[[8 Bits]]

10 Signs You Have an MMO Problem

2015-09-20T12:56:00.000-04:00

1. Ever said the phrase "bio", "inc" or "wtb" in real life? No? What about a line that is a default character sound like "need more rage" or "I can't do that yet!" and had no one around you understand what you meant?

2. You have an article of clothing that specifically references something only people who play a certain MMO would know (IE: "If you're reading this, it's probably a patch day" or "Home is where the hearthstone is" or "I'm not a nerd, I'm a level 80 Druid.")

3. You have to remind yourself to ''bring your friends to Azeroth, but don't forget to go outside Azeroth with them as well!''

4. You have ever canceled a social engagement in favor of raiding or playing the game. In fact, you have gotten socially anxious because you know you are missing raid time or haven't logged in and used your rested for a few days.

5. An ideal relationship is one in which there is a tank and a healer.

6. You've spent any amount of time watching "dungeon runs" or "dungeon wipes" on Youtube.

7. When trying to explain to others why the MMO you play is better than any other MMO, you realize that they are all more or less the same game. Except for Wildstar, Wildstar is way better than all of them.

8. You have joined a social network or dating site tailored to players of your favorite MMO.

9. You have ever gone to a low-level zone and camped the opposing faction after a terribly frustrating day at work.

10. Characters in every game are now "toons."

6 game-themed artists that you need to hear

2014-10-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

Music, along with gaming, is probably one of my largest passions, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that when the two coincide there are fireworks. From straight up 8-bit theme music to raps about Princess Zelda, from absolutely mind-blowingly great to brain-numbingly horrible, I have listened to a large array. From my exploration, here are a few of the best gaming-related musical acts out there:

The Greatest Bits:

The Greatest Bits is a self-described video game DJ that covers cross-generational theme music from some of my favorite games. Slightly different from the rest of the artists on this list, GB has no lyrics and is all chip-tuney goodness. I would argue that this is video game music in the truest sense of the word, and is definitely not for everyone. If you are in for some good, campy fun, I personally love the 8-bit NES top 50 albums.

Team Teamwork:

Team Teamwork resides wholly in rap/video game mash-up territory and is the group that first introduced me to the genre. While there are many people out there that do this, the variety of artists that Team Teamwork use on their albums helps to keep these album exciting and me coming back for more. My personal favorite out of all of their songs is probably the one linked above, a mashup of Still Tippin' and the Great Fairy Fountain theme from Ocarina of Time. That shit is so good.

Bit Brigade:

Bit Brigade earned themselves a place of honor in my video game hall of fame when I witness them playing through Legend of Zelda and playing the theme music for the game at the same time. The sheer amount of musical skill and knowledge of the game needed to do something like that is completely insane to me. Apparently this is something that they do all the time with other games (like Mega Man, Castlevania and Contra) but Zelda was my first hit of them, and thus my best. While the performance live was definitely something to see, I enjoy the math-rocky, quirky vibe of their play style, and find myself listening to them often.

Powerglove:

I was first introduced to this band when I heard their Saturday Morning Apocalypse back in 2010 thanks to my good friend Jordan. And, would you know it, he also later introduced to me to another equally great album of theirs entitled Video Game Metal. You've probably heard some of their covers, like the Tetris one above, but I had to give this band credit for being totally badass and totally nerdy at the same time. Normally I'm not a fan of "traditional" covers so far from the original genre, but this is one exception.

2 Mello:

I just found this guy recently when perusing Chris Kluwe's Twitter, and holy crap do I wish I had sooner. Unlike Team Teamwork, mentioned above, this gentleman keeps his mash-ups to specifically one artist and one game. Not only that, but he makes awesome titles for his albums like: Chrono Jigga, Nastlevania and Final Fantasy: The 3-6 Chambers. They all sound like, well, what they sound like. The mashups are smooth, and include original lyrics and rhymes over some parts by the artist himself. My favorite song, thus far, is Shimmy Shimmy Strago off of Final Fantasy: The 3-6 Chambers or Gato's In Love (featured above).

Fatty FTW:

Fatty FTW is an entirely original indie rapper rapping specifically about video games and other general nerdery. Listening to Fatty's songs almost always makes me smile, especially because 1. I know them in person, and 2. I can easily relate. The lines are original, the flow is smooth, and the content is radical. /Nerdcore, the song featured above, won Fatty a ticket to Blizzcon to perform live—how cool is that? Similarly, check out Accio (Nerdy Girls), a Harry Potter (and other fandom) themed song here.

Well, that's all for now! How about you? Any videogame related music that you're bobbing your head to lately? Share it in the comments!

Gaming Feminism: Why 50 Percent Makes Sense

2014-10-16T17:33:00.001-04:00

The next time I hear the argument that women are only becoming a standard demographic in the game industry because the statistics "count" mobile and social gaming, I am going to punch someone right in the e-mouth. I know. That sounds like a really aggressive way to start off an article that, for all intents and purposes, is going to try to get you on its side, but DANG does that stuff annoy me. If you are a denizen of the internet, as I am, you have no doubt seen the number of articles floating around that ZOMG WOMEN MAKE UP 50 PERCENT OF THE GAMING DEMOGRAPHIC. The fact that this is exciting news is depressing to me for a few reasons:

1. We are half of the regular population, so every time someone gets exorbitantly excited about us being part of some other niche group it always bums me out. In natural order, as women are close to half of the population of the world, women will be close to have the population of a group. That being said, the fact that we aren't vocal about it doesn't mean we aren't there.

Like, maybe we are a part of that population but don't need to go around yelling about how great we are while doing it? Perhaps, instead, there are females (like me) who, despite raiding in World of Warcraft, want to keep it quiet that they are female. These same females are the ones that may feel required to avoid mumble and masquerade as a man just to avoid interrogation and harassment. As soon as a female comes out stating some kind of opinion about something in the gaming world that may be different from the traditional masculine ideas, she is instantly crucified for being an "ignorant slut." Given that, it is no surprise to me that other women may feel the need to keep quiet about their gender, or proclivities in gaming, as sad as that may be. It is still natural that women will make 50 percent of any group.

2. Stating that this sudden growth is just because of the feminine buy-in to mobile and social gaming is an absolute farce. First, let's be real, women aren't the only people playing Farmville, folks. I would argue that it isn't a certain sex that plays those games more than another, but instead a certain demographic. Also, to be entirely clear, playing those games is not a bad thing. I know, it's a novel idea. While it is definitely different from playing something arguably more challenging or competitive, it is still a game and people are still playing them. By definition, that means they are gamers. Similarly, given my experience, many of those people move on to play other games on a console or their computer. That's right: Temple Run is a gaming gateway drug.

3. Women have always played games. This is not a new thing. I can at least speak for myself and a number of other girls that I've met in-game when I say that we've always been here. When asked my favorite game it isn't something that came out in the past few years and it isn't on mobile—it's Chrono Trigger and it came out in the early 90s. Turtles in Time is a close second. I'll bet that if people took the time to ask an equal sample of men and women who identified as gamers, the responses would be similar. It would be an older game, likely from their childhood. That shit it ingrained early.

Despite that, it doesn't mean that women have always been open about their gaming, or able to talk about their passions with others without being smirked at or flirted with. For as long as I can remember when I told gentlemen I played video games I was like a strange variant of a trophy wife, something that I have always feared. Being a girl gamer is not anything that will likely ever be deemed as easy; but lately, with as much hardship that comes with the title, it seems like things have gotten slightly easier because of camaraderie.

For every awful experience that I read about or have in the gaming ecosystem, at least two or three positive interactions with supporters or fellow females takes place. As negative as the outcry, rape-threats, and general aggression towards females in the industry is, we can at least take some solace in the fact that it is drawing us together more as a community. Every time I share or talk about a story that involves a female in the gaming world and someone new starts a discussion with me about it, I am reminded of one additional friend that I now have in my corner. This does not make up for the fact that women are constantly harassed, threatened and degraded on the internet for doing things that they love. While I haven't been targeted as aggressively as others, my passion translates itself to being outspoken about the things I care about.

Whether you, as a female, have been targeted or not, you should feel strongly enough about the fact that it is wrong, and be able to stand up for yourself and those you see being effected. The more we vocalize about it, the stronger our stance will become. It doesn't matter whether we play Farmville, Wildstar, Tomodachi Life, Sharknado the Game or the occasional round of Candy Crush--we are all female gamers or supporters thereof, and we should take solace and strength in the new found community that we have built with each other. We are woman! Hear us roar! For a larger catalogue of pieces to read regarding this matter, check out the TNI Syllabus for gaming and feminism.

On Nostalgia and Crash Bandicoot

2014-10-16T17:31:00.000-04:00

When I first discovered that I could purchase Crash Bandicoot on the Playstation Store, my inner 8 year old went nuts. When the game finally finished installing on the virtual Playstation “memory cartridge” that the PS3 provides, I started the game anew with ramped up anticipation and excitement. Unfortunately, it was not as I remembered.

The first few title sequences looked grainy, jagged and just generally inferior to the graphics that I have come to know from modern games. In my mind’s eye it all looked so much better. The starting zone, N. Sanity Island, looked simplistic and low-tech, with its bright blinking red lights to signify how many areas had been beaten, and its crumbily architected palm trees and shadows. The whole thing was underwhelming until I started the first level.

Crash Bandicoot has always garnered a sense of pride in me—the ability to find all the boxes, beat the levels quicker than others— I remember spending hours in front of the television, trading off the controller between my uncle and cousin seeing which one of us could do best. It seemed that even after over a decade and a half, it still merited the same response. I watched my friend play through the first level and tried to explain to him the mechanics of the game. “The wumpa fruit—those apple things—they are meant to be used to get you extra lives. Once you build up 100 of them, you can get a life to make up for the one you just lost by not spinning the skunk away.” For those that have not played, the mechanics of the game are misleadingly simple: break the boxes to get wumpa fruit and items such as extra lives, witch doctor’s masks which serve as immunity, and tokens in the form of three of the main NPCs. The tokens are particularly useful, we learned, because they enable you to both save your progress in the game (something that isn’t possible otherwise) and collect a butt-ton of extra wumpa fruit and useful items. Crash can spin to break the boxes or hop on them—some boxes have special detrimental behaviors and can explode on contact with Crash and kill him.

Despite the fact that you can only take two different actions (jumping and spinning), we ended up burning through something like 70 lives and having to go back to the first level between five and ten times. Endless bummer, population: me. The games graphics are so jittery than it can be really difficult to determine whether where you are about to jump is actually going to be solid or if you’re heading straight into a bug that is going to shuttle you into the next gaping maw in front of you. After shutting down the console and thinking about it, though, this is what Crash Bandicoot was always like.

What keeps us coming back to these games? Are their annoying idiosyncracies (like only being able to save if you get a certain number of special tokens, and then make it through the bonus round) something that we wear as a badge of honor and pride. I see it as similar to the “when I was your age” hardship stories. “What I was your age, I had to play on a console that couldn’t even render shadows properly.” We laugh, the kids shake their heads in disbelief, others who played along with us nod and chuckle indulgently. Crash Bandicoot is not the first game like this though—I can name multiple—but still all of them are up there on my list of favorite games. I would probably still engage in an excited, albiet totally nostalgia-driven, conversation about how awesome it is.

Perhaps this is because rather than see the games as they truly are, we instead remember how we were when we played them: innocent, no 9-5 job, no real responsibilities except for homework and getting enough sleep. The numerous replays of a single level didn’t seem quite so painful because we didn’t have any other things that we needed to be dedicating time to—it didn’t seem like such a precious commodity. It wasn’t that we were any better at the games, but instead that we were more able to enjoy them, rather than needing to measure their value against something else.

As I’ve grown older, my judgement for what is “fun” isn’t just a game that is playable, but instead something that is so mind-blowingly awesome that I won’t feel guilty playing it when there are other things like work, relationships and, well, other games to be played. So, it isn’t that Crash Bandicoot has really changed, but instead that I have. The graphics haven’t gotten shittier over time, it’s just that the eyes that I am seeing them with now deem them to be.

Crash Bandicoot is still on my list of favorites because it has the ability to bring me back to a time when things were simpler, and remind me that once I could spend five hours on trying to beat a level and not worry about what I’d gotten out of that time.

What about you? Do you have any games that, while going back and playing them may leave you feeling a bit lackluster, you’re still in love with?

Wildstar: State of the Megaserver

2014-10-16T15:56:00.001-04:00

Update: I have seen the promised land of megaservers, and it is good.

For those of you that missed it, Wildstar announced the move to megaservers from their traditional MMO server structure a few weeks ago. While many have said that this is a sign of the decline of the game as a whole, I heartily disagree. When I first joined Wildstar's Beta, it felt like I had reached the promised land after dragging myself through the desert, starving and parched, for years. A self-professed MMO lover, Wildstar seemed to combine all of the mechanics that I had ever known and loved from other games: the content was challenging, and constantly evolving with new updates each month, there were personalization options for how your gear looked, and with the Path system you could, at least partially, choose how you wanted to level up. Everything seemed perfect.

I admittedly didn't get too highly leveled in the beta, for fear of tiring myself out on the game before it actually launched, and instead took time trying out a bunch of alts to see which class I liked best. After much trial and tribulation, eventually I settled on Spellslinger. With both range and high-mobility, spellslingers can be one of the highest skill-capped classes in the game, but I was determined, despite low starting DPS ratings in comparison to my Medic and Warrior brethren, to succeed.

Cut ahead a few months. The citizens of Nexus are faced with the scariest prospect that we've yet had in our short times on the planet: megaservers and an upcoming server merge. For months, the population of Wildstar has been slowly dwindling, more noticeably on some servers than others. Mine, Caretaker, the first server up for NA, is almost entirely dead. The main cities are empty, and sometimes I'm surprised that I don't see dust devils like the ones found in Malgrave everywhere. It's sad and it's lonely, but there are still some of us sticking it out. At this point it almost feels like we are doing it more for a badge of honor than anything else.

"What happened to everybody? Where did all the people go? It's so weird to see an MMO that's population basically goes into hiding on the weekends!" These are all things I've heard from my guild members and other Wildstar inhabitants as we waited for the inevitable change to come.

Some people speculated that the dropping population was due to the game's challenging end-game content, something that Wildstar has been lauded for since before its launch. While the content is challenging, and often takes a great deal of skill and practice to complete, the requirements of "attunement" are not foreign to the MMO world. In fact, many of you will remember Vanilla WoW's attunement process, challenging endgame content that, while alienating for some, was challenging and enjoyable for others. I constantly try to remind anyone who plays Wildstar with me, pissed off after wiping on the same boss 20 times in a row, that this is what we are here for. The devs knew that there were committed players that wanted challenging, enjoyable endgame content rather than a constant grind towards better gear, and they gave it to us. If there are people leaving the subscription pool because of that, they didn't belong in the first place.

Another thought on the dropping of population is that there are a number of bugs in quests and dungeon content. Newsflash, ladies and gents, the game came out three months ago and is an entirely new world. In exchange for incredibly immersive beautiful content, there will always be bugs. We, as players, should be reporting them and should be patient in waiting for the fixes. We should not be verbally accosting engineers and representatives on social media, and we should certainly not be quitting because of it. The content in most other MMOs is so repulsively boring to me at this point that if you would rather deal with that than bugs, good riddance to you anyway.

The transition into giant megaservers--one PVE and one PVP for each region--is an obvious response to the fact that the servers are dying, imploding into nothingness like forsaken stars. The implosion, though, is mostly self-driven. The servers are losing population because people are stopping playing, and people are stopping playing because of lighter populace. So, the best response to this, in the mind of the Wildstar team, is to build a megaserver. And, surprisingly, many of the people that are butthurt about this are the same people that were butthurt by the issues that brought us here.

It seems that since this announcement has been made everyone has turned into a doomsday prophesier. There are both good and bad things about the megaservers but, ultimately, we won't be able to confirm anything until they happen. The potentially bad things, in my eyes, are outweighed by the good. Yes, your auction items that you could normally sell for exorbitant amounts of money on the Auction House are going to sell for less. There will be more people farming and hunting for the materials that you need and want. The game itself as a whole will change. Despite the fact that this change was made to fix overarching themes in complaints, though, I suppose, people will always want something to complain about.

Personally, I am excited to be merging into one, giant megaserver. For the past month my guild has slowly been dying, sucking the morale out of the few remaining members left. We currently have about 10 active members out of the over 200 that we had when I first joined months ago. The five full groups that we used to have running on raid nights have diminished to one that we can barely scrap together occasionally. It has been devastating. For us, and the many other guilds like us, the megaserver will be a place where we can start again.

Megaservers mean that there will be many more people, both to recruit from, to see during dailies and quests, and to PUG with for those sans a dedicated group. For me, that viability and vitality to the game will be be much more valuable than the pittance that I could make on mats in the Auction House. While I am less-than-enthused by the last name implementation due to an after-launch merge, it is a small price to pay for the happiness that I think the megaservers will promote for all players, as well as just me on an individual scale.

C'mon, guys. Let's be happy and make the best of what we've got. Less QQ, more pew pew.

A Bit of Space: First Impressions of Wildstar

2014-04-20T13:14:00.000-04:00

I have always been an MMORPG girl—since my first introduction to World of Warcraft, I've been addicted to the grind. Whether playing with IRL friends, or making new ones through PUGs or new guilds, there is something to be said for playing in a massively multiplayer online world. With the release of Pandaria, though, I found the pull of the MMORPG releasing me. While the game play remained the same, the new content wasn't all that engaging for me, and I felt Blizzard copped out by making it so the pandas could choose to be on either Faction. That, combined with the need to complete my thesis and my crazy work-schedule, made the paying sixteen bucks a month for a game that I wasn't really engaged with seem silly. Luckily for me, though, PAX that year introduced me to something new: WildStar.

WildStar has been a long time coming—at PAX in 2013 the game was claimed to be coming out that summer, yet here we are, a year later—still waiting for it. That being said, though, I can easily say that it will be worth the wait. For those of you living under a rock, for the past three weekends WildStar has been running open betas sponsored by other companies in tech. The WildStar twitter usually announces new beta keys halfway through the week, so if you want to get in on it but haven't gotten the chance yet, you should follow them here. Also, if you do play a beta weekend and decide that you love it, like I did, you can prepurchase the game and automatically get access to every beta between now and release. It also sets you up with some sweet in-game content for when WildStar goes live. But, enough of all of that, here are some of my first impressions.

The landscape is beautiful. The start of the game puts in you in a star base—a unique and interesting "starter zone" that helps by introducing all characters to the same opening scenes rather than a number of different home lands. So, when starting to play with your friends, even if you choose different races to start as, you will all have the same opening-game experience. After having left the base, you will be transported to Nexus—the home planet of the game. If you ever played World of Warcraft, you may be familiar with the scenery of Nagrand—much of the WildStar world looks like that. So, while it may not be incredibly unique, it is certainly beautiful to look at.

The battles require skill and practice. The controls for WildStar are different from most MMORPGs in that navigation occurs with the WASD keys, rather than the mouse. Similarly, you are able to dodge out of the forecasted ranges of enemy spells—which means that, unlike WoW, the act of battle takes skill, finesse, and control. The buttons were hard to get used to for me, as when gaming on a PC I am used to having control with my mouse, but once I got the hang of it it made me feel like I was actually more in control than I've felt in any games of this genre before. Also, you have to be able to aim your spells and skills properly in order to do any damage at all.

You are able to choose how you level up. As I mentioned above, I'm addicted to the grind—but that isn't the way it has to be in WildStar. Many of my friends that complain about MMORPGS state the main reason as being that they don't see the point in killing 40 whatevers in a row as a means to level up. In WildStar you can choose which path you want to play: Settler, Scientist, Soldier or Explorer. These paths are totally separate from the class that you choose, and add additional content and quests for your completion. I chose to be a Settler, as it mainly consists of collecting items, and then building resources for other players to use, such as stations that provide healing or multiple other buffs.

The classes are just different enough to be interesting, but just similar enough to still be comfortable. There aren't warriors, mages, and healers like there are in other games per se. Instead, WildStar has chosen to rename these familiar archetypes to keep in kind with the theme of the game: outer space. The Classes are: Warrior, Esper, Medic, Engineer, Stalker and Spellslinger, and for the most part they do exactly what it sounds like they do. I chose an Esper, which seems to be kind of similar to a druid in WoW.

The UI is a bit busy. I say this expecting you to take it with a grain of salt. Because the game is still in beta and the developers seem to be actively taking critiques into consideration, I anticipate that the UI will change quite a bit before the actual release of the game. That being said, there are a lot of things that pop up on screen that I would like to be without.

The way that quests are handled is a bit confusing. Conversations with quest givers and NPCs take place in the chat window. For me, this is a place I learned to ignore by questing in Barrens, so it took a bit of getting used to. I feel like this is something that they may change as the beta weekends continue to run, but we'll have to wait and see.

It is for PC only. While this is no longer an issue for me, as I purchased a PC for this specific reason, I do know that this is a large holdback for many people. I don't know if plans to release for Mac are in the works, but as of right now you can only play this game on a PC. Sorry, Applephiles!

There is much more to this game than I originally expected. If you are an MMORPG fan looking for something new and original, WildStar might be for you. The ambience of the game is playful and funny while being able to be taken seriously. I'd recommend trying to get on a beta weekend and seeing what all the fuss is about!

Reflections on my Panel Experience at PAX East 2014

2014-04-17T21:43:00.000-04:00

Videos of both of the panels that I went to ("Why It's AWESOME to be a Female in the Gaming Industry" and "Sex, Sexy, and Sexism: Fixing Gender Inequality in Gaming") became available recently, affording me the opportunity to share an open dialogue about them with those of you who didn't attend PAX. In the past, I have definitely done my fair amount of debate on the place and role of women in video games: what makes someone a "real" gamer versus a "fake" one, and some commentary on the behavior of some of Twitch's live female streamers are two points/posts of mine that come to mind. While I do stand by some of those thoughts still, in some ways I am ashamed to go back and read what I wrote when I was younger, angrier, and just generally more lost.

Just because someone plays only Cooking Mama for DS, chooses to only play girl toons in League while wearing their underwear on a live stream, or behaves in a different way from me does not make them any less of a gamer than I am, it just means they are of a different ilk. Being a gamer is more so about the mentality and identification as such rather than any real "credentials" that make someone one. The talks that I went to over the weekend while solidifying many of my perspectives in terms of my sex and how it relates to my role in the gaming world also helped me to reconsider some positions which I had thought I was set on. Similarly, just as a male can reinforce sexist positioning in the gaming world—so can other women.

Why It's Awesome to be a Female in the Gaming Industry

First off, and probably selfishly of me, it made me feel comfortable to see women on this panel that were in roles that I may be able to feasibly achieve on my own in the future with enough work. While it was obvious to me that they had put in quite a bit of work to get where they were in life, I also felt that I could have friendly conversation with them that wouldn't be too different from the ones that I had regularly. Similarly, their closeness to my own demographic and skill set made me more comfortable to give credence to what they were saying—they weren't sitting on some high pedestal, but were regular women just like myself. What made this even more inspiring is that each of them has already excelled so far in their own individual roles—Emmy and Webby winners, editors, successful freelancers—but still seemed so human. While they introduced themselves and explained how they had come to be at this panel, I became more invested in what they had to say, as it didn't seem so far off from my own reality.

One of the main ideas that I took from this panel is "it's okay." This kind of relates to the idea that I mentioned above: everyone has a right to claim their place in the gaming world—it is not my place, nor is it any one else's to tell or cast judgement on someone for not being the right type of nerd, or not being "hardcore" enough. After having a few days to reflect on this, I see this as much of the reason why females may seem to be under represented in the more vocal gaming world. A point that was brought up in the next panel I talk about was that the gaming population is approximately half male-identifying individuals and half female-identifying individuals, yet it appears (on sites like IGN and Kotaku) that it skews more to something like 80/20 in men's favor. Susan Arendt, also present on that secondary panel, made the distinction that while it may appear that women were less active in the gaming community, it may be instead that the type of individuals to be more vocal in that kind of environment tend to be male.

Why is that? I wondered. Is it because men are more aggressive and women are more passive? The thought stopped in me in my tracks. Maybe, instead of the defining characteristics of the sexes, it is that we as women are not only judged by men in the gaming industry, but are also judged by other women. When thinking this in the panel, I immediately thought about the posts that I'd made in the past, posts like "I hate fake girl gamers" that brutally shredded any woman who considered herself part of the gaming world just because she only played DS games, or Facebook apps. While I did make a public apology about this when starting up this blog again last year, part of me has to wonder how many people I may have potentially alienated when I held such a mindset. Even further, I have always thought of myself as a forward thinking feminist-leaning individual—how many others like me, assuming such a role in society, behaved like this and potentially alienated their fellow gaming brethren? Truly, I should have been engaging and encouraging other gamers, no matter what games they were playing.

Another point rang true with me when Susan (obviously full of great points) brought up the idea of slut shaming women that specifically played on their attractiveness in order to get further in the industry. I don't think that she mentioned the exact phrase "slut shaming" but she certainly emphasized the point that there is no right or wrong way to get ahead, especially in an industry that already handicaps women pretty steeply. She noted that it was important to make sure one was comfortable with one's own choices at the end of the day, and that we needed to be able to conceptualize where we would be in five years and be okay with that. Instead of verbally shaming those individuals into behaving differently, we should instead take the initiative and frustration that we feel and use it for something more productive than hatred. This way, we as females do not silence other female voices unintentionally, and also add another voice to the stream—our own.

I agree that it is important for young gamers to have important role models, and because of that I think that it is especially important to behave in a professional and encouraging way to other women trying to make it into the world of gaming. By being negative and derogatory towards other women, we are showing young girls potentially reading our content that this is an okay way to behave, and is to be expected—aggression is becoming our way of life. This moves solidly into my reflections on:

Sex, Sexy, and Sexism: Fixing Gender Inequality in the Gaming Industry

I was first impressed, as I noted in my other post, that two of the panelists were male. Duane and Ken did an amazing job not only of representing the male sex, but also by engaging difficult topics. There were a few ideas that were brought up that really stuck with me, some relating to the above topics and some not. First, not only females can feel under-represented in the game industry; in general we need more "stories" and more representation as a whole. It's not that we only need more females, we need more races, gay or questioning individuals, or even walks of life as our "heroes" in games. Second, men are afraid of "white knighting" and hence may not take action in the face of trouble. Third, sexism as related to cosplay—while this is not news to anyone, it was my own specific relation to this topic which is still sticking with me now.

The idea of under-representation in the game world is one that I am familiar with. While indie game houses and games like Gone Home or Depression Quest have chosen to take on the sometimes difficult task of showing a non typical hero or main character, the gaming world is almost-shockingly white-washed. As a bisexual white female, I can't honestly say that I have ever come under heavy scrutiny of any real type for who I am or the choices I make. Because of that, it was interesting to take a more introspective look at the games that I play and who is traditionally cast as the hero. Not only are the "real" heroes traditionally male, but they are traditionally white and muscular. Or, if they aren't, they are probably an under armored female of curvy persuasion who would help me win female armor bingo.

Physicality is not the only aspect of what should make someone a hero either—issues such as depression, anxiety, and insecurity are infrequently addressed positively (or at all) in gaming, especially when it comes to the main character. While, again, many of the indie game companies are trying to make this more evident (such as in Depression Quest, or Actual Sunlight—a game being demoed at PAX), this is something that is left untouched by larger game companies and audiences at large. The opportunities for this both as a teaching tool and for truly engaging story lines are endless.

While there was some interesting commentary on this, I don't think that the panel really came to any real conclusion—nor could they. I will say, though, that Brianna of Giant Spacekat, was questioned about the outfit choices for the main character Holiday of her iOS game Revolution 60—in response, she noted that the intention behind the character had not been to sexualize the female form, despite Holiday's tight outfit. She has also noted both on Twitter and in publications, that the reasoning behind this outfit choice is because of technical aspects of Revolution 60's character's physical makeup along with the fact that the art team for Giant Spacekat undergoes secondary draw calls every time a character is reconceptualized. Since that point however, as a follower of her Twitter, she has been concepting a redesign of Holiday's outfit for the next Revolution 60 game to include more armor—whether that was necessary or not, it has been noted.

The second point, then, came from the first. Brianna noted that a female cosplayer who had been playing Holiday at the Giant Spacekat booth at PAX had been asked by a fan "Can I touch your ass?" Obviously, the answer should and always will be no. Here is where I have an admission: I go to PAX every year uncomfortable around the number of near-naked women in cosplay. Part of me wonders whether they are doing it for the attention, and part of me dislikes them for it. I remembered, upon hearing this, the cosplay of Cammy that I had seen—a young woman with the high-cut thong bathing suit exactly like the one in the game. I had been angry about her brashness and questioned why she had made the choice to wear that at the convention. Admittedly, all of this was from my high throne of cosplaying as Lucca—a "strong female character" who also just so happened to be fully covered in her tunic and shorts.

I feel that this honesty may make my next point more meaningful: I wondered, then, why Cammy couldn't be considered a "strong female character?" Did wearing clothing make a woman more strong, or did it just mean that I felt I had more privilege to judge someone? While I am still not entirely sure how I fall on this spectrum, I can't help but think back to Susan Arendt's perspective that there is no wrong or right way to be a female in the gaming industry—I just have to be happy that there are actually people that want to do it. I still can't say that I will ever be happy about Booth Babes, but I am certainly trying to come to terms and understand that they, too, are part of the fandom and are dressing as someone that they look up to and respect. It isn't my job, nor should I expect to be able to judge them, for that. Though, it did bring up my question: while asking to touch someone's ass is overly sexist, where would that place the individual that, over the weekend, asked me where my Chrono was, thus implying that it wasn't possible for me to just cosplay as a female "support" character on my own.

Lastly, ah, "white knighting." I'd never heard this, and I'm not sure why. It's possible that I don't read enough theory, but it's also possible that in the overtly-vocal (and usually male) gaming world of the internet, there aren't many people rushing to the aid of females. When listening to my husband play GTA V I not only hear no female voices, but understand that if there were to be a female they would most likely instantly be sexualized or accosted by the young men playing the game. (He notes that he's heard women once or twice, and it's been fine.)

For those of you that have not heard of "white knighting" it is the idea that a man, without much context or understanding of the more complex issue at hand, will come in to save the day at the last minute. From the context of this panel, and Duane's description of it, I would anticipate that is also means that they likely bugger it up. Along with his definition though, I thought he had an astute response, which also was discussed in his post here: if you hear some one saying some thing sexist and/or shitty to someone else, tell them to stop. It's pretty easy to not be a douche if you just stick to your morals and stand up when they are being broken.

It bears noting that, upon reading this story to my husband for his critique and hoping that I would come up with a more solid conclusion in the process, we got into debate. "50 vs 50, huh? It can't be that much." It startled me that he would think that, my husband, husband of a proverbial nerd queen. "What do you mean, it can't be that much?" I asked him, feeling the anger bubble inside me. "Well, what do they mean, like Candy Crush and stuff?" While debating the validity of certain games, and talking about whether consoles or PCs "weighed" more, it helped me to realize that this is ongoing. My husband, who I know and love, still questions whether this is a real thing—if women really make up that much of the population, despite the fact that he sees it every day in his own home. And, really, I can't fault him—before this weekend, I'm not sure that I would have felt this strongly either. It shows me that we all have work to do, no matter how much or how little.

A Bit of Recap: PAX East 2014

2014-04-14T19:31:00.000-04:00

PAX East had me leaving this year with even more pride and happiness than I have in years past. I think that much of this enthusiasm is prompted by being in close spaces with my nerdy brethren, but also question how much is because, as I grow older, I become more entrenched in "the scene." This scene doesn't necessarily just mean playing all of the latest greatest games, but is also camaraderie, companionship, learning and drinking highly-priced beer while playing board games with friends new and old. Here's my post about some findings from this year's PAX East.

This was my first year cosplaying. Despite a number of issues that I ran into including theft of my packages and difficulty maintaining the structural integrity of some of my pieces, I did end up going to PAX as Lucca from Chrono Trigger. The feeling of cosplaying is really something different from anything I've ever felt. While it is definitely nice to feel recognized and have numbers of individuals asking to take your picture or take pictures with you, it is also immensely encouraging to have the reverse happen. There were many individuals who were, I could tell, like me: awkward, not certain of how to approach individuals with common interests. With that in mind, when a stranger approached me and simply said "Hi, Lucca. How are you?" quickly before walking off, it made me feel even better than when a professional photographer asked to take my photo. I wouldn't know, really, how to approach a cosplayer I truly admired—and they don't either.

Along with that, there were two very intensely human and introspective moments that came out of my cosplay. First, after leaving a panel on Gender Inequality in Gaming, a young girl ran up to me screaming my character's name before swallowing me in a gigantic bear hug. "You are my favorite. I mean, you're a lot of people's favorite, but seriously mine," she said, with a huge smile on her face. It gave me great pride to both be representing a strong female character in gaming as well as to have such an obviously strong connection with another person. I also met one of the individuals that I had used as a reference for my own cosplay—another Lucca named Carly. She found me on my first day and, later, won the cosplay contest at the SquareEnix booth. She, in the ultimate small-world-moment, mentioned that she had even read my blog, and had wished that she could have left a comment prior to her internet cutting out. It made me feel like it was really something that I had been meant to do, as silly as that sounds.

If you plan on cosplaying in the future, or are even a little bit interested in it, I would say that you should. It is something that everyone should do at least once. I know that next year I will be cosplaying, though I don't know as what yet (recommendations welcome!), and keeping my very first hand-built cosplay for special occasions. If you do decide that you want to cosplay, plan on fixing your costume a few different times. Though on my second day I didn't really need any fixes, on the first day I needed a few applications of superglue to get me through. Luckily, League of Legends actually put a full room together to support the repair needs of the cosplayers at PAX. It was great, and I wish I'd known about it sooner. Don't be discouraged if your stuff breaks, just fix it and carry on! People bump into other people in cramped spaces and things that are handmade break—no use crying over spilt milk just throw some glitter on it and keep your head up!

This was also my first year going to any real panels. While I didn't go to many of them, the ones that I did go to were significantly different from the keynotes that I'd attended in the past. Not only were the panels interesting, but they helped me feel more connected with community members with similar interests to my own. The two most memorable and well-conducted panels, in my opinion were: "Why It's Awesome to be Female in the Gaming Industry" and "Sex, Sexy, and Sexism: Fixing Gender Inequality in Gaming." Not only were the panelists all amazing, compelling and unique in their opinions, but it opened my eyes up to some great new communities and content to pay attention to. One of the super cool things I'd love to bring attention to is this image here, referenced by Ken Gagne but originally from Tumblr user Bryce, aka Robot Hyena.

The other panelists, listed by panel, are:

From "Females": Dianna Lora from DualShockers, Karen of Pixelitist, Maylene of Nickelodeon, Tatjana of AskTatjana.com, Susan of Joystiq, and Sarah of The Escapist.
From "Sexism": Ken of GameBits, Brianna of Giant Spacekat, Tifa of Lady Planeswalkers Society, Duane of HowManly, and Susan of Joystiq again (I had the privilege of seeing this lady twice!)

It bears noting that both of these were amazing panels with great content. I was even more excited to see that the population of the panels were basically half-and-half between the sexes whereas I had, potentially baselessly, assumed that there would be mostly female-identifying individuals occupying the seats. Along with that, the panelists that were male handled the topic with the respect that it was due and spoke eloquently about a topic which can pretty quickly go sour. Specifically raised in the "Sexism" discussion was the fear of some males of being a "white knight" and potentially stirring up something that they wouldn't be able to fix. While I appreciated this (and hadn't heard that phrase used as an adjective before), I also think that Duane and Ken both did excellent jobs as debunking that as a potential fear. Overall, I felt more learned and with a more worldly perspective on the gaming world than when I had come. A specifically astute post on the Sexism and Gender Inequality Panel, by Samit Sarkar on Polygon is here. I have yet to be able to find a post or footage of the first panel that I went to, but have heard that there should be footage of both of these available in the future. It is possible that I will do a more thorough write up on my thoughts and speculations about both of these topics in the future, but for right now I'll leave that to the pros.

Geeks/Nerds/Gamers/Whatever are the friendliest. This isn't really news to me, but PAX always serves as a great reminder that there are people other than the aggressive individuals that my husband plays with in GTAV. Behind the walls of our computer screens we are all still fragile, uncomfortable and very nervous people that may choose to be defensive over being friendly as it is how we learned to interact when we were younger. I know from first hand experience that it is easier to argue than it is to try to understand someone's perspective—a really great point that was made by Karen in the "Females" panel. Striking up conversation with someone after finding one random point to bond over is amazing, and reminds me how fantastic it is to be a part of this community. PAX, for as much flack as it gets in the media for being a breeding ground for inequality and harassment, has never served as such for me. Instead, it reminds me that there is a safe haven to be had if we can all just put down our fists and stop assuming everyone is attacking us. An example of this which, again, kind of relates to cosplay: a very harried older gentleman with two smaller sons who looked to be about 9 or 10 stopped me out of nowhere with a huge smile on his face. "Is that...Chrono Trigger? I racked my brain for a few seconds and then realized that that's who it had to be. Can I take your picture?" Where before had stood a guy pretty intent on herding his kids from one booth to another to get the day over with now stood someone with something very much in common with me. Without the arguably necessary crutch of video games, we may not have ever talked and my day may not have been quite so bright. This is the power of video games.

For the weekend I strapped a GoPro to my patient, loving and understanding husband in the hopes of capturing what day to day at PAX was like. Because of the potentially troubling or "trigger" content in the panels that I went to, I did not film them, but I did film every other interaction I had: taking photos of cosplayers, having my photo taken, going to booths, waiting in lines, and meandering the expo hall floors are all included. I hope that this may serve as a memory of this awesome year and give some of my friends who may not understand why my fandom runs so deep a bit of a taste. I have also decided to try to be an enforcer next year, if they will have me.

For those of you that I met at PAX, or I didn't meet but came across this some how: let's keep in touch. You are all amazing people, and we need to do the best we can to keep the awesomeness that we (or maybe just I?) feel after this event rolling throughout the year and make the world of video games, gaming, and fandom an even better place.

A Bit of Interview: I'm Not a Nerd! Common Misconceptions Refuted By The Gaming Community

2014-04-07T18:35:00.000-04:00

This was my first foray into nerd journalism and while digging around in my computer for another document that I'd just downloaded, this guy came up. I interviewed 50 nerds, near and far, about common misconceptions in gaming. Read on and enjoy! Maybe you'll find something that you do or don't agree with—if so, let me know!

Hey, I'm Not a Nerd: Misconceptions Refuted by the Gaming Community

The stigma associated with gamers is one that precedes them in social activities. For me, as a girl gamer, it's even worse. I walk into a room wearing a tee-shirt associated with any of the following games: Halo, Halflife, Halflife 2, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc, etc, etc and I am instantly castigated as a black sheep. To mention that I know what grinding is, or how many achievement points I have anywhere outside of my friend's mother's basement is to sentence myself to social death. These are the kind of stereotypes refuted by gamers everywhere; we are challenged by social confines to not be what we really are, and on the flipside are challenged to be all that and more.

To be a gamer, one must have knowledge of the varying nuances of gaming life: what soda to drink, what snacks to buy, how many people can LAN on your network, and other complex equations, but one must also maintain a semblance of normalcy by fabricating social bonds between yourself and others (preferably non-gamers). What the fuck? How are we supposed to keep up with all these double standards? I conducted interviews with 45 of my friends of both sexes with varying experience in gaming, and here is what I came up with.

Gamers and Food

The dietary needs of gamers are expansive. Not only do you have to find the perfect containable food that won't get all over your controls/mouse/keyboard/computer, but it also have to be easy enough that during split screens you can quickly go and prepare it. The common misconception is that gamers are all morbidly obese kids who live in their mother's basement. While this may be true for some a majority of the gamers that I spoke with claimed that they ate a relatively healthy diet to try to combat their lack of activity. Tim, from Newport, said: “if eating, I try for not messy things, fruit, crackers, sandwiches.” This, in opposition with the typical foods that are associated with gaming, IE. Cookies, Cheesy Poofs, Funyuns, Doritos, Twizzlers, is a healthy change. Andrea, from Colorado, even said that she eats: “lots of drinks, raw carrots, raisins, that sort of thing” which promotes the healthy style of living that she is accustomed to. Just like real life, if you take care of yourself you will be healthy, if you don't take care of yourself, you will grow fat. The gamers that I have taken the time to speak with seem relatively knowledgeable to this fact. Maggie, from California writes, “A sedentary lifestyle WILL [make you fat], but I'm not the sporty type to begin with. I've always been overweight, videogames just happen to cater to my chosen lifestyle.”

Conversely, some gamers discussed that they would forget to eat due to intense gaming, which actually led to a loss in weight. Some people claim, like Ashley from Los Angeles: “I like snacks, but I hate touching food and then touching the controller, it grosses me out”. Devon, from Washington, said she lost weight “from lack of eating because I was so sucked into gaming I forgot to eat.” similarly Jen, from New Mexico said, “I usually just chain smoke and drink water, my diet is exactly the same as normal, otherwise. I'm really good at healing 5- and 10-man raids while eating pasta.” Many people seem to adhere to the close to liquid diet that Jen mentions. Daniel, from Maine, said, “I just drink. Beer, mostly.” But that's not all, most of the gamers that I spoke with regarding weight gain and gaming claimed to maintain a healthy exercise schedule as well. One of the more outlandish people that I interviewed, Roger, even said that, in between Flight Paths in World of Warcraft, he would do some dumbbell curls, if he hadn't had the chance to work out previous to his set gaming time. This goes directly against the opinion that most people have of gamers as “socially retarded mouth breathers” who are “fat and live in their mother's basement” (as Marty of Australia, a non-gamer, put it). In fact, it would seem that they even have a healthier lifestyle than others with a strong pension for their hobby, whereas wrestlers and sports players impose a starvation rule on themselves, gamers generally eat the same food that they would normally, in smaller, easier to package portions.

Gamers and Sex

I got varying answers when it came to asking if gaming had ever led to a decrease in libido. All of the men (except for two, thank you Akim and Marc) said that nothing could ever decrease their desire for sex, not even gaming. I'm not certain whether this is machismo speaking through, or if all the men that I know are just incredibly sexual, horny individuals, but it seems like the former is the more likely. For example, Richard from Rhode Island, said, “sex is really the one thing that can trump gaming in a heartbeat.” Daniel, from New York, wrote: “I have played video-games with a girl for sexual purposes, so I have a desire for sex indeed.” The women that I asked were much more honest with their answers, claiming that yes, sometimes they had been sucked into games so much that they couldn't be asked to pull away and come to bed. Devon merely wrote “Yes, I was surely distracted enough to forget about It.” in answer to my question,

What I found most interesting as the answers to these questions, as I know myself that my libido has been effected by intense gaming, was how many people answered that they weren't effected, but their partner was, which effected them in turn. Such as Andrea, from Rhode Island, who said “yea when my boyfriend won’t stop playing them and I want sex, that affects my libido for sure”, which provides and interesting spin on the question. Some of the gamers also said that, similarly to Devon, it wasn't a lack of libido that caused them to not have sex, it was merely the lack of time, as Marc puts it there's “nothing like gettin' the 25 kill streak then screwin' like its your first time. Now, the question is, has playing videogames led to a decrease because of time?” And this, truly, seems like the best question. Does videogames lead to a lack of sex because of time, rather than a lack of desire? As Akim says, “strangely, yes.”

I can only assume that people from outside the gaming world have always just presumed that gamers' libidos would be effected because of lack of physical activity, or potentially lack of contact with the opposite sex. Judging from some of the common misconceptions about gamers (which have been previously touched on), it wouldn't be such a stretch. Thankfully, after pulling some research, it can be said that, although gamers are prone to have less sex than normal couples, it is not due to lack of libido, merely lack of time.

Gamers and Parties

The kinds of parties that people outside the gaming world go to may not be immediately suited to those that play video games. Keggers, house parties, and “ragers” which most people would consider a normal part of their lives may not always factor in to the life of a gamer, depending on how long they have been gaming for, and how serious they are about gaming. Many of the gamers that I asked about parties and socialization instantly assumed that I meant LAN parties, or video game parties. There were a few who noted that, no, gaming hadn't cut into their social life, or their ability to make friends, but many indicated that they were more likely to make friends in-game, or with other gamers than to go out to a kegger where they didn't know anyone.

The common misconception here is, again, that gamers are nerds stuck within the confines of their basement in front of a glowing screen without connection to anyone outside of the NPCs in game (granted, most people who don't game would never know what an NPC is, and would thus not be able to form such a well-crafted insult, but I digress). This, is not necessarily the case; just because gamers aren't comfortable being jostled, man-handled, and potentially molested at parties does not mean that they are cave-dwelling trolls without the skills necessary to command a conversation.

As Andrea says, “modern RPG's and MMORPG's are inherently social activities”, and many gamers enjoy their ability to play through an avatar, and also converse with their friends via Ventrilo, Steam, or In-game chat functions. Similarly, Devon speaks about a party that she attended saying “ a few months ago I was into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in which there were 2 Xboxes and 2 TVs and the boys and girls would switch off teams. Best way to pass the night away while drinking.” So, whereas at normal college parties, people would be doing keg stands for entertainment or playing girls vs. boys teams at beer pong, gamers are taking these activities and modifying them for their own use.

Others, similar to Devon, said that they would choose hanging out with friends over gaming any day, because as Walt from New Jersey puts it “having a +100 strength sword is far inferior to being out actually doing things.” And, although gaming is an important hobby to many of these people, maintaining an active social life takes priority, some even go the extra step and make friends through gaming that they continue to hang out with in real life, out of game. An example of this from popular culture would be the internet broadcasted television show The Guild. After the first episode, the guild from a modern MMO (remains unnamed, but can be assumed as WoW) meets up, from then on could tentatively be called “friends” for the remainders of the season. Although most of their real-life conversations are involved with the MMO, they still talk about things such as their personal lives, and goals. They even end up going to a LAN together to battle against an opposing guild, The Axis of Anarchy.

There are, unfortunately, the people who fit the mold assumed by popular thought, the gamers that lose themselves so far into game that they lose the understanding of a social life, and begin to think solely in-game. As Richard writes “Yes, I tend to be anti social a lot and when choosing between playing alone and going out I used to pick the former a lot. I'm getting better now that I have gotten more friends IRL, but for a while I was just really nervous and antsy about going out.” Ashleigh, a self-professed “intermediate gamer” expresses concern and sadness about gamers' tendencies to forget real life “I think that it unfortunately does become a sole means to socialize for some people.” As true as this may be, many gamers are content to, rather than sit alone in their room playing Call Of Duty, attend LAN parties, videogame parties, or foster a social life through other means. Contrary to popular belief, gamers can have normal fun too.

Gamers and Addiction
As you can see from some of the quotes above, a problem that many gamers are afraid of, and actively combat (hopefully) is gaming addiction. Unanimously, people agreed that gaming addiction was a real, and frightening prospect. This is one thing that the outside world, and the gaming community can agree upon.

It is a difficult line to tread between enjoying something, and growing addicted to something, and, as Andrea puts it “MMOs are like crack!” Maggie from Boston even goes so far as to call her quitting World Of Warcraft “quitting cold turkey”. Many of the people that I spoke to that were afraid of addiction, or had already been addicted were people who played MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft, Everquest, Eve Online, Ragnarok, etc. Devon put it best when she said, “gaming is and can be an addiction, and should be moderated. As the type that is a social butterfly and loves to talk to people constantly, gaming can become an addiction when most people you play with are as bored and lonely as you are. It is easy to get lost in a virtual world.” This is what is most important to consider; the probably of gaming addiction in a game like Call of Duty, or Assassin’s Creed (although still high, because those are fucking awesome games) is much less likely than in MMOs just because the communication between players is greatly diminished and not much emphasis is placed on working together. One cannot play through WoW without at least once having been in a group. This can lead to delusions of leading a “real life” much as it did with Scott's friend who, when Scott was trying to get him to go out would say “'Yeah hold on, just let me finish this raid with my guild.' An hour later, 'I know dude I'm sorry, I only have like 2 things left to do and then we can leave.' Two hours later, 'Dude I'm so sorry, you can just go without me I still have to like, run across the map to turn in my quest."'

It's evidence like this that makes the claim of gaming addiction irrefutable. Many of the individuals that I spoke with claimed to have either been effected by it by losing friends with gaming addictions, etc or having been effected by it by having one themselves. As Andrea writes, “I was addicted to Ragnarok, for about 8 months and I didn’t have a social life and I was completely fine with it.” However, in favor of gaming addiction, Walt said, “I figure video games are the least dangerous of the things kids could get involved in. Drugs, gangs, violence, thievery...things that don't normally amount to much in the end, are a lot worse of a problem than a kid that plays an MMO for 6 hours after school each day.”

Gamers and Relationships

A misconception that many people have is that gamers don't date, or if they do, they only date gamers. I decided to test this by asking my friends “When looking for a relationship, is a partner who plays games important? If not now, was it ever? If so, to what degree?” The response was a unanimous “well, meh, kind of, not really. I guess it's important, but...” with an explanation tacked on the end. It's obvious to me that, through the answers I received, most of the people that I know that game would also appreciate a gamer-partner over a non-gamer partner for varying reasons that follow.

First, many gamers are afraid to be made fun of due to their passion; it is frightening to put yourself out there, and get it thrown back in your face with laughter. Andrea writes, “It's more fear of being rejected for my gaming habit than a desire to find a gamer boyfriend... if he plays, I know he'll be cool with the fact that I do.” It's important to people to be understood by their lover, just like if a concert pianist was dating a football player, there may be some difficulties in cross-passion comprehension. As Robert puts it “if they don't play, they need to have the ability to at least sit through the occasional nerdy conversation.”

Second, many gamers enjoy playing multi-player games on a single console, having a partner that could play with you would give you both something you could enjoy, and would make it easier to form teams and play the game. For example, when I played World of Warcraft with my ex-boyfriend, he made a Prot Paladin, and I made a Resto Druid which, loosely translated, means he could be the tank, and I could be the healer. This made it easier for us to get into groups for dungeons, and get through the game, especially with grinding.

Third, many gamers take their dedication to the game very seriously, and were afraid that, if they were to date someone who didn't understand their passion there would be fights, fall-outs, and other problems. This seemed to be the most important to people similarly to a regular relationship, having passions in common is important, and if your two juxtapose, there will be friction. As Jen writes it's important to have a gaming boyfriend to her because “then there will definitely be time when I can go play my game and he can go play his without having some non-gaming boyfriend lying around whining that he's not getting my undivided attention for an hour or two.”

Websites such as www.datecraft.com have been cropping up more and more over the past few years as the legions of gamers grows, and their desire for partners understanding of their habit grows as well. It is becoming easier and easier to find, not only a gamer, but also a gamer who plays the same game as you to date.

Gamers and their Reps

Gamers are more concerned with their reputation as a gamer than any other section of culture that I have seen. Although it may not mean much to outsiders what your gamer score is, or what title is attached to your name, or how many consoles you have, to a gamer these are the dictations of social ranking. If I were to go to a keg party, and say “Oh, Hi, I'm a level 80 Druid, and I beat Lost Odyssey in 72 hours, and I have [[x amount]] of achievement points,” people would look at me like I had four (or five, or six) heads. But if I were at a LAN party, or was socializing with other nerds, this would earn me the equivalent of credibility that having tear drops tattooed on your face would get you in prison. With the growth of achievement points on Xbox and the trophies function on PS3, and already competition driven hobby grows even more intense. As Maggie puts it “Gamers are competitive to the bitter end. I've seen Korean championship Starcraft matches that were so intense the guys could've killed each other with looks. And with huge cash prizes at stake, it’s no wonder. This isn't even like sports or other athletics where competition is only part of the fun, when you're playing soccer you're outside getting fresh air and sunshine and exercising as well. Some games are ALL about eliminating competition.” This is the important distinction and difference between gaming and other hobbies, although many of the gamers that I spoke with claimed that gaming was just an effective use of time as reading, sewing, watching TV, or other hobbies, gaming is different in the aspect that it is solely based on being better than others. On a daily basis we take a page from Ash Ketchem from Pokémon’s book by saying we “gotta be the best, and catch'em all!”

Richard writes “I’m a hardcore gamer and a completist. I have to finish it first and then I have to get all the items and secrets”, this is even moreso on the rise with Achievement points. Previous to APs, you could be less attentive to detail (unless you were playing games like Monkey Island), but if you want to get to the elusive 2000 points, you have to put x amount of hours into the game, and find all of the listed items, and complete a bunch of tasks which could prove to be inordinately difficult.

Not only has the aggression surrounding being the best grown on a console level, but with PCs it grows more everyday as well. Players in World of Warcraft constantly upgrade their gear, and rearrange their talent trees in an attempt to personalize the game, and ultimately make themselves the best. Jen writes “To be truly good at a video game, especially one like World of Warcraft or Everquest II, it takes more than time and luck. It takes skill, and a lot of people forget that. I'm a healer and there is a definite artistry to what I do that not everyone has. Respect that.” So, it's not only that you play videogames that gets you in with this crowd; you actually have to be good at them.

Every time that I start dating someone, the topic of gaming always comes up, and the topic of “girl gaming” always comes up. Men will instantly assume that all women play games like Cooking Mama, or Animal Crossing, and will shirk the possibility that their new girl could be better at FPSs than they are. Girl gamers are gamers as well, and the problem of reputation precedes them. Because gamer-girls are most known for playing “girly-games”, when entering into the male populated gaming realm, they have to work that much harder to prove themselves than they usually would have. I mean, granted, no one gets off easy after claiming themselves as a gamer, but women have it way tougher. Not only do we have to first get over the general ogling and attention that we receive from being a girl, but then we have to get over the hurdle of proving our own reputation as a gamer, which is ultimately more difficult because they can't get over the fact that we have tits.

Either way, reputation is just as important to gamers as it is to anyone else, the most testosterone driven sports star would have a hard time keeping up with a hardcore gamer.

So there you have it! Which ones did you agree or disagree with?

A Bit of Screams: Silent Hill 2

2014-04-06T17:05:00.000-04:00

Most people know what Silent Hill is now because of the movie rendition that came out in 2006. While I love that movie just as much as the next person, and while I love the first game as well, Silent Hill 2 (for a number of platforms) was one of the scarier games that I have ever played. Even now with all of the FEAR games, and nail-biters like the Last of Us, the Silent Hill series stands up to the test of time, and will always have a place in my heart. Because of that, I thought it deserved a blog post.

The game starts with the main character, James, looking in the mirror of an obviously abandoned and filthy public restroom, where he says "Mary, could you really be in this town?" For those of us that had already played the first game upon picking up the second, it was obvious where he was, but the reason he was there wasn't necessarily immediately apparent. We soon learn that the main character, James, had a wife that he took to Silent Hill on a vacation years ago, but that she has since died. Despite being dead, he received a letter, ostensibly from her to his home. So, he decided to come to Silent Hill their "special" place.

Over the course of his time in Silent Hill he meets several compatriots: Maria, a woman who looks identical to his wife, but dresses and acts differently; Eddie; Angela, who we understand is a runaway that came here to look for her mother; and Laura, a young girl who, apparently, has met and become friends with Mary in her time in Silent Hill. It is hinted that each of these characters have dark pasts, some involving murder, molestation, and torture, but it isn't really delved into too deeply. Similarly, Eddie is available in the Born from a Wish expansion of the original game in which the player is allowed to control Maria, instead of James, right up to the point when she and James meet.

While, obviously, the plot of Silent Hill is petrifying, the graphics and overall aesthetic of the game lends itself as well. The ominous music, dark fog that shields most things from view, and the creepy monsters that inhabit the place all do a good job of making me to jump out of my skin. Add in the idea that James is looking for what could amount to be the ghost of his dead wife, and the cake it topped.

You, playing James, are unable to make use of some of your objects unless the situation and setting are perfect. For example, there are multiple maps that are found and picked up over the course of the game, but aren't usable unless in a well-lit room, or by using James' flashlight to illuminate them. In some areas, where the flashlight may be more useful to say, shine on nurses or monsters, this can put the player in a bit of a creepy, pickle.

Along with that, the UI functionality lends itself to a clean screen which doesn't allow the player to access anything (including seeing how much health you have left, or which items are in your inventory) without going to a pause screen. This is useful because it keeps the user's eye focused on the game at hand, as well as making it so that you don't die or get killed when trying to maneuver around your inventory.

Unfortunately, there are a number of spoilers found throughout the game that would ruin much of the plot for those of you that haven't played. For those of you that have played and are just curious to reminisce you can take a refreshed course on the plot here. I just don't want to tell all of you what happens in case this here review makes you want to play the game in its entirety. What I can say is that much of the game is psychologically intense, and requires a lot of mental stamina.

This stamina both comes into play through the number of strange cut screens and happenings in Silent Hill, but also because much of the navigation through the game relies on heavy problem and riddle-solving ability, just like the first iteration. The game changes based on which actions the player takes in the game, and can subsequently lead the player to six different endings. While four of the endings are "serious" ones that all end in different, twisted ways (some more twisted than others), there are two joke endings that only appear after you have replayed and rebeat the game. If you are interested in reading about those endings, you can do so here.

This game still scares the shit out of me, and replaying it is assuredly going to give me nightmares tonight. I'm not sure why I am so much more attached to this version than the first, but I think that it may be because some of the mind-fuckery that I mentioned above—there is more trauma in this game than there was in the original. If you are interested in playing it, there aren't any ROMs online, but you can certainly purchase it here. Happy gaming!

A Bit of Ice, Ice Baby: Kickle Cubicle

2014-04-02T19:29:00.000-04:00

First, I would like to take the time to express how sorry I am that I haven't been keeping up with posts. While I know this is, by no means, everyone's favorite blog to read, I was doing a pretty good job there at getting regular content out the door at least every other day. Because my PAX East cosplay hit a lot of hinges (my fabric getting stolen by my neighbors, UPS marking my address as not a real address, FedEx losing packages, and so on), I have had to spend a lot of time working on getting that ready. Hopefully, after this weekend when I finish it, I will be back up and running and writing about all those good old games you know and love.

So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce or remind all of you of a little game called Kickle Cubicle for NES. While there isn't much of a plot to this game, the premise is that there is an evil ice king, and that he has taken over Kickle's home planet, the Fantasy Kingdom. The major driver of the game is to collect red "dream bags" in which the Wicked Wizard King has imprisoned all of the citizens of the planet. The dream bags look kind of like Santa's sack, and are strewn haphazardly around each of the many, many levels.

Gameplay centers around turning enemies to ice, and using those ice blocks to complete and navigate each of the levels (which are puzzles). Doing so enables you to collect red dream bags, and hence free your fellows Fantasians. There are four "lands" which are basically the levels: Garden Land, Cake Land, Fruit Land, and Toy Land. In each of these lands are 17-18 puzzles for the player to solve. After each of those has been solved, there are 30 harder levels leading up to the end of the game.

Along with turning enemies into ice cubes to fill the holes in the puzzles that you are solving, there are a few other items that show up:

Rock: Good for stopping ice cubes from going to far.
Slippery Ice: A way to get away from enemies, because they can't walk over them.
Base Rock: Where enemies generate from.
Spring: Shoots ice cubes across the game screen.
Water Hole: These are not able to be filled by the ice cubes that you make out of enemies.
Breaker: Breaks ice cubes that hit it.
Hammer: Changes ice cube direction and hits enemies.
Power Rock: Freezes all enemies in a puzzle.

Despite the fact that this game seems pretty simple, because there were so many levels, which is basically unheard of for other NES games from 1990, it kept me endlessly interested. I think that they also re released this for Wii, but I have not played it. Have you? Do you love Kickle Cubicle too? If you have never played it and are interested in doing so, you can do so here.

A Bit of Wat: A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia

2014-03-26T11:30:00.000-04:00

The first thing that I think of when I think of A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia is: the opening track sounded very similar to the Indiana Jones theme song. The second thing I think of when I think of this game is that the titular "boy" runs like a ballerina on stage. Otherwise, I have no really solid critiques of this game. It was just that awesome. If you never played it for NES, then maybe you played it for the Wii, which is was later released on. If you played it on neither, then you are a sad, sad soul that REALLY needs to play this game.

The premise of the game is this: you are a boy who is associated by a gelatinous blob that looks eerily like the adipose from the newer Doctor Who episodes. He comes from an alien planet, Blobolonia, that is being run by an evil emperor that will only feed the planet's inhabitants candy. The plot hinges on the duo planning on saving the planet. Blobert, the blob, is entirely controlled by the computer, whereas the Boy is controlled by the player, and can only run left or right. All other actions that he takes must be assisted by Blobert.

Basically, you are required to run through a series of levels, avoiding perilous enemies and items while collecting glittering objects (treasures and diamonds that can be used to purchase vitamins, used in the vitablaster). To do this, the boy feeds Blobert a series of different jelly beans in a multitude of different flavors. Each flavor makes Blobert turn into a different item. The different jellybeans, and what they turn Blobert in to are as follows:

Licorice - makes a ladder
Strawberry - bridge
Cola - air bubble
Cinnamon - blowtorch
Apple - jack
Vanilla - umbrella
Tangerine - trampoline
Root Beer - rocket
Honey - hummingbird
Ketchup - this basically allows you to connect to him more readily—he usually doesn't eat them.
Punch - hole
Coconut - coconut. This allows you to roll Blobert around onto the next screen like a spy.
Lime - key
Orange - vitablaster
Peppermints - these increase the boy's life.

Basically that is it. You toss the blob various jelly beans as a means to solve the puzzle levels and accomplish tasks/save yourself from falling objects. There are six levels, most of which are based on fake candy areas (like popcorn, and "cherry" bombs), and then a final "confrontation." That's it; it's a very simple, very addictive game! If you want to play it, you can do so online here. Happy Gaming!

A Bit of KO: Punch-Out!!

2014-03-19T09:47:00.000-04:00

So, while talking to my husband about one of my newest forays into athleticism (Boxing), it was mentioned that now that I know how hard it is, I should write up a post about Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. While I don't, by any means, think that this is one of the best games of all time, I do definitely think it deserves more attention than it typically gets when it comes down to traditional NES games.

Boxing is super fracking hard. I went into it thinking "Oh, this is going to be so fun and go by so quickly," and while it did go by pretty fast, by the end of it I was left feeling like I was going to barf—and I hadn't even sparred again anyone! I liken it mostly to the cut screens in this game where you have Lil Mac (your PC) running behind his trainer in a pink jump suit along what I take to be the Hudson. This was a pretty unnecessary take up of space, when considered from an actual game design point of view, but one that made this so much more realistic to me now that I've tried boxing. They didn't need to add it, but ultimately boxing is basically only that kind of training—the ratio of fighting to training is skewed on the side of circuit training and other less fun things than hitting another person or a bag.

Anyway, that is what got me thinking about it—so let's get into actual game play for those of you that haven't played before. You control Lil Mac, a tiny shrimp of a boxer as he moves along through the professional circuit of boxers to fight again the ultimate, Mike Tyson. All of the other boxers that Mac fights besides Tyson against are fictional. Mac is pretty limited in terms of punches and moves—he has an uppercut which he can only use after earning points in the form of stars (you can earn up to three), as well as left and right jabs and body blows. These add up to approximately nothing when fighting against the other NPCs.

Along with stars, and the expected health meter, Mac is also equipped with a heart meter. The heart meter essentially tracks how much stamina Mac has left and, if dropped to zero, the character will turn bright pink, and be unable to make any moves—presumably from exhaustion. The hearts will drop by three if he is hit by another player, or by one every time he uses a move. You can regain hearts by avoiding attacks from your opponents in the ring.

Rounds can end by knock out, technical knock out, by decision, or by getting knocked down three times in a match. For each loss, you basically always have a way to get back up to the top to try to beat Tyson. You will either be allotted a free "retry," or you will have to fight your way back up the ranks of NPCs in order to regain your position as reigning champ. In the event that you lose to Mike Tyson, though, you get an automatic game over. Womp womp.

Never played this game? Interested in boxing, but not in having your ass kicked by a trainer? You can play Punch-out here. Happy gaming!

A Bit of Alien War: Contra III

2014-03-16T11:09:00.000-04:00

Contra III was the first Contra game to be released for SNES, and was done by Konami in 1992. The premise is simple, and pretty much to be expected: the Aliens that have been fought over the past two games (and defeated) are now back and enacting a full all out revolution against planet earth. While this is a pretty short game, the upgrades from the previous versions lend this to be, in my opinion, more enjoyable than the first two.

Set in 2636 (which seems like a pretty random year, in my mind—not sure if there is any real significance to it), and populated with descendants of the PCs in the first two games, Contra III has similar gameplay to its predecessors. The main difference is that the player is now able to control two guns instead of one and, upon completion of the game on Easy or Normal levels is able to replay the game while maintaining their previous weapons. This made Contra III have much more longevity for "serious" gamers than it would have if you were forced to start over again from the beginning as you moved up in difficulties through the game. Similarly, the default weapon had several different upgrades that were available: laser, cannon, shotgun, flamethrower, homing missiles, barriers and bombs. They basically all do exactly what you would expect them to, given their names. The weapons also had a autofire functionality, and were able to be fired at the same time. This made speed runs, like the one featured below, much easier given the extra firepower.

There are six stages of the game, two of which are top-down views that give me incredible nausea. I realize that much of this was to show off the extra technology now available to the game, but really all it did was give the view the appearance of spinning out of control, and served to seriously disorient me. The other levels, however, exposed much more interactivity with items in the field of view than previous Contra games had. For example, at the end of the first stage the player is essentially required to navigate by jumping from hanging rod to hanging rod at exactly the right time in order to avoid the napalm coating the levels floor. This kind of engagement with items was new, and unusual for a game of this variety. The various stages are as follows:

Stage 1: The Occupied City—this is essentially a backdrop of broken down sky rise buildings
Stage 2: The Destroyed Expressway—this is the first of the two overhead stages, and reminds me of some kind of weird racing game that my uncle used to play. Obviously the name is escaping me right now. There are five different points that you need to find and destroy in order to advance onwards.
Stage 3: Industrial Area—exactly what it sounds like—an industrial area that has now been taken over by aliens.
Stage 4: Motorcycle Chase/Aerial Combat—first the player is being chased on their motorcycle, which they are inexplicably able to jump up and off of and then return right back to. Other than that, this is probably my favorite level, though arguably one of the hardest. After successfully beating the weird space-trawler-type-thing that is chasing the player on their motorcycle, they then take flight on a helicopter. The helicopter drops loose the missile that the player is sitting on, and they then need to jump from missile to missile in order to beat the boss and finish the level.
Stage 5: Steep Cliff—Another over head level in which you need to destroy 5 bases to move onwards.
Stage 6: Alien Base—You basically have to fight all the other bosses from the alien games

While looking at it now, I note that there are significant changes in the graphics from other games from around the same time. For example, the backgrounds are not entirely static images, but are also animated on their own—while this seems minuscule, the amount of power that it would have taken to generate that on top of the gameplay itself was a sign that the processors in the SNES were a serious advance. While it is still easily manipulatable if you know where to stand or ways to cheat the bosses (by lying down, or working with the field of view perspectives), this game was still a step up from others of its ilk. If you've never played it and are interested in giving it a go, you can do so here.

Nerves Over Cosplay

2014-03-12T20:30:00.002-04:00

Okay, folks. I'm sure you're getting the picture over the past two posts—catching up after my vacation to Texas has been a bit taxing, and I'm finding myself with less and less time to replay all those old games. Over this coming weekend I plan to do some catching up, and hopefully have some new and wonderful reminiscent posts for you but as of right now, I'm just going to write what I know.

Currently, I am working on a cosplay. While I have cosplayed before, this one has, indefinitely, been one of the more complex ones that I've undertaken. Okay, so I'm not going as, like, something with tentacles and spikes and a bunch of extra mumbo jumbo that I have to create by hand, but I do have to make some of it, and even that minimal amount has proven to be difficult. I've learned to face it: cosplaying as an adult is hard.

I first decided that I was going to cosplay as Lucca from Chrono Trigger right after PAX East last year. I saw so many great costumes that reminded me of some of my favorite games, and the fond times that I had playing them. My favorite character from Chrono Trigger, probably because I liked her intro-level the most, was Ayla. I liked the fact that she didn't really talk, and when I was younger I had an obsession with dinosaurs that leant itself to killing them, I guess. But, when I thought about the costume and that I would likely be married by this upcoming PAX, I realized that Ayla may not really be the best option. Lucca, my second choice, was what I would dress as then.

I think that what those of us that don't cosplay regularly forget to think about is how many tiny pieces there are to the costumes we are looking to enact. Sure, we see the big pieces that we have to make: the helmet, the gun, the hammer, the tunic—but we fail to recognize the little things: the contacts, the glasses, the shoes, the boots, the bags, the wig. Even I, queen of preparedness, neglected to think about all of these details.

Over the course of the past few months I have been slowly but surely amassing the things that I deemed un-creatable on my own. I bought the wig, the short-range radio I would need need to make the antenna from the helmet, I made sure that I had boots, and the contacts (and knew how to put them in). I felt comfortable in these purchases—ignorantly comfortable. In fact, I hadn't even thought about my cosplay until I saw the obligatory "it's exactly a month before PAX...I just got goosebumps, did you?" post on my Facebook.

FUCK. I thought. A month before PAX? Only a month? but, thinking about it further, I thought Well, a month is like, four weekends, which is enough to sew a tunic, two bags, a shirt, make a helmet, and cover the gun in sculpey and spray paint it right? As I just said above, ignorantly comfortable.

The truth of the matter is, as easy as we may think it is, and as crafty as some of us may be, cosplay is still a serious undertaking. And, if you should decide to do it, you are going to need to commit and go whole hog. I just went ahead and ordered the remaining materials that I could get off of Amazon, and planned a weekend trip to the craft and thrift stores with one of my biffs—but that still does not make the pre-PAX cosplay anxiety any less. Every thought in my mind is: Oh Shit! You expect me to look like this? There are not enough how-to blog posts in the world to figure THAT shit out. Basically, all the time between now and PAX, I am going to be up to my elbows in sculpey, thread, needles, glue, spray paint, and any other accoutrement that you can think of. In the long run, I tell myself, this kind of stress will be worth it—I will make someone else's eyes light up, and I will get to dress as one of my favorite game characters of all time for three days. It is so, so, worth it.

Long story short, again, cosplay is hard. Have you cosplayed? What was your experience? Successes? Failures? Get at me so I can feel somewhat better about myself, and let's plan to meetup at PAX East if you are going to be there.

A Bit of Coming to Terms: When You've Lost That Loving Feeling.

2014-03-09T14:41:00.001-04:00

Recently, I decided that I was going to purchase and replay The Secret of Monkey Island. Along with it being the first blog post I wrote for this here humble establishment, it was also, ostensibly, one of my favorite games for years. It worked especially well because, for those of you that have been following along, the PC that I have been trying to stream on handles...well, almost nothing. So, The Secret of Monkey Island was just graphically unintense enough for me to play for the world to see.

For years, I have told strangers and friends alike that The Secret of Monkey Island and Chronotrigger are my two favorite games. Chronotrigger I have played multiple times since the first go-around, but I haven't touched Monkey Island since sitting in my mother's office on our old, dusty Mac and playing it through with her. Ultimately, I wonder if my attachment to the game might be some weird kind of nostalgia-driven desire to crawl back into that comfy time when life was infinitely simpler. In my own head, I was the master of Monkey Island—me and Guybrush Threepwood were two peas in a pod, just some dudes using chickens with pulleys in the middle to beat all the bad guys.

The truth is, which I learned by playing through and beating the game as of last night—I actually didn't remember shit about Monkey Island. This is evidenced by the tons of extra hours I spent meandering uselessy around the island, or talking to myself (to the chagrin of my audience) about "I know that I need to use [insert random item here] somewhere, but what the heck am I supposed to be doing with it?" My own pride of having this as my capital-f Favorite game as well as being vehemently opposed to using walkthroughs made this a bit slow going to start off. If you're interested in seeing what I mean when I say that, you can check out the recordings of the stream here.

So, now is when we get to the point of the post. While I definitely enjoyed replaying this game, and do believe that the humor inherent, as well as the actual construction of gameplay is good, I found myself wondering if this game truly merited the "F" favorite designation any longer. Perhaps I was overly frustrated and embarrassed because I have been sporting the "THIS GAME IS THE BEST" flag for the past decade-plus, but I found myself thinking that the mechanics and controls did not lend themselves to ease of play or smoothness. And, while I do still think it is a great game, I do not know if it is one of the best in my mind anymore.

This feeling has both saddened and reinvigorated me. How many of my other favorite games are favorites just because of nostalgia, and how many actually have a leg to stand on now that something like twenty years since their creation has passed? This question makes me just want to go back and replay all of them—it makes me want to dust off my consoles and play these games in their original habitat, rather than playing them in emulators. I want to remember and feel how the actual buttons and controls felt—to take myself back, as if in a time machine, and make myself remember exactly why these games are so good.

Watch live video from mercenator on TwitchTV
Given that I beat the game yesterday, I find myself thinking more and more about which games I should stream next. I think I would like it to, ultimately, be something a bit more engaging for the viewer, as there's no dying or real consequence in Monkey Island, but I'm not entirely sure which game it should be. I think, too, that I would like it to be something that I never beat all the way through as a means of not feeling TOO bad when I don't remember anything about how to actually move through the plot. Given that Tim Schafer just released his first game since Grim Fandango, which I've been waiting for for YEARS, maybe that is what I'll play through—but I'd love to see if something else strikes my fancy first. Maybe the sequel to Monkey Island.

What about you? Do you have any stories like this—games you thought you loved that ultimately just did not stand up to the test of time? Games that you thought you hated but replayed and realized were a secret treasure trove of awesomeness? Most importantly, do you have a game you'd like me to stream? Hit me up in the comments! Happy Gaming!

A Bit of FPS: Star Wars: Dark Forces

2014-03-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

Often called a DOOM-clone because of its release a meager year afterward, Star Wars: Dark Forces was the game that fueled the fire of all Star Wars games to come. Set in the Star Wars universe, ostensibly around the time of the events featured in New Hope, the player controls Kyle Kattarn, a mercenary that has been hired by the Rebel Alliance. While its a possibility that I love this game because it has anything to do with Star Wars, because it was made by LucasArts, or because it was playable on computer its not clear. What is clear is that this is a freaking awesome game that deserves a bit more recognition.

The game play follows typical controls, though you could also play with a joy stick if you so desired. It is a First Person Shooter, so the perspective is the same as DOOM in that it has you looking out through the eyes of Kattarn. You are able to pick up shields and power ups throughout the game, just as you are with other FPSs, and are able to jump, duck, and look up and down—following the conventions that DOOM put in place with its release. Star Wars: Dark Forces also includes some larger Zelda-esque puzzles, like huge mazes that are controlled by numerous switches—something that I think is usually foreign from the FPS genre.

What differentiates Star Wars: Dark Forces most, I think, is that the settings for the levels are ones that most players are already familiar with, like Jabba the Hutt's ship, or familiar planets from the movies. I thought that this helped me immerse myself even further into a world that I was already obsessed with—rather than creating a whole new system and planets, the game dropped me into a world that I was familiar with, and scenarios that I already was invested in because of watching the movies. As someone who traditionally is not a fan of FPSs, I think that that is probably why I was even willing to give this one a chance.

Each level of the game is essentially a "mission" with an objective and goals attached to it, and there are fourteen in total. This is not, however, a free world and you are required to follow a linear plot that is moved forward by sometimes long-winded cut sequences, such as the one that makes up much of the video below. Many of the levels surround the idea of the deterring the building of new Troopers and Droids as well as the collection of materials required to do so. This can be anything from rescuing captured allies to fighting a dragon with your bare hands. Ultimately, Kattarn is just a total bad ass that no one can really keep down—thought most of the fights do tend to err on the ranged side of things.

If you enjoyed any of the other Star Wars games that can after this ones release, I would solid recommend trying to get your hands on this one and play it if you hadn't already. It is foundational for the series as the whole, and also spawned a great deal of fanfiction and novel content about the Star Wars universe. While not much different from your average FPS this differentiates itself by having slightly different conventions, and being set in a universe we are all already familiar with and invested in. If you would like to try to play it online, you can do so here. Happy gaming!

A Bit of Action: River City Ransom

2014-02-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

River City Ransom, in my mind, crossed genres as both a fighting game and an RPG. While following the line of a traditional beat-em-up, it is also set in an open world which the player is encouraged to explore while moving onwards in the game. The graphics, while being pretty basic, were good at the time of the game's release in 1989, and the longevity of the game is demonstrated by its having been released for multiple other platforms since the original for NES.

The game is set in, you guessed it, River City where the player is in control of two high school students by the names of Alex and Ryan. Ryan's girlfriend Cyndi has been kidnapped by a gang over lord by the name of Slick, and the boys are tasked with defeating nine street gangs under his control in order to get them back. The gangs are all denoted by their different shirt colors, and also have different fighting styles dependent on which ones they fight. While these fighting styles are not always evident from their names like 'The Generic Dudes' or 'The Frat Guys' they are pretty immediately evident once the fight begins.

That I think makes this game particularly unique is the above mentioned aspect of it being set in the open world where the player can explore. Most fighting games, or games similar in plot to this follow a linear storyline in which the player moves from level to level without any real autonomy. River City Ransom changed it up by allowing the player to choose what moves they wanted to learn and level up, as well as providing stores and services that you are able to interact with in order to change game play. For example, any of the moves that you want to level up, or special skills you want to have must be learned by books that you can purchase in stores using money from the gang members that you have felled. And, while you can pick up items like pipes and brass knuckles that will help you fight off bad guys, your true success in the game is determined by what kind of skills you have learned, and how much you have leveled up your statistics. You can level up statistics by going into spas or purchasing foods in the city—some of which will give you a temporary stat hike, and other which will give you a permanent boost.

Players are also able to save their status in the game using a password system, making this even more similar to a traditional RPG rather than a fighting game or beat 'em up. Obviously, if you've worked hard at boosting up your stats and exploring, you wouldn't want to have to go all the way back to the beginning and start again.

Maybe I like this game because it is like a more traditional RPG, but I also think that the structure and gameplay stands up to the test of time, and is still interesting to me now. The plot is a bit different from other fighting games and has an actual progression and end goal besides just killing bosses and bad guys, which I tihnk also drives gameplay a bit more and provides a little more room for investment. Overall, this was so solid. If you are interested in playing it, you can do so here.

A Bit of Ball: Base Wars

2014-02-22T11:30:00.001-05:00

Short for Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars, Base Wars was a futuristic game that came out for NES in 1991. While any one who reads this blog with any frequency knows that I'm not REALLY a sports game fan, this game deserves a place in the annals because basically everybody else I know loved it.

Base Wars was set in the "future" in a time when team managers and owners were presumably sick of dealing with professional sports players primadonna antics—so they replaced all of them with robots, which you then get to play as. In the cut screens, these robots look like pretty tough cylon-ish creatures, but there are actually four different classes that you can play as: a tank, a "flybot," an android, and a dude with a motorcycle instead of feet.

As you would expect, most of the gameplay is made up of typical baseball elements: pitching, batting, and running bases. Along with these, though, the player is also able to fight as the robots. Basically anytime something is cutting is close, mainly with running bases, the robots are forced to fight to see if the runner is safe or out. Depending on where you are in the game, and whether or not you are running or catching you will have a certain amount of energy, and that will determine whether or not you are able to fight aggressively, and hence win the battle. Pretty cool idea, and brings this a notch up from other sports games.

The player is able to choose between Open Mode and Pennant mode, which are exactly what they sound like. You then have to choose between 14 different teams, most of which are represented by cities, but two of which you are able to customize and play with as well. These customizable teams are also given weapons: laser swords or laser guns. I am personally preferential to the laser swords, as I think it makes more sense when fighting up close as you so often have to do in this game.

Overall, I think that this is a pretty solid game—the graphics aren't as terrible as they could be coming from NES in 1991, and the gameplay is unique with the fighting aspect. While this could have been a pretty stale baseball game, like some other ones that I've played, the designers kept it interesting and fresh with the storyline that they introduced. If you are interested in playing this game for either nostalgia's sake or because you haven't before, you can do so here. Happy gaming!

A Bit of Crates: Crash Bandicoot

2014-02-19T17:30:00.000-05:00

I feel like Crash Bandicoot is one of those awesome games that has just gotten forgotten with the passage of time. I spent hours playing this game, yet when someone asks me which games are my favorite, I've never thought of it, which is a shame. This platformer, released for Playstation in 1996, has both an engaging story, beautiful-looking design, as well as being acclaimed globally by critics and players alike.

This whole game is founded on the overzealousness of Doctor Neo Cortex and his coworker Nitrus Brio—two mad scientists that have decided to take over the world and dominate it with a mutant animal army. The game is set near to Australia, and hence most of the animals in the game are mutated creatures from that area of the world, thus why Crash is a bandicoot (Just looked up a picture of bandicoots, and they are actually pretty g-dang adorable). Crash, when put into the machine that the two scientists use to modify these animals, was rejected, and able to escape from the castle where the experiments were going down. This, then, leads to the plot of the game. Without Crash to test on, the two doctors are required to make another creature: a female bandicoot named Tawna who subsequently becomes Crash's love interest. The gameplay then centers around Crash traversing three islands where Neo Cortex is conducting experiments while trying to save his girlfriend and clear the world of the scientists' deadly pollution and mutant war creatures. Sounds pretty engaging thus far right?

This is where I think it gets good, though. First off, I'm a sucker for levels—individual stages in a game help me to consume the content more readily and have a better understanding of where I am supposed to be going. I think that this is probably why I loved Mario for N64 so much as well. Crash travels from stage to stage smashing crates for extra lives, wumpa fruit for points, and even to potential get the option to go into a "bonus stage" of the game. Here is a list of the different types of crates you can collect:

! Crate - usually turns outline crates throughout the level solid.
? Crate - usually contains wumpa fruit or a one-up.
Aku Aku Crate - this lets loose the witch doctor Aku Aku who helps Crash by granting him invincibility.
Arrow Crate - this serves to project Crash in whichever direction the arrow is turned, so, if it is pointing up, it will shoot Crash up.
Bounce Crate - allows Crash to bounce up and down, and will eventually give him a bunch of wumpa fruit.
Checkpoint Crate
Crash Crate - gives Crash an extra life.
Iron Crates - with the same functionality of their lesser brothers, but indestructible
Nitro Crate - like TNT crates, but they do not count down. They explode upon contact.
Nitro Switch Crate - a crate at the end of the level that allows you to explode all nitro crates.
Outline Crate - these crates only become solid when a ! crate has been hit.
TNT Crate - like the nitro crate, but counts down before exploding

The reason that these are important is because much of the gameplay is based around destroying as much of these crates as possible in order to get gems which allow the player to unlock prior levels that are otherwise unavailable. This can get pretty tricky as some of the crates can be deadly to the player. The importance then, or the nitro switch crate becomes evident as it both allows the player to destroy all of the nitro crates in a level without killing themselves.

Along with destroying crates to get back to inaccessible past levels, Crash is also able to collect these little coin-like things in the likeness of Cortex, Tawnda, and Brio. Once having collected three of them a random "bonus round" will open up over the screen of the game and prompt the player into destroying as many crates as they can for other goodies. If you make it through a whole level without dying, a screen will pop up at the end of the level telling you both how many things you missed and how many things you collected while playing.

It bears noting that there are only five real bosses in this game, which makes the collecting the main impetus for gameplay. That being said, the bosses that you do fight are pretty difficult and do require some tactical scheming rather than just hack and slash like bosses sometimes are in platformers. The bosses of this game are: Dr Neo Cortex, Ripper Roo, Papu Papu, Koala Kong, and Pinstrip Potoroo. These also make other appearances in the series, and end up becoming a bit more developed in the later games.

Overall, I think that this is a fun, friendly game that is a quick and easy play without being too complex in terms of controls. When I was younger, this suited me as harder games were pretty frustrating in terms of controlling and understanding what the main goal was meant to be. After this game, I did play the second one Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, but have not played any of the other spin offs. If you are interested in playing this game, you can download it right in the PS3 marketplace in all of its original glory! Happy gaming!

A Bit of Skeletons: Grim Fandango

2014-02-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

I am pretty disappointed in myself that it has taken me this long to write about this amazing game. Considering my love affair with all other LukasArts games, it should come as no surprise to you that I also love Grim Fandango. The game is a neo-noir adventure game (point and click style, like it's sibling Secret of Monkey Island), which did not necessarily do as well as it commercially could have, but is still recognized as one of the foundational (and last) games of this specific genre. It also put an end to LukasArts' creation of these types of games, which makes it pretty impossible to find on the internet. The likelihood of re release has been unfortunately thwarted as the individuals responsible for recreating and re releasing some of these games, like Secret of Monkey Island, do not have the rights to it. Sad faces all around.

You play as crime-solving, travel agent skeleton Manny Calavera who lives in the Land of the Dead, a land where the souls of the recently dead live after being evicted from their flesh homes. The Land of the Dead is, ostensibly, a transitory place where people will only stay until they are able to make their journey to the Ninth Underworld. If you are a good person in life, you will then be afforded a much more leisurely trip to the Ninth Underworld. The basic gist is that if you are a bad person while alive, you will find it difficult to get to the Ninth Underworld, and will usually just end up working in the Land of the Dead permanently. Manny is a travel agent for the Department of Death that essentially serves as an escort for souls moving from the mortal world into the land of the dead. Interestingly, but I suppose unsurprisingly enough, most of the game is built around Mexican culture, and for those that are stuck in the Land of the Dead, they are able to go back and visit their family in the mortal world once a year on Dia de Los Muertos. Pretty cool and well-thought out.

You discover in the beginning that Manny is working this job as a means to repay debts—what type of debts aren't really clear. We learn that Manny is constantly assigned clients that have behaved poorly in life, and hence have to walk to the Ninth Underworld—a journey that takes four years, and is most often quit by the traveler for aforementioned reasons. Growing frustrated, Manny steals one of his coworkers', Domino, clients—a woman named Mercedes who has been wrongly assigned as needing to take the four year journey. Manny decides to dig deeper after getting Meche set on her way, and discovers that Domino and his boss have been wrongly assigning individuals to the four-year journey as a means to hoard extra workers in the Land of the Dead for an infamous mob box, Hector LeMans. Manny, unable to do anything on his own, takes off after Meche on her journey and meets up with an underground organization that has aligned goals with him. The rest of the game hinges on these plot points and takes place over the following four years.

Basically, while I could spend the rest of this telling you how exactly the game goes, I think you should play it for yourself. It really is such an in-depth and well-designed work that I would do it disservice to just type it out here and not prompt you to try to play it. The game play, unlike other LukasArts releases, does not present information over an item if the player hovers a mouse over it, and instead will alert you that you are doing something right by moving Manny's head and attention in the direction of the item. This makes the game a bit more challenging in terms of maneuvering and discovering clues. The style, though, is similar in the sense that there are pre-rendered static backgrounds with objects and characters placed over them as a means of helping encourage interaction.

As far as DOS-based games went, LukasArts knew what was up. These games are classics even today and still have so much fan interest that it is a shame that they aren't re releasing or partnering with Steam of GOG.com as a means of getting them out in the air. That being said, if you have a good setup for running DOS-based games, you can purchase Grim Fandango here. Happy gaming!

As an added bonus, here is a picture of me at PAX East last year with a really awesome cosplayed Manny Calavera:

A Bit of Health: Fitocracy

2014-02-13T15:29:00.001-05:00

Over the past few years I have lost around 70 pounds--I've gained some weight, and lost more weight, but the amount that it has all fluctuated is around 70, give or take. This time last year, in an effort to try to lose more weight, or find something that kept me interested and compelled me towards weight loss, I downloaded an app called Fitocracy. Unlike other fitness applications that pit your against your friends, or offer you money for each workout (I heard that app totally bombed), Fitocracy allows you to gain points, achievements, and level up with each workout. If you pay for the application, which I have not yet done, it gives you the opportunity to "challenge" other members in a battle to see who can do the most push ups, crunches, run the most miles or whatever in a set amount of time. It's all about them 'chievos, baby.

I know what you're thinking--what the fuck does a fitness app have to do with games, let alone old school ones. To be truthful, maybe not that much, but like HabitRPG another app that I have touted as awesome in this here humble blog, Fitocracy plays to the interests and abilities of gamers to compel them to do something that not even the Wii Fit could. I mean, let's be serious, that stupid balance board really never did anybody any favors anyway, and hula hooping was super easy to cheat at.

Anyway, returning to my point, there is something satisfying about knowing that you are gaining levels, how many points you have to go to your next level, and having a set list of things to do to beat an achievement. It is kind of like quests in World of Warcraft or other RPGs but involves doing a bunch of squats instead of bringing a bunch of skins back to Nesingwary or whoever. I wouldn't be able to think of how to do any of these exercises on my own, or come up with any kind of inspiration, so being able to get "challenged" to do it really helps keep working out motivated and interesting. Granted they have unfortunately deprecated the achievement functionality, much to my dismay, but have promised that it will be coming back in the near future.

Along with the built in impetus to workout, Fitocracy also provides its users with a built-in support network. Users are able to "prop" other users for good workouts, leveling, or interesting posts in the groups which leads to making new friends with common interests, or at least feeling like somebody is cheering you on. Even if it is just because they want you to prop them back, it still feels good when one of your workouts that you struggled to get through gets something like kudos from 20 strangers. For example, the other day I posted a comparison photo of myself from the beginning of my ~70 pound journey mentioned above, and tons of strangers who had never met me (and probably will never meet me) were so encouraging and joyous for me that it made me want to just keep working out in order to keep that feeling going.

The community is great, the app is pretty decently built and has a very responsive support staff, and it's easy to use and mobile. If you are a gamer, like me, who has struggled with your weight and is looking for something to motivate them, I would pretty strongly recommend joining up. The app has videos of basically every exercise you could ever want to do to avoid you hurting yourself when exploring into new territory, and is constantly growing--so there will always be new people to help motivate and work with. Give it a look, and if you do find me--I'm Mercenator.

A Bit of Ballin': NBA Street

2014-02-10T13:08:00.000-05:00

Alright. There is a first time for everything, and I think that this is probably the first (and last) time that anyone will hear me saying this about a sports game. NBA Street was one of the most enjoyable and addicting game to me when it first came out in 2002 for PlayStation 2--more so than any other thing that I had at my fingertips. My cousin and I would fight FOR HOURS against each other and trash talk while controlling our custom players on the hard scrabble street courts presented in the game, and there was nothing you could do to stop us. Sports games, in general, seem pretty boring to me--probably a combination of my lack of interest in the content as well as not really understanding what the rules were in real life. I enjoy being able to play as a character that I have some kind of emotional resonance or connection with, and in sports games where half of the characters are already a reality, I just don't find that. NBA Street was different.

NBA Street is essentially an arcade version of basketball, but what I liked most about it was that it didn't stick by the "traditional" rules of basketball, and was instead mostly scored on the number of flashy moves you could do. It also bears noting that the traditional scoring of basketball did not apply in this game, nor did the regular rules. Similarly, physics wasn't really a thing as players could easily jump to catch 3-point shots and block them from getting into the hoop--something that was pretty regularly encouraged and used as a defensive play.

Essentially, NBA Street has nothing to do with "real" basketball games, and was really more of a fantasy game that happened to include players from well-known teams at the time. Thrown in with these "regular" players were Street Legends that essentially served as "bosses" for the game, and who you were able to "unlock" if you beat it. If you are playing single player, you get to create your own custom character, and travel around the US picking up players from different teams and adding them to the individual characters that you can pick from.

You, as the controller, are able to select three different players to face off against the opponent team, and are able to win the game by being the first person to get to 21 points. There are no clocks, and no real rules except that in order to win you need to have the aforementioned amount of points and be beating the other team by at least 2 points. Pretty simple, right? Besides gaining points by actually making baskets, you are also able to do so by using flashy combo moves, like dunking, faking out, and the pretty-much-not-possible-IRL jump blocks that I mentioned above. If you fill up a meter at the top of the screen measuring the amount of flashy moves that you've used, you are then able to perform a "Gamebreaker"--a shot that, if you make it, both gives you points and takes away points from your opponents score. Again, this is obviously NOT based in real life and has no real foundation in true sport which is, I guess, to be expected from the title. The courts that you are able to play on, and the subsequent street bosses that come with them are:

Pacific BLVD. (Vancouver, British Columbia)
South Beach (Miami, Florida)
Route 66 (Northern Arizona)
The Cage (Manhattan, New York)
The Loop (Chicago, Illinois)
Fort Point (San Francisco, California)
Beacon Hill (Boston, Massachusetts - Biggs)
Broad Street (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Bonafide)
The Yard (Detroit, Michigan - Drake)
Venice Beach (Venice, California - DJ)
Yakatomi Plaza (Los Angeles, California - Takashi)
Rucker Park (Harlem, New York - Stretch & Michael Jordan)

There were also players from about twenty different teams--listing them would totally jank up the formatting of this blog, and I doubt you'd read it anyway, but if for some reason you are interested, you can check out the full list here.

While not really the most complex of games, I love NBA Street because it is the only sports game that I've ever actually enjoyed playing, let alone watching. The play style and graphics, along with the commentating style of Joe "The Show" Jackson make this a game that I would never want to stop playing then or now. If you've never played it, I unfortunately was not able to find an easy emulator online--but you can buy it here. Happy gaming!

Struggles With Streaming

2014-02-08T12:13:00.001-05:00

Alright, so, I think that most of you that read this probably follow me elsewhere--Twitter, Facebook, etc.--and if that's the case, you probably already know most of this. That being said, as it pertains to my goals of becoming a female streamed gamer (preferably ranked), I think that some sort of post about my struggles with streaming (and the computer that I am streaming it from) belongs here.

For the past 8 years or so, I have been a Mac user. It's been mostly okay because all of the games that I really wanted to play (read: World of Warcraft) were available for my Mac, so I wasn't totally upstream without a paddle. Granted, there were other games that I wanted to play that I couldn't, but I mostly made up for that by spending ALL of my time playing WoW and trying to forget about it. This worked up to a point.

Last winter, I decided that I wanted to be a streamed gamer so that there would be good examples of other ladies and young girls of the fact that not all girl gamers had to be total skanks that only got any views on their stream because their boobs were out. I appreciated that there were girls even broadcasting and that some of them were actually good at the games that they were playing, but it really disappointed me that they were pidgeonholed into having to perform a certain way. So, I decided that I wanted to be the righteous hammer brought down upon the girl gaming community that made it okay for girls to just be good at games, and hence attract views that way. I know, lofty goals, but what can I say? I dream big.

The next step on my journey, then, was trying to get streaming set up on my 27 inch iMac from a few years ago. Up to this point, the sturdy iMac had always been the computer of my dreams, and the display was the perfect size on which to play beautiful games and see the whole field. I felt like it should certainly be able to stream, as it was top of the line when I purchased it, and hadn't really given me any processing problems in the past. Wrong. OH MAN, I was so wrong. First, getting streaming set up on a Mac is a super hassle--there are no real solutions that work right out of the box for what I wanted to do without spending a butt-ton of money, and when I did finally find a McGuyver'd way to make the whole shebang working there were so many working parts that it totally ate up all of my CPU. So, I put my dreams on hold and decided that I would probably wait until tax season, and then go ahead and build my own computer strictly for gaming.

Naturally, my impatience got the best of me, and I found myself heading to Staples sometime last month and picking up a HP laptop. It was pretty much right after I wrote the post about Ragnarok, and if I am being 100% honest that was the whole impetus for the purchase. I wasn't thinking about streaming or anything that I had previously committed myself to doing; I was only thinking about those chibi little characters and how much I wanted to build a transcendent mage.

So, that happened. I played RO for a little bit, trying to make friends and find a guild with little success. If you check my Steam, I'm pretty sure I sunk about 30+ hours into it in about a week or two which, I think, probably also pushed me towards my next step in this journey. I stopped playing RO, picked up Pokemon X again, and started playing that in hopes that Pokebank would be coming out soon. As I'm sure you are noticing, my life is pretty much full of disappointment.

Then, one fateful day, my coworker Mary urged me to try streaming again. She has been advocating for this move since the very beginning, and I think she might have actually been the one that suggested I try it in the first place. "You are so funny! I would love to watch you stream!" she would smile and say basically every day. "Are you gonna start streaming this weekend? You should. I'm so excited!" I think that most of my own enthusiasm was borne from hers. So, I went home, turned on the HP laptop and installed OBS from Twitch--one of their most recommended softwares. Then, I tried streaming League of Legends. It worked pretty well, I was able to play through the game with minimal lag, and we won the game (though it was, admittedly, just a three-person beginner bots game, for testing purposes). What I didn't know was that it didn't record any of the game, and didn't save it to my computer, so I couldn't watch it back or see if it even displayed. I did a little fiddling, determined that it wouldn't capture League in fullscreen and also that I had turned the "Save" setting in OBS off. After all of that, and another test, I was ready for the races.

Awesome, right? I could stream now, which meant I could enlist the help of some of my awesomely funny friends to stream with me and provide comedic entertainment to the masses.

Unfortunately, that isn't really how it goes. For those of you following along at home, it appears that although I can totally stream a beginner bots game, anything higher than that, like an ARAM for example, just doesn't work for whatever reason. My computer glitches out, it is super laggy, and I end up getting killed like 28374784845739 to the frustration of my team mates. I literally just tried it again and I ended the game defeated with 2 kill and 16 deaths. As Veigar.

Although I can't stream League, though, I can certainly stream other single-player games, apparently, as I have been doing with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a pretty sweet RPG. So, if you do want to watch and aren't totally bummed that there isn't really any competitiveness to the game, you can do so at my Twitch channel here. You can also watch any past broadcasts there if you want first-hand experience with how much my streaming has failed over the course of this trial period.

Also, if you have any recommendations or requests for games that you'd like to see streamed, or that you'd like to watch me specifically play, let me know!

A Bit of Science: The Lost Mind of Doctor Brain

2014-02-05T20:31:00.002-05:00

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, there are other games exactly like this one out there--in fact this is apparently the third in the series. That being said, in my world as a young kid playing PC games, The Lost Mind of Doctor Brain was the only one in existence. And I loved it. This kind of follows the same trend as my post about Zoombinis, so if you didn't like that game, don't like this one, or don't like logic/puzzle games you should probably just kick rocks before you get too frustrated.

The Lost Mind of Doctor Brain was a series of science and language puzzles based around the loose framework of a very intelligent scientist (Doctor Brain), his niece and mouthpiece Elaina, and the hyper-intelligent, Einstein-esque lab rat Rathbone. According to the interwebs, this was actually a continuation of two previous games that, apparently, had a free-roaming structure based on an island? I never played those so I can't really speak to how well this stands up to them--if you did play them and have also played this game, please let me know! I'd love to get some outside perspective on that, and don't really want to purchase them if they aren't terribly enjoyable.

Okay. Tangent. Sorry about that! The Lost Mind of Doctor Brain focuses on ten science based puzzles that allow the player, guided by Rathbone and Elaina, to travel around to different sections of Doctor Brain's mind and try to repair damage by solving them. Through these, Elaina serves as a guide to the rules and expectations of each puzzle, whereas Rathbone provides a very cheeky commentary on what you might be doing wrong--he was my favorite part of the game. He does a bunch of different voices and changes personalities through each of the different puzzles, including becoming a brogued Irish train conductor during one level. Pretty funny and unique, I thought at the time--and still do now.

Each of the levels can be played on Easy, Medium, and Hard. Beating the level on medium or hard will get you through the puzzle much more rapidly and enable you to move on to the next levels if you can succeed at beating it. I usually just took the puzzles as they were served to me, as I found them decently challenging enough that I didn't feel like I had to really push myself any faster than the game was progressing. It was pretty well designed in terms of learning on the fly. Here's a breakdown of the various levels, which are based on various sections of Doctor Brain's brain that you must get up and running again through puzzles. Once you've completed a level, it will turn blue to show that you have completed it. As a side note, ShadyParadox on Youtube has awesome run-throughs of each level, that I have linked in the titles of the levels. You can also check out his channel here.

Word Surge; in this one, Rathbone dresses up as a Shakespearean actor, and the goal is to make a "word square" out of the words listed on a board on the side. While this is pretty easy on the beginning levels with only two words, it becomes much more difficult when the grid multiplies and the player has to shift multiple rows in order to succeed at the game.

Synaptic Cleft; Rathbone becomes a southern cowpoke (Rathbone Joe-Bob), and the player is required to corral the neurotransmitters (looking like cows) by clicking on the screen and creating a force that drives them like a brand. This doesn't really seem that difficult or puzzle-like, but in the higher levels, it is quite frustrating. The neurotransmitters will die upon impact with each other, or with obstacles-super annoying.

Music; Rathbone is a Mozart-wannabe, and plays through measures of musical notation. It is the player's task to select measures and put them back in the right place. I always found this very interesting, but suspect that was because I am a pianist and have a better understanding of music notation. In the higher levels of the puzzle you can not only switch measures, but also flip them horizontally and vertically.

File Sorting; Rathbone here plays the presenter from the Twilight Zone, and is a memory game. You are able to put items in various drawers, and are then required to be able to remember which drawer you put it in when Rathbone asks for it later. Similarly, the drawers in the higher levels are able to swap with other drawers, which makes it even more challenging.

Motor Programming; This was pretty basic computer programming--Rathbone is hardwired into the computer and plays "Rathbot." You need to select various program commands and put them in line ahead of time to get the Doctor through the puzzle, such as "Turn," "Pickup," and "Move." In the higher levels there are timed obstacles which can kill you.

Pentode; No real Rathbone character here--just a snobby dude. The screen will play sounds that you then have to associate with a symbol, the symbol appears on your screen. It's essentially like a complicated tetris board--you need to put matching symbols next to each other based on the sound that plays. You do not see the symbol before you put it down, and only know it by the sound that Rathbone says. As you put more matching symbols together, you get more points to beat the level.

Train of Thought; This is essentially a switch level--you start trains on various tracks, and are required to maintain them successfully to avoid them crashing into each other. You do this by paying attention to pathways and switches, just like you would with a model train set.

Dreamland; There is no Rathbone in this level, which is a bummer. It is also the last level, and only available after you have beaten all the other levels. If you have ever played those marble wooden maze games, this is basically the same. There are teleport plates in each level that you must roll over in order to get to the next level. There are also different attractors and deflectors that will mess with the trajectory of your marble, and potentially send you in the wrong direction.

Neural Maze; I used to kind of like this one, I think, though looking back on it I'm not sure why. Rathbone acts like an angry New Yorker (complete with Youse). The player must successfully navigate Rathbone through a series of tubes using their mouse to go through tubes, and navigate from one level to the next. This is pretty easy on the easy level, but on the hard levels you get a ton more levels which is pretty annoying.

3D Construction; If I had ever had geometry at this age, this level would have been a breeze. Essentially you need to recreate a 3D model based on the object shown to you in the level. Rathbone plays a Swedish designer/architect, I guess. I love this level, and even in the harder levels it proved to not be much trouble. You build the 3D object on a grid out of items.

Overall, this game is awesome. Even reviewing it now reminds me of what a stellar work this was. The levels are pretty varied, unlike Zoombinis which are all based on similar principles, and would probably still pose a challenge to me now if I hadn't played the levels through so frequently. That is the one thing, the levels don't really change even if you play them multiple times--I am pretty sure that they will always remain the same as a product of that old school computing. If reading this review has made you want to play this game or you are rife with nostalgia, it looks like you can play The Lost Mind of Doctor Brain here.