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.

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!

The times, they are a-changin’

Thanks again to everyone who participated in my “emotions and video games” post. And sorry to those (moku mainly) who never got a chance to post their own stories before I finished writing up the post. It was a lot of fun, and I do enjoy you guys sharing your interesting stories with me. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the post as well, and I hope what I included from everyone was sufficient enough.

Anyway, time for some news. As of now, thanks to colorninja in particular, I am apart of Snackbar Games. It’s a small, but more official gaming site for news, reviews, and features. My first feature, the “emotions and games” piece, is up on the site and hopefully will grab some attention there as well. I’ll be doing reviews as well as continuing to write features for the site.

What does that mean for this blog? Well, daily updates are no longer going to happen, but I do plan on continuing to post here. Most of my posts, particularly game impressions, reviews, and topics of discussion, will most likely end up over on Snackbar now. So I’m not completely abandoning this blog, but it’s definitely going to stay open for a post every now and again. I’d love to keep daily updates going (which I did plan on starting back up next month), but writing for Snackbar and this blog, especially once classes start back up, will be too much for me.

So I suggest everyone go check out Snackbar Games. It’s a bit slow right now, but hopefully soon it’ll have a lot more activity. And thanks to everyone who supported this blog by continuing to read it and leave comments, it means a lot to me.

A simple poll: What games are you attached to?

Are there any games out there that you will always call a favorite because of some kind of emotional response? Something in the game that just can’t help but cheer you up, or even make you cry. Be it a specific level in a platformer, a scene from an RPG, or even a piece of music you remember that triggers the emotional response. What game is it that for you?

I’m interested in seeing what gamers would pick. This is leading into a blog post I’ve been wanting to write for a while now, so maybe some extra inspiration from any readers would be helpful. Pick a game you love, a game you feel some kind of emotional attachment to; it doesn’t have to be your favorite game. Give a specific moment in the game that made you say “wow” or evoked some kind of emotional response from you that you had never felt from a game before. As I said before, it could be a little catchy tune on a classic NES game that you could never get out of your head, or even a scene from a game that may have made you shed a tear or two. Even something that made you feel angry is acceptable. Perhaps a game’s story that went in a completely different direction and possibly ruined the entire experience for you? And I’m not talking being frustrated because of a game, I’m talking a real emotion, something you maybe never thought you could experience from playing a game.

Find any one game, and a specific moment from that game, and tell me about it. You don’t have to go into grand detail and write an essay, but a little detail would be nice. I guess I can’t say I’m expecting a lot of responses to this, but a good few to give me a general idea of the variety of games people will name. And if you can’t honestly pinpoint one game or one part of a game, name a few that stick out in your mind.

If anybody is confused by what exactly I am saying here, feel free to ask! Hopefully if I do get a few good responses, I plan on using them (or a sampling of them) for this upcoming blog post. It should be fun! And hey, it’s always nice to take a trip down memory lane.

Also, please mark any comments for spoilers, if you feel they are necessary.

Summer: The annual gaming drought PART TWO

Oh my! A second part to a post that went absolutely nowhere! Yeah, so this month is still looking like we won’t be seeing much of anything in terms of video game news and game releases, aside from a select few games. But I do have stuff planned for this month, including new posts that I will probably have finished over the weekend! But first, some sad news.

The blogcast, something I have been planning for a while now, is pretty much dead at this point. I’ve tried a lot of different things, but nothing that really works the way I want it to. It doesn’t help that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I do have to thank StingX2 for the help, because he gave me some pretty nice pointers and some ideas of how to continue it. But I’m no expert, and I’ve got too much going on right now to worry about a silly podcast that nobody will really listen to anyway. The first one is still available, but just know it’s probably going to be the only one.

As for what’s planned this month? I have a nice post planned that will discuss the future of game controls. It’s kind of stealing a little from Gametrailers’ online show, Bonus Round, but I feel like I should throw my own opinion into it as well. It was mainly inspired by a podcast I listen to every week, Invisible Walls (also presented by Gametrailers). They had a question about the future of motion control in games, and it did spark my interest to write about it.

What else is there? I will probably have a few posts planned on game impressions and game demo impressions. First, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood and the demo of Battlefield 1943. Soon I’ll be talking about the Monkey Island updates (both the remake of the original, and the new series by Telltale). And of course, Little King’s Story will most likely be getting a post as well. I also plan on getting Point Lookout, the fourth Fallout 3 expansion, so lookout for impressions of that as well.

That’s about it really, I’ll have a good few posts for the month, but daily updates will most likely just resume in August. And thanks again to everyone who helped out with the blogcast, and to those who did listen to the first episode and put up with all the bullshit problems I was having. It wasn’t perfect, but I did have fun with it. There’s always another chance, but for now, I’ll focus on writing.

Summer: The annual gaming drought

Summer is both a great and terrible time to be a gamer. Great because most people are off from school and have more time to enjoy games, but terrible because the game releases are so few and far between, it’s hard to even care. So let me first start off by saying: daily updates are pretty much going to be nonexistant until August. I’ll have a post here and there about certain games, and the blogcast will continue as usual, but nothing new will be coming from me this month. August may turn out the same, so don’t be surprised if things don’t really pick back up until September.

And yeah, blogcast #2 is going to be recorded on Monday, and will hopefully be up for everyone by Tuesday the latest. I’ll be using the Podomatic website again. It’s easy to listen right from the blog post itself, and they even offer a direct download option. Hopefully I can keep the sound quality decent enough so people can hear me better the second time around. Note to those who want to listen easily from the blog post they are attached to and have Firefox: try out the Foxytunes extension. See the blogcast page for more details.

Other than that, there isn’t much more to say. I’ll try to update when I can, but I’m really struggling to find things to discuss in such a strange time in the gaming world. All I can say is stay cool and keep checking back, I’ll have new posts sporadically throughout the month.

PS3 troubles!

There really is nothing going on in the world of gaming right now. Sure, we had a couple of cool mergers, but news has been pretty much dry in terms of any big stories. And game releases? We won’t be seeing anything big for the next couple of months. I do plan on getting Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood because I hear it is much improved over the first, and then BlazBlue looks like a fun game as well, but there really aren’t many big games coming out. The next huge release is Arkham Asylum, but we have to wait until the end of August to get that one. So onto some pointless post!

I rarely, if ever, hear about any PS3 problems. I’ve already had to send my Wii back, and I’m on my third Xbox 360, but the PS3 is the system I thought would be the most reliable. I had some freezing problems when playing Uncharted back in December, but aside from that, it’s been doing great! I played Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Valkyria Chronicles, Street Fighter IV, and plenty of Killzone 2 on it without a single hitch. And then I buy inFamous, and it freezes within the first hour.

After the game locked up on me for the tenth or so time, I realized that there may be something wrong with my system. I play Killzone 2 online for a bit without a problem, and then go back to inFamous before the same thing happens. I manage to get through the game though (and I would have finished it twice in the same amount of time if not for my PS3), and I do so playing two hours straight without a problem. Hooray, maybe my system is okay after all. Pop in Killzone 2, it begins to freeze within the first five or ten minutes of me playing.

Now I can’t even play anything without it freezing after ten minutes of play. I still hear audio, but the actual gameplay is frozen completely, and I can’t access the PS3 XMB to exit the game. So I try every possible “solution” on Sony’s site, but then come to the realization that I will have to send it back, since nothing is working. But hey, the warranty is good for a year, so I can send it back and get it repaired for free! Then I look at the date: June 12th, 2009. Exactly one year after I purchases my PS3 (the MGS4 bundle). Now what do I have to pay? Oh, only $150.

So yeah, my PS3 is now collecting dust while I try to gather up the money. I’m really in no hurry to fix it, like I would be if it were my Xbox 360 (since I pretty much get every multiplatform title for it), but it’s still fucking stupid. This both puts a complete hold on my Insomniac Games marathon, once I get around to the first Resistance that is. Luckily, there isn’t a PS3 game I want to play until Uncharted 2, so I have time.

In short: My PS3 is having problems, need to get it repaired, I’m pissed but not as pissed as I thought I would be. Now I’m really out of things to rant about. We’ll see what I come up with tomorrow!

Strangers in the Strangest Lands: Official Blogcast #1

Here we go, Silversoul and I finished recording the first blogcast for the blog. Keep in mind, it’s very far from perfect, but the basic idea is still in tact. We both discuss games, and we have fun doing so. In this episode, we discuss E3 two weeks later. We give an overview of the three press conferences, and then go through a top five of our five most anticipated games shown at E3.

Stranger(s) in the Strangest Lands blogcast UPDATE

Just a small, short, lazy little blog post to update the people who care (nobody) on the status of the blogcast. We’re almost ready to begin recording, and hopefully by the end of the week, the very first Stranger(s) in the Strangest Lands podcast thingy will be released for all to hear. Who will actually listen? WHO KNOWS? But the important thing is me and my co-host, Silversoul, will have a ton of fun recording it. I doubt it’ll be very interesting, since our focus will be on E3, which for a lot of people at this point is old news. I wanted to do it sooner, but hey, shit happens.

What else will we focus on? E3 will take up most of our time, but after that we’ll talk about what we’re currently playing. Also, we’ll both do a top five which will be concerning our five most anticipated games of all time, and Silversoul will inform everyone about a Japan only Wiiware game that he has been obsessing about for some time now. I might put the fortune cookie to good use once again to conjure up a random game from my collection and talk about it. Sounds like fun! Maybe you’ll learn about a game you’ve never heard of otherwise? Could be!

All and all, we’ll (hopefully) be able to record it all on Tuesday, and it should be available by Wednesday. That all depends on the site I’ll be using to host it, and if it still works seemlessly with WordPress (like it did when I tested it a month back). Let’s hope it all works out for us in the end, and we will be able to continue doing one either monthly or bi-monthly.