RJ Rambles about video games and being woke

Hey everybody! This last week, I've been relaxing a little more. With the update out to alpha testers now, I feel like I can rest a little easier. Still been working full days, but not late days like I did the first week or so after I came back from the honeymoon. I've been taking off in the afternoon and relaxing while playing some fun video games. 

I've mostly been playing Super Mario Wonder, but I also picked up Super Mario RPG and have been playing that a little. My thoughts are Super Mario RPG are, it's good. It's basically the same game as the original SNES one that I love, but it's much prettier. My thoughts on Super Mario Wonder are slightly more complicated and that' what I want to talk about. 

I feel like there's a lot of talk in video games about graphics, technology upgrades, pricing models, DLC, achievements/trophies, and so on and so on. I know that most players are tired of the current pricing models where you're paying a monthly subscription, or you're buying a bunch of DLC, or you're paying for only a portion of the game and have to wait for the next season to come out (if it ever comes out) to finish the story. 

I really like that Nintendo (for the most part) doesn't do any of that. Still, in the year 2023, they are making games that are simple and fun. Super Mario Wonder is not that much different than any of the other side-scrolling Super Mario games that have come out in the last 20 years, but it's the most fun that I've had playing a video game in a long time. I like it more than Spider-Man 2. I like it more than Baldur's Gate 3. I like it more than Cyberpunk. Those other games are technically superior. They're superior stories. They'll likely sell better. 

But Super Mario is just fun, every single time. 

I don't know where I'm going with any of this. Not sure what the point of the rambling is. I just always enjoy when a game comes out that is just pure fun, with no strings attached to it. 

One more thing I want to talk about is the Barbie movie. I just watched it the other night. I'd been wanting to see it since it was released, because it looked so visually interesting and I knew Greta Gerwig directed it, so it was going to be something unique. But my anxiety about movie theaters kept me at home, and so I watched it on my living room couch a couple days ago. 

And it was amazing. My favorite thing I've watched this year and I found it extremely inspiring. 

I love stories where the writers take a simple, surface level concept, and turn it into something more poignant and deep. It's honestly SHOCKING that a movie like Barbie exists. That Mattel allowed this movie to be made. With likely anybody else behind the movie, except for Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the movie would have probably been just a generic fun comedy meant to sell toys. But they turned it into a movie that I hope will inspire a lot of young people and will maybe make people think about some things. It's at least a movie that will remain in the zeitgeist for a while, and not be immediately forgotten when the trailer for the next big thing is released, like so many big movies are these days. 

I'm gonna get a little "political" here, so if you don't want to read this snowflake libtard's thoughts, maybe skip this part. 

Whenever the angry, illiterate, right of this country are talking about "WOKE", Barbie is what they're talking about. It's so outwardly woke and it doesn't fucking care. It wears that on it's sleeve, or stamped on the bottom of it's angular foot. It is the most woke movie I've ever seen in my life. 

It's also the highest-grossing movie of the year. It's the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a solo female. It's the highest grossing movie that Warner Bros. has EVER released. 

This shit is important. The loud right-wing people on the internet want to say "Go woke, go broke", but it's just not true. Barbie is proof of that. They like to use things like The Marvels or Lightyear flopping, because they're "woke", but that's not why they flopped. They flopped because they're not that good, or they're not advertised as well as they should be, or they're not a subject matter that anybody really cares about. 

Come Home is woke. I know this. I wear it on my sleeve. There's not many adult games out there that have bisexual relationships, a well-rounded transgender character, an abundance of melanin, an emphasis on consent, and a lack of toxic masculinity. I get reviews every month on Steam, complaining about the game being woke or about it "having politics". Hopefully one day people realize that the existence of black people, of gay people, of trans people, and of compassion between people, is not woke or political, but is just representing the world in a way that most people want to see it. 

Somebody posted on my Steam discussion the other day that I should stop including "political" content in my games. I'm honestly not sure what that even means. Don't write about anything that the right-wing people complain about in this country? Write only things that are universally accepted and agreed upon? No thank you. 

I want to write stories like Barbie. I want to write stories that are outwardly very fun, but will hopefully make you think about some things. I think I've been somewhat successful at that, with the amount of feedback that I have gotten, especially about Adrian. That always makes me happy. 

Anyways, this has gone on a little longer than I intended and I got a little preachy. Sorry about that. Hopefully my point (whatever it may be) got across. Either way, I think the ramblings are more for me than for you, overall. These thoughts were racing around in my head and I needed to put them down in a somewhat organized way. I'll stop talking now. 

Love you all! Thanks for supporting this woke ass bitch. <3