These days, I feel quite off when I’m not framing my gaming articles through the lens of philosophy.
Almost as if my mention of philosophy in tandem with gaming
has become not unlike Marvel editors’ desire to inject doom
where no doom previously existed
To that point (somehow), here on ATE, self-identity is a big focus. I’m supposing one of the pivotal factors as to why is due to the inherently philosophical bent I imbue most of my writing with. Whether or not one thinks video games are worthy of such an ardent endeavor is a no-nothing-never mind to me, the proposed premise set forth is accepting from moment one that they possess the means to be philosophically imbued, and thusly proving with every passing day and each article hence forth that the notion will be ratified as true here after. There is reasonable meaning hidden in plain sight among that gibberish, I assure you, and my efforts lead me to believe there is a symbiotic relationship involving self-identity going on to help frame my axiom.
To explicate more directly to my notion of self-identity, I’m never quite sure what ATE is going to be. My current fathoming, as it were, places my distance from ATE as if some kind of metaphysical moment where I look at the thing and liken it to a child playing with a doll and wondering aloud: Is this my doll? One of those weird moments in youth that happens that acts as both a moment of simultaneous theorizing and therapy that helps to put into a frame of reference what I am, what the doll may be, and how we relate to each other. I don’t know for a fact if that’s what’s actually happening in those moments, I never claimed to be a child psychologist, that just rings true on some level. Though, much like my bemusement of that comparison, the uncertainty of what one “is” more safely resides beyond a more static mode of being, how “one” perhaps can be many things at once, never just one thing at a given moment, and never the same thing for too long on any spectrum of time. In this instance, comparing the act of writing as therapy, akin to a child talking to their doll while brushing its hair, leads me to believe the process of self-identity is indeed just that, a process, a never ending one, and why at this given moment of curiosity, I question both myself and this site thoroughly as I look at ATE and wonder: is this my doll?
The answer to this question sometimes a bit more
horrifyingly concluded than one would likely have hoped
Which kind of leads into my random purging of recent thoughts I had about gaming, which took the form of a follow up to my initial sentiments involving Mario Kart. My last write up was kind of a more abstracted distillation of analysis breaking down the essence of not just what Mario Kart “is”, so to speak, but what the conceptual nature of the launch of the Switch 2 launch title represents, using the tongue and cheek roughshod metaphoricity of virtual experience vs lived perspective, and the distance therein. It’s a bit of a queer approach, I concede, but as per the beginning of this article, I think there exists a much greater wellspring of possibility involved with gaming as a focus than just the drab confines that a console war helps to define, though finance remains the sadly domineering Sword of Damocles that swings over our sweating brows and wearied heads.
US tariffs are going to make things get a lot worse
before they return to just regular kinds of shitty
Quite the long winded and twisting way of saying Nintendo has a sacred cow, and they know how to milk it of its raw divinity. Normally the notion of milking is associated with a more negative connotation, which is not the quality I wish to impart the mention here with, as I believe it’s the poetic prose I profusely fancy, in which I reference MK’s utilization more than the absence of an abusive, metaphoric act Nintendo is putting one of it’s famously prized livestock through by any sane realistic consideration. I suppose The Big N having the wise temperance to release only a single MK on a platform every cycle shows how mindful they are in treating, arguably, one of their most important flagships with the well needed respect it deserves, lest it go the way of the creed. 
Seen here: the end of yearly fun
My enjoyment of writing about Mario Kart and Nintendos’ success through the franchise with a philosophical approach per my last article was a delight, though it left a little bit to be desired in terms of a more practical approach to what the game has to offer or where the series seems to be moving. These relevant critiques slipped through the cracks in a mixed moment of rushed sentiment, feeling both satisfied in what I had conjured on the screen, and the abhorrent lack of minutes I had left to elaborate any more thoroughly upon the many magical mysteries that await Mario Karters the world over come June 5th. 
The magic of fast food, it would turn out.
My goodness, the optics involved….
Not that the MK munchies on wheels being the equivalent of a happy meal to go was the crux of Nintendo’s extended preview, but I’m sure on some level someone involved in the incorporation of fast food as an ingame pick me up thought to themselves “boy I wish we had McDonalds numbers.” Which really, when one starts to peel away any deeper philosophical levels of meaning video games may have, one must confront the stark reality of just how much of a cheap and greasy by the numbers trashfest of a consumer industry gaming has begun to devolve into. I have no doubts many of the larger companies at play would delight at being able to concoct a product as mind-numbingly addictive as a big mac is, or why the comparative idea of the product being boiled down into something so easily scoffed down and throwaway in repeatable value when distilled into a dollar amount would get any number of CEO’s jizzing in their buster blues in a New York Minute. 
What the faces of Nintendo’s
stock holders look like when they
think about what it would feel like
if the Big N could turn quarterly profits
like McDonalds did
The more fetching concept to me, not being a Nintendo stock holder mind you, is what Mario Kart World seems to be aiming for, by fashioning a structured foundation betwixt the entities of must have platformer and launch racer à la mode by combining the two worlds into one grand amalgamation of gratuity. At least, in theory, as Nintendo seems to be having their cake and eating it too with Mario Kart World, as the games charge jump mechanic seems to make the title a hybrid of sorts, as it essentially transforms the game into a racing/platforming hybrid with the versatility of traversal it allows the player to enjoy, even beyond what the now cultivated sense of free roaming geography services. Why have simply just another Mario platformer or bog standard Kart racer most would dismiss as too familiar, when you can upend both notions at the same time and make a hybridized title, very much akin to what the Switch 2 has to offer as a hybridized system. A ridiculously scrumptious offering, like combining your two favorite things.
Like eating on a roller coaster, Nintendo does translate
to “leave luck to heaven”, and I think we finally understand
why together
Though it remains to be seen, aside from the deconstruction with what constitutes “filler” and “AAA” gameplay moments involved with what a launch platformer and a must have racer would independently entail (another article entirely), we shall see what worth Mario Kart World has to offer, when Charge Jumping is finally fondled by the greasy masses at large, and exploits the hell out of the mechanic in possibly the most delicious ways imaginable. The gratification there after will matter more than any ace in the hole the charge jumping represents, though we will get a glimpse in the same moments as to what constitutes the cheap thrills of a happy meal toy and the inflated sensibilities of fine dining, what marks the satisfying difference between the two, and whether or not the sense of shame of binge eating either has a distinguished distinction of disgust that seperates them.
These feelings of repulsive contentment will help to officiate whether or not gamers want a five-course meal instead of a fast food hamburger, or whether or not it’s that they just don’t want to feel like they’re paying for a five-course meal when all they are in fact getting is a fast food hamburger.
I’m guessing it’s going to be gratuitously greasy indulgence either way.
~Pashford
Active Time Event 