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video games

#1reasonwhy

Posted in Video Games by

Hello! Have any of you been following the Twitter explosion of #1reasonwhy? This was brought to my attention via an article from Kotaku. If you do decide to click on that link, prepare to be disgusted by some of the comments left on the blog. It is surprising that in this day and age that women are still fighting for equality in the gaming industry when it has been proven time and time again that we are a growing demographic. Sadly many people still see us as either the iOS gamer, cutesy gamer, Facebook gamer, or that we like Tetris. While all of this may be true, one thing is still the same. WE ARE ALL GAMERS. By breaking down what kind of games we enjoy into micro-niches, it creates unnecessary dissension between gamers as a whole.

Luckily in my life I have been surrounded by many people who have supported my love of gaming. Most notably were my Mom and aunt. My aunt and cousin were living with my parents and I for a brief time and that was when they discovered their undying love for the original Legend of Zelda. Many nights were spent watching my Mom and aunt play though various dungeons, create hand drawn maps including every secret passage, location of every time, and lists of what it took to defeat each dungeon boss. This may or may be the defining moment in why the original Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite games of all time (and have permanently inked onto my body). The neighboring kids all had NES systems and it was pretty common place to find us at each others homes playing each others various collections. Not once did I ever experience any backlash from boys about my love of gaming.

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28 November, 2012
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Call of Duty – Black Ops II Midnight Launch

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On Tuesday, Richard and I went to the midnight release for Call of Duty – Black Ops II. I feel like this was complete deja vu as I was standing in a frigid line just last week for Halo 4. The line was considerably longer for Black Ops II than Halo 4, mostly because the demographic is a bit different for the game. We have kind of created a ritual for our midnight release habits. First we head over to GameStop and finalize receipts, then head over to In-N-Out burger for delicious burgers. I seriously feel bad for anyone who does not have an In-N-Out near them. This time we decided to also stop at Krispy Kreme because our arteries did not take a big enough beating and picked up a couple of donuts.

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Richards custard filled donut looked rather derpy if you ask me. All of this ended up taking way less time than we expected it to, and we had no intentions of standing in line any longer than we had to because of how cold it was. The GameStop we were at shares the same parking lot with the Target that I used to work for, which was also doing a midnight release, so we wandered over there to get out of the cold and see a couple of friends. When we got there at around 11, the line was a whole 4 people deep vs the 100+ people outside of GameStop. I think these people had the right idea. I did some Christmas shopping while there (my goal is to have everything done by the end of the month and put nothing on credit cards) and we finally headed back over to GameStop to stand in the obnoxiously long line.

By the time we returned the line had grown from the side of the building almost looping the entire building. We had to stand out back in the boonies and rosemary (seriously rosemary plants everywhere!) but luckily we were only in line for about 10 minutes as the line moved really quickly. I am always saddened by how much trash people leave when hanging out for midnight releases or Black Friday – is it really too hard to pick up your garbage and throw it away 2 feet from you? It is not fair to either the employees that have to pick it up, the customers that have to navigate around it, and the other businesses in the shopping center that now have a bunch of garbage in front of their doors come 10 am. We were in and out in within minutes and back home to check out the game. Unfortunately I completely passed out before I even got to see a minute of the game play, woops.

So far I have only played the Zombie mode and its okay. I find the lack of readily available guns in some levels to be exceptionally frustrating as well as the introduction of fire. There are cracks in the ground in some levels and while I understand that if visible flames are coming from the cracks then yes, I will catch fire if I do not jump over them, but I should not catch fire if I am simply stepping over one of the cracks that does not have visible flames. Are you trying to tell me that I can not step over a crack in the ground? Stupid. As for Halo 4, we beat the campaign in 1 day and sadly have to replay through it on my Xbox so that I can get the achievements as well. Oh well.

14 November, 2012
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High Charity 4 Child’s Play! Playing through the Halo Series starting on 10/26!

In 2008 I was part of a 72 hour marathon playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero to raise money for the non-profit that I volunteer with. We were able to raise $9,000 for our cause and it was awesome. Flash forward a few years and video game marathons have become rather common place. I always get a little nostalgic watching them play, wishing that I could be a part of the action again. I don’t however miss closing my eyes and seeing the moving colored circles and hearing the music through the wall, and I also can’t stand the song “Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. Childs Play Charity is one of my favorite charities to contribute to, because it brings video games to children that are in the hospital for extended periods of time.

My friend Paul is playing Halo this weekend for 72 hours to raise money for Childs play. I would love to see them get to $10,000 so that he has to eat a ghost pepper. Check out their website at HighCharity.org and donate if you feel so inclined. As we all like to say – Its for the children!

Watch live video from highcharity4cp on www.twitch.tv

26 October, 2012
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Costume Quest

Posted in Video Games by

First off – Happy 10/11/12 day!

I know this game came out in 2010, but I just got around to downloading it yesterday after a recommendation from Richard. I played the demo and decided I could not live without it and punked down the 800 points. Dear Microsoft, why do you make it so easy to buy points? My bank account hates you. Sadly I played the demo on Richard’s Xbox, so I was unable to unlock all the achievements I gained while playing the demo, and had to start completely over on my own system.

The game takes place on Halloween. Fraternal twin siblings Reynold and Wren are new in their neighborhood and are asked by their mom to use their trick-or-treating to make new friends in the neighborhood. The player at this point chooses which sibling to play as. The two dress in their costumes, with the non-playable character dressing as a piece of candy corn and the playable character dressing as a robot. A monster with a sweet tooth sees the non-playable sibling, and kidnaps him or her. The player character must now save their sibling in time and be home before curfew.

I have a bad habit of skipping through story lines in games, so when I found out that I could not power through the dialog in the beginning, I found it rather frustrating, especially because I had to do it twice. I was quite delighted to find that my original starting costume is a ROBOT, heck yes! I find the flow and game play of the game a little clunky and jerky, and I find the turn based fighting a little weird. I also wish that there was map feature because as stated before, I am a completionist and want to make sure that I have explored every nook and crany of the game. All in all, I have only been able to invest about 2 hours into the game, and I am head over heels for it. I love the styling of the game, and the hoarder in me loves collecting candy and battle stamps. I can’t wait to check out Happy Wars that comes out this Friday for free for gold Xbox Live members.

Image is property of Double Fine Productions

11 October, 2012
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