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: 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! 

This week: Fable 1, 2, & 3 - Also: Comikaze 2013 - see you there!

So lots of things are happening this week. We got Halloween on Thursday and then Comikaze on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My group of friends will only be going to Saturday and Sunday (mostly because we all work 5 days a week) so if you're there I will be dressed as Catwoman! 

I realized that since Stan Lee is the host he probably will want to see more Marvel heroes but ... oh well. 

This week I want to talk about Fable! I covered it a teeny bit last week but I want to go into detail. Fable was the first xbox game I played. My cousin let me play it when we stayed for the week at my grandmas for the Christmas/New Years break.

This game opened up a whole new world for me. Partially because it was a new system and a new controller and partially because it was definitely a more serious game. Even more serious than Final Fantasy I would say. 

I fell in love with the series but (as I sort of covered already) I wasn't allowed to play around my mom. She didn't like the violence and cursing (even though it's mild) and thought I should be playing more appropriate games. This was one of the first instances where my mom had to restrict me from a game. One of the other games that I played that year was Morrowind. Another game that my mom felt the need to keep me from playing. Although I will give her that one. I was prone to ravaging towns and stealing homes from innocent people. 

After that week of playing I never was allowed to play again. I didn't see my cousin for some time after that. Maybe because he was so much older than me and a boy... so my mom thought it was best to keep me from him because he was a bad influence. But I disagree. He was just sharing what he loved and since he was an only child for a long time he needed someone to share with when we were with family. 

I didn't play Fable again until a couple of years ago when my boyfriend at the time got a new xbox 360 and wanted a game. I recommended Fable 2 along with Oblivion and Fallout 3 but he chose Fable 2. He began playing it and quickly got addicted and then I found a copy of it for $5 so I picked it up myself. We literally only played Fable 2 for like 3 months (okay maybe not that long). Repeating the same quests over and over. Downloading the DLC and playing through those was the first time I actually downloaded a DLC. They were great DLCs and expanded the game a good amount. What I mostly liked about the game was that it reminded me of my formative years and reminded me why I love video games so much. 

And now my boyfriend (now my fiance) and I can play video games. I will point out that he is not as interested in video games as I am. The only game I can get him to play is Borderlands. There are some exceptions. But he just doesn't get hooked on much. 

Anyways -- when we finally got Fable 3 we were both really eager to play. We had to switch off playing because we only had one copy and we didn't live together (and still don't) so it was a little bit longer of a play through for me. Fable 3 was WAY more intense than Fable 2. At least for me. I found it sort of haunting at certain parts too. When you're running through the desert and that guy keeps popping up with no eyes in front of you scared the SHIT out of me. I'm kind of a wimp though when it comes to creepy things. I'll say it! I'm not ashamed! 

Fable 3 was also a bit more complicated. Forcing you to make tough decisions that decide the fate of the game. I failed. I was in millions of debt trying to help everyone and at the end everyone died... 

My boyfriend ended the game completely even. Doing the exact right amount of good and bad. I don't know how he did it honestly but oh well. 

Anyways, that will wrap up my post for this week! Be sure to follow me. You can find me on twitter and instagram @katieishh :) 

Comments below are welcome! Leave me lots of love and hate.