Fez: A Timeless Puzzler!

Hello Friends!

This past month I have been playing a lot of PS4 and PS Vita! I wanted to pause on writing for a while to soak in some new gaming experiences and I'm excited to talk with everyone today about Fez. 

This game is a sophisticated puzzler that involves 3 dimensions in a 2- dimensional world. It's challenging but simple and the game mechanics are easy to figure out.

You play as small little cutie named Gomez. Gomez is just your average little.. guy but he doesn't have anything special about him - until he meets the Hexahedron. Gomez is then given a fez, and a grand task to save the universe! Collect all 32 cubes to reconstruct the Hexahedron by collecting Bits!

One of the coolest things about this game is the "shifting". You stand on a 2-D platform where you can move up, down, right, or left. But, by using the left/right trigger you can change perspectives and view the world from a different angle - giving you more potential routes to take. Again, this game is mind-bending, fun, brilliant, and gorgeous.

Fez utilizes its very unique gameplay style with beautiful 16-bit artwork perfectly in tandem. While this game is available on many different platforms it definitely thrives on the Vita. The Vita is the perfect console for it because of its portability and controls. It just feels so right!

If you want to give it a shot but you bought it on the PS3 or PS4? Never fear - cross buy is here! This game is available on all three devices and can be easily accessed through the PlayStation website.

I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a complicated puzzler. The game starts off easy, giving the player a chance to get the feel of it and then throws you into a difficult world with many routes to take. Don't take this game lightly because it is not for the weak-minded or easily frustrated. Patience is important!

Please give this game a try and I promise you won't regret it. Thanks for reading!

Destiny Alpha: First Look!

Hello friends!

So last week Bungie released the alpha for Destiny and I got to play quite a bit. Here's a quick little review!

I should preface by saying that I am not a huge FPS gamer. Most of these games are uninteresting to me and so I generally stay away from them. Destiny though got me to consider it a little and I was still on the fence about it but the alpha totally changed my perspective.

You're dropped into a planet with small clusters of enemies and Peter Dinklage narrating. The controls are similar to COD but the feel of the game is definitely closer to Halo - which makes sense. It is not in any way just a skewed Halo remake. The game does have a very unique style.

Something that I really enjoyed about the game is that it plays sort of like an MMO. Your character has a level and levels up as you kill enemies. You can pick up money and gear, do quests, and customize your character to be uniquely your own. Likewise enemies have their own levels and it effects your ability to kill them as well as the experience you gain from them.

The game also sports a multiplayer pvp area called The Crucible. At first I was skeptical because of the differences there would be among levels of players but the game surprised me! The level of your character does not effect the matches. So a level 10 character against a bunch of level 5 characters wouldn't have a dramatic impact on the match.

The visuals of the game are great!! I just recently got my PS4 and have been very impressed with all of the graphics and look of the games I've been playing but staring off into the city and being able to see very minute details clearly took my breath away.

Overall, if you weren't able to play the alpha and you are on the fence, pre-order the game now and get your beta code so you can try it on the 17th. It's definitely a fun game and if you're not interested in the pvp - it's optional so don't knock it till you try it!

Don't forget to leave your comments below and thanks for reading!
As always you can find me on twitter @katieishh and my youtube channel is youtube.com/supernonsensegaming "Nonsense Gamers" and @nonsensegamers on twitter.

Weekly News!

It's Memorial Day! I have a puppy in my lap and I'm about to leave to get fabric for Anime Expo!

I wanted to cover the news for last week very quickly!

Xbox One has announced External Hard Drive Capability! If you have been grumpy about the small memory space on the Xbox One - be soothed by this news. Skype is now able to be used in tandem with playing a game. Now you can chat with your friends while you game together. BIG NEWS - the Kinect is being SOLD SEPARATELY! If you're paranoid about cameras, hate the voice control, or just don't use the Kinect enough to want to pay $100 for it, you're in luck.

PS4 is now offering beta for the PlayStation Now! This is the system Sony is going to be using so you can rent games on your console and try them out. Another big news story for Play Station is Far Cry 4 was leaked! Only plot overview was released but a lot of people are getting very excited about it.

PS Vita now has Child of Light coming on June 1st! Check this great JRPG out and take it with you!

Wii & DS no longer have wifi capability. Here is the link so you can check out the games that will be affected.

Nintendo also announced their Nintendo Figurines! Looks like they might be something along the lines of Skylanders but we probably won't know until E3 which is in two weeks!!

New Games Announced:
Batman Arkham Knight
Evolve
Minecraft (on new consoles)
The Wolf Among Us Ep. 4
Metro Redux
Arena Of Fate
Hunger
Half Life 3 (unofficial - maybe just another fake leak)
Left 4 Dead 3 (unofficial as well)
Maplestory 2
Halo 5: Guardians

Looking Forward to: 
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
The Witcher 3
Fable Legends
Last of Us Remastered
Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire

New Releases: 
Wolfenstein - The New Order
Transistor
Drakengard 3

My youtube channel will have a video up tomorrow recapping this and look out for my post this week!

Thank you!

YouTube News!

Hello Everyone! 

This week I will be posting twice! My first entry for the week is going to be about some upcoming stuff I wanted to mention that I'm really excited about! 

I have my own YouTube channel now! 

You can find me at Youtube.com/SuperNonsenseGaming or on twitter @NonsenseGamers

So, the layout of this channel is pretty simple. I have my show that will air on Tuesdays called "Whatcha' Gaming?" where I get people on to talk about what games they're playing, what games they want to play, and what their favorite games are! It's going to be a conversational video with many different types of people in and out of the industry. 

Our second video of the week will air on Friday's and it will be a weekly recap of video game news. We will be compiling information all week and then making a quick video about everything that's coming up so that you can keep up with the myriad of things that are going on. 

Over time we want to expand and do some more things with it and get more people involved but for now it is just me and my good friend Steven working on it. He's an indie video game developer and both of us have a lot of interest and investment in video games. 

You can check out our FIRST video this Tuesday ( 5/20/14 - time to be announced on our Twitter) and see if you like it! Please check us out and it would really mean a lot. If you are going to follow us on Twitter be sure to tweet at me! I'm super social so I always love connecting with new people. And maybe we can get you on for an interview!! 

Anyways, look out for my post this week! I am going to be talking about KRIS from Pokemon Crystal as the first part of my Fem Characters series. 

Thanks for reading and don't forget to follow me on Twitter @katieishh and subscribe to my blog.

See you soon!

Attention Female Gamers!

Hello everyone!

This week I wanted to talk about something important to me. Lately I've been hearing a lot about women in the gaming industry and women gamers and I want to settle some issues I have. This is overall going to be a vent post with constructive ideas about what we can do as a community. If you're interesting in having a conversation about it - feel free to leave a polite and rational comment below. If you just want to hate on me and everything I am saying you will be ignored because you are proving my point. 

I will note: everything I say has obvious exceptions so don't think everything I'm saying applies to every situation.

First of all, as a women who plays video games, I think that this whole issue is pretty ridiculous. Women do not have weaker mental abilities than men and it's important to know that. Sure, more men are prominent players in video games but I don't think that's necessarily because they aren't as good or smart enough. I think it's because women get a lot of crap and there aren't many girls as serious about gaming as guys. That's fine! But why is it okay to attack girls because of that? I can see why girls stray away from video games - it's because they don't get a warm welcome when they try them.

Next, I think that women get a lot of stereotypes thrown at them as "girl gamers". I have no issue with this term at all. I don't personally refer to myself this way (I don't like to refer to myself as anything...) but there's nothing wrong with it if you do. I do think that sometimes this is a prime example of giving in to a stereotype. I've played COD online.. I know what happens as soon as you speak. Those idiot 14-yr-old boys go, "KILL THE GIRL" and then laugh at you and tell you that you suck at video games when you don't make a single kill because you were being slaughtered the entire game. I'm just trying to enjoy a game! Why is it okay to ruin my experience with the game? COD has a huge male market because of that situation. 

I have a short story about a situation I was in a couple of days ago with a guy. I was at Starbucks. My girl friend and I are standing waiting for our drinks and playing LoZ on our LoZ 3DS's when a guy from across the room comes up to us and asks, "What are the 3 pieces of the triforce?" So I tell him, feeling a little affronted not only by his quiz that was obviously an attempt to embarrass us, but by the fact that a dude walked up to us in a store in a demanding sort of way. (Caveat: I wasn't afraid of him, it was just a little weird.) He then goes on to say that he has never played Legend of Zelda but he wanted to make sure we knew what it was because one time he ran into a girl with a LoZ shirt on and he asked her about it and she said she only bought the shirt because it looked cool. Which, I find annoying as well but how does that make it okay for him to bombard every girl to make sure they're really gamers? 

So I simply said, "Well I guess I should be the one asking you random questions about the game then, huh? Seeing as I've played all of them." I gave no attitude and suffered a smile at him so that he knew I was messing with him. 

He kinda stuttered a moment and said, "Well I know everything about pokemon. That's the only game I play." 

Now, you know that I play pokemon as well already, so of course I told him that, as well as mentioned that he should branch out to other games as well. He quickly changed the subject and I quickly ended the conversation. 

It's obvious why I'm annoyed by this, right? Because a guy who has never touched a LoZ game insists on bothering girls with trivia to prove that they don't know anything about gaming. It's insulting that I have to prove myself. 

So here's my ultimate advice, do what you do because you love it, not because you're trying to prove something. Be proud of what you love and don't be embarrassed about the fact that you didn't enjoy Half Life 2. There's nothing wrong with being true to yourself and don't let the metaphorical and actual man get you down. Ladies! Be strong! Be brave! But be yourself. 

Hearthstone: A Card Game for iOS

Hello everyone! 

I had a crazy week finishing up costumes and then an amazing weekend at Wondercon and now I'm ready to write. I'm pushing for two posts this week but we will have to see! 

Today I want to talk about Hearthstone! 

If you don't already know what this game is, it's a new game that was just released last week for the iOS. It's made by Blizzard and has a lot of similar art and tone from the Warcraft games but is essentially a card game. 

The best comparison I can make is it's very similar to Magic the Gathering except it's a little simpler. I say this without hesitation because it doesn't hurt the game at all. While being slightly simpler than Magic, it doesn't lose any intensity. I played through the tutorial journey quickly and had no problem figuring out the mechanics and gameplay (mostly because I'm a regular player of Magic so I understood the concept) since it's an easy set up and doesn't give the player too much information all at once. You have 7 missions (I think this is correct and I would look it up but the server is down for maintenance..) and they spread the knowledge through those missions so that you can not only get the feel for the game but absorb the rules and how to play in increments. 

I won't go too into detail about how you play but here's a short synopsis: You are a hero (much like a planeswalker in Magic) and you have minion cards and spells. The goal of the game is to defeat the other hero by attacking them. You get one additional mana every turn and each card costs a certain amount of mana to use. Cards have various skills and attack/defense points and what I found kind of cool is that your minions lose life. What I mean is, instead of them having a set attack and defense number as other minions attack it the defense number goes down like hit points.

After completing the introduction missions and the final boss you are then available to sign in to Battlenet and play online. I had a difficult time logging in because..... I made my battlenet back in 2006 meaning that my password was some random combination of words that 15 year old me thought was hilarious but 22 year old me is shaking my head at. I was unable to recover this password because apparently I used a pseudonym as well.. Back on topic: Playing online is really fun! You play against people who are generally around the same level as you so you have somewhat of a fighting chance. You gain experience whether you win or lose (gaining more when you win and less when you lose) and you get "achievements" throughout (ie: playing 3 games online gets you a small prize) as well as collect new cards for your deck. Each hero deck you have has cards for that deck and each hero has a special skill. As you play with a deck you collect more cards for that deck to make it more powerful.

I only played online for a little while but it's definitely a great game and on the iPad it's just so accessable. You can also download on your computer (mac and pc) with ease. I definitely recommend this game as it's really fun and easy to pick up. It's FREE as well which is a huge plus. I'm a fan of some good games coming to iOS devices (with obvious exceptions) and look forward to more stuff like this being playable on my tablet. 

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think in the comments below! 

Upcoming!

Hey everyone! 

I just wanted to let you all know that I recently finished working on a YouTube show that should be airing this summer. It's called Team Jinja! You can find it on our channel RoyalWe. Be sure to subscribe as before the season starts we will release a couple of videos and shorts. 

Currently we have some videos up of us playing video games and being goofy which is always fun. 

That's all I can say for now! 

Check us out! 

Animal Crossing: Part 4 - Welcome To New Leaf City!

Hi All!
This week's entry I'm going to be talking about Animal Crossing: New Leaf City.

Now as you already know I am a big fan of this series! This is the latest game in the series and in my opinion the best. It has all sorts of new features and visually new things so let's get into it!

The beginning of this game is just like any other. You are asked a bunch of questions, arrive in town, but wait- you're the mayor! A cool and interesting new way to play is you control the fate of your town. You character is given duties that involve keeping the town beautiful, adding new buildings and decorations to your town (which...I mean... thank god), and hosting major holidays. The whole town is your oyster!

Another great aspect that I love is the dream suite. The Dream Suite allows you to venture to another persons town in your dreams - therefore you can't muck up anything. This feature is useful because if your friend wants you to see something of there's (ie: the way their house is set up, a new project, or a special flower/fruit) you can go view it while they aren't playing. The Dream Suite is also useful in that you can get ideas, see strangers towns without having to be their friend (the Dream Suite uses a "Dream Code" that is still specific to a town but makes the player anonymous).

Something interesting that's come out of the Dream Suite are these "Horror Towns". I started reading about them a couple of weeks ago and it's really interesting. It started in Japan as just a way to set up your town so that it's spooky. Usually the bulletin board will have some message or story about what happened and then you get to explore the town and see scenes from whatever horrible story it is. I ventured into a couple (I'm very prone to being spooked..) thinking, oh how scary could they really be? TURNS OUT PRETTY SCARY! I mean, I never jumped or anything, but I definitely on more than one occasion walked into a room in one of the houses and went, NOPE. Also, you can make your character have a greeting and I ran into a lot that were something like, "I was just so lonely..." and in the Dream Suite the voices of people kind of echo and sound very eery. Overall this is a really really cool idea that people have adopted in their towns and I urge you to check it out. 

The animation in this game does change a tiny bit. Your character's body is a little longer now, which doesn't seem very important but after being so short and squat for all these years it's definitely refreshing. Nintendo is very much of the mindset that if it's not broken don't fix it, well Animal Crossing is definitely one of those titles where you see that. Minor changes are expected and the look of the game is so great that there's no reason for them to have to change much. I think that mentality hurts and helps Nintendo.. but I digress. 

This game is great because it's suitable for all ages (as were the last 3) and I wouldn't say it improves the series necessarily but it's definitely the best game out of them. The game has morphed little by little through each game and I love how it turned out. I play this game religiously and definitely addicting. 

If you haven't tried this game yet- do it. It's totally worth your money and has given me just about a year of enjoyment. 

Look out for next week's post where I talk about WOMEN IN VIDEO GAMES!

And don't forget to subscribe and leave comments below. 

Animal Crossing: Part 3 - Time to meet the City Folk!

Hello everyone!
Welcome to Part 3 of my Animal Crossing segment!
ONLY ONE MORE GAME TO TALK ABOUT AFTER THIS!

This week we'll cover the 3rd game in the series - City Folk for the Wii!

This game was - in my opinion - not as great. I didn't stick with this one for long but that isn't to say it wasn't worth playing. On the contrary there were many changes that improved the gameplay and a lot of users liked. For instance, there were new shops in the City. Players could take a bus to the city and visit the Happy Room Academy, get your shoes shined, and get a haircut or a makeover! Another cool new feature to this game was being able to rotate through tools with the D-pad on the wiimote. This is super convenient!! It was a pain in the butt opening the menu to try and catch a bug quickly.

The bundles of new animals and shops is really what made this game great. But as I said, it was missing something for me. Mainly I think it was that I was so hooked to my portable device that it was hard for me to sit in front of the TV to play again. Not to mention fighting over it with my sisters when they wanted to watch a movie or something.

Give this game a chance for sure. Just because I didn't latch onto it doesn't mean you won't. It's a fun time for sure if you liked the first two of this series.

Keep an eye out for the 4th and final portion of the Animal Crossing series segment. I will be posting soon since I missed a week.

Thank you for stopping by and be sure to comment or subscribe!

Animal Crossing: Continued - It's a Wild World After All!

Hello again! Thanks for stopping by again! 

This week I am going to be covering the second game in the Animal Crossing Series! 

Animal Crossing: Wild World

If you haven't read my post from last week concerning the first game to this series, don't worry! This game isn't one for spoilers. I would like to start off by reiterating that I love love love this game series. As mentioned last week - my two best friends and I all got tattoos to memorialize this game. 

So let's begin! 

This game was just what I needed. The Nintendo DS is one of my favorite consoles. My grandparents bought it for me for my birthday the year it came out and I was hooked again! I thought - how could this game get any better - what's the purpose of making a new one? 

In a world so simple and perfect the idea of change almost made me hesitate. I was mistaken though. 

This game exceeded all my expectations on how great this game could be. The quadrant feature was abandoned for a smoother and rounder world. This made the game a little less clunky. Also, the game opened up a multiplayer feature where the former police officers are now gate keepers - allowing and forbidding people to visit your town. This was AWESOME TO ME! I was in high school when this game came out and so naturally all my friends got it and we all chopped down each other's trees, smacked each other with nets, and barracaded you in a circle of holes. 

The adventure had opened up into an experience you can enjoy with friends - LIVE! I should note that in the first game you could also visit other towns but it was only by having a memory card with another village on it and you couldn't interact with other players. So the appeal in this is obvious. Finally this game is perfect. 

Now admittedly because the Nintendo DS still had work to do on graphics and stuff - looking back the game was visually "okay". The characters were difficultly rounded out, somewhat pixelated, and a little unclear. But that opinion is from someone who has been playing on a 3ds XL for a year or so. At the time- the graphics were great and I loved this game. 

Another cool function was that you could all live in the same house! This idea was disasterous for my sisters and I considering our age difference and commitment to the game. I was deeply invested in getting a perfect HHA score while my sisters didn't care and threw anything in their rooms. Eventually when they became disinterested with the game I was able to focus on decorating. I think there is a feature where you can move into your own separate house but I'm not entirely sure and looking it up wasn't much help... 

Overall, this game was a huge improvement in a surprising way. You'd think that the game was great the way it was and a lot of things that changed weren't necessarily a nuissance before so I didn't think to complain. 

Look out for next week's coverage of Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii! 

Thanks for reading and leave your comments below!

Animal Crossing: Let the Games Begin!

I am back! The last two months have been ridiculously crazy and I have a lot to share on my personal blog but for today I will talk about another one of my favorite games: Animal Crossing! 

My two best friends and I all have the same Limited Edition: Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past 3DSXL. We got them all on the same day together and just a couple of weeks ago all got the same Animal Crossing tattoo. (We know, awesome!)

(Picture to come)

So for those of you who haven't played Animal Crossing before I'll start with a little prelude so that you can get the general gist of the game before I start spouting off random jargon that won't make any sense to you. Since there are 4 games in this series I am going to break these up into 4 posts! Here we go!

This was the original Animal Crossing released on GameCube in 2004. I got this game around that time but not after hearing about it from a group of guys in my class. They talked about it all day nonstop and would say how they were up all night playing. There was never any preface to this conversation and they only spoke about random things like "Tom Nook..." "fishing..." "centipede..." so I never understood the game at all until the summer after it came out when I received it for my birthday from my grandparents. I was ELATED! After so many months of hearing about it and being curious (and I wasn't old enough to use google searches at this point...) so I was eager to experience the magic first-hand. BOY WAS I NOT LET DOWN IN ANY WAY! I don't think that people would say I have an addictive personality. I tend to be pretty rational and responsible about my interests and hobbies. This game changed everything for me. I played this game all summer long. I only stopped to allow my sisters a turn to play which pissed me off greatly because they liked to pull the, "I am trying to find a bug - then you can play" card. The aggressive relationship in my family drove this hostility to the point of being unable to play for longer than 2 hours. My parents mandated a timer be set and supervision to occur when playing. It was a nightmare for me! But of course, someone always has to ruin the fun. 

Anyways, I'll explain the game! You start the game on a train on your way to a place you've never been. You're greeted by a friendly cat named Rover. He asks you a number of questions which are prompts for town decisions. You decide what your name is, what the name of your town is, and there are a variety of questions he asks that determine how your face will look. That's about as customized as you get in this game! When you leave the train you are then greeted by Tom Nook - Local Store Owner/Real Estate Agent. He sells you and remodels your home throughout the game. You also work for him for a small time in the beginning of the game. The whole point of the game is to make money, renovate and make your home perfectly decorated so that it is feng shui. You do favors for your townspeople, dig up fossils, collect fish and bugs, plant fruit trees, and turn your town into a beautiful garden! And did I mention your townspeople are adorable anthropomorphized animals? YES! They are. 

These cute bundles of joy are your citizens! They all have different personalities and interests as well as special customized homes. The kind of homes that in this game - you can't mimic. But that will come later! 

Some other cool features of this game is the island adventure! If you have a gamecube connector cable to the gameboy advance you can explore the island by taking the boat at the dock! Kapp'n the wise-cracking bard of the sea takes you on a short boat ride over to the tropical island accompanied by an adorable song. On the island you'll meet a villager who lives there. The island has coconuts - which you can sell for a high price on the mainland - and it's always summer on the island so you can catch summer fish all year round! 

Want to make big bucks? The best way to is through the "Stalk Market". This cute little pun of a business venture works through Joan! Joan sells turnips on Sundays before noon for a small price per bushel. Throughout the week the price that Nook will buy them for changes, so if you check everyday you can make a profit! There is also a ton of holiday events, weekly events, monthly events, surprise visitors, and special contests! 

This game is fun for all ages, easy and yet complex. There's plenty to do in it so you won't ever be bored. This game is definitely a game that needs to be played if not daily than definitely regularly. If you don't play daily not only will your townspeople be mad but your home will be filled with cockroaches and your town will be covered in weeds (over the span of a week or so of not playing - a day or two won't hurt). 

I love this game and since I am a huge fan of all things cute it's definitely a great game for me! Plus, since the game isn't stressful really it's good for winding down after a long day of work. 

Leave your comments below! See you next week!