A Strategy Guide for your Strategy Guides
Welcome to the new SGR Book of the Month podcast. On this podcast, Keri and I will be joined by our former EvilCast co-hosts Blake and Ross to discuss our “book” for that month. For this inaugural episode, we get all chatty about Helldivers. There will be laughs. There will be adult beverages. There will be a lot of swearing. It’s sure to be a great time. We hope you enjoy!
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Yeah, this has nothing to do with strategy guides, but these videos feature three of the writers here playing Towerfall: Ascension together at around 4 in the morning. We’re most likely finding everything far funnier than it is, and most of our skills are tired and weak to say the least. This was the highlight of my Extra Life experience, even over getting that Zelda tattoo I’ve wanted for years.
And now I have them all archived in one easy to find location. Enjoy!
So this was a fun experience and a half.
I decided to switch hosts after I turned in my two-week notice at one of my contracting jobs. SGR’s host was with that company, and I decided it would probably be best if I took SGR with me while I already had access to all of the administration side of our host servers. Better to do it on my terms than to deal with a rush job, right?
After my experience this week, I am so glad I decided to do this on my schedule.
I honestly thought this could be done over the weekend, but what I didn’t count on was slow upload speeds from our internet service provider, a wireless network card that was wonky, and the size of SGR. These are all mistakes I will do my damndest to never make again.
I don’t want to switch hosts again, but if I have to, at least now I know a bit more what to expect and how to circumvent it. But seriously, I never want to switch hosts again.
At least I chose a decent time to have some downtime. It’s a holiday week and it’s the summer doldrums. We won’t really have anything new to review until September, although I’m hoping for a Reaper of Souls console-edition strategy guide from Brady Games in August.
I am also sad to say I have made absolutely zero progress on Dragon Age: Origins. First I had to review Valiant Hearts, and then I got very, very sick, and then I decided maybe I should stay up to work through my book reviews that I’ve neglected instead of playing games. I know, I’m full of excuses. Since I’ll be down one job next week (hooray!), that should mean more gaming time, and hopefully I’ll play more than just Bravely Default. It’s so hard to not play that game sometimes. Oh you guys want to eat dinner? The dog needs to be fed? I haven’t showered in three days? Sorry, busy job grinding. It’s not that bad, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to play for just a few minutes and the next time I look at the clock, it’s after midnight.
I’m one of the rare few gamers who really enjoys the Video Game Awards show every year. Many complain that it’s insulting to gamers, and while I see where they get that, I still have a lot of fun watching. I also really enjoy seeing the new game announcements and of course, the award presentations themselves. This year, Spike TV decided to try something new with the award show. Instead of broadcasting a live award show that could only be seen in the US with lots of flair, musical numbers, and not much about video games, they opted to stream a live broadcast via Twitch.
It honestly sounded like a great idea. No pomp. No circumstance. Just Joel McHale and Geoff Keighley talking about video games, showing off new game announcements, and getting through all the awards without a ton of commercials.
At first it was just like that. They did have “commercial breaks”, but they were spoofs and were a little funny, particularly the one set in the future where gamers were still waiting for Half-Life 3.
But then it became apparent that either Joel McHale didn’t want to be there, or he just had no idea what to say. He seemed so bored. He had zero chemistry with GameTrailers front man Geoff Keighley. The two brought on stage with them game developers to talk about their new games or show off new demos. Joel is known for being snarky, but this didn’t exactly resonate well with developers who aren’t professional actors. When Reggie Fils-Aime appeared to show off Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the sarcastic badgering from both Joel and Geoff about else Nintendo was working on seemed to piss off Reggie. They even went as far as to make jibes at how well Nintendo was selling Wii U units and Super Mario 3D World. I was waiting for Reggie to punch one of them. Considering Geoff made a big deal that Nintendo has never come to the Spike Video Game Awards show before, I would have thought he would have been a little more welcoming. Now I doubt Reggie will ever go back.
I also felt like hardly any awards were passed out. I remember seeing the awards for Game of the Year, Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Shooter, and Best Independent Game, but somehow I missed the others. Either they blended in with everything else or I blanked out some time during the stream.
Not to mention, I was incredibly disappointed in the lack of new game announcements. The VGAs have always had fantastic new game announcements with amazing trailers and just enough hype to get the masses excited. This year, I only saw two new game announcements: Tales from Borderlands and Dying Light. And I’m not even 100% positive that Dying Light wasn’t already announced. Everything else they showed and slapped on the “World Premiere” label were new trailers for previously announced games. Really, really don’t care to see trailers for games already announced at VGX. Send out press releases with that info or save it for conventions.
Granted, this was the first year Spike tried this out so of course there would be some bumps. I just hope the producers took notes for maybe NOT what to do next year. If you’re just going to make it like an E3 interview setting with developers, then maybe you should not invite celebrity hosts, for starters.
Yesterday I was perusing both Amazon.com and GameStop for any announcements of strategy guides for Xbox One and PS4 games. As I said in my post yesterday, this will greatly affect which next-gen console I will purchase first. Of course I found nothing in my search, but I stumbled across a couple of GameStop listings that piqued my interest:
Like I said yesterday, I have to have 3 games for a new console/handheld to warrant a purchase. One reason why I don’t have a Wii U is because I’m not that into first-party Nintendo games. Sure, Zelda will always have a soft spot in my heart even though I’ve never finished a console game, but I’m not into Mario, Pikmin, Smash Bros., Pokemon, etc. However, the fact that Bayonetta 2 will be a Wii U exclusive has always tugged at my heartstrings. I want to play that game when it releases like you wouldn’t believe, but there’s no way I’ll buy a console just for that one game. Then I sampled The Wonderful 101 at PAX East, and I fell in love. That’s 2. Looks like Wind Waker HD is going to be my 3.
It’s honestly ridiculous for me to even consider that game. I still own it for GameCube, and I still own the GameCube. I meant to finish it, but I got distracted with something else, and when I tried to pick it up again, I was too far removed to really remember how to play. I’ve always known I would have to start over. So now they’re releasing an HD version of it, it looks gorgeous, AND Prima Games is coming out with a strategy guide for it.
I’ve tried to talk my way out of this. Surely I don’t want to go down the Wii rabbit hole again, just to sell the console again a couple of years later. But then I started to think of Gabe, how he has played Mario Kart on the Wii at his daycare and how he always asks about getting it at home. Even if I don’t play the Wii U a lot, Gabe most likely will. I could introduce him to Mario games, the games I was horrible at but still played when I was young. He may love platformers even if I hate them. Plus, I know he’d love LEGO Undercover City.
In other words, the time for resisting the Wii U is over.
And it’s all Prima Games’ fault.