Token Female Gamer

When I find myself desperate for excuses to do anything but write a review, it’s usually because the subject matter ended up being rather disappointing. Borderlands 2 sadly falls into this category, as I have been struggling for weeks to come up with something praise worthy to write.

But I can’t let that stop me anymore, productivity must continue!! (Never give up, never surrender!!) With my house clean, laundry finished, caffeine and snacks at the ready, I am all out of excuses; its time to sit down and get this review done. Wait, what am I writing about again? Oh right Borderlands 2…hmm is that a spot over there that I missed dusting? Clearly my bout of Borderlands 2 induced ADD is persistent.

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Oblivion was quite effective at smothering any desire I might have had to play other Elder Scrolls game. Being the victim of poor character choices and frequently lost in the vast empty abyss that was the world of Oblivion (aptly named) made quitting quite easy and overlooking Skyrim easier still.

But then I finished Mass Effect 3 and found myself pining for something similar, something new. Skyrim seemed like the obvious candidate; though thinking about it now, Dragon Age probably would have been a closer match.

Whatever the case, Skyrim was recommended to me and, thanks to my fabulous friends, loaned to me, since I still couldn’t bring myself to purchase a copy. Seemed like the perfect solution as I expected to dislike the game and return it a week later.

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These are all games that I have played in the past, games that I find not only historically significant, but that have also made a huge positive impact on me as a gamer.

Some of you might notice that my list actually consists of twenty games, not ten. Well, I’m really bad at picking favorites and they all seemed so important, plus I really wanted a diverse selection

Tetris, Super Mario Bros 3, Final Fantasy 8, Tomb Raider 2, Diablo1+2, Starcraft, Myst, Journey, Zelda windwaker, Animal Crossing, Civ 3, Pokemon, mortal kombat, quake, Baldurs Gate 2, gauntlet, Heroes of Might and Magic, Overlord, Professor Layton and The Curious Village, Portal.

This might come as a surprise but my pick is Tingle from the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker game. He is this totally hilarious middle-aged man who believes in forest fairies, so much so that his only ambition is to become a forest fairy himself, thus the costume. He also happens to be a skilled cartographer.

Though he is a reoccurring character in the Zelda series, he had a starring role in the Wind Waker game, resident mapmaker. But the real reason I liked him so much (besides being ridiculously funny) was that Tingle could help Link by connecting the Game Boy Advanced to the GameCube. It was a total gimmick, but I loved every minute. It certainly ensured Tingle’s place in this line up. =P

Character progression is one of those vital building blocks of the average role playing game and probably one of the most challenging to implement smoothly. Finding the balance between effectiveness and progression, while still maintaining a level of fun is what makes role playing games great (or bad as the case maybe).

But the game that does it best, in my humble (ha!) opinion, is the Zelda series. While Link doesn’t have anything as pedestrian as a skill tree, he is always getting acquainted with new weapons and magical artifacts. These of course just happen to be presented to him with such perfect timing, that he always has the perfect tool on hand to get through the next challenge.

Its incredibly satisfying to know that the ‘skills’, or in Link’s case tools, are actually going to be useful. No filler skills here!

The game also has a much more fluid leveling system. The only indication of levels is Link’s collection of heart containers, which provide him with more hit points. These do get collected as the game progresses, but many of them are available outside the general story line, so they only loosely indicate progress or skill level.

No matter what, Link is uniquely prepared for each and every quest he faces. His progress is brilliantly tailored to makes the game fun, interesting, and highly engaging.

Though my EverQuest enchanter epic certainly qualifies for this honor, it was not the only weapon that I coveted. EQ was filled with hard to get items that I desired, which of course was part of the brilliance of the game.

One such weapon was the Short Sword of Ykesha, which I was positive, represented the pinnacle of short swords everywhere. Eventually my little bard did end up with two of them, dual wielding! It never really mattered to me that they were totally wasted on bards, or that by the time I got them there were far better weapons available. I had Ykashas!!

Funny enough, after playing EverQuest with it’s impossible to get items and general scarcity of choice, most other games felt excessive, with items constantly being replaced by upgrades. Not that this wasn’t fun, it just meant that I didn’t fixate on one specific item as much.

This also wasn’t helped by my preference for magic and pet classes. Weapons aren’t quite as important when spells are the main form of damage.

But wait, there was another set of weapons that I absolutely adored. In Tomb Raider 2, Lara’s two starter pistols, I played the entire game dual wielding those things. Okay maybe it had a little to do with me not wanting to use up the ammo on any other weapons, but mostly it was because dual wielding them was awesome!

Sometimes being evil is just plain fun, especially if it’s packaged with humor and limited to mild evil intent. To date my favorite excuse to be (mildly) dastardly has been the game Overlord.

Just like the title suggests, the main playable figure is an evil overlord who commands a hard of goblins to do his bidding. Having lots of sacrificial minions to do all the fighting and heavy lifting is of course one of the big reasons I love this game.

Even though minions get used up and replaced like tissue paper, the burning and pillaging of the nearby town is optional. Which means its possible to be a slightly benevolent evil overlord. Though the humorous goblin sidekick will frown upon showing too much compassion.

Overlord is an incredibly fun game that makes being evil funny and quite entertaining, while not requiring true depravity. This also means that when I did have a few minor slip ups, like accidentally burning a farm to the ground, I didn’t feel too badly about it.

My two runners up are ‘Dungeon Keeper’ and ‘Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles My Life as a Darklord’. Both are tower defense type games that let you play as the evil dungeon master. Build up your dungeon with traps and minions to defend against intruding heroes.

Both is really my preferred answer, but since that isn’t quite accurate I will attempt to be more specific. As I am a huge fan of both genres, in much more then games, it took a while to figure out that I do really have a preference.

In movies and TV I strongly lean in the Sci-Fi direction, while books are much more middle ground. But in games I seem to prefer the fantasy setting, its certainly what I play the most of.

This is very likely related to my proclivity for role-playing game, which are often in a fantasy setting, rather then the more sci-fi first person shooters. But I’m not sure if my preference is because of game mechanics or genre preference.

Whatever the case, my final answer is fantasy. =)

This was one of the topics that I debated not putting on the list, mostly because, in my initial pass through, finding an answer proved more challenging then I anticipated.

As I pondered possible candidates, it became clear that my expectations of feeling heroic were vastly different then what most games provided. Which left me failing to find a convenient answer.

Instead of bailing, it became the quest to determine what I found truly heroic. Saving princesses wasn’t it, shooting tons of opponents wasn’t it, saving the world from zombies wasn’t it, ‘the game that never ends’ model certainly wasn’t it, solving puzzles wasn’t it, defending castles wasn’t it, building armies wasn’t it. These goals were all challenging, fun, and exciting, but never really heroic.

Clearly none of the typical (male?) versions of heroism were working for me. Once I let go of these preconceived notions, the answer was simple, Journey. No other game has made me feel as much or as heroic as Journey did; a game with no fighting, no spoken or written story, no killing, no items, no princesses, no gender, no weapons or armor, no spaceships, nothing but pure unadulterated heroic journey.

It is a truly incredible game that I think everyone should play.

Video game movie adaptations are pretty much universally terrible. Thankfully I really like bad movies, especially since many of these adaptations have crossed that line into ‘so terrible its funny’.

But there are a few that were enjoyable for simply being fun and entertaining. My favorite is probably ‘Tomb Raider’. Angelina Jolie does a great job of being an action star, and I’m always a sucker for an intelligent, kick ass, female heroine. My runners up are ‘Mortal Kombat’ and ‘Resident Evil’.

Let me clarify, these are not great movies, but they still managed to represent their games fairly well and be quite entertaining. Frankly, with the selection of game movies that are out there (~cough~ Dungeon Siege movie ~cough~) these three movies are masterpieces.

The TVtropes site has an interesting write up about why video game movies suck and how animated versions tend to be better received. Well worth a read for deeper insight.

While games don’t seem to adapt as well into other mediums, the opposite direction is often much more successful. Two of my favorites are Lego Star Wars and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Both are super fun games that represent their various genres extremely well.