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Monday Gaming Diary: My Crafting Hobby

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I do attend church, if that seems shocking to anyone, and last weekend was our Sunday School’s man camping trip. The class was going to be girls’ only, and as such, the class director told everyone to bring any crafts they were working on and we would just work on our crafts and chit chat. Sounded like a modern version of quilting hour. So here’s the thing…I’m not artsy-craftsy at all. I don’t scrapbook, I don’t sew, I don’t knit, I don’t crochet, I don’t do any of those craftsy things so many other women enjoy doing. Earlier this year, I completed a cross-stitch of something from Portal 2, and while that was fun, it’s not something I see myself doing all the time. At least not often enough to actually own a crafts room or even a crafts closet.

So I went to Sunday School empty handed, and I felt so very alone amongst all of these women who brought stockings they were making, scarves they were knitting, and T-shirts they were during into fashionable necklaces (not lying). To be honest, I usually feel alone amongst my Sunday School classmates in thoughts, beliefs, hobbies, etc., but this was the first time I really felt left out. It wasn’t anyone’s fault; it’s just one part of typical woman hobbies that I’ve never really gotten into.

When my husband got home from working later that day, I told him how left out I felt, which was stupid to feel that way, but I felt like I was almost wasting space just sitting there and talking, since everyone else was doing something. He said, “Well, you can’t take your craft with you.” I asked him what he was talking about, and he said I was working on my craft right then. Didn’t I see that?

What was I doing? I was putting together section two of the Forward Unto Dawn Halo Mega Bloks set I got for Christmas (early gift).

I have a hard time calling it a craft, because to me, it seems like I’m just playing with toys. Although I suppose on one level, I am crafting because I am building it, sort of like building a model. He was right about one thing though; there is no way I could have taken this craft with me to church, for logistics reasons alone.

I’m about halfway done, and here is my progress so far. For the record, I have no idea where I’m going to keep it when it’s finished.

Sadly, I haven’t really been gaming very much thanks to a hectic return-from-Thanksgiving schedule. I’ve been playing the Spartan Ops episodes for Halo 4 when those release, but I haven’t been working on much else that, you know, NEEDS to be worked on. So Assassin’s Creed III will get some serious attention this week so I can hopefully start and finish Epic Mickey 2 by the end of the year.

It’s good to have goals.

Now back to finishing the Forward Unto Dawn…

Free Guide Friday Smorgasbord from Prima Games

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I tweeted about this contest earlier, but since I have so many strategy guides to give away, I think I need a more detailed explanation of this week’s Free Guide Friday in one place and not across three tweets.

Here’s the dealio…

20 pounds of greatness from Prima Games

The good people at Prima Games sent me literally 20 pounds of strategy guides the week of Thanksgiving. I’m reviewing a few, another writer is reviewing a few, and the extras are going out to all of you good people. The following strategy guides are up for grabs this illustrious Free Guide Friday:

All strategy guides available for this contest are the regular, paperback guides.

How you enter is simple. It’s a Twitter-only contest, so if you aren’t already a member of Twitter, then it won’t seem as simple, sorry. All you have to do is tweet the following before noon on Friday, November 30th:

“I want to win a [insert strategy guide of choice here] for #FreeGuideFriday from @primagames and @strategyreviews!”

So far I’ve already been asked for the Halo 4 CE guide, and um, not only is that not one of the choices, please understand that I am NEVER parting with that thing of beauty.

All incorrect tweets will be discarded. You must include the hashtag and BOTH mentions to myself and Prima games, since without them, this contest wouldn’t even be possible.

I should probably also mention that you need to be following @strategyreviews as well on Twitter, because how else will I be able to ask you for your contact info?

Winners will be randomly selected on Friday, November 30th around noon. Good luck!

Halo 4 Mini-Review

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Yeah, Halo 4 came out nearly a month ago, there have been several reviews about it even before it released, blah blah blah. I haven’t said my piece about it, and I ended up leaving Gaming Angels before I could write a “proper” review, so sit down and bear with me. Or go read something else. (No, please stay…what I have to say is mind-blowing, I promise.)

I haven’t had the OHMYGODHALO4INEEDTHISGAMENOWIVEMISSEDHALOSOMUCH like so many other fans of the Halo series have had. As I’ve said countless times, I got into the series late, and I didn’t play a single Halo game until Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary released this time last year. I’ve been nearly a rabid fangirl ever since. Podcast cohort and occasional SGR writer Blake Grundman was so delighted that I found some love for his favorite game series that he gave me Halo 2, 3, and ODST for Christmas last year. This year, I have played Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and parts of Halo 3: ODST. So when Halo 4 came into being, I didn’t exactly have this sense of longing to play another Halo game. Halo 4 is my fifth Halo game to play this year, in fact. So in many ways, this kind of tarnished my experience, because the gameplay rang of “here we go again.”

I simply felt like I had done all of this before, and in many ways I had, rather recently. This time, however, there was no Flood (THANK GOD), which was instead replaced with the Prometheans, who were often so difficult, I found myself wondering if the Flood really was so bad (answer is yes, they were).

This in no way means that I did not like Halo 4. Quite the contrary, I loved Halo 4. I loved how it fit in with the Halo novels I am reading, the story kept me interested, and well, as much as the gameplay felt old hat to me, it was still a ton of fun. In fact, I want to form a team of four to play the game again on Legendary, as soon as I find some reasonable time to do so as well as a willing and committed party. Even the Spartan Ops co-op missions are so much fun, I’ve told several friends that I would play those episodes again with them if they needed a partner.

Also, again, despite my personal feelings of repetitiveness, I could honestly find no flaws to the game. Nothing felt padded, I didn’t notice any glitches, no plot holes were readily apparent, and the game itself looks amazing. Holy cow it looks amazing, almost Uncharted 2 levels of amazing, and the visual quality never dropped between cut scenes and battles.

If I were to pick out flaws, it would be with some of the new weaponry 343 introduced along with the Prometheans, but that’s just because I didn’t like most of the new weapons. At the same time, it’s not like I’ve loved all of the human and Covenant weapons either. I do really want to know why we’re just now getting a human weapon as awesome as the Sticky Detonator. Do you have any idea how great that would have been against Hunters four or even five games ago?

Most likely, you’ve already picked up Halo 4 and played it at least once by the time I’m writing this, especially if you were already a fan of Halo. If you’ve never played a Halo game before, I have a hard time recommending that you play this one because you may be lost when it comes to the story. But if story means very little to you and you just like a good first-person shooter that lets you kill lots of aliens with weapons of mass destruction, then Halo 4 will not disappoint. Halo 4 is not my game of the year (old hat feelings really got in the way of this), but it’s definitely in the top 5, and it’s with goo-oood company.

Monday Gaming Diary: Wait…I’m Playing a Mario Game?

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Paper Mario Sticker Star

Must find ALL the stickerzzz!

I’m still in shock over this fact: I’m playing a Mario game. Not only that, but I’m havingfunplaying a Mario game. I haven’t thought that was possible since I’ve given up all hope of ever liking platformer games, and this realization happened duringSuper Mario Bros. 3.Granted, this isn’t a typical Mario game, but I’m still shocked to say the least. What am I talking about? I’m talking aboutPaper Mario Sticker Starfor the 3DS.

This isn’t my first exposure to a Paper Mariogame. A few years ago, dear Press the Buttons owner MattG and I challenged one another to play a few games that fell outside of our normal comfort zones. The original challenge called for me to play Portal and for him to play Heavy Rain. Later we challenged each other to play other games, and we failed those side challenges, but one of those side challenges was to play Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for the GameCube. MattG recommended it to me for two reasons: 1) it’s Mario and he loves all things Mario; and 2) it’s set up like a turn-based RPG. To be honest, that was what really kept me going with that game, but between my review schedule at that time with both Kombo and this site, I couldn’t devote more time to these challenges. With Portal, the game took me maybe 8 hours, but I knew PMTYD would take far longer than that. So I didn’t finish that challenge.

Since I did like what I played of that game, I was always intrigued when I heard aPaper Mariogame would be coming to the 3DS. Thanks to last week’s Thanksgiving road trip, I had plenty of time to give this portable game a go. Holy crap I can’t believe how much fun I’m having.

I’m about halfway through it, and unlike most RPGs, I haven’t really been bored yet. I’ve been nervous about that, because that’s always been my problem withLegend of Zeldagames–I get so far and I can’t take the repetitiveness any more. This has some repetitiveness in terms of gameplay, and yet every level is so different and so creative, I don’t feel much monotony.

Speaking of the creativity, PMSS (hahaha, what an unfortunate abbreviation) really forces players to be creative with both boss fights and level exploration. This game makes me feel as uncreative as Scribblenautsalways did, but at least with Scribblenauts, I could always use my uncreativity complete levels. Yeah, that doesn’t work so well here.

In other words, without this strategy guide, I’d still be stuck in the first world, and maybe not on the first boss. I may not be able to reach the first boss. Since I haven’t played any Paper Marioin length, and I haven’t played any Mario games since Super Mario World for the SNES (not counting Mario Kart here), I wonder if some of this required creativity would be more intuitive if I was more well versed in the Mario world. If not, well, then it’s obvious that I’m just not very tuned to the Nintendo frame of mind when it comes to inventing attacks and defense. And I’m okay with that.

I’m still having fun, despite feeling like an idiot. I mean, isn’t that what the Portalgames were all about?

Halo 4 Strategy Guide Review

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Halo 4 strategy guide reviewHalo 4 has undoubtedly been one of the most anticipated titles of 2012. A new studio took over the franchise, there’s a whole new story to delve into, and, most importantly for this site, the strategy guide duties are going back to Prima Games. Both 343 and Prima Games had a lot of expectations to live up to, to say the least. While the Halo 4 strategy guide isn’t perfect, it’s an exceptional strategy guide that is well presented, well written, and well, uh, strategized.

The Halo 4 strategy guide is put together extremely well, and it’s very obvious that the writing team put together a lot of effort into the book. They even contracted with Major League Gaming to help with constructing the multiplayer portion, and those who purchased the collector’s edition of the guide received separate stock pages of the multiplayer maps, complete with tips directly from MLG on how to dominate the maps. The multiplayer section is jam-packed with tips from four MLG players who have pretty much lived and breathed nothing but Halo multiplayer for several years. Many of the tips I never thought of, and I had a blast employing a few, even in the single-player campaign. The multiplayer portion can’t really be anything but tips, as gameplay constantly changes with the different players in each match, but the tips are invaluable, especially for people like me who don’t spend a lot of time in multiplayer, if ever.

But why do you really buy a strategy guide? It’s for the single-player campaign, correct? The levels in Halo 4 were far more linear than the last couple of Halo games, where I easily found myself lost and walking in circles. As such, I didn’t rely on the strategy guide as often as I have with previous Halo games, but when I did, for the most part, the strategy guide was a life saver. The main walkthrough was broken up into eight chapters for the eight missions, and each mission was basically broken up into “Firefight” sections. At each instance of a major firefight, the guide introduced a new map, a recommended loadout for the firefight, and any pertinent strategies for playing on Legendary difficulty. The maps are marked with spots to pick up specific weapons, which I often needed when I wanted to see where I could refill ammo for a preferred weapon, such as the Binary Rifle or Incineration Cannon. The maps were also marked with numbers, which corresponded to specific locales mentioned in the written walkthrough. When you aren’t following along the strategy guide verbatim, these numbers were fantastic for quickly looking up where I was in the walkthrough.

Halo 4 strategy guide

Oh, THERE’S that Domain Terminal!

One complaint I did have with the maps was the lack of marking the locations of the Domain Terminals, the only collectible in the entire game. The Domain Terminals were highlighted in the written walkthrough, but that was the only thing that distinguished them from the rest of the guide. To locate the Domain Terminals on the map, you had to go by the corresponding number from that part of the walkthrough. The strategy guide did contain a separate appendix in the back for help finding any wayward Domain Terminals, but I’d rather have all of this information upfront in the walkthrough the first time. There were numerous instances where I missed a Domain Terminal simply because I wasn’t following the guide verbatim and they weren’t clearly marked on maps.

Another thing I was disappointed that was missing from the mission walkthroughs was tips for completing the task-specific Achievements for missions. All Achievements are listed in their own appendix in the back, but the appendix offers zero tips on how to accomplish them. In the strategy guide for Halo 3,each chapter listed any chapter-specific Achievements available in the beginning, and then the walkthrough pointed out the best place to obtain them. The Halo 4 strategy guide doesn’t offer this at all, and a few Achievements have left me scratching my head as to how to get them. For example, the “Explore the Floor” Achievement is earned after tricking a Hunter to fall to his death in Mission 6. Knowing this at the beginning of the mission would have been welcome knowledge, and it would also be nice to know the best strategy for accomplishing this. Where is the best place? How? I hate battling against Hunters with every fiber of my being, so without some hints on how to do this, I’ll never try for this Achievement.

Other than those two nit-picky complaints, I came away very satisfied with the Halo 4 strategy guide. I wouldn’t have survived some of the nasty firefights as quickly as I did without this strategy guide, and in this end. That’s all I can really ask for–can I please finish the game without wanting to flip my coffee table in rage?

SGR Rating: 4/5

Authors: Alexander Musa, David S. J. Hodgson, Raphael Van Lierop, and Major League Gaming
Publisher: Prima Games
Editions Available: Paperback and Collector’s Edition
Acquired via Publisher

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