Growing up, gaming was all the same thing to me. Things were either platformers, brawlers/shoot-em-ups, or fighters. That’s all that gaming fell into, and I was happy with it for a time. But then something magical happened. I played a Japanese RPG, and my world changed. I didn’t know that gaming could tell a story. I had no idea up until that point that I could care about a game’s characters or miss them when I had read the last bit of text. It was truly an eye-opening experience.
Since then, I have played a lot of JRPG’s. Probably too many, to be honest. In college, I remember I would rent anything that looked remotely like a JRPG, and played it until my eyes bled. I loved the concepts, the stories, and I really liked being able to level some guys up and fight through hordes of baddies. It was all extremely appealing to me. However, somewhere along the line, things have taken a drastic turn southward in JRPG-land.
Continue reading Where Have All the JRPG’s Gone?
I’ve seen a lot of mash ups in my life, and they don’t always work. However, when they’re solid, they’re freaking rock solid, and this is no exception. Over on the Team Fortress 2 Maps forums, user goldenhearted has thrown together a wicked concept: a 
So tonight I played and lost in a Halo Wars tournament hosted by the good dudes over at Rooster Teeth. It was a 32 man 1 v 1 tournament that lasted a total of 4 hours before it was all said and done. Well, really, for me, it only lasted about 30 minutes, as I went out in the first round. 
There might be some slight spoilers here regarding Fallout 3, but I will do my best to avoid them. I haven’t finished the game, so I can’t spoil it too much anyway, I can only talk about what I know.
The new DLC for Left 4 Dead releases today, bringing with it some new maps for versus play as well as a new mode, “Survival”. The more I read about Survival, the cooler it sounds. Basically, it takes the big crescendo moments from the campaigns (like the hospital elevator or the boat house) and stretches them out indefinitely, gradually adding more and more zombie spawns as you mow them down with limited supplies. This could be awesome.
Well dudes, it looks like we finally have confirmation of a new Fallout sequel in 2010, courtesy of Bethesda. The next Fallout game will take place in a post-apocalyptic version of Las Vegas, and is another story told in the same universe we already know and love, much like The Pit or Anchorage.
In my life, there are lots of things that I’m not proud of. First, I’m a girl when it comes to horror movies. Or horror anything, really. I’m easily frightened, jumpy, and pretty much a big sissy when you break it all down. True story: when I think something scary is going to happen in the middle of a movie, I literally cower done in my seat and stick one finger in one ear, thus hopefully blocking out some of the inevitable noise whenever the scary thing pops out. Yes, it’s as pathetic as it sounds.
As you all know, I tend to move from multiplayer game to multiplayer game, stopping and camping out on one of them at a time for a few months. Right now, the game of multiplayer choice has been Halo Wars, and so far I’ve been really into the versus modes.
As gamers, we’ve all gone through our own number of difficult ordeals. Whether it’s a boss, a particular area, or just a largely difficult stage, there are those games out there that just seem to give us fits because of the insane amount of skill needed to best them.
Even though I don’t do too much PC gaming these days, some of my favorite titles of all time have been played via keyboard and a mouse. Warcraft III, The Sims, Counter-Strike: Source, Battlefield 2 and many other games easily top the list of great titles, and I never would have had them without my trusty PC. Well what about the folks that made those games?
Now that we’re already halfway through the month of April (seriously?), that means the whole gaming realm inches closer to E3 2009, which takes place the first week of June. While the event isn’t quite the spectacle that it used to be, gaming studios take the few days with the press fairly seriously, and bring out their big guns, especially in terms of announcements.