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The Corner of Randomness: Gaming Medication

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HW2_Remastered_05Earlier this week I found out a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. This is hitting me a bit hard as they are one of those friends that are so close, I just give up calling them a friend and refer to them as part of my adopted family. While this cancer is treatable, it’s still devastating to have happen to someone I know and care about.

After I got the news, I tried my best to focus and handle what I needed to get done for my businesses. However, that just wasn’t happening. So instead, I loaded up Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls and ran some rifts, tackled a lot of bounties, and slayed many demons. Later on, my friends joined in and we joked and laughed. It was just what I needed to take my mind off things.

Over the last few days, I’ve being doing much the same routine anytime the thought of cancer crosses my mind. At night I run around Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate until my body just crashes and I fall asleep. I’m currently downloading Homeworld Remastered and I look forward to losing the rest of my day to a game I have so many fond memories of.

I also realized that I have turned to video games in the past when difficult situations decided they needed to be a part of my life. My childhood best friend and I played the crap out of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past as we dealt with parental issues. I believe that game is what kept us both sane, actually. World of Warcraft and EverQuest 2 pulled me through having no job, needing to depend on the generosity of others, and all that happened while I was living in a completely new state. The list goes on.

While I’m not saying video games are a cure all when dealing with difficult issues/times, I do believe they can provide us a rest when we need it most. Even just an hour in a virtual world can do a lot to let the mind have a break and re-center itself, thus allowing us to tackle what needs doing with more focus. Video games, you are my mental medication when I need it most, and I love you for it!

Monday Gaming Diary: What happened to the Spring Releases?

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Every Monday morning, I have a little Skype meeting with my boss since he’s in Serbia and I’m in the US and we’ll most likely never meet in person. This morning, we were going over the state of reviews for February (of which I told him I have given my Dragon Age Inquisition disc to my husband to hold onto until I finish reviewing The Order: 1886 and Homeworld), and then we looked into the rest of Spring before the summer doldrums. We both had remembered early 2015 being a madhouse, akin to last October/November. However, after all of the delays and whatnot, from looking at the current list of games releasing through June, it’s rather dearth of titles.

March is the busiest of the next several months, with Battlefield Hardline, Pillars of Eternity, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, and Bloodborne. April has Mortal Kombat X and Project CARS, and then May has The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

That is IT.

On the one hand, I’m thrilled as it most likely means I have more time to finish up some games I left hanging from 2014. On the other hand, I’m terrified of what all will be packed into the Fall.

I am the first to admit I know squat about what goes into determining a game’s release, other than when it gets finished. My big hope for the world of gaming is that they spread out releases over a year instead of cramming them all into the Fall in hopes for Christmas sales. How many people have to choose one game over another because they can’t justify buying 2-3 games in one month? I barely can, and it’s my job!

Even if money isn’t a factor, time always is, hence why so many of us have stacks of shame. Although, I should start calling mine a graveyard instead of a stack of shame.

I’m not saying I’m not grateful for the lull this Spring, as it has given me time to focus on Dragon Age and other games, but I’m just worried about how it will affect the Fall since so much was pushed out of the Spring. I tried giving up sleep and sanity in the name of gaming last Fall, and it turns out that I’m too old and tired to do so. Maybe it is time to look into boarding school for the kids…

The Corner of Randomness: I am Vlad the Heartless

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Some people just like to watch the world burn, and here I am holding the matches.

Some people just like to watch the world burn, and here I am holding the matches.

It’s funny how decision based games can really bring out the true colors in me. For instance, take my recent jaunt into Ferelden with Dragon Age: Origins. I decided that I was just going to play how I enjoy games the most, and that is being a heartless bastard. I have let a town burn to the ground thanks to the darkspawn. I fed the corpse of Cailan to the wolves without batting an eye. I let a girl get possessed by a demon. I even killed a little boy after bludgeoning his mother in the head with my sword. The list goes on. And you know what? I am totally fine with my heartless decisions, and that is why Keri now thinks I am a horrible person.

I don’t know why I enjoy being so brutal. My wife couldn’t even sit and watch me play the evil storyline in inFamous because I had no remorse for the evil things I was doing. In fact, I’d totally send Princess Peach a letter telling her to deal with her captivity if there were an option to go have a beer with Bowser and complain about how terrible of a cook she is. She really should stop getting herself kidnapped.

When it comes to video games, yes, I am a horrible person. Maybe it is because playing in such a ruthless manner produces a nice separation of my video game life from my “normal” life. Maybe it is because I can determine the fate of some character, and I choose to let that character die. The results of that choice provides the disconnection from reality that I need to get into some video games. Whatever the reasoning is, if you are a character in my game and I get to decide your fate…..Well, I am gonna go all George R. R. Martin on you.

I’ve been playing video games for quite some time. While I might be an evil heartless prick in the virtual world, I like to believe I am far from it in reality. Please don’t send help to my door. Don’t tell me I need a therapist to work out some deeply rooted personal issues. This is just how I enjoy playing games. I’m nice to my fellow humans for the bulk of the day. Let me murder a virtual town in peace. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a king to go kill. After all, I am Vlad the Heartless.

Monday Gaming Diary: Stalking the UPS Guy Part 67

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I’m still nowhere near close to finishing Dragon Age Inquisition−I mean I could finish, but I must leave no region unexplored!−yet I find myself very excited about receiving my copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D.

I know I’ve said before that I’ve never played this game, but I know it’s a niche one of the series, and there hasn’t been one like it sense. People seem to love it or absolutely hate it, which makes me think I should start some sort of betting pool of when I will rage quit, even with the awesome strategy guide.

But I can’t start any of this until the blasted UPS guy shows up with my beautiful collector’s edition game and guide! UPS guy gets here any time between now (2 p.m.) and 8 p.m. I wish I was kidding. UPS guy is also a ninja, who gently tosses my packages on the front steps and never knocks or rings the doorbell. Sometimes I can guess he is here by how nuts my dog is barking outside. Usually though, it’s a lot of trips to the front door, peeking out the main window, and then sighing in dejection when there is nothing there.

He’ll come eventually. And then I’ll have to make the awful decision of which do I play tonight: Dragon Age Inquisition or Majora’s Mask. It will most likely depend on how guilty my conscience feels, and there is a lot of guilt on it already. Like, where are those 2014 guide reviews? I KNOW I SUCK AND I’M SORRY, OKAY? WAAAAAAAH!

Man, even my Link amiibo on my desk is giving me the stink-eye.

If nothing else, I should have more to talk about than my obsession with Dragon Age Inquisition. Although, every time I look at this Valentine a friend sent me, it doesn’t help my obsession in the slightest:

cullen-valentineI will mention, however, that SGR has formed a fun new partnership with GameWires.com, a gaming site that runs feeds from various other gaming sites. It’s a fun way for smaller brands, like SGR, to get backlinks, notice, and new readership outside of regular social media. The owner of the site has been a fan here for awhile, and he’s even had me on a podcast on another site he owned. In other words, he’s good people and he has good taste in other people and their sites. Go check it out, and if you own a small site, go get signed up to submit your material!

Oh hey, it’s been a whole 30 minutes or so…time to go check the front door again!

 

The Corner of Randomness: Another Go at Dragon Age: Origins

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Dragon Age: OriginsIf you know Keri, you know she has a Dragon Age problem. The addiction of this game runs deep in her. There are drug addicts with better self-control. Okay, probably not, but you get the idea. So when she found out that I’ve never completed the game, it was like a shot to her gamer heart.

It’s true, I own two versions of Dragon Age: Origins, and I have yet to complete either one. Looking at my played time on Steam shows I have invested 19hrs between the two versions, with the Ultimate Edition barely clocking in at an hour. However, I’ve never gotten very far and so those hours are simply me repeatedly replaying the starting area of the game, but with different characters.

Now we arrive at today. After a promise to Keri that I’d actually attempt to beat the game, I am starting another Dragon Age: Origins attempt. I have the game downloaded and linked to my EA account. I started a new character and made it to the first town. By the time this gets posted, I will hopefully be a bit further than that.

Maybe it is because I’m a dwarf warrior this time around. Maybe it is because I went all peasant rising up to rule the world as my origin story. Whatever it is, I’m enjoying the game a bit more than I remember. Hopefully this means I will finally beat it, and I can take another game off the ever expanding Stack of Shame. Only time will tell!

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