Feeling like a gamer

Well now its finally happened......I have become a seasoned gamer who has little to no taste in any of the games that are coming out these days. I have long feared this day and I always wondered about what I would do if this day came......Now that I am in college I find myself at the pinnacle of my gaming career and thus I wonder if it is time for me to put down my gaming controller and just accept what has become of my life. But I have been able to find a game that makes me feel like I am not such an old gamer. It is called Katamari Damacy. A game that when I first got it I thought that it wasn't going to be as good as it was. Boy was I wrong I must say that this game is a good one and its very simple to play you just use the analog sticks. I really did like the music for the entire game. It is a very simple game and a simple plot line with a great music score. It is refreshing in this world of games that happenes to be kind of stale and boring. But it makes more sense then anything else.  I dont know I have nothing to really write about and I have been busy but really I can't imagine anything else to write about. 

ZOMGWTF Hype!

Why do I tempt the rage of fans? Like two of my colleagues on this blog have been talking about, the next installment of World of Warcraft is out and people are in hysteria. The Wrath of the Lich King is one of the "yearly installments" Blizzard has promised it's peons and for once, they actually delivered. No, I'm not going to talk about it ( remember, I'm not affected by keys jiggling), instead I want to talk about the online reaction to a virtual world.
For the people who actually read all of the blog, hype and fans are about, so to study them is not hard. In fact, it's almost an extra credit project waiting to happen! Back to the point, when a new game comes out that's been talked about and shown trailers for about a year, people lose all sense of Intellect. In the case of Wrath of the Lich King, I can agree from what I have noted, that the people are in the right for saying that it is well done. But if it's just another sequel that the developers used the copy paste button on for anything other than the story, it's just a killing frenzy when reality and sanity sparks into the fray of the game.
Everyone in the gaming community knows about the fanboy/girl, they are commonly seen in anime and magna conventions squealing at anything that they see cool. In that genre, it's acceptable, but in the gaming community it's a different story. If someone has been after a game for such a long time, and when it eventually comes out and turns out to fail( what's new Donut ¬_¬?), the fans will defend the game to the death, trying to hide the bad with excuses.
Such is only one example of hype, the other is more dangerous and yet even more annoying. This also involves fans defending/praising the garbage that sanity would look at and holler "Next!". Within the whole community and history, the best example is... Final Fantasy 7.(If your blood pressure just rose because I just named your favorite game, I've been talking about you...) This game has the biggest fan-base of any game, it's pronounced "the greatest game evar" but when asked why, only pauses come up and stares. Final Fantasy 7 is only one example of any of the hype, if the game can't stand on it's own and shine without a mouth calling it the best, it is not the best and the internet will give sanity no quarter in the battle.
On a final note, everyone has fallen victim to hype at one point or another, it's just what and how defiant they choose to be. And if you want to attack me on this post know this, it makes you a fan and only proves my point. Also, it will help with next week's post about nerd-rages, so feel free to prove me and sanity right.

Wrath of the Litchking: Weekend review.

The next expansion hit Thursday of last week. With just the weekend to experience the game, I allready greatly prefer this expansion over the last. The zones are much more beautiful and much more time was put into the quest layout. All of the quests are divided into specific quest hubs that are all linked by the flight path system and the quest description is worded alot better then Burning Crusade. The quests reward much more gold and items then the first expansion and are alot more fun to complete. The zones are huge compaired to others and have many things for players to do. The intances are short and to the point and not hour long hell's that plagued Buring Crusade. The capital city of Dalaran is smaller then Shatrath, but much better designed. All of the vendors actually have a purpose and the city feels "alive". More reviews to come when hit 80.

Northrend: Geography

The Geography of World Of Warcraft is very in-depth and beautiful. The land is divided into four servers each holding chunks of the world. The original game takes up two of the servers, and each of the expansion packs has its own server. The land it self is divided into zones each for a specific level. The original zones are kinda bland, but the expansion zones are beautiful. My favorite sofar is Howling Fjord. This place is a penisula that sits high on cliffs overlooking the ocean. It has a very Minnesota feel with snowy northern regions and temprate grasslands. The zones themselvs are used for questing as the players progesses and each has their own story line or is apart of the main story. The major diffrence in Wow and Second Life is that the zones can be be reached at any speed with very little frame rates issues. The only problem with the way Blizzard sets up how the land is divided, if a server crashes, those players are stuck untill it comes back online.

Soul Reaver

Alrighty, so I've been playing this game called Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for the Playstation 1. It's actually a really good game. I haven't played it in a loooooong time because it used to confuse the CRAP out of me. It's one of the action/puzzle games that if you don't have a walkthrough handy, you'll have NO idea what the heck you're supposed to be doing next. There are times that - even with a walkthrough - I still get confused and it takes me hours to get to the next step, and then once again I get confused. Most of the time it's actually my fault I get confused casue I just skim through the walkthrough and I skip stuff and...now I'm getting off track-anyway! Yeah, so Legacy of Kain! Good game, but the other thing that bugs me about it is because since the settign of the game is in the 'underworld' everything is so freaking DARK! NAd no, not theoretically or whatever its called, I mean literally. The only way i see where the heck im going half the time is by turning off all the lights in my room and closing the blinds so there is no glare on the TV screen, and even then I sometimes have trouble seeing where I'm going! xP Ok, enough ranting from this one...I'm done! xD

Virtual Geography

One thing I've come to notice in 2Moons is that every different region you enter has a different sort of geographical layout. When you make a new character, you have a choice to start in one of two areas, either Braiken Castle, or Loa Castle. As you've probably figured out, they're both castles, (no crap right?). Each castle has a completely different layout, but the basic framework of the city is the same, which...now that I think about it...is kinda disappointing. Well, whatever, enough about the cities, on to the more...important stuff. In many of the areas in 2Moons, I've noticed that most of the large hills or cliffs that you can't walk over are used to either mark the edges of the region, or they're used as obstacles that force you to explore the region more. Some of the areas are shown as having a tropical climate with palm trees, green grass, and beaches, and the monsters seem to add to that effect. Other areas are shown as having a winter climate with snow and ice covering the entire region.
I don't know, thats basically how I've seen the geography used: to create boundaries and obstacles, or to differentiate between seperate regions...so yeah...that's all from me!!

virtual yearning.

Have you ever felt an urge one day to play a video game that you haven't played in years? I have gotten that feeling once before, well actually more then once. I have recently gotten the urge to play a turn based game from watching my friend Alyssa play her game Final Fantasy Taticts. But the Game I choose was called saiyuki journey west. ( see two blogs ago.) I remember  a couple of years ago that I was feeling a yearning for an old game with some memorable characters in it. So I picked up my old game called Grandia. This time I got farther then I did before and I made it to the last boss but couldn't surpass him...( Fail) so I put it down. 

    My Theory behind this is connected to the body. You know when you get a strong craving for some type of food that you haven't eaten in years? well I believe that the brain is looking for some sort of sustenance in the form of  video games.. No I don't mean that when you get a cravings for some food that you should play a video game . you should go out and get the food that you want. But when you start remembering your old video games that is your brain trying to help you to remember the good time from your past. This theory I believe can only be applied to serious gamers however. Because serious games will have a vast collection of games to choose from and some of the games will be liked and other games that they don't like as much. Casual gamers who have less then twenty games to choose from probably wont get that feeling unless they become strongly attached to their games.  I have done nothing with this theory and I don't really plan on doing anything but I figured that I would let you guys know about it. This blog in my opinion (Twombly this is for you) is two fold because it talks about virtual worlds and memories. If I wanted to I could talk about warriors orochi 2 so I guess I can to make you happy. 

  Warriors Orochi 2 is a sequel to warriors Orochi. now I am not a big dynasty warriors fan but I do like the theme that its you against hundreds of thousands of enemies. In warriors Orochi the serpent king Orochi was freed from his dimensional prison and then he uses his demonic powers to fuse together two time periods. The feudal era of japan and some war torn area of china and have the strongest warriors of those times fight him. In the beginning Orochi kicks everyone's ass and then the game picks up. In warriors Orochi 2 the game takes place after his death and you ( as one of the 4 story lines.) are either trying to prevent his resurrection or if you choose to play as Orochi which would be the fifth story line. You will be taken back to the first one where you play as Orochi and conquer all the lands. Personally I don't like the Orochi line because from playing the first mission I knew that it would not end well. 

   Let me explain something about the Orochi series first before I list off the reasons why I don't think that it will end well. The first thing that you should know about is that you are given three characters to play as where in Dynasty warriors or Samurai warriors you only play as one character. Each character is divided up into one of three classes. Power, Technique and Speed. Obviously Power characters can dish out the pain as well as become tanks if you level them correctly. The technique characters are able to utilize the masou gage to its fullest while also having the quickest recharge time and speed classes are the fastest ones and they can also do a double jump to cover more ground quickly. Like most games if you lose as one team mate then you fail the level. It makes sense because it forces you to use the other characters. Any way the range of fighting styles is HUGE. I mean from 90 plus playable characters you best have a wide variety of fighting styles. You have your spear users and your staff welders and your archers, gunmen, fist fighters, umbrella users, fan fighters. walking cane fighters, people who use a deck of cards, scythe fighters and scythcle fighters, hammer fighters, Axe weilders, A girl who fights with two giant marbles. The list goes on and on. 

  Anyway the reason that I say I dont like the Orochi story line is because Orochi has a scythe which you would think would be good for crowd fighting but its not...I dont like short range fighters but I am not opposed to using one if I absoultly must. My favorite character is Zhao Yun because he is so cool. That and he can wipe out a screen full of enemies really quickly. 

Any Way this Blog has been a little random but you know what I dont really care. There are only three people that I know of who read our classes blogs so its not like I have to impress anyone. So more coming soon from your friend.

  GODZILLA