Random note: Music can change everything

Welcome to a new blog post segment, random note, in which I make a quick post about something gaming related that has been on my mind as of late. This week’s topic? Music in video games.

Uncharted 2 impressions: The definition of “blockbuster”

Uncharted 2 is here, and boy does it leave quite the impression. I’ll admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first game. But I did enjoy the story and loved all of the characters. Of course, the sequel was announced, and everyone was incredibly excited. And after E3, it won several best of show awards. But was I excited? Well…kind of. I guess based on my impressions of the first game, I just never expected anything to live up to that amount of hype. But guess what? It does.

Undead…again: Left 4 Dead 2 demo impressions

While some people may have had a chance to try the Left 4 Dead 2 demo early due to it being a pre-order bonus, today was the release of the demo to the public (well, for Xbox Live Gold subscribers anyway). Many people are still concerned it will be just “more of the same” or even that a sequel isn’t necessary. Based on the short time the demo gives with the game, I can safely say any concerns I had are gone.

Why Infinity Ward is taking a bold step in video game narrative

Infinity Ward, the developer behind Call of Duty 1, 2, and the original Modern Warfare is coming back with the year’s most anticipated game. And there has already been some controversy over their decision to have some (or maybe most?) of the battles taking place on American soil. They showed off a brief glimpse of the White House in ruins as a massive battle took place right on the very grounds we once thought of as safe. Of course, Fallout 3 did the whole “destroyed Washington D.C.” thing a year ago. But if it’s Call of Duty? Damn, then it’s a problem! But the real controversy seems to be stemming from the very first level in the game.

A gaming update: Borderlands, DJ Hero, and more

In an attempt to reinvigorate my interest in the blog, I’m going to briefly touch upon what games I’ve been playing most recently, and some games I finished recently as well. With a flood of new games coming in, I find it a lot more manageable this year that is has been in the past few years thanks to the game delays. That’s right, I consider the delays a good thing. Although I might not be saying the same thing in January when I’m faced with 4-5 new or upcoming games in the same month. Either way, a lot has been released, so let’s get cracking!

Introducing the second stranger to the strangest lands

To those few who still read, do not fret, I will get back to more updates soon enough. And hopefully to help keep this blog alive, I am introducing admiralsandwich, aka Riss (or hoboriss from Backloggery). Although we are both lazy and do not update our separate blogs too often, we can still hope to bring more updates to this one blog. Expect plenty of great posts from her in the future!

Hopefully there are people out there who still read this, because I have a few nice plans in store for everyone, including the continuation of my “cookie crumbles” series, new game impressions and demo impressions, and other new features that will hopefully bring back some traffic to this blog. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me so far! Fun times are ahead. Until then, Riss will be re-posting her stuff from her old blog, so it will give you guys a chance to get introduced to her work and hopefully give this place a bit more activity.

FF Marathon: Thoughts on Final Fantasy III

You know what? I’m lazy. I’m crazy lazy. I am also convinced I have something akin to ADHD, thus my apparent inability to update. I’m not a writer, I’m really not…and I’m definitely a terrible one at that. So I am trying to find a way to write these posts in a way that is comfortable for me. I’m not a writer, I’m not a professional reviewer, or a journalist. Just someone who is wildly obsessive passionate about video games.

With that said, this basically sums up what I like about Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS:

One year later

On October 15th, 2008 I created this blog and my first blog post. It was mainly out of boredom, but I created it with a goal in mind: make one new post every day. For the most part, I was able to keep up with this goal, although some days I just completely forgot to update, and others I ended up updating incredibly late. Luckily no one really seemed to mind, and from what I can tell, people have enjoyed reading the various posts from myself and my friends, namely Grey Fox and Miami Man.

Writing for this blog not only re-sparked my interest in writing, it also made me realize that I absolutely love writing and talking about games. Maybe I knew it already, but it was from there that I realized I wanted to be a video game journalist. And so continued my several posts for the blog, either talking about specific games, game demos, or other little original features I created specifically for this blog. And although not all of my posts are exactly…good, I’ve gotten a generally positive response from people about them.

In January of this year, I joined up with several other Backloggery users in an attempt to create another group blog known as Press X to Win. Of course all but one of the original members of the blog have moved on, including myself, the blog has been revived and is now an all girls gaming blog. And already it has shown to be a bit more successful than our previous attempt. But it was a good run, and it gave me more opportunities to communicate with fellow gamers and slightly expand and improve my own writing. Writing with a group of gamers for a single blog can be both satisfying and frustrating, but in the end, I enjoyed my short time with the site (and I even made a little blog post hoping to grab more readers).

After that, I continued to just focus solely on this blog, tried a few experiments (included my failed podcast), and even changed the design of the blog around a little. But then in July, I began writing for a new site, Snackbar Games. And that is pretty much where this blog kind of died. Although I tried to update it on occasion, it definitely was no longer my main focus.

So, where do I go from here? I started this blog as my way of sharing my own thoughts of games and the industry, and as a way to hopefully improve my writing and get some kind of audience from it all. It did work, for the most part, and I’m getting grabbing some attention from it all. But it’s not the same as it used to be. Everything I would normally write for this blog, and there has been a lot, now goes to Snackbar. I’ve messed around with a few experiments here and there just for this site, but none were as enjoyable as I would have hoped.

I’m not going to say the blog is dead now, I’m still going to keep it alive for an eventual post or two in the future, and perhaps other things that may not be fit for Snackbar. But, as you may have come to expect by now, I probably won’t be posting here that much anymore.I have a few ideas of how to continue the quick game reviews, or even some other older series I had going on, but I’m just not enjoying it as much as I used to. This is definitely a place for experiments though, so who knows what other crazy ideas I will come up with.

Now is my opportunity to once again plug Snackbar Games, as pretty much all of my new reviews and game features will go directly there. Not only that, we’ve got many talented writers working hard on some excellent stuff, so I urge everyone to check out the site.

Anyway, if you read through all of that, I appreciate it! Thanks to everyone who gave this blog a chance, and who continued to check back every so often for updates. Don’t give up on it completely though, as I may have a few more surprises in store.

Quick game reviews! A fun experiment created out of boredom

I asked a lot of people, most of them being from Backloggery, to name me some of their favorite games of all time. And taking those lists, I randomly selected one game from each person, and will review them. But not an extensive review, but a mini-review in twenty words or less! Of course, if I’ve never played the game before, or never played much of it, I’ll do my best to “review” it based on what I have seen or played. Let us get started!

Top ten most anticipated games of 2009

With several delays that have impacted the game industry, my list from back in June is a bit off now (plus there are a few changes I want to make anyway). So I thought I would not only improve the list, but expand it to the ten titles that I am looking forward to most for the rest of this year. Don’t expect much details about the games themselves though, I just feel like ranting about why I’m personally excited about them.