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Weekly Poll: New Kingdom Hearts Game – Yay or Meh?

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RPG PollI am going to assume from the lackluster number of votes that most of you aren’t into RPGs like I am. My prediction for the poll would have been Dragon Age 2, and I think I’m still right in that prediction, just from the number of tweets I’ve seen. šŸ™‚

But that’s old news. Let’s refocus on this week.

Last week, the new Kingdom Hearts game released, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded, which is a remake of a series of phone-only games released in Japan in 2008. I picked it up on launch day like the die-hard KH fan I am, but I didn’t get a chance to play it until the weekend (had to finish Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box). I didn’t have high hopes for the game (it’s not really based off the main story, which at least the last few games were), but I wasn’t prepared for my personal disappointment with how ridiculous the storyline is. At least it’s about Sora (sort of) so I’ll be able to go through it anyway without too much whining.

However, this game made me think about KH fans’ issues with the last several games since KH2, and sadly, it just reinforces everyone’s negative feelings. So I wonder if anyone is even excited about this game, considering that there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the last two handheld games and it’s well known that this game has nothing to do with the main story. Let me know how you feel to the right.

As a note to Square Enix, please get a move on with KH3. If there will not be a KH3, then stop teasing us (ending to KH:BBS) and stop making random games with the KH universe slapped on it. Thank you.

Girls Night and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

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Ezio Auditore da FirenzeI was invited to a girls’ night last night, where a few of my friends were having a huge bridesmaids’ meeting and one of them was going to wax everyone’s eyebrows in the process. I’m not a bridesmaid (nor am I invited to the wedding), but two of my friends in the party invited me over just to get out of the house after being alone last week and to get my brows waxed by a professional for free. I picked up Freebirds on the way in, had a delicious dinner, had some eyebrow hair yanked, and talked a bit with the girls.

And then the hostess’s husband turned on Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood in the next room. I excused myself from the wedding talk to see where Jarrett was at in the game, and as soon as I found out he was behind me in terms of story, I sat down next to him and played a bit of backseat driver. [Read more…]

Strategy Guide Writer Interview – Joe Epstein

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Joe EpsteinJoe Epstein is a co-author for several guides I own, including Final Fantasy Dissidia, Crisis Core, and NIER. Despite his busy guide writing schedule and his multiple hard drive failures, he has graced me with an interview.

Which strategy guide company do you write for, or are you a freelancer?

Like most guide authors, Iā€™m a freelancer.

How did you get into guide writing?

A manifold answer, here. For as long as I can remember Iā€™ve read and written a lot ā€“ when I was about ten years old I noticed a hardcover of Stephen Kingā€™s ā€œItā€ in my parentsā€™ bookshelf, thought the dust jacket looked interesting, and asked if I could read it. My parents, probably somewhat amused, said sure. So I did, and I havenā€™t stopped reading since. All sorts of stuff, from an infatuation with King that sustained my teen years, to classic authors like Steinbeck and Hemingway, to poets like Service and Eliot, to foreign authors like Camus and Lem, to nonfiction like Feynman on physics or Sagan on astronomy. So I love reading, writing, and literature, and always felt Iā€™d do something with writing. This dovetails into part two of this answer, my actual ā€œin,ā€ which was covered about a while ago on a blog entry I wrote for the BradyGames Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=76452124092 [Read more…]

Weekly Poll: Which First Quarter RPG are You Looking Forward to the Most?

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I’ve said repeatedly that I’m screwed in 2011 when it comes to games, but I didn’t realize HOW screwed I was until today. While making my gaming plan for the next few months, I totally didn’t think of Two Worlds II and Dragon Age II AND Dungeon Siege III coming out during the first quarter. I still haven’t played the first Dragon Age yet, and I know I want to do that first and foremost. So right now I’m thinking that Mass Effect 2 may get bumped until after Dragon Age. I think I’m also going to have to wrap up how quickly I play a few games, such as Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, and Dragon Age. A few others from 2010 will probably also get bumped to the summer slumps, unless I have 2011 games to catch up on.

Sigh.

Maybe my stack of shame will never be depleted.

As of right now, I have no answer to my own poll. I played a few of these games at E3 last year, and I’m looking forward to those for sure, but as of which one I’m looking forward to the most…I’m just not sure right now. I can say that Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded is not high up on that list, as much as that might shock a few of my friends.

Top 5 Gaming Moments of 2010

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I was fortunate enough to be able to play a lot of 2010’s game releases. I didn’t get to play everything I wanted (Alan Wake, Mass Effect 2, Enslaved, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood), so it’s possible these top gaming moments would have been trumped, but eh, I’ll write another top 5 moments for those.

5. Deathspank – Greetings, non-descript citizen!

DeathspankI have never laughed at a game as much as I did Deathspank. Even if the gameplay was horrible, the visuals were abysmal, and the enemies were unforgivably difficult, I still would have played through this game just to see what Deathspank says next. I’m still not sure what my favorite quote is, if it’s “Greetings, non-descript citizen!” or “And I love you, you disgusting little orphan.” [Read more…]

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