Community Award: Real Neat Blog Award from Frostilye

I have won an award with my blog. Well sort of. Remember the time you got those chain emails where people ask “send this to X amount of people to…”? In the blogging community, we gave this concept a unique spin. We have community/tag awards. The idea is that bloggers promote each other by passing an award. In March, I got tagged with the “Real Neat Blog Award” by Frostilyte (who also created the picture you see at the top of this post). Man, I’m always so thankful when other bloggers tag me in these kinds of posts since I find it amazing to see how we as bloggers stick together and help each other but also recognize each other. So, it’s time to follow the rules of this kind of posts where I thank the tagger, answer the questions and ask my own questions for the people I tag. Oh, also feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content of the article and/or maybe your own answers on the questions if you want to. 

1) Have you ever been really excited about a game only to be disappointed by it?

I think the way I select the games I want to play actually helped me to avoid being really disappointed by a game. When I start a game, I’m always going in with an open mind and telling myself that it’s possible that the game isn’t going to be my cup of tea.

Of course, there are games that I’m extremely excited about and weren’t the best they could be. But, let’s be honest here, there is always something in a game that you find disappointing and it can range from a small or minor thing to something that affects the whole game.

For example, I really enjoyed The Legend of Zelda – A Link Between Worlds but I’m not that big of a fan of the art style. Yet, there are a lot of people who really liked the art style of that game.

Another example is Etrain Odyssey IV, the thing that I found disappointing is that there wasn’t any voice acting. Yes, no voice acting. Now here is the thing, usually, there is no voice acting in the franchise apart from 4 out of 10 games in the series. So yeah, it’s an extremely silly reason since I loved playing Etrain Odyssey on the DS and that game doesn’t have voice acting either.

Or, The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild. I was beyond excited about the game, but when I played it, I found that the game shifted a bit too much from the usual Zelda formula, but after a while, I really started to grow on me.

I could talk way more in-depth about this topic, and maybe I should in another article. But I think that I have to answer the question with “no, I haven’t or I can’t remember.” Since there are always aspects of the game I enjoy and aspects I’m not that fond of.

2) Is there any aspect of your life, big or small, that you’re not completely content with and that you frequently think about changing?

It’s a cheesy answer but I’m going to give it. Life is far from perfect and there will be always things you want to change.

I know that my English isn’t perfect and that I often write mistakes. It would be easy for me to hide behind the fact that English isn’t my native language. My native language is Dutch and I also know French and a small bit of German. But, I’m always content when people point out mistakes. It helps me improve my writing and my English skills.

I know that I tend to procrastinate a lot. Sometimes a bit too much. From small to big projects, for some reason, I love to do things at the last minute for some reason. There are moments in time that I don’t procrastinate that much, but that’s not always the case.

Then again, when I’m really honest with myself. I find that myself quite content with my life and where things are going. If I keep up the good work I’m currently doing, I think I will be able to realize my dreams.

3) Can you tell me a joke?

You know that I love to tell stories, so let me tell you an amusing story. I think I was around 10 years old and my family and I were on our yearly trip to the seaside. In the vacation park, we were staying at, there is a football field (I mean for playing soccer. Not for American Football.). Well, more like a farmers field since it was quite uneven and you were able to see puddles when had rained. Keep that in mind, the field is anything but even.

There was this guy, let’s call him Dave,  who always got angry when we were playing with a leather football since it was extremely dangerous. His reasoning, you were able to kick out a window with them. So, in the summer evening, there were a lot of kids and teenagers playing football.

Dave was playing tennis on the road next to the football field together with his brother. Everything went fine until one of the kids brought a leather ball. When Dave saw that leather ball, he got so pissed that he pointed at the ball with the tennis racket he was holding. But, his grip… oh man, his grip. I think you might see what’s coming next.

Dave swung his arm with the racket towards the leather ball and lost grip of the racket. The racket went off flying with some speed towards the football field. The metal side of the racket hit an uneven part of the football field and almost crashed into a window. And yes, it was the window of his front door.

Yes, that was extremely funny to see. I remember that moment extremely well. I wish I had a smartphone that day to record the whole event but back in those days, we all had those PDA-type phones. Those old-school Nokia’s. So, yeah. The moment will live on as a memory instead of a movie.

4) I recently read how evil a company directly correlates to how honest and heartfelt the company tries to appear in its advertising. Do you think there is any truth to this?

That’s an interesting question. But, I think there is an issue with the question. For starters, try to define “evil”. On top of that, find me one company that creates advertisements that present their brand or company in a negative way.

The statement/conclusion doesn’t sit well with me. I feel like I’m missing context. So, it could be that there is some truth to it, but it could also be that there isn’t any truth to it.

5) We all have post styles, or series that we create on our blogs. What is your favorite post style/series on your blog?

I try to use the same or a similar writing style on my works and posts. I just love talking about games and giving my opinion on it. Now, I’m quite proud of The Legend of Zelda – Bloggers Journey. It started off as a simple idea and now that this style of post happened for 3 different series: Mario, Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider; I’m just so happy to see what it has become.

The thing I love to see the most is the change in my writing style. I love to see how my writing style evolved over the years. I’m really interested to see how my writing style is going to be in a few years. Am I still going to explain why certain things or mechanics don’t work, pointing out flaws in games? Am I still going to talk about games? Only the future will give an answer to that question.

6) Light theme, or dark theme?

When I have the option to pick a theme, I prefer to fiddle around with the options to fit my personal needs. Now, my favorite color is gray/silver and the dark theme fits more to that. Apart from that, I feel that the dark theme feels easier on the eyes when looking to a screen for a long time. And since my job involves a lot of computers, I’m quite happy with the recent trend of adding dark modes everywhere.

7) What’s something you accomplished in the past several months that you’re really proud of?

The simple fact that I was able to find my dream job. I always dreamt of working in a school and helping teachers and students to have the best time possible. I also love to work with computers and technology. I’m part of the IT Staff in an art school and I love it.

I’m really proud of myself that I was able to land the job and that I’m able to work in my field of passion. Since it’s something that I adore doing, and to be honest, sometimes it doesn’t feel like work to me. My tasks include maintaining the website, fixing problems with the IT equipment, explaining how tech works to teachers…

Maintain a website, well just look at this blog. I already do it as a hobby, so yeah. Fixing problems with IT equipment is something that I already did on the side for friends and family. And explaining how tech works to teachers feels extremely rewarding when you see teachers being able to use the tech to improve their classes and make life easier for them and the students. Could you ask for more?

My questions

1. If I start a new retrospective collab project like my Zelda and Tomb Raider project, which series should I pick and why?
2. What’s the most difficult part of being a blogger according to you?
3. With YouTube being so big, do you think that written articles still have a place in the current entertainment industry?
4. Did games become easier or have we as gamers become more skilled?
5. What are your favorite (gaming related) April Fool jokes?
6. Which series/game would you love to see revived?
7. Do you think there is still a place in the gaming market for handheld gaming or did the smartphone market take it over? Or are those two the same market?

And the people I tag:

Matt from NormalHappenings

Robert from AdventureRules

Kim from LaterLevels

Shelby from FalconGameReviews

All my mage buddies over at the WellRedMage

Omar from Pete’s Corner

KillerRobotics

And with that said, I have left out a ton of amazing video game bloggers. I highly recommend that you check out everybody linked here since they all write amazing things and have interesting viewpoints on the gaming world.

But, I also want to thank you all for reading. I’m always so happy when people read my articles and interact with them. It makes my day. I’m writing this blog as a hobby and being able to review games from indie developers and being recognized by other bloggers for the work I put in my blog is such a rewarding and great feeling. Thank you!

Thank you again for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

 

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First Impressions: Suicide Guy (PC – Steam) ~ How Do I Die This Time?

Steam page

In most games, your goal is to accomplish a goal alive. Yet, there are a few games that challenge you to do the exact opposite. This is one of these games. Your goal is to try and die in your dream to hopefully wake up and catch the beer you dropped. So, will this guy be able to drop his beer before it hits the ground? Full disclosure, I got a review code for this game. So, with that said, it’s time to talk about this game. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion/thoughts on the content of this article and/or the game.

Note: for this review, I haven’t fully beaten the game, that’s why it’s the first impression. Also, I have played v1.2.1 released on September 18^th.

The tavern hub

Like I said in the introduction of this article, the goal is to die in each dream to try and wake up so you can catch your falling beer. The story is basic but it fits the theme rather well. This game is a hybrid of a puzzle, action, adventure and platform game. The story takes a backseat for most of the game and honestly, I’m glad for that.

I expected much worse things when I heard the title. I expected the story to be about a highly depressed man who wanted to die as quickly as possible. But the story is lighthearted and that makes the game even more enjoyable.

So, after the first dream that acts like a tutorial, you get sent to the hub world. The hub world is a big tavern with all the tables a separate level. The level you have to beat will have a light shining on it, all the beaten levels will have their icon without said light. I really like the hub world since on the monitors you still see your main objective, wake up and catch that beer.

The hub world also helps build the character you play as a bit more. I’m under the impression is a somebody who owns his own tavern at the side of the road who is on holiday watching TV. Or perhaps, I might be looking way too much into this.

The icons you see on the tables is also a quick representation of what the level is going to be about. You can also see if you have collected the statue of that level. When you have found the hidden statue in the level, it will be displayed on the table. I really like the design of the statues, since the pose has always something to do with the level theme.

I have two issues with this hub world and that is the in some occasions, the sound effect for the level doesn’t start playing when you quickly walk between levels.

The second issue I have is with the placement of the levels. Levels 1 to 7 are placed in such a strange order; levels 1,2,3 and 7 are placed on one row and 4,5,6 are placed on the other row. I personally place them in a more linear order. The reason why I talk so much in-depth about this is that from level 7 to level 25, it’s all placed in a linear order. So, why not the first few levels.

How shall we beat this level?

The goal of each level is simple. Find the end of the level to try and commit suicide. Like I said before, in each level, you have a statue to find too. This is optional as far as I know.

Once you collect the statue, it stays collected. So, if you didn’t find the statue the first time, you can enter the level and find it. You don’t have to beat the level to keep the statue. Most of them are in plain sight and if you explore just a little bit, the statues are easily found.

I really love the theming of each level. Some levels are even a reference to other popular games or movies. There is even a level based on Indiana Jones, my favorite movie series!

Visually, this game is very pretty. I think it’s a quite impressive display. The only thing I don’t like about the visual presentation when you crouch and you look up, you see what I think are the tops of the arm models. I have seen this for the first time in the 8^th level.

The animations are also great. You can see a big visual difference between the graphical settings. I ran the game on high settings since the normal settings had some elements that I didn’t like too much. The shadows for example where too blocky. If you can avoid it, don’t use the lowest graphics settings. The lighting engine goes banana’s then and makes the levels too bright. The game has rather low system requirements, so I think not a lot of modern computers will have trouble with it.

There are a few areas that could some polish visually. Some parts of decorative walls aren’t solid and sometimes the skybox is shown in-doors. Most of the times, these problems are quite minor and will only annoy you if you look for them. I have notified the developer of all instances I found.

Shall we catch that beer?

This game has controller support. I haven’t tested it out with my controller, but I have played the game using a mouse and keyboard.

One annoying thing about the controls is that you can’t rebind them. This isn’t such a big issue if you use QWERTY-keyboards. Sadly enough, here in Belgium, we use AZERTY keyboards so I was annoyed that I had to change my keyboard language to QWERTY to easily play the game. If this could be fixed, I would be a very happy camper.

The UI of this game is pretty good. I have only one complaint, I think that the “select level” button in the main menu is not needed. The hub area covered that already.

The biggest problems with this game are the awkward items and jump controls you must get used to. The problem with the item controls is that the “pick up items” button is a physical button and the “use items” button is the left mouse button. I think it would be better if either both are buttons or both actions use the mouse.

The problem I have with the jumping is that you don’t always know if the character is going to grab and climb up a ledge or not. Maybe a bit more of a visual indicator would be helpful. In most levels, there isn’t a lot of jumping that you must do. So, it isn’t that big of a problem since you get used to it quickly.

Each level isn’t too long. If you know what you are doing, some levels can be beaten in 1 or 2 minutes. In addition to that, if you screwed up and got stuck somewhere, you can easily restart the level without losing too much progress.

If you commit to it, you can beat this game in an afternoon. The game doesn’t take longer than 2 and half hours to beat. This makes the game ideal for speed running. I think that this game would be better if there is a “speed running mode”, where there is a timer in the bottom of the screen and after you have beaten the game, you see a results screen that you could possibly share online, on how fast you beat each level and the entire game.

One thing that I missed in this game is a sort of hint system. One time, I was really stuck on the Mario level. I didn’t want to look up a walkthrough, but I did want a hint. It took a bit too long to figure out what I had to do to climb up to the second ledge.

The soundtrack of this game is excellent. You also can get the soundtrack for the game data folder. If you enjoy the soundtrack, you can listen to it everywhere you want. Something quite unique is the fact that the music plays through the radios scattered around the level. You can pick up those radios to take the music with you or shut them off if you don’t want to hear the music. Pretty great mechanic.

This game isn’t too difficult, once you figure out what you should do, it’s straightforward. This game can be challenging when you don’t see the solution, but overall, it’s quite simple.

There are also Steam Achievements and Steam Trading Cards for those who are interesting in those.

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. I can’t wait to fully beat it myself. Currently, I’m halfway done. If I had to give a score of what I played so far, I would give the game a 7/10. This game is a very fun game but it’s rather short. It’s ideal for casual players or gamers who want to play something quick and different. Also, for the cheap price tag of 5€, you can’t complain. This game has a lot of polish and soul put into it and it’s a bargain for that price.

Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!