Five A.M. is my time

I’ve been a morning person for as long as I can remember. When I was very young — the grammar school days where I enjoyed school and had friends — I couldn’t wait to get out of bed to get my day started. And no matter what, I was always up early on weekends, because that’s when the best cartoons (i.e. Looney Tunes) were on.

This trend continued as I got older. Though by the days of middle and high school, I had swapped out being up early because I liked school (which I heartily did not) to being up early because that was the best time of day to either (1) do homework, or (2) play video games. I remember regularly waking up at five in the morning nearly every day in order to do one of those two things. The house was so wonderfully dark and especially quiet.

Making Nice with the Twilight Princess: Update #5

If you didn’t catch this already, I couldn’t be happier to report that I recently completed (like, finished finished) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess! You can check out how things went in my final hours of fighting the Twilight with Link, Midna, and Zelda over on United We Game.

United We Game

In my previous post, I’m semi-predicted that I’d have this game in the bag by Labor Day. Well, here we are a couple days early, and I have done it! Yes, I am more than happy to report that I’ve completed The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, final boss battle and all!  So let’s journey back to see how it happened.

When I last left the game, I had just finished weaving my way through the gloriously enjoyable Temple of Time. I really don’t know why I found it so fun leading around a giant statue with the Dominion Rod, but I did! Unfortunately, it turned out that all the work in the temple had depleted the rod, so Link had to find a way to get it working again. This task led to tackling a series of oddball side quests that brought Link back to Telma’s Bar…

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Play or Pass: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Welcome to the next post in my year-long series “Play or Pass” that takes on the proverbial “must before death” theme with video games. Every other week I will be covering one or two games from “32 Video Games You Have To Play Before You Die,” a list compiled by BuzzFeed based on a reader poll. I will not be critiquing the list itself, but rather I’ll be discussing each game or games in whatever manner feels fitting and will attempt to answer a couple simple questions: Have I played [insert game name here]? If yes, do I consider it a “must” and why? If no, do I want to play the game before I die? I’ll be going through the games in the order in which they appear on the BuzzFeed list. Good? Good. Let’s get on with the games!

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Week eighteen: (23) Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Well…this just isn’t my month, is it? Because here’s another Mario Kart situation. And it’s only with slightly less embarrassment that I must admit that I’ve never played a Sonic game.  Though, I don’t feel quite as terrible about it, for you see, I grew up in a Nintendo household.

Nintendo and I: Is the End is Nigh?

Ever since first discovering the NES, I thought that Nintendo and I might grow old together. But in recent years my interest in the company’s games and consoles has waned significantly. Could it be that the end between us is near? I put my worries in writing on this subject over on United We Game.

P. S. For more Nintendo musings, check out The Duck of Indeed’s recent UWG article, Pure Speculation: Will the NX Save Nintendo?

United We Game

Image by Flickr user mauricio giraldo (CC)

Three years ago, I contemplated why I had not yet established a relationship with the Wii U. The console had then been out for number of months, and as a self-prescribed “super” Nintendo fan, I had yet to jump on the Wii U bandwagon. Though I was enamored with the likes of Super Mario 3D World, and the prospect of new outings from Donkey Kong and Bayonetta, a number of factors, including timing and overall lack of games, prevented me from wanting to spend money on the console then. I did eventually receive the console as a gift, and I became hopeful that our life together would blossom. Here we are not quite three years later, and…five games. That’s exactly how many games I’ve played on the Wii U since receiving the thing at the tail end of 2013:…

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AWARDS INCOMING! Versatile Blogger and Blogger Recognition

This evening, it it with pleasure that I belatedly acknowledge the receipt of two more blog awards! My thanks go out to The One-Eyed Angel at Loneliness Isn’t Real for passing on the Versatile Blogging Award and to Mr. Panda of Mr. Panda’s Video Game Reviews for the Blogger Recognition Award. Both of these kind-hearted souls deserve all the likes and follows in the world, so please to check out their wonderful blogs when you have the time.

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Now, on with the award acceptance process! First up, for the Versatile Blogging Award, I must:

The Samsung Gear VR: One Small Step for Me, One Medium-Sized Leap into VR

VR is looking like it’s going to be the “next big thing” in gaming. I like the idea in theory, but I remain wary of it in practice. Recently, however, I tossed aside my concerns over motion sickness and vision problems to spend some quality time with a new toy (thanks to new phones): the Samsung Gear VR. After testing the VR waters am I ready to dive in? Only by checking out my United We Game article on the experience will you find out!

United We Game

I’ve been warily curious about the resurgence of virtual reality and VR gaming ever since the announcement of the Oculus Rift. Well, here we are in 2016, and the world of VR has descended. Us regular folks can now get our hands on high-end VR gaming devices, such as the Oculus Rift itself, to lower end virtual reality devices, such as, in my case, the Samsung Gear VR. (Though the Gear VR is a Samsung-Oculus venture, so you get some Oculus benefits without the expensive headset.) When the opportunity arose to obtain a free Gear VR with the upgrade of my Samsung phone, I can’t exactly say I jumped at the chance. If anything, my only thought was “free is free, so why not!” Despite having watched countless hours of VR-related videos on YouTube in fascination, I honestly didn’t expect much from the Gear VR. Because really, how much…

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Play or Pass: Mario Kart 8

Welcome to the next post in my year-long series “Play or Pass” that takes on the proverbial “must before death” theme with video games. Every other week I will be covering one or two games from “32 Video Games You Have To Play Before You Die,” a list compiled by BuzzFeed based on a reader poll. I will not be critiquing the list itself, but rather I’ll be discussing each game or games in whatever manner feels fitting and will attempt to answer a couple simple questions: Have I played [insert game name here]? If yes, do I consider it a “must” and why? If no, do I want to play the game before I die? I’ll be going through the games in the order in which they appear on the BuzzFeed list. Good? Good. Let’s get on with the games!

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Week seventeen: (22) Mario Kart 8

Generally speaking, I am an adult who is no longer afraid of being picked on, particularly when it comes to games. I like the games I like and I dislike the games I don’t. I am more than happy when I find other gamers who share opinions similar to mine, and I’m more than happy to ignore the haters were hate for the sake of hate. I personally do not give a single, solitary fuck about whatever negative things one might think of my gaming habits, favorite titles, guilty pleasure, or otherwise. If someone would like to call me names and pull my hair, fine. If I feel like fighting back, I will. If I don’t, then please be miserable elsewhere.

That said, I am downright embarrassed, and even slightly ashamed, to admit that…

…that…

…holy crap I can barely manage the words…

PSP Pursuits: And the winner is…

…Metal Gear Ac!d!

Oh, sorry, would you like more fanfare? Well too bad, because it’s Labor Day, which means that I get to be lazy for a WHOLE ENTIRE DAY. Outside of writing this post, that is. So fanfare schmanfare…let’s all just be lazy together!

Did you know that scientists recently purported that laziness is a sign of high intelligence? **SCIENCE** TOTALLY SAYS IT’S OKAY TO BE LAZY!

Of course, **SCIENCE** has also told us that everything will kill us in all the ways ever possible, so I bet that laziness is among those factors, so. How about we play some games instead?

Right, Metal Gear Ac!d…that’s what we were talking about. As I reported in the not-too-distant past, I’ve decided to start up a new game project that’s all about a PSP games. A shiny, happy complement of bloggers pointed me in the direction of some possible games to try. And what a range of games! And after a decent few weeks of trial and error (mostly error, as it turns out that my tablet does not really care for a PSP emulator or some of its games), I’ve finally chosen the winner, which I’ll mention again here for a third time: Metal Gear Ac!d.

P. S. Thanks to Hundstrasse for the suggestion! Also thanks to everyone else who commented.🙂 Please check out their fantastic blogs: Very Very Gaming, pine717 of The Maximum Utmost, and Jake of Dpad Press.

I have to admit that, at first, the idea of playing a stealth/card game sounded intimidating. Also interesting but mostly like something that’d give me a hard time. I’ve played through the first few sequences and it’s…wow, it’s different! I don’t want to give too much away in terms of my reactions, but it indeed a Metal Gear card game, complete with some really rousing action, plenty of tense moments, lots of weird wackiness (can you say Killer Puppets??!), and…yep…deck building/management. Wikipedia calls the game a “turn-based collectible card tactical RPG,” which aren’t words I’ve ever heard strung together to describe a game. It’s really unlike any game I’ve ever played before, so that factor alone helped edge it to the top. Plus, I’ve never really found my footing with the Metal Gear games, and I’d like to think that this game could help as a gateway.

Also, unlike with some of the other game suggestions, it plays pretty well on my tablet. It is a tad on the glitchy side — once the whole thing died unwarranted, and once I found all my save data gone, so it’s a risk, but one that’s worth taking, I think.

So this game project will be similar to my previous ones in that I’ll offer up monthly posts on my progress, complete with too many screenshots, because that is a thing I’ve tended to do. These posts will start next month and will last for as long as it takes me to complete the game’s main story. I may pursue the occasional sidequest, if there are any, but they remain optional. And I welcome any and all help and advice from anyone who’s played the game, as I’m not above writing the “HELP! I’m so totally stuck!” post.

As with these projects, I of course need a spiffy umbrella title. So I’m ditching the temporary “PSP Pursuits” in favor of “Ac!d Commander.” It’s a bit silly…but it can’t be any sillier than killer puppets. Really.

Wish me luck as I head off into the PSP wilds with Snake and his deck of magical cards. I’ll be back in October with my first post in the series!