As a kid growing up in West Virginia, I spent my time embarking on imagined quests in the woods with my friends and experiencing fantastic worlds through a tiny box in my living room.
While all of my other friends "grew out" of video-games, dedicating their time to playing at adulthood, I began to see a whole new side to what my childish mind had once seen as only magic. Persuading my neighbor to let me borrow each new Game Informer magazine subscription he got in the mail opened my eyes to the fact that adults can still enjoy and talk about video-games.
I want this blog to be a place where I can unload years of literary theory and terminology onto something I actually enjoy, gaming. However, even with my love for playing and discussing games, there will always be titles that I miss out on or overlook.
Feel free to share your own experiences with games, scenes or settings that immersed you in their own world. Tell me about the games that you loved as a kid, suggest ones I should look at now or that you feel should have a bigger following. Whether you want to just read my posts or argue heatedly with me, I would love to discuss different games with you.
I hope everyone has a wonderful day and thanks so much for reading.
SS
The overall message of this blog is an inspirational one for all of those people who are ashamed of what they love. I thoroughly agree with the concept that one can see video games through the eyes of an adult without being considered childish, or immature. As one who is passionate about video games, I too was inspired by the immersive quality of video games, ultimately deciding upon an English degree in order to, one day, create a world of my own through within the pages of a book. Having played through various open-world games, such as the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series's, I've grown to appreciate the detail and depth within video games, a concept transcending the mind of a mere child. Have their been any major video games or series's that have inspired you throughout your gaming life in particular?
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love open-world games, especially if the company has an eye for detail. Although I am not really that picky, I like it when the game play is not so linear that I feel as if I am watching someone else play it. Games in a series like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, GTA, Resident Evil, etc. have all taken their fair amount of money out of my wallet and days out of my life. I have gone back and started replaying Red Dead Redemption again, during my forced break from Fallout 4, and can still say that it is one of my favorites. Its "tongue in cheek" tone surrounding Old Western cliches really makes me wish that Rockstar would stop "leaking" a supposed sequel with no real confirmation. With creating your own world, do you plan on becoming an author in any specific genre of literature or are you undecided so far?
DeleteI love this idea. As a girl who likes to game as well, it's nice to see that someone else had this idea. I know a lot of people who think that only guys in their mom's basement play WoW, but...no. I especially am intrigued with what you will pull out for literary themes. I've currently started in with Diablo: Reaper of Souls. What are your thoughts on that one?
ReplyDeleteI've never felt that gaming is for a specific gender, but it may just be that I have a tendency to play games that allow me to choose whether my character is male or female. The whole stigma online behind the "girl gamer" stereotype makes me cringe, especially seeing ridiculous pictures of people licking controllers. While I am sad to say that I have only played a bit of Diablo II, Blizzard always seems to put a lot into their worlds even if the voice acting is sometimes a little too much. Do you recommend Diablo: Reaper of Souls, even if I have not played the rest of the series in its entirety?
DeleteI love the idea for this blog as a gamer who only really plays story-driven games. I do not have the coordination for any that rely heavily on shooting so am a mere observer when my husband plays Call of Duty, but have become completely immersed in games like Zelda Wind Waker (when you could still just explore randomly and do lots of side quests). My favorite recent ones have been games where your choices actually drive and sometimes change the story, especially Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire. I haven't had much time to commit to gaming recently, but with Spring Break and Summer coming up, any advice on some quest games in this genre?
ReplyDeleteL.A. Noire and Heavy Rain are both really great games when it comes to atmosphere and decision-based storytelling, which I feel is becoming a bit harder to find recently. Heavy Rain's director, David Cage, has another game, Beyond: Two Souls, which brings back his unique twist on character control, but the story goes pretty far into supernatural territory. For games that rely heavily on the player's decisions changing the plot, I would always suggest Telltale Games like The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or The Wolf Among Us. I absolutely love games which incorporate the idea of the "butterfly effect" like Life is Strange and Until Dawn, even though Until Dawn relies a little too heavily on jump scares as a survival horror tactic. Taking L.A. Noire as an example, for quest focused games I always go back to anything made by Rockstar or Bethesda, since their open-worlds are always way more expansive than others.
DeleteThanks for the suggestions, Sadie! I did try Beyond: Two Souls but it felt too passive to me, more like watching a movie. An interesting story, but it seemed the only decisions I got to make as the character didn't matter to the plot, like what card to choose or what to eat. I'll definitely check out some of these others though.
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