CHANGE OF FORMAT

Howdy and good evening Goblinaxians.

So, under the (extremely) optimistic assumption that there were, at one point, people reading the reviews we've posted here, I am today announcing that we're going to do a change of format on account of not wanting to put as much effort into writing reviews as we had been. Please hold WHAT EFFORT WHAT SEXY DRESS jokes until the end of the post.

The thing about writing reviews that we're personally happy with (I shy from saying "proud of" because that's a pretty strong phrasing, but you get me) is that they actually require a modicum of effort. The problem with that being that Sly Ghost and I are lazy bastards with aspirations of greatness and delusions of grandeur.

If you have, for some reason, been regularly checking the site, you'll notice we haven't had a post in almost two months. Two GOD DAMNED months. Obviously this is a hobby blog: something we do in addition to our day to day lives of going to work and eating processed cheese and filling our mattresses with money to see how it feels to sleep like a millionaire and finding out it's not that great. But that said, I was basically blowing entire nights on doing these reviews, mainly due to having to actually play through video games I've picked out because they look interesting, but don't wand to grind through for hours on end to get a decent enough feel of the thing to do a review. That, and it's of course a lot harder to enjoy gameplay when you're taking down mental and/or physical notes for things you want to talk about in the review and generally treating a recreational activity like legitimate reportage. I dunno if you've ever heard Mark talk about doing work on Classic Game Room, but as I understand it he's basically grinding out games constantly. That's to say nothing about how he's shooting and editing a video (Two, actually, now that he's doing the promos on YouTube and the actual reviews on DailyMotion).

Of course, the difference here is that CGR is a source of income with an office and stuff, and Goblin Axis was a project my friend and I did when we were bored this past winter.

I now want to take a moment to apologize for the previous two paragraphs. It sounds like I'm bitching over the laborious process of reviewing video games, and that's not really what I'm trying to convey at all. It actually is fun when everything comes together, even if "everything" is just a thousand words and four pictures with hi-larious captions. I guess I'm just trying to come up with an excuse for why we haven't done a thing since February. Well, there's the excuse for ya: it takes a few hours to do a review and we said "I don't wanna do that tonight" for 60 nights in a row, give or take. We're lazy.

It was nice to have a place to write every once in a while, though, so we decided to do a bit of a revival of Goblin Axis. The main difference is that we're turning down our responsibility meters considerably and changing the format to more of a standard blog, where we basically just crack our skulls open and pour our juicy brain drippings all over the internet, no matter how pointless they may be. You may think this is self-indulgent bullshit, and in a way, you're right. In another way, however, you are right but there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe we'll go back to the old review format from time to time, but for now just expect a bunch of "rambling thoughts" style posts. You know, like a journal. After all, Blog is short for Weblogjournal.

As an aside, we'll probably keep the theme of the site to video games, because they're quite popular with the kids on the internet these days. Also, they're easy to write about and will keep this already obscure site from becoming a complete dumping ground of random shit. Ideally.

Who wants an update?

Howdy folks.  If you read my Socket review you'll know that I was flying across the country recently.  Gravity Zombie has basically been working 30 hours a day for some reason but he assures me that's over now.  The content will flow.

I'm in the middle of playing the hell out of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and definitely plan on reviewing it.  I want to finish the game before I do, though, because there are some major gripes I have that may or may not be assuaged in some sort of New Game+ mode or something.  I'll try to get it finished in the next couple days.  Even if I don't I'll go ahead and review something today or tomorrow anyway.

Until then, buy MGR.  Even if the flaws come to pass it's still one of the best games I've played in several years.  I enjoy a slice.

A news post

I've recently been inspired by that same French excellence to make more news posts.  After all, this blog kind of appeared from the mist and started generating reviews of mostly obscure games.  Because the world needs another video game review site, right?

Well, first for our purpose.  We're mostly going to be writing video game reviews, but not with the end goal of becoming the new Gamespot.  No sir, we live to entertain.  Our reviews may be less professional, or perhaps more professional depending on where you normally get your reviews, but they'll always be a pleasure to read.  A reaaaal pleasure. You've probably noticed that GZ doesn't put any sort of summary and I just tell you whether or not to wait for a price drop.  We believe that, while numbers can be useful in day to day life, the current state of game reviews is such that almost every game is between 70 and 80, and that's stupid and not useful.  Thus we shy away from that system and instead explain games in our own zany way.  It's not so much a matter of breaking the mold as it is having a reason to exist.

We'll also, eventually, be writing "articles" such as this one.  Think of them as things we make when we want to write something but don't have anything to review.  I keep comparing and contrasting Goblin Axis with Cracked to GZ, so I'll do it again here.  The articles will be random crap we spew out much like Cracked does.  Enjoy spew.  I really can't say for certain what to expect.  At the moment the idea of writing a short story about some arbitrary topic seems asinine but all it takes is a sharp wit to make it asiten.

And finally, flashes.  We'll make them.   Maybe.  There's a program called Anime Studio which sounds like it's designed to make terrible Naruto fan fiction.  It kind of is.  It's also a fully functional swf-making program though, so look forward to the day I finally decide to try it out and see if it's worth buying.  If not our only other choice that I know of would be to get Flash from Adobe, which...no.  I'm not going to do that.  The dollars, they are too numerous.  Don't expect them to be great, but if my past tells me anything it's that they'll be charming in their own way.  Are you familiar with the concept of wabi sabi, the Japanese term that means flaws that add character to something?  Well our flashes are going to have such unrelenting quantities of wabi sabi that you may throw up.

GA is still a work in progress but we actually have a good deal of experience with this kind of thing.  Why, our previous site was so terrible that we vowed never to fill the internet with such crapulence ever again.  That's good news for you, the consumer.  Expect things to get better and better with each passing second until eventually we hit critical smile mass and then something happens.  But really what I mean is expect the site to evolve until we're satisfied.  The layout may change but the content will continue to be us writing words that we make into things people want to read.   Also terrible cartoons.

This post feels like it's a rambling, incoherent mess, but it's 3 AM.  I'm tired enough that I'm just kind of typing whatever the voice in my head says, but I'm lucid enough to know to make this disclaimer.  Lucky you.  And with that, I sleep.

The Introduction of Gravity Zombie

Hello, I am Gravity Zombie. It is my birth name and I hate it, but one must honor thy mother and father.

I will be the other contributor here at Goblin Axis. I'm not entirely sure as to what I'll exactly be contributing, but I'm sure it'll have some pictures to make it less boring. Now, let's take some questions.

WHO ARE YOU?
I'm Gravity Zombie.

WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?
I come from the website Goblin Axis.

WHADDAYOU WANNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE?
Write articles for Goblin Axis.

I hope this Q/A session has been informative for you. I realize there's a kind of obnoxious redundancy in having two back-to-back posts saying, in so many words, "This site's gonna have so much great stuff, I mean it doesn't yet but it's gonna you just wait and see," but I... can't answer that sentence with anything that'll really assuage your rage.

What I can do is make educated guesses as to what you can expect to see here. Without giving any deep dark secrets away, I can tell you that Goblin Axis is a partial resurrection of a humor/variety site you've never heard of. It ran for a few years in the mid-2000s, died tragically, and left its contributors with a steaming pile of nostalgic puke. From that puke arises the fumes that fuel Goblin Axis, which will tantalize you the same way the original site did.

I can guarantee there's going to be some video game related stuff here. We, like the rest of the internet, are fat greasy nerds who have fully formed opinions on what decade it is and whether or not there is time for Klax. So maybe that'll be interesting to you.

But maybe it won't, and then you'll have to deal with more typical musey-bloggy kind of posts. You know the ones. You hate them. They may be on here regardless.

And finally, for the illiterates out there, we may once again return to the treats that made GA's predecessor famous¹, flash animations. I use the term animation loosely, and actually you may even have to read some stuff, but they may entertain you if your brain has been turned to ooze like ours.

Just like the rest of the crap we're going to have on here. See ya later, pals.

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1 Not really.^↩

How did you get so sly, they ask me

I'll never tell them.  But I will tell them all about our nice new site.

The name is Goblin Axis.  It's entirely arbitrary.  Neither of us are goblins, or write about goblins, or really even like goblins all that much.  The purpose of the site is essentially a dumping ground for anything the two of us (more on that later) feel like making.  It's going to be almost entirely articles we write, but don't be surprised if you see something like an animation, music, a shack made out of taped-together straws, whatever.  We will focus on video game reviews though, because they're easy, fun, and do the world a service, albeit a minor one.  Don't worry, we'll have a navbar to filter out all the other crap.

I am Sly Ghost.  Again, arbitrary.  I'm not a ghost and I don't really consider myself sly.  It's a nice name though.  Makes you feel like you're reading things written by the spirit of a card sharp or something.  You know, like I'm shuffling a deck using my mind powers while also reviewing video games.  No?  Well whatever.  I like it anyway.

Gravity Zombie will introduce himself forthwith.  He's the second member of the GA crew.  He is also the only other member at the moment.  Only the best get a non-paying job here at the Axis.

As for who we actually are, well, that's a big mystery.  Can you solve it?  Probably.  We're not hiding, we just like pseudonyms.  Until then, enjoy yourself as SG and GZ build GA's legacy.