little to do with being a Cavaliers fan. Throughout my entire life, Cleveland has been a big part of my sports upbringing. I grew up loving Mark Price, that incredible Indians lineup in the mid-to-late nineties, and Michigan will always be looked down upon. Yet, I've never been that serious about my Ohio roots. It bothered me when Art Modell uprooted the Browns and left, but we got the team back and it's not as if they ever managed to produce anything outside of Bernie Kozar. The Indians still haven't won a thing for over 50 years. I don't even hate Michigan fans, and it's just a funny joke to me.
When LeBron came to Cleveland, I was excited. It was a great story in the making for fans of basketball and Ohio natives. A hometown kid getting drafted by the Cavaliers, LeBron was a gift to Ohio. He came into the league and immediately became one of the most watchable players in league history, and he seemed to enjoy himself while doing it. Nobody particularly likes the "killer instinct" versions of Jordan and Kobe. As a sports fan, I can get behind a player who truly loves what he is doing on the court or on the field. I always liked Magic better than MJ. Kirby Puckett and Ken Griffey Jr. had those infectious smiles that you could identify with. Those are the players I love to watch, and to be honest, that's why I got behind LeBron to begin with.
He gave Cleveland 7 years of his life and put himself through more hell than 99% of the league's players while still being expected to do more. The very second he left, you could see what appreciation the state had for the likes of him. He is public enemy #1 in Ohio, and the reasons are difficult to justify when you consider what he had already brought to the state. He single-handedly turned the Cavaliers, an absolute joke of a franchise, into an immediate contender. The team value shot up over $100 million, and he did everything by Ohio committee. He brought Shaq in, who never would have came to Cleveland under a different circumstance. He even pushed to keep Z, who was effectively slowing the franchise down no matter how much we loved the guy and wanted him to succeed. He claimed the league's best record. He claimed MVP honors.
No, he didn't bring the title home...but when you make all the right decisions only to turn to Mo Williams and realize that not one person on that team outside of Shaq was capable of elevating their game, can you really blame him? Let's be real for a moment. By getting LeBron, you effectively guarantee yourself a title so long as you have players willing to take it. LeBron didn't have anyone like that. Even Shaq was capable of only really doing that in a game or two of the last playoffs. Even if LeBron did quit on his team in the playoffs this year, how much of the blame goes to him for doing so?
That's really where the defense breaks down. If LeBron had finished strong in the postseason, and we still don't know just how hurt he really was, do we still bring the hate to his doorstep? I don't think we do as much. We really don't know if he did quit, either, so we can't hate him for just that. It's also unfair to say that he needed to be loyal to Cleveland. After 7 years, he clearly did not need to be loyal to them any more than he already proved himself to be. When Bret Favre left Green Bay, Green Bay told him to hit the road because they were not going to play his game. What Bret Favre wanted to do was hold a franchise at gunpoint while he took his sweet time in deciding. The only person to blame for the Cavaliers being held at gunpoint is the very same owner slamming LeBron in the media right now.
Dan Gilbert basically bent himself over and tossed LeBron the lube this offseason. Gilbert deserved what he got, and anyone in Cleveland knew it. Cleveland didn't go sign a free agent, didn't get creative, and didn't make the effort for LeBron anyway. If LeBron was the last key piece to fall in the market, then what was Cleveland doing the entire time? You really expect LeBron to be enticed by another postseason of Mo Williams? You really think Shaq is going to be better next year? Gilbert caused the Cavs to be held hostage, not LeBron.
LeBron was a little...ok, a lot...narcissistic when announcing his plans, but the plans itself is nothing to get fussed about. Say you and your three best pals grew up playing Goldeneye and Halo together for the past decade. You always have a blast playing together, and sometimes another opposing household comes over for a 4 on 4 match and you smoke them every time. You also all play in a gaming league, with each friend being on a separate team. The opportunity comes up the next year to enroll all of your friends on the same team, knowing that you'll have an incredible time doing it while also being encouraged by the potential league domination you could do. Do you say no to that just because some sniveling brat that goes 3-25 each map brings the donuts and Dew to the games wants you to stay? Effectively, that's what Gilbert is in all of this. He's the one crying "YOU DIDN'T SEE ME! YOU'RE HACKING!" while his hands are covered in Cheeto-stains, and the second he doesn't get his way, he cries in a corner.
So, before you go burning your LeBron jersey, just remember...he may no longer be allowed, by default, to be the best player in the history of the game. Provided something massive doesn't happen in the next couple years, there's no way that he gets compared to MJ.
But, it was either that, or become KG. For all the loyalty that guy had to his team, franchise, and fanbase, it took an incredible toll on his mind and body to work through it all and come up with nothing. I don't know a single Minnesotan that hates KG for anything he did. He deserved to jump ship and get his title. No one faults him for it. It only makes sense that it was KG that gave the little piece of advice to LeBron right after his playoff exit.
Loyalty only gets you so far. If you have an opportunity to do what you want to do, go get it.
He did.
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July 10, 2010
July 2, 2010
We sittin' here talkin' 'bout practice...again.
I've been out of practice with this blog. I'll be honest, I've had a ton to write about, but can't seem to get back into the rhythm of typing is all out. So this may just be a throwaway article, but who knows, maybe you can help make something of the idea behind it.
Having just checked out a Smash Bros. Melee video via Kotaku and GameTrailers, I immediately wanted to stand up and applaud. For a couple of years, I've often wondered what secrets are still out there in our games that have yet to be discovered. Apparently, in 2008, someone figured out how to play as Master Hand through a glitch at the character select. That's seven years after the game was released, which is astonishing, especially when you consider just how fanatical fans of the game are.
How many more secrets are out there? Sure, Aeris isn't coming back, but that's only because we've intentionally butchered that game in order to find a way and forced Squeenix to make sure that they gave us answers. That's one in a million cases where we can honestly say that something just isn't in the game without the use of outside help like a GameShark. For the rest, gamers are usually left in the dark about what is and isn't there.
To be clear, I'm not talking about glitches, though the Smash Bros. glitch suggests that there is definitely gold in the results. No, I mean actual secrets that we just haven't discovered. If someone found a hidden revelation in the plot of Final Fantasy VI, there would be a HUGE response. What if there was a stage in the original Super Mario Bros. that no one ever found? What if there was a hidden room in Super Metroid, and someone turns up tomorrow and shows the world how to find it? What if someone managed to sneak Mega Man into Super Street Fighter II?
These are all quite specific, and largely implausible, but you see where I'm going with this. All of those examples can be disproved by means of ROM utilities, and the bigger the game, the more you can bet that several people have wasted nights upon nights digging through the sprites, texts, and maps of each game. Trust me, it happens all the time. Some genius took the time to discover an empty room in Final Fantasy VII that was never seen in the game. The problem was that the room couldn't be accessed within the game, and nothing was ever scripted to happen there. It was just a floating room within the code that never got used. People do search for this stuff, and people have ever offered cash rewards for it as well, which is another topic I've previously mentioned.
The unfortunate part is that because of these methods, we sort of already know what isn't in games that we really want. We kind of eliminated that on our own through technology. If we can break into a game, we will. There will be no extra, undiscovered scene from Persona 3 because someone's already dug through the entire audio and text of the game just because.
But what if? What if a game we've loved for years had one last thing it was hiding from the whole world? Wouldn't that be something? I'd love to see it happen, even if the odds are very slim. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
Having just checked out a Smash Bros. Melee video via Kotaku and GameTrailers, I immediately wanted to stand up and applaud. For a couple of years, I've often wondered what secrets are still out there in our games that have yet to be discovered. Apparently, in 2008, someone figured out how to play as Master Hand through a glitch at the character select. That's seven years after the game was released, which is astonishing, especially when you consider just how fanatical fans of the game are.
How many more secrets are out there? Sure, Aeris isn't coming back, but that's only because we've intentionally butchered that game in order to find a way and forced Squeenix to make sure that they gave us answers. That's one in a million cases where we can honestly say that something just isn't in the game without the use of outside help like a GameShark. For the rest, gamers are usually left in the dark about what is and isn't there.
To be clear, I'm not talking about glitches, though the Smash Bros. glitch suggests that there is definitely gold in the results. No, I mean actual secrets that we just haven't discovered. If someone found a hidden revelation in the plot of Final Fantasy VI, there would be a HUGE response. What if there was a stage in the original Super Mario Bros. that no one ever found? What if there was a hidden room in Super Metroid, and someone turns up tomorrow and shows the world how to find it? What if someone managed to sneak Mega Man into Super Street Fighter II?
These are all quite specific, and largely implausible, but you see where I'm going with this. All of those examples can be disproved by means of ROM utilities, and the bigger the game, the more you can bet that several people have wasted nights upon nights digging through the sprites, texts, and maps of each game. Trust me, it happens all the time. Some genius took the time to discover an empty room in Final Fantasy VII that was never seen in the game. The problem was that the room couldn't be accessed within the game, and nothing was ever scripted to happen there. It was just a floating room within the code that never got used. People do search for this stuff, and people have ever offered cash rewards for it as well, which is another topic I've previously mentioned.
The unfortunate part is that because of these methods, we sort of already know what isn't in games that we really want. We kind of eliminated that on our own through technology. If we can break into a game, we will. There will be no extra, undiscovered scene from Persona 3 because someone's already dug through the entire audio and text of the game just because.
But what if? What if a game we've loved for years had one last thing it was hiding from the whole world? Wouldn't that be something? I'd love to see it happen, even if the odds are very slim. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
I brake for Zelda.
A while back, I focused on the Legend of Zelda franchise and how it may be better off to go back to the basics. After E3, I digested the videos that Nintendo gave us when revealing Skyward Sword, not quite sure how to approach the topic. Zelda is loved by nearly every one, and that's not a statement I make lightly. Nearly every gamer, even the casual ones, have either put their hands to work for Link for at least five minutes or have watched someone play for at least an hour. I'm almost sure that my parents, who are strictly the non-gaming types, know at least something about the series. That said, it's difficult to say something ballsy about the franchise that made many of us fall in love with games in the first place.
It needs to be said, though; things aren't looking promising.
Even though they may have started the downhill trend, there's nothing flawed about A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, or Ocarina of Time. Nintendo knew that fresh gimmicks were needed to keep Zelda shiny for the gamers, so the introduction of musical instruments, time travel, and parallel worlds weren't considered to be a hindrance. The games were perfection on whatever system they graced, so it never truly bothered us that we had already strayed from the original titles. No one will argue that these gimmicks weren't a good thing, because they never felt like gimmicks in the way we associate them with other games.
Let's list a handful more Zelda titles that came afterwards.
Majora's Mask
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Skyward Sword
Minish Cap
Spirit Tracks
Oracle of Seasons/Ages
The common thread is that every title implies that there is a gimmick involved, and it's not so much an implication when the facts are in our gaming collections. Are they bad games? Not by a long shot. You're guaranteed that every game in the series is going to be good, except for those who happened to purchase a CD-I. If anyone wants to send me a CD-I gamepad in an attempt to change my mind, I'll be open to a neutral re-review, but I'm still not quite sure how that's going to change anything.
The problem lies with the reliance on gimmicks as a rule. With each new Zelda, a new mechanic is heralded for gamers to try. Sometimes, Nintendo just wants to try something new and show it off in the perfect way. Other times, they want to show off what their tech can do with a familiar face and a neat premise to mix things up. Unfortunately, this approach is really backwards. No one in Nintendo seems to want to make a great Zelda game that has a good gimmick. They seem to be more occupied with making a good gimmick and then turning it into a Zelda game.
That's a really uneducated thing to say, really, because we all know that statement isn't very accurate, but it certainly feels that way. We're getting great games with good gimmicks, so we really shouldn't have anything to complain about, but when you watch the videos to Skyward Sword, you begin to realize that we lost the magic somewhere. We're getting Zelda games built around the Wiimote and the DS, and we really aren't getting the next legendary Zelda game.
I've already mapped out what needs to be done to get back that feeling, so I won't retread about it here, but I will say this: Skyward Sword looks boring. I'm tired of z-locking in battle. I'm tired of using the stylus and Wiimote. I'm tired of having to deal with the gimmicks. I'm tired of dealing with "themes". Skyward Sword looks good, maybe great, as a regular game...but it feels like it's going to be just another Zelda game with a twist. The twist seems to be just an overall usage of motion controls, which is perfectly fine...but something is missing. It feels like Nintendo wanted to make a Zelda game that showed off their motion controls and not the best Zelda game they could make that just happened to have motion control. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
It needs to be said, though; things aren't looking promising.
Even though they may have started the downhill trend, there's nothing flawed about A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, or Ocarina of Time. Nintendo knew that fresh gimmicks were needed to keep Zelda shiny for the gamers, so the introduction of musical instruments, time travel, and parallel worlds weren't considered to be a hindrance. The games were perfection on whatever system they graced, so it never truly bothered us that we had already strayed from the original titles. No one will argue that these gimmicks weren't a good thing, because they never felt like gimmicks in the way we associate them with other games.
Let's list a handful more Zelda titles that came afterwards.
Majora's Mask
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Skyward Sword
Minish Cap
Spirit Tracks
Oracle of Seasons/Ages
The common thread is that every title implies that there is a gimmick involved, and it's not so much an implication when the facts are in our gaming collections. Are they bad games? Not by a long shot. You're guaranteed that every game in the series is going to be good, except for those who happened to purchase a CD-I. If anyone wants to send me a CD-I gamepad in an attempt to change my mind, I'll be open to a neutral re-review, but I'm still not quite sure how that's going to change anything.
The problem lies with the reliance on gimmicks as a rule. With each new Zelda, a new mechanic is heralded for gamers to try. Sometimes, Nintendo just wants to try something new and show it off in the perfect way. Other times, they want to show off what their tech can do with a familiar face and a neat premise to mix things up. Unfortunately, this approach is really backwards. No one in Nintendo seems to want to make a great Zelda game that has a good gimmick. They seem to be more occupied with making a good gimmick and then turning it into a Zelda game.
That's a really uneducated thing to say, really, because we all know that statement isn't very accurate, but it certainly feels that way. We're getting great games with good gimmicks, so we really shouldn't have anything to complain about, but when you watch the videos to Skyward Sword, you begin to realize that we lost the magic somewhere. We're getting Zelda games built around the Wiimote and the DS, and we really aren't getting the next legendary Zelda game.
I've already mapped out what needs to be done to get back that feeling, so I won't retread about it here, but I will say this: Skyward Sword looks boring. I'm tired of z-locking in battle. I'm tired of using the stylus and Wiimote. I'm tired of having to deal with the gimmicks. I'm tired of dealing with "themes". Skyward Sword looks good, maybe great, as a regular game...but it feels like it's going to be just another Zelda game with a twist. The twist seems to be just an overall usage of motion controls, which is perfectly fine...but something is missing. It feels like Nintendo wanted to make a Zelda game that showed off their motion controls and not the best Zelda game they could make that just happened to have motion control. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
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