NekoJonez Wins Unique Blogger Award

So, thanks to Games With Coffee, my blog is an award richer. In total, I got 2 awards from other websites. Feedspot and MarketInspector gave both gave me an award. In addition to that, my gaming blog got a few other community awards. The Versatile Blogger in 2013, Liebster Award in 2014 and The Blogger Recognition Award in 2017. So, this is the 6th one. Now, thank you so much for the recognition! So before I go in the community part of the reward, allow me to say a few words. 

A few words

So, besides working on my own content and blog each and every week, I like to help and support other bloggers behind the scenes. In 2013, I started with this blog, but I have been blogging since 2010. In 2010, I wrote a Dutch blog that now got deleted and got replaced by this blog: NekoJonez’s Gaming Blog.

While I just enjoy writing articles as a hobby, the fact that people do read my content, like it, comment on it, share it… just makes me happy. It gives me a special feeling when I got support from anybody.

I’m just a hobbyist writer who loves to talk about my game collection & my opinion on the gaming market.

In any case, I can talk about this for hours, but I’m not going to let this part drag on for too long. Thank you for this award and I can’t wait to see what 2018 will bring. Be sure that there will be a lot more collabs and guests featured on my blog!

Question time!

What qualities or characteristics in a villain from your favorite game or series do you admire and why?

I have a few favorite villains, to be honest, but talking about their characteristics might spoil the whole experience in some cases. I do enjoy villains with an amazing twist, something you don’t see coming like in Zero Time Dilemma or in Bioshock Infinite.

Another villain I really enjoy is Sachiko Shinozaki from Corpse Party. The false sense of security she lures you into, that’s something I really like in the Corpse Party series.

To be honest, I really like villains that have a reason to be evil. Those stick out more to me. Even when you see the identity of the villain coming from miles away, like in A Hat In Time I honestly don’t mind.

Even when you know the big bad guy from the start of the game like in Tomb Raider, I enjoy that he has a reason to be evil you know?

What I don’t like in villains is that when near the end somebody betrays you since he or she was the big bad guy all along. Or a bad guy who is just there to be the bad guy. Except when I’m playing a kids game from my childhood, then I can excuse it.

But, that’s not an answer to the actual question. My answer is the villain in Zero Escape Time Dilemma. Without spoiling too much, I’ll say this. After playing the three games in order and getting surprises, twists and turns left and right; the ending to the series is pretty good. It actually stuck with me for a while and made me think about the whole series for weeks after that. The reasoning and the ideology of the bad guy are so screwed up but logical at the same time, it’s something to think about you know? That’s all I’m going to say without getting into spoiler territory.

 

If you could choose any character from any video game to become for a day, who would you choose and what (with their special abilities or powers) would you do in that timeframe?

It was tempting to cheat here, to say something like Hat Kid from A Hat in Time or Link from Majora’s Mask. The reason why is that they can both manipulate time and I could restart the day easily when it was almost over.

Why would I choose Hat Kid? Well, because I want to live in her adventure. I fell in love with the charm of the world and I wouldn’t mind living in it for a while.

Why would I choose Link from Majora’s Mask? Well, I played Majora’s Mask when I was pretty young. I had a fascination with masks/suits that provide you with special powers. This was because I recently saw The Mask movie with Jim Carrey before I played Majora’s Mask.

I was about 9 years old back then, so I always imagined that one day I would find a mask that transforms me into a certain creature when I felt like it. Oh, innocent child imagination is interesting is it not?

Actually, I made up a sort of sequel to the game with more masks and transformations and puzzles. Too bad I lost the papers I wrote it down on to a bottle of water. Yeah…

If I’m allowed to choose a character that can’t mess with time, well, currently I would have to go for Indiana Jones from the Indiana Jones games. I know, I know; he is a movie character in the first place. But, he has appeared in a whole slew of games. And, if I would be able to be him for more then one day, I would love to go through one of his gaming adventures like The Infernal Machine.

And if I have to choose a character that only appears in gaming; well, Frederica from Etrain Odyssey Untold. Oh yes, her personality and all that is so similar to mine in some aspects and her role in the story feel just right for me to be for one day.

And what would I do in that day? Well, just explore the labyrinth with the rest of the gang and have the biggest adventure of my life that only 24 hours can give.

In your mind, what constitutes a Mature, Distinguished Gamer?

A pretty simple answer here, in my opinion, somebody who is able to keep an open mind about gaming. Somebody who plays retro and modern games. Somebody who doesn’t play the latest of the latest game because of the hype train, but plays the games he or she wants to play.

Somebody who helps other gamers with their problems but also sharpens their skills so they look “cool for the young kids”.

If you want to talk about the big names in gaming who for example run the big blogs or own the big YouTube channels, I think that the people who get furthest are the people who stay true to themselves. Somebody I really look up to is Clint aka LazyGameReviews. His gaming skill and maturity he presents his content is just an inspiration to me.

In my mind, people like him are mature distinguished gamers. People who aren’t afraid to say their own opinion. Caddicarus is also a great example.

Somebody who stays true to themselves and don’t go talking about the latest new thing but talk about what they want to talk about. Also, mature gamers don’t talk down to younger gamers or games meant for younger audiences you know.

That’s the short version of my answer, I could talk more about this, but this article isn’t the place for that.

My nominations

While I could nominate a few people Games With Coffee did, I decided to not do that and give a few of my other blogger friends the spotlight. To keep the list a bit short, I decided to pick a few at random, but to be honest, if I could this list would be miles long.

1. OverThinkerY
2. DoubleJump
3. HundStrasse
4. HungryGoriya
5. FalconGameReviews
6. OtakuGamerZone
7. Sheikah Plate
8. LaterLevels
9. IPlayedTheGame!
10. Reaper Interactive
11. AdventureRules
12. RealOtakuGamer
13. AnjimPlays

Amongst a lot of others. Seriously, you all deserve more awards for creating a better community and the work and effort you put into your blog, support me and other bloggers, it’s just fantastic.

So, these are the rules for this community award.

1. Display the award. (See above).
2. Thank the individual(s) who have nominated you and include a link to their blog. A little promotion for their blog is also welcome.
3. Answer the questions asked by the individual who has nominated you.
4. Nominate an arbitrary number of bloggers and have them answer three questions you put forth to them.

What are my questions then? Feel free to answer how much detail you want! Ready, set, here we go:

1. If you were able to erase all memories from one game to be able to fully experience it again, which game would it be and why?
2. If you were allowed to help in the production of a game, which role would you take on and why? The role of producer, voice actor, writer, designer…?
3. What is one of the earliest video game memories?

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing this! Thank you for the award Games with Coffee for the award! The fact that you got it too is well deserved in my opinion.

I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then have a great rest of your day and take care!

Also, remember if you aren’t reading this on NekoJonez’s Gaming Blog (https://arpegi.wordpress.com), this article might be stolen. Yes, this is a test to see how much theft is still going on by a theft website. So ignore this section, please. Okay? 

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Gaming Nostalgia #3: Why I adore portable gaming so much.

If people ask me what my favorite console ever is, then I’ll answer that I choose the Nintendo Wii. My favorite handheld, is a way tougher question. It’s currently the Nintendo DS line but it was a close call between the Gameboy Advance and the Sony PSP. My favorite gaming platform, well that’s the Nintendo DS right now. Some may say that I’m a Nintendo fanboy. While that’s somewhat true I’m not only a Nintendo fanboy. If you read my blog, it’s quite clear that I also play other games then Nintendo games. One of my favorite games of all time isn’t even on a Nintendo platform. Anyways, it’s time to tell a story. A story about my past in games. Feel free to leave a comment about this story or/and your own experiences.

Gameboy

So, the computer I got because my parents didn’t want me to work or play on their computer was actually a pretty weak one for it’s time. It’s was excellent to introduce me into old school gaming but when I wanted to play more recent games, I have to be lucky and play them at a friends house.

Since I had a limited time on the computer and Belgium doesn’t offer any shows on TV concerning games I wasn’t able to keep myself up-to-date with the currently released games. I got interested in games that I saw at my nephew’s or friends place. So, of course I jumped the bandwagon of Pokémon.

I had a hard time to make friends as a kid. (Don’t worry, this isn’t the case anymore 🙂 ) So, most of my hobbies were things I could do alone or with my sister. Even as a child, I was addicted to writing stories and creating things. I didn’t knew that a laptop existed so when I got my own gameboy, my young mind went …. well … boom.

I felt like I was able to carry a small computer all around where ever I needed it. My experience with games before I got my own gameboy were nothing more then playing Pac-Man or Tetris on my aunt’s brick gameboy. You know, the original gameboy.

It all started with a bang.

I still remember a moment when I was at my aunt’s place and I just stopped playing Tetris. I placed the gameboy back in the drawer and when my aunt took it out and took one of the batteries out of the back, the battery exploded for some reason in her hand.

Normally, a child wouldn’t be so fond anymore of playing on that gameboy. Seeing things explode and people you love get hurt, it isn’t really the most fun experience for a child.

But the opposite happened. I wanted to know why the battery exploded and how I could prevent it. From that moment on, I started to ask technical questions about the gameboy. Like, which batteries that need to go inside it. I can be sure that since that day, my fascination with games started.

Oh, after finishing this article I remembered an important part of the story. When I was young, my aunt took me over to friends of hers. She had to babysit the two daughters who on their turn looked after me. And they had a box of gameboy games. That’s how I actually got introduced to a gameboy. Man, the memories coming back now.

I remember that even before I could play Pokémon, I was playing Super Mario on my gameboy over and over. I had never beaten it. Even when I try now, I can’t beat it. This makes one thing pretty clear to me. I’m not so good in platformers.

A genre I’m actually good at is the adventure genre. One day I was actually on a flea market. Since my family wanted to save on games, we bought our games there. I bought a Zelda game there. Best decision I ever made. Period. Since that day I was hooked to the series. I couldn’t stop playing it. I even stopped playing Pokémon because the Zelda games interested me more.

When I want to tell you guys the reason why I enjoy handheld games so much then I can tell the story in a way shorter version. I didn’t had access to the other systems. It’s the system where I find the most enjoyment. Since portable games need to be fun in short and long bursts. This fits my playing style just perfectly.

If you want to read more about my childhood memories with games, you will have to wait until I write a new article of gaming nostalgia. (Or read the previous two.) Since I see that I’m running out of space to write about one game of my childhood.

Dusting off: Lego Alpha Team

Wikipedia link

I was so pissed when this game broke on my computer. The game started crashing all over the place. Since this game is actually quite fun.

It’s a game about handholding but the other way around. You have to place tiles so your character can run in the right direction. You do have a limited amount of tiles of course.

This game challenged my young mind quite a lot. This game is the base of my love for adventure games and puzzling games. When it stopped working on my computer, I was allowed to play this game on my parents their computer. And only this game.

You really need to check this game out! Since I highly recommend it. And don’t worry, this game is on my list to talk about more in depth in the future of my blog.

Closing words

Thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading my story. I enjoy looking back on my past and talking about it. After all, I’m more of a story writer then an actual article writer.

If you want to be kept up-to-date with me, I advice you to follow me on Tumblr and Twitter. So, until the next time! Later!