Twenty-Thirteen: Thanks for the Memories

written by Justin Prince (@Prince_Justin)

note: wrote this on New Year’s Eve but being sick and Persona 4 Golden made me procrastinate posting it…

The year is coming to a close and 2013 is ending as we speak. Since I didn’t end up going out tonight and stayed home to nurse my still sickly self (thank you co-worker who decided to cough on everything last week…) I figured I’d pen this article. 2013 has been a pretty geeky year, full of highs and lows across all levels of geekdom. The console wars heated up to levels I haven’t seen since the heydays of the SNES and Genesis, movies I wanted to be great let me down while movies I didn’t expect to be great were some of my favorites. So for this piece, let me outline my highs and my lows for 2013… I prefer to end it on a high note so let’s start with the lows.

Super hero flicks sat at a depressing low for me this year, with two of my most anticipated films being complete and utter disappointment. I’m talking about you Man of Steel and Iron Man 3! One of our contributors here at Lifted Geek (Marc Morin of TwoOhSix.com) spoke highly of Iron Man 3 while I had my opinion sit at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I don’t mind it when a super hero flick adds humor to supplement the story, but when a film completely disregards the source material for “shocking M. Night Shambalongidong-like reveals” it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, especially after the high note that The Avengers left us with and the very positive direction the MCU was heading. Man of Steel was just a boring thrown together mess, I has such high hopes for a good Superman flick and with Marvel succeeding with their MCU, I wanted my favorite stable of comic heroes (DC Comics) to have a strong cinematic universe, sure the Batman flicks were great but their universe is so contained that it wouldn’t allow for the fantastical elements of the modern DCU to fin into their cinematic universe. I dug Wolverine but upon further personal soul searching, I realized that my satisfaction with it hinged heavily on how disappointed I was with the rest of the super hero Summer flicks.

Gaming had it’s own fair share of controversy this year, what immediately comes to mind is the whole Adam Orth debacle. For those who don’t know, just google it for the full story, Adam Orth (a Microsoft employee) was having a very public conversation about the whole “always on” rumor circulating at the time in regards to the next XBox (eventually revealed as the XBox one). By the time the first official reveal hit the blogosphere, many of these rumors came to light as fact but by then the damage was done.

To put it in perspective, I do believe that an always on type of console is on the horizon, as the modern world becomes more connected, these types of features can serve to better gaming as a whole. Plus, the argument of games as a service is a very foreseeable future for this industry. I know Microsoft was trying to be at the forefront of what is to come, but because of horrible PR, this became an absolute feeding frenzy of XBONE negativity. Not to mention the whole “flip a switch” flip flop brought to us by good ol Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb. After the initial XBox One reveal, the subject of DRM sat fairly high on the minds of gamers alike. At an interview at E3, Major Nelson said “we can’t just flip a switch to turn off DRM… the console was built around it.” Shortly after this XBox flipped on its DRM policies, of course not before Sony could poke some fun at how you share games on a PS4.

Going all digital has been a quest of mine as of late, with physical media starting to die out, going digital has been refreshing. Originally I would buy a game if say the store was sold out or I was too lazy to head to my local game shop and pick up a copy. But these days I’ve been actively going digital (while still purchasing some physical games… mostly for cool Limited Edition packages).

I want to focus on the good, first off I want to mention something personal to my geeky year. The growth of this little website and all out fans and followers we’ve met along the way. From the conventions we hit to the cosplayers we meet, arguably the highest point of my year has been cultivating Lifted Geek and working to build it to what it is now. 

We’ve had so much fun this year and look forward to more the coming year.

As far as movies go, films I didn’t think I would enjoy as much ended up being some of my favorites, like Pacific Rim and This Is The End sitting at the top of my 2013! Though recent, finally seeing The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug sits atop my favorite moments list as well.

In the gaming sphere, the return of the console wars has been exciting! As a proud owner of both the PS4 and XBox One, I can with absolute certainty say that both consoles have their strengths and weaknesses. But what really revved my engines was how close the sales figures were. The original PlayStation and its successor sat atop their respective generations with the XBox 360 pretty much owning the market last gen, I haven’t seen such fervent fanboyism since the days of SNES vs Genesis! With the next gen in full swing, I’m excited to see what 2014 has in store for we the gamer.

Convention season proved to be one of the busiest times for our little website, starting with Emerald City Comic Con last year, Sakura Con, San Diego Comic Con, SGC, PAX Prime, Rose City Comic Con, and New York Comic Con ended up being the major evens of our year. With 2014’s con season starting in a few short months, I’m frantic to finish a few costumes and gear up for this season.

Overall, it’s a been a great year g33ks… cheers to 2013. Get Lifted.