Gears of War will always be one of my favorite video game franchises. For every game, I would try and complete every campaign on the insanity difficulty which is the hardest difficulty in the game. Marcus, Dom, Cole, and Baird each had unique personalities that turned them into amazing teams. When I heard Gears of War 4 was being developed, my initial thought was is this necessary? While I enjoyed playing Gears of War 4, I kept thinking to myself if the series should have ended at Gears of War 3.

For those who aren’t huge Gears of War fans, here is a brief overview of the games. Sera is the fictional planet that Gears takes place on. At the end of Gears of War 3, an imulsion countermeasure was released wiping out the Lambent and the Locust which are the evil creatures in the game. 25 years later, humanity has been affected heavily by this imulsion. Cities are walled-off to prevent the decline of humanity and “outsiders” are humans who oppose this action. J.D. Fenix (Marcus’s son), Kait Diaz, and Del Walker are a part of this group who travel between cities and violate all sorts of international laws.

As the group attempt to steal supplies from the C.O.G (which is the army that Marcus, Dom, Cole, and Baird were a part of) they’re attacked by “the Swarm” a group of creatures that aren’t human. The group tries to find Kait’s mother who was kidnapped by the creatures.

I will say that Kait is my favorite character in the group as the Gears games had mostly male characters to play as. The action sequences in this game were entertaining as I’m the person who enjoys hiding in a corner and taking out enemies from afar.

Overall, I enjoyed the game because I like the mechanics of the Gears games. Was this game necessary? It’s tough to say. I think there’s nothing wrong with ending the series on a high note. Gears of War 4 was fun to play, but I also think the franchise could have been left alone.

I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness. Therefore, I don’t often talk about mental illness on this blog. Last weekend while randomly surfing through Wikipedia pages did I come across the game designer; Zoe Quinn. They created a simple point-and-click game about what it’s like living with depression titled Depression Quest. Completing Depression Quest helped me gain insight into what it’s like battling with this illness.

The game has an opening page detailing a content warning because the content in the game is heavy. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline URL is also located toward the top of the page. As you may infer, Depression Quest is not a happy game. The unnamed main character begins with a feeling of being “inwardly angry towards feeling lazy”. Additionally, the character has a job, a partner named Alex, and a loving family. As you click through the game, different experiences will shape the character and how they react to changes in their life.

I have never been diagnosed with depression, so I usually become informed about mental illnesses through the stories of others. This game didn’t teach me anything new about what it’s like to have depression, but I feel more empathy towards mental illnesses. I used to be ignorant when it came to mental illnesses because when I was growing up and going to school, depression wasn’t talked about. I think our society has become more open with mental illnesses, but I think that we could reduce the stigma that exists surrounding mental illnesses.

This game goes by quick and I recommend checking it out if you haven’t. Mental illnesses can be debilitating, but the more we understand them, the better we can act as a support system to those who have been diagnosed. Video games can be a teaching medium for important issues and thanks to Zoe Quinn for their strength in telling a shorter version of their daily battles with the disease.

Arkham Horror is the game that brought me into tabletop gaming. Based off of H.P Lovecraft’s horror stories, the game has its own world of shops and characters to learn from. Lovecraft’s stories often focus on the fear of the unknown which often included weird entities that once seen took away your sanity. Cthulhu is one such creature that is the most popular from his stories possibly because of his gigantic size and fearsome appearance. Focus Home Interactive is creating a game based on Lovecraft’s New England world with a probable appearance of Cthulhu. I watched the new trailer yesterday and I’m pumped. You can watch the trailer yourself down below.

“Mr. Pierce, have you questioned your own sanity? Maybe you should!”

I’m not usually into horror games, but this one appeals to me. I think what makes H.P. Lovecraft’s stories stand the test of time is how he appeals to the quest for knowledge that humans naturally have. Mr. Pierce is only trying to discover what is happening to these people and why they have dreams from under the sea.

There is no release date as of yet, but I’m anxiously awaiting to play it and to be scared of the all-mighty Cthulhu.

Welcome back to another retro gaming post. My first retro gaming post was about Carmen Sandiego being the most stylish criminal. Today’s post is going back to popular arcade games. My absolute favorite arcade game ever has to be Dig Dug. My younger self had a Dig Dug emulator on my old computer and I spent too much of my time playing this game. Dig Dug is one of my favorite arcade games.

Briefly, Dig Dug had a featured cameo in Wreck-It Ralph. I wish Dig Dug had a bigger role in this movie, but sadly they are only seen in passing. Dig Dug was a creation in the 80’s thanks to the Japanese company, Namco. Atari snatched the license for Dig Dug and made it playable on most of their machines. Dig Dug is named after the monster killer as he goes underground to eliminate the “Pooka” and the “Fygar” The Pooka is that little blob with the yellow goggles while the Fygar is the green dragon that’s oddly adorable in this screenshot above.

Each game places the Dig Dug in the center of the map. At first, the Pookas and the Fygars are contained in their areas. Throughout the rounds, they can fly up to meet the Dig Dug to try and kill him. The rocks are especially useful because if the Dig Dug passes underneath the rocks, they become loose and can drop on the unsuspected Fygar.

Let me know in the comments what your favorite arcade game is.

As a Christmas present, I received a 3DS from my mom. I don’t remember why I wanted one in the first place, but it was all I could talk about. I also received two games; Luigi’s Dark Moon and Animal Crossing New Leaf. I spent hours playing Animal Crossing and didn’t devote my time to anything else. Eventually, I got sick of the game and set my 3DS aside for some time. Lately, I have made it a goal of mine to use my 3DS more. Yoshi’s Island is a game I have been slowly playing through until completing the game yesterday. Here are my initial thoughts.

Yoshi’s Island takes place immediately after Super Mario World where a stork is delivering baby Mario and Luigi to new parents. Kamek thwarts this plan by kidnapping the stork and baby Luigi. Yoshi now with little baby Mario attempt to rescue Luigi and the kidnapped stork. Personally, I could care less about the actual story. I care about the levels and the ease of playing the game.

I will say some of the levels were incredibly fun. In the Brave the Bumpty Blizzard level, Yoshi slides around and encounters penguins to interact with. The tropical world 3 levels are another one of my favorites from the game.

Yoshi’s Island doesn’t offer a lot of rewards for replaying the game. I mean now that I have completed it, I probably won’t play it again for some time. I could collect all the coins, but there’s no incentive for me to do that. Unless I could unlock additional content? It’s not worth it.

If you’re 3DS is collecting dust on a shelf, I do recommend picking this game up. It’s adorable, cute and a relaxing game to ease into picking up the 3DS again. Now I’m incredibly excited because the next game on my shelf to play is Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and it’s my first time playing. I can’t wait.

Thursday nights are typically boring because I usually write my lab report and work at night. However, this past Thursday was actually eventful. Thursday happened to be a game night that my library at school was hosting. Local board game shops are invited to our library to demo board games for students. After I ended work, I drove to the library and played games with a couple of cool people. One of the games I tried out was Dixit. Dixit is essentially Apples to Apples with abstract pictures and it’s oddly enjoyable.

In this game, players draw 6 cards that have abstract art on them. On your turn, you pick a card from your hand and say one word about that card. You want this word to describe the image, but not so obvious that everyone knows what image you pick. Everyone else picks a card and adds it to the pile. The cards are then placed face up and everyone else guesses which card you picked. There are points awarded to the players who correctly guess the card I put in. You win by being the first player to receive 30 points.

For example, say I decided I wanted to use the card on the right with the man destroying the city. Some good descriptive words could be: hungry, angry, and epic. These words are broad yet could describe what’s occurring in the art. Some words I wouldn’t use to describe the image on the right could be destruction, devastation and monster. These words would be too specific to that picture.

Initially, I thought I wouldn’t be very good at this game. As my friends were explaining it to me, I was still puzzled by how the game worked. During the rounds, I started to catch on and even though I didn’t win the game, I came really close.

I definitely would play this again. I didn’t think I would love this game as much as I did, but it makes you think. It’s a fun twist on Apples to Apples that the whole family can enjoy. I’m glad I could cross off another game on my Board Game Bucket List.

Scrolling through the gaming section on my blog, I was shocked to see that I hadn’t written a gaming-themed article since August! Due to a lack of time from working on weekends, to studying Mechanical Kinesiology notes, I haven’t been gaming nearly as much as I used to. I attempt to set aside two hours to just game and not do anything productive. Nonetheless, I game when I can and a couple weekends ago I finally beat Batman Arkham Knight. Here are my initial thoughts about the story.

The Return of Oracle

Barbara Gordon lives!! YAY 🙂 A couple weeks ago, I posted about Barbara and how her death angered me. Turns out that she didn’t die in the first place, so I had to edit my Barbara blog post.. how embarrassing. Anyway, I was glad she had a major role in the finale at the GCPD. That was probably one of my favorite parts of the game, to be honest. If there is another Batman game, I really want Barbara to have a bigger role.

The Robin Family

Nightwing is probably one of my favorite comic book heroes of all time. Does anyone else have a crush on Dick Grayson? No? Just me?

The Batmobile 

The battle mode in the Batmobile feels like Grand Theft Auto in Gotham and I love it. There is a side quest where you have to take out a bunch of tanks while also safely disarming bombs and it’s so much fun. I’m actually a horrible driver when I play video games so I constantly kept crashing into things.

While I finished the game, I’m that gamer who wants to complete everything in a game! After I fly around Gotham and finish most of the side quests, I will feel like I finally restored Gotham to a place of solace.