Real Neat Blog Award – Double Shot

I was recently nominated for the Real Neat Blog Award not once, but twice within the span of 10 days by both Meghan Plays Games and from AK at Everything Is Bad For You! Today I will be answering both sets of questions, so get comfy as we begin!

Give a rundown of a good book you’ve read this summer! (or, any book you’ve really enjoyed lately)

I admit I haven’t read too many books recently, with the most recent one being another read through of the book Console Wars by Blake J. Harris. The book depicts the competition between Sega and Nintendo during the 80’s & 90’s. The largest portion of the book centers around former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske as he is brought aboard the (then)up-and-coming Sega as they successfully cut the market share of home gaming consoles in half from bitter rival Nintendo, who had utterly dominated home consoles and had become synonymous with video games. The book combines my two favorite subjects to read about – Video Games and History. I definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in video games, particularly as we seem to be learning daily about the super competitive and downright vicious “business” of video games.

Sometimes people talk about having a spirit animal. If you were to have a spirit Pokemon that represents you, which one would it be?

This one’s quite easy actually…Snorlax. Any resemblances aside, it was always great being able to transfer my Snorlax from Pokemon Red to Pokemon Stadium on my N64 and destroy the different trainer leagues. Snorlax may appear docile as he spends the majority of its time lazing about, but can annihilate opposing teams after I would teach it Thunderbolt, Blizzard, Earthquake, and Hyper Beam. 🙂

You’re stuck in a horror-movie scenario, and a murderer is after you! Are you: a) the mom friend (taking care of everyone, keeping the group together), b) the scaredy cat ( you’re definitely clumsy, and probably dying first) or c) the “everyone for themselves” strategist ( you’re taking off on your own)?

I would probably be a mixture of B and C – the person that formulates a perfect plan…only to die really quickly in some careless way.

What is your favorite seasonal food and/or drink? This can also be food/drink that is technically available year-round, but you just associate with a certain time of year.

As sad as this may sound….the first thing I think of is Christmas Crunch and Monster Cereal, particularly Franken Berry.

A lot of video games allow you to customize your character, including their name – what’s your go-to name (male/female) when starting a new file? Or do you have a different one every time?

In recent years I have either used any manner of default names or my own, though years ago I would use the character name of Malcolm Quinn. I guess that sounded cool…

What is the most memorable vacation you’ve taken, or time spent traveling that you can think of?

When I was about 8 years old my family and I went through Montana and Wyoming, stopping at pretty much any scenic or historical “Old West” site along the way. My trip to Lego Land in the Mall of America as a kid was pretty memorable too.

Pick one of your favorite film/tv/book/video game characters and describe which D&D class you think they would be, and why.

When I have to name favorite film/tv/book/video game characters it usually ends up coming back to Han Solo, who I think pretty clearly exhibits the typical attributes of a Rogue character – a scoundrel who uses stealth and trickery to overcome obstacles and enemies. My favorite smuggler/space pirate from Star Wars certainly fits the part of a rogue.

And now for the next set of questions…

What’s your favorite game genre?

I don’t know that I have a definitive favorite, but having grown up playing primarily platformers or old-school action/adventure games I tend to fall back on the genre if I have a day where I don’t have a particular type of game I feel like playing. Almost as original of an answer as saying my favorite food is pizza, huh?

Is there a game genre you will never touch, no matter how much praise a game in that genre might receive? What puts you off about it?

There’s no genre of game that I will not play for any particular reason. I always try to keep open-minded about different genres of video games that I may not play as often, but can still find enjoyable when I actually do. This can lead to have an enormous backlog of games that I may never get around to…on second thought…I do struggle to come up with circumstances that would result in my making an idiot of myself playing something like Dance Dance Revolution or Just Dance.

What’s your favorite controller?

If we’re going by personal favorite, I still really love the feel of my old Gamecube controllers. They fit in my hands so perfectly, and my only gripe with them wasn’t the different sized buttons as much as this was the era from which FPS games became the biggest selling game genre and the Gamecube controller didn’t have the greatest L + R buttons for the job. A more recent controller that I really like from the few times I’ve used one is the Xbox One Elite controller, but it SHOULD be for the money you can spend on one.

What’s your least favorite controller?

This would probably be between either the original Playstation controller(remember before it even had joysticks?) or the Wii. I love many games on the Wii, but I still dislike the feeling of not being able to reach between the d-pad and the 1 or 2 buttons as they were positioned on separate ends of the controller.

What game would you like to see get a full-scale remake? Complete with any updated graphics, features, and game mechanics you’d like.

There’s many games I could list that I would like to see get a full remake, I have been saying for quite some time I would love a remake/remaster of Super Mario Sunshine that plays like Mario Odyssey. Another game I would love to see get a remake would be the N64 game – Jet Force Gemini. A third person sci-fi action game where you splatter hordes of bugs on alien planets was great back in the N64 days, but the game could gain greater appreciation with an update or modernization of the game. The game was made by Rare before they were purchased by Microsoft, so…I’m not sure how great the chances of that happening are, although I know I’m part of a number of people that would love for a chance to play through pretty much all of those Rare games from the N64 with some more modern conveniences similar to recent remakes like Resident Evil 2 or Link’s Awakening.

How do you approach difficulty levels in games that offer that option? Do you like to jump into the deep end right away or take a more measured approach?

I pretty much always start at a game’s default difficulty setting and “adjust to taste” from there. There’s just as many games that I’ve begun playing only to up the difficulty to Hard mode or I don’t feel like grinding away for hours just to beat a single section.

How do you feel about the “casual/story mode” difficulty levels that are easier than the standard easy mode? Is there any situation in which you’d play a game in that mode?

I myself don’t usually use Casual or Story Mode difficulty in games, but I have absolutely no issue with that being an option for someone who wants to use it. If I wanted only to experience a game’s story and/or the gameplay of the game was rather underwhelming/frustrating I would certainly consider it. A prime example of this would be Hideo Kojima stating that Death Stranding would have a Very Easy mode to accommodate those that are curious to see what the game has to offer but may not be as familiar with the gameplay mechanics. As someone who loves all the Metal Gear Solid games, I think this fits perfectly as the MGS games didn’t always offer gameplay to the same level of grandiosity and melodrama as the story and cutscenes.

And now for my questions!

Favorite game developer?

Beverage of choice while gaming?

Is there a game whose player base has affected how you feel about the game, positively or negatively?

Who’s an animal sidekick in video games you don’t think gets nearly enough praise for being a good boy?

Do you feel shorter games are not worth the typical $60 price versus a game that you can spend 50+ hours playing or is it simply “quality over quantity”?

If you were to introduce your parents to the magic of video games, what game(s) would you suggest to them?

How do you feel about a game’s good/bad dialogue or actions? Do you go through a game trying to help others and be nice or does anyone who approaches you receive the “prepare to die!” response?

Boom! Two blog posts with one….um…stone? I’m not tagging anyone specifically so my questions are open to anyone who would like to answer any(or all) of them. Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!