Episode 12 – Pika Pika, My Ass!

On this episode of Make Me A Gamer, TMan and HarveyZ start off with some more excellent adventures in XCOM 2. Then they go over some Overwatch League news and cover Square Enix’s unfortunate Final Fantasy XV conference. After that, they get a little reflective when they talk about Stan Lee’s passing before ending on a discussion about the new Detective Pikachu trailer and other video game movies. (This episode was recorded November 13th, 2018.)

TMan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tmanplaysgames

HarveyZ on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ThaZIsSilent

Make Me A Gamer on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MakeMeAPodcast

E-mail us @ makemeagamerpodcast@gmail.com

Please rate and leave a review for us on whatever podcast app you’re using to listen to us, and thanks to everyone who gives us a listen!

Movie Theory: The Plot Crimes of Grindelwald

I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan. I’ve read all the books and seen a few of the movies, mostly through the influence of multiple women throughout my life. I like the universe in general but I’ve never been super obsessed with which house I belong to or wishing I got an owl mail sending me to the American equivalent of Hogwarts. (Ilvermorny, right?)

As such, I didn’t come into the Fantastic Beasts movie franchise with too much excitement or baggage. I was interested but not enthusiastic. When I saw the first one in theaters I liked it but came out of the movie theater feeling like something was off. It bothered me because I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong or express what was bothering me about the movie. When I watched it again this weekend before seeing Crimes of Grindelwald, I still enjoyed it but also still felt the same sense of “something isn’t quite right.”

I saw Crimes of Grindelwald and actually didn’t like it. But on top of not liking it, I felt the same unexplainable nagging in the back of my head and it began to frustrate me because I wanted to be able to vocalize what was bugging me. So I thought about both movies together to try and figure out what it was – and I finally got my Eureka moment.

It was the narrative structure that was bothering me.

I’m not going to talk about canon or retcons or universe-related problems in this critique- instead I’m going to focus on the narrative and overall plotlines of both movies. There will be major spoilers of both Crimes of Grindelwald and Fantastic Beasts, so if you haven’t seen them both and want to remain unspoiled, read no further.

Continue reading “Movie Theory: The Plot Crimes of Grindelwald” →

Episode 11 – Social Awkwardness: +5 To Speed

This week on Make Me A Gamer, there’s a lot of news for TMan to catch HarveyZ up on. There’s updates on Pokemon, the Rockstar 100 hour work week controversy, as well as new info on the Overwatch League and a brand new Overwatch character! We also discuss the latest Super Smash Bros Ultimate information, the Diablo Immortal drama that’s been circulating the internet, and a little bit about the Fallout 76 beta bugs. HarveyZ does get a chance to update everyone on his XCOM 2: War of the Chosen adventures at the end, though! (This episode was recorded November 5th.)

 

TMan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tmanplaysgames

HarveyZ on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ThaZIsSilent

Make Me A Gamer on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MakeMeAPodcast

E-mail us @ makemeagamerpodcast@gmail.com

Please rate and leave a review for us on whatever podcast app you’re using to listen to us, and thanks to everyone who gives us a listen!

What I’ve Been Playing – October 2018

Well it’s November now, and that means it’s time for a recap of what I played in October. Much like September was spent primarily playing Spider-Man, I spent the majority of October playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I posted my review of it last week and you can find it here. Since I already talked in-depth about it, I won’t be including it on my “games I played in October” list since I’d just be retracing my footsteps over topics I already discussed.

However, despite me putting 80 hours into Assassin’s Creed, I still managed to find time to play a few other games. I played a few levels of Mega Man 11 on the Switch, and that wasn’t the only side-scroller I got into. I also played Castlevania Requiem, which is the rerelease of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. I also spent a little bit of time in Dark Souls Remastered. Finally, I played a really interesting game called Return of the Obra Dinn and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Toby Fox’s fantastic (and free!) follow-up to Undertale – Deltarune.

So let’s dive in and talk about some games!

Continue reading “What I’ve Been Playing – October 2018” →

Episode 10 – Horse Poop Vs. Heart Attack

On this week’s episode of Make Me A Gamer, HarveyZ has actually played a game! He talks about his adventures with the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen expansion, and then TMan talks about an interesting new game he’s been playing – Return of the Obra Dinn. Then they get into a discussion about art and plagiarism as well as diving into the Rockstar 100 hour work week controversy. (This episode was recorded on October 20th.)

TMan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tmanplaysgames

HarveyZ on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ThaZIsSilent

Make Me A Gamer on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MakeMeAPodcast

E-mail us @ makemeagamerpodcast@gmail.com

Please rate and leave a review for us on whatever podcast app you’re using to listen to us, and thanks to everyone who gives us a listen!

My Top 100 Favorite Video Games

So at the beginning of this year, I started an ambitious project to list my top 100 video games of all-time. I intended to write a blurb about every game on the list and count down from 100 to 1, but unfortunately I fizzled out and only got through 100-61. You can find links to all those posts below in the list.

I didn’t want to have the year end without posting the whole list though, so under the cut is going to be a simple list of all 100 games. These are my favorites, not necessarily the “best” games I’ve ever played but the ones that have a special place in my heart or are just too fun not to share.

I may eventually get to writing up the rest, and if so I’ll update this post with links to each write-up. Unfortunately with November coming up and me probably attempting NaNoWriMo again, it’s unlikely I’ll have the time for the in-depth write-ups I’d like to do for these games, especially once we get into the top 20 or so. Anyway, without further ado, here are my 100 favorite games of all-time, starting with #100:

Continue reading “My Top 100 Favorite Video Games” →

Episode 9 – John Carpenter’s It (The Spooky Spoiler Episode)

We have a special Halloween treat this week for Make Me A Gamer! TMan and HarveyZ accidentally recorded a semi-spooky themed episode! After talking about our experience with simulation games (including early experiences with “titillating” games and mods) we dive into talk about horror movies and what we like and don’t like about them. TMan and HarveyZ also get into spoiler territory as we have differing opinions on them. (Spoilers: we spoil some fictional events that are 10+ years old in this podcast.) We also talk about some scary, spooky video games and end with a little bit of talk about the Secure, Contain, Protect wiki. (This episode was recorded September 29th.)

TMan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tmanplaysgames

HarveyZ on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ThaZIsSilent

Make Me A Gamer on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MakeMeAPodcast

E-mail us @: makemeagamerpodcast@gmail.com

Review: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

So I’m closing in on 60 hours of playtime in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and while I’m still not finished with the main story (not for lacking of trying, mind you) I’ve reached a sufficient point where I think I can give a good review of the game. It’s pretty much the only game that’s had my attention over the last month (although there were a few others that I will go over in my monthly recap as well). I was a little wary going into the game because the last big game I played was Spider-Man and I was possibly risking burnout by jumping into another action-oriented open world game. Especially since Odyssey’s map is much larger than Spider-Man’s NYC.

I talked a little bit about my specific problem with Odyssey’s map design and traversal aspects in an earlier blog post, and they continued to persist as I got further into the game. I abuse fast travel like nobody’s business and often have my horse or ship auto-take me to the next place I want to go while I turn my attention to Twitter or Facebook for a few minutes. That is probably the game’s biggest flaw in terms of design – you do a lot of traveling from place to place in the game but the journey is never interesting.

But as the famous saying goes, it’s not about the journey – it’s about the destination. Wait, that’s not right. Well, regardless of how the saying goes, I’m going to take a deeper dive into my experiences with Odyssey and how it stacks up against other massive open-world games.

(Some main story and sidequest spoilers for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey will follow.)

Continue reading “Review: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” →

The Lawful Good Gamer

I’m Lawful Good. In the grand spectrum of the Dungeons & Dragons alignment chart, I’m the alignment that some people find the most boring, or the most annoying, and sometimes the most frustrating. Lawful Good is often attributed to the annoying paladin who insists on taking the bad guy in alive despite the rest of the party really, really wanting to kill him. One particularly frustrating Lawful Good character (to me) was Galad from the Wheel of Time series – a white knight in all senses of the phrase. But Lawful Good is also attributed to popular characters like Luke Skywalker and Superman – characters who uphold the law and believe in the good in people.

A Lawful Good person is not always strictly following every law. Luke, of course, joined the Rebellion and fought against The Empire – despite the Empire being the ones enforcing most of the laws in the galaxy. Here’s an excerpt from a handy-dandy reference website: “Lawful good beings will not want to lie or cheat anyone, good or evil. They will not stand for treachery and will not let obviously dishonorable people use their own honor against them, if they can help it. They will obey the laws and customs of the area that they are in, but will attempt to find legal loopholes to disobey a law which is clearly evil or unjust.”

It took a while for me to accept myself as a Lawful Good person. I, of course, would rather fancy myself as Chaotic Good with roguish charm like Mal Reynolds, or maybe the True Neutral genius of Gregory House. But I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket because I always follow the speed limit of the roads. I have an obsessive-compulsive problem of checking to make sure my car is parked within lines or close enough to the curb, and I will get back in my car to fix it. I get pits in my stomach when I have to lie for board games (like Avalon or Secret Hitler) and don’t ever consider cheating on anything. I find myself following the structure of the law to the best of my ability at all times – however when things like the recent possible government action regarding transgender people are brought up I want to make sure those laws don’t come to pass because I view them as evil.

I’m confident I’m a Lawful Good person and could probably list many more ways why I believe that. But because this is a gaming focused blog, I’d like to take a little time to talk about how being Lawful Good affects how I play video games.

Continue reading “The Lawful Good Gamer” →

Episode 8 – A Pretty Bad-Ass Looking Pilgrim

On this week’s episode of Make Me A Gamer, TMan & HarveyZ open with talking about XCOM and why they like games like it. Then they jump into some Overwatch League news, discuss the upcoming ability to change your PSN name, and HarveyZ gives his requirements for getting a Make Me A Gamer tattoo. We also discuss The Witcher and get into what we’d like to see if Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn is actually made into a game. (This episode was recorded October 13th.)

TMan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tmanplaysgames

HarveyZ on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ThaZIsSilent

Make Me A Gamer on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MakeMeAPodcast

E-Mail Us at: makemeagamerpodcast@gmail.com