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“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: Drakengard

Hey folks! Today I'm hopping into the game time machine! (cue flashy lights and eerie noises) I dove into gaming late. My brother played everything, but nothing really caught my attention until some high school friends of mine shoved Final Fantasy VII into my hands, and then I was hooked. So, for the longest, FF games were my go-to, and from there it was Square and later, Square-Enix. DRAKENGARD was one of the first non-FF games I played. I was drawn to the gorgeous artwork and movie clips and it had dragons! And it was by Square-Enix, so I felt confident that I would love it. And I did love it, but it was so very different from the worlds I was used to. The game was an action-RPG, where I was used to turn-based RPGs, but I caught on quick enough. I honestly loved the weapon wheel and the ability to change weapons on the fly. My favorite weapons were the pole-arms, and that running dash that sent my enemies flying was the best. With the help of free expeditions, my body c...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: FFVII Remake First Thoughts

When the Final Fantasy VII: Remake was first announced, I expressed my excitement and fears for the new rendition of the game that turned me into a gamer. Years passed, and it looked like the remake might go the way of Versus:XIII, but once again, Square-Enix has announced the Final Fantasy VII: Remake--this time with a release date! The game is supposed to release on 3/3/20, and the footage they've released looks promising. The character designs are top-notch, the secondary characters appear to have been given more a role in the story, and the game-play looks great. Reports of those who played the demo say it plays great, too. I hope those of us who weren't at E3 get a chance to play a demo between now and March, but I can live without it as long as the game gets the attention it needs to be the best version it can be. The first installment centers on Midgar, which hopefully means that the story has been fleshed out. I'm eager to stroll through the sectors and see what...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: Kingdom Hearts III Part 3: Final Rant

**** SPOILERS**** I have quite a few bones to pick with Kingdom Hearts III; I’ve already mentioned the POV fail and the overabundance of Disney, but there were a few other points that hit my editing nerve. The dialogue tags were excruciating. There was no need throughout the game to keep naming all the characters when they were talking to them. It came off very awkward the first couple times, and was painful the longer I played. The cut scenes were another problematic area. Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely love those little mini movies in my RPGs, but in KH3, there were so many that the gameplay was interrupted. Cut scenes are good for a reward after a long battle or to tell a part of the story that can’t be told in the gameplay, but too many can pull the player out of the game, which was the case for me. Kairi got shafted in this game. She worked so hard to be a member of the team, and she doesn’t even get to use her skills. Instead of being the fully-fleshed out chara...
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Ramblings of Gamer: Kingdom Hearts III Part Two: Plug Much, Disney?

****SPOILERS AHEAD**** Kingdom Hearts started as a Final Fantasy/Disney mashup, and I loved it. I loved the incarnations of my FF favorites and how they were integrated into this strange new world that had me visiting Ariel in Atlantica and the Beast in Hollow Bastion. Somehow, they were balanced so that one didn’t overpower the other. That joy continued in KH2. And then we got to KH3. And there was something conspicuously missing. Where the heck did the Final Fantasy aspect go? Where were Cloud and Aerith and Sephiroth? What had happened to Leon and Cid? And why was everything so unapologetically pushing everything Disney? Everything was Disney; the worlds (per the norm, fine), the summons (okay), but then the special attacks? Theme park rides in full neon lights? Really? There was so much going on in this game when it came to battles, and some of it was completely unnecessary. With special skills, group skills, Rage form, weapon changes, and summons, the them...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: Kingdom Hearts III and a Storytelling Fail

**** SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN”T PLAYED AND HAVE MANAGED TO AVOID SPOILERS, RUN AWAY NOW! ***** Still here? For real, there’s going to be spoilers because I can’t talk about this without them. Staying? Okay! Here we go! I’ve been a fan of the Kingdom Hearts series since the early days. The thought of Final Fantasy mashed together with my fave Disney characters was just odd enough to make me check it out, and that gorgeous opening sequence with Utada Hikaru’s Simple and Clean absolutely drew me in. The game was beautiful and strange, and it had a compelling story that somehow made these characters from completely different franchises work. I bought a Gameboy Advance to play Chain of Memories, and I eagerly snatched up KH2 when it came out, but after that, I couldn’t keep up. There were too many games on too many platforms, and while I love my gaming collection, I’m not much of a handheld gamer, and I couldn’t justify all these extra purchases ...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Dragon Age: Inquisition

I haven’t done one of these in a while, mainly because I’ve been playing Skyrim, and there’s not a lot to say about that other than it’s freaking addictive. I’m still largely avoiding the story line and turning bandits into human pincushions. Over the Christmas break I started Dragon Age: Inquisition. I really love this series; the characters are always interesting, the banter hilarious, and the story line intriguing. So, I was extremely excited when they announced Inquisition, and it went straight to my wish list. It’s a beautiful game. The characters and scenery are well-developed, and I love the color. One of my favorite things? Short load times. I love Skyrim, but sometimes it takes forever to load on my PS3. The story’s great, continuing with some of the characters and the effects of Dragon Age 2. I’m missing the personal touches from my choices in the previous games, but my saves were lost in the Great PS3 Meltdown of 2013. (The bemoaning of which can be found in pre...
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TV & Gamer Rambles Collide

It’s kind of funny how my brain works. I enjoy seeing connections between things I watch, things I read, and games I play. Maybe it’s just a phrase, or a location, but when little things align, it makes me happy in an everything’s connected kind of way. Recently, I’ve started watching Da Vinci’s Demons. And every episode, I get all twitchy because it makes me want to play Assassin’s Creed. *twitch* I’m a huge Assassin’s Creed fan. Besides being a sneaky assassin, I love roaming the cities, strolling through the streets, hopping roof tops, and taking in the scenery from the lofty heights of towers. Da Vinci’s Demons brings it all to mind. Swooping visuals of Florence. Nifty snuff cans that look like the grenades I toss. But it’s not only that. Sometimes, when Da Vinci gets a stroke of inspiration, he starts seeing things as sketches. The overlays over reality remind me of the way the world forms in Assassin’s Creed when initializing a memory sequence. Another show to ...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Girls and Games

A game critic, who happens to be a woman, tweeted about the fact that the new Xbox games shown at the E3 show had no female protagonists. The response was sadly negative with uses of a word I refuse to repeat. (Let’s just say some mommas with bars of soap are in high demand.) One slightly less offensive comment was that there aren’t any female gamers. I am here to announce that I am a girl. I am a gamer. I am not the only one. If girls aren’t buying games, then why am I on my second Xbox and second Playstation 3? If girls aren’t buying games, what are all those games on my shelf? I play mostly RPGs, and while I’m more about the story than my particular character, I do like it when I come across a kickass girl character. And I like creating them, too. Many RPGs such as Dragon Age and Skyrim allow you to choose your gender. And that’s awesome. Some marketers say guys don’t want to play a girl character. I know more than one guy who, given a choice, created a female chara...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: PS4 and Xbox One

I’m not a hardcore gamer, but I do get all giddy when the E3 show comes around. My eyes go all round and shiny while I wait eagerly to see the new consoles and games. I had to hold back happy tears when I watched the rebranding video for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Square-Enix is cranking out the beautiful world-building that snags me every time, and I’m interested to see how the newly named Final Fantasy XV plays. Other shinies I want to get my grabby hands on are Kingdom Hearts 3, Assassin’s Creed 4, Thief, and The Order:1886.      I’ve eagerly awaited the official unveilings of the PS4 and Xbox One as well. I generally lean to Playstation, but I do own both current consoles, cause ya know, Fable. That being said, Microsoft has lost me with the Xbox One. First and foremost because of the required internet connection. Get ready, folks: I do not have home internet service. I live in the boonies. Only recently have they advertised broadband in my area, and the fine ...
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Gamer Remorse: File Backing Isn't Just for Computers

Tragedy struck recently: In the midst of a bout of Skyrim, my 60Gb, backwards compatible Playstation 3 gave up the ghost after six years of faithful service. There was no warning, and it wasn't a simple overheat. No, this was much worse. The Yellow Light of Death. Needless to say, I was distraught. My entire gaming history was saved to my PS3's hard drive, from my first PS1 save to my 166th hour of Skyrim. And to rub salt into the wound, my Skyrim disc was caught in the BluRay drive. And here's my epic fail. It never occurred to me to back up my save files. Not one time. Even after the death of my first Xbox 360, I didn't think about it. The hard drive from my old Xbox slapped right on the new one, and there wasn't anything lost. I could kick myself. Everything I've read says I can't do the old hard drive switch with a PS3 that I could do with the Xbox. Popping it in another PS3 will only format the thing. There's no way to pull ...
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Rambling of a Casual Gamer: Don't Make Me Throw Something

Ah, breaking the blog silence at last. Life likes to say, “Oh, you have a schedule? Let me fix that for you!” And then all my plans are dashed. But, here I am, and with a new game rant, to boot. I just finished a certain game that shall remain nameless. And I got a good dose of game rage for my 75+ hours of gameplay. Now, I know that not all games are going to have satisfying/happy endings, but this was just downright fit-inducing.   Because no matter what options I was given, the outcome was the same. Death. Bad guy laughing at me. I defeated him.   At the high level my characters had obtained, it was ridiculously simple. At the end, I was given a choice, but the outcome of that choice ended up being the same no matter what. And that’s where I get mad. I’ve become spoiled, I suppose, with other games where my choices count. So, maybe I make a bad choice and don’t get the best ending the first time. That’s okay. It gives the game replay value. Some allow me to...
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Everything’s Connected: Or the Roundabout Ways I Discover Things

I don’t listen to the radio much. Less than three hours a day, and the first hour is mostly a talk morning show. (I love the morning show, but not much music is played.) I pretty much listen to the one station, and every so often, I’ll hop on Pandora or I Heart Radio and listen.   So, how do I find new music? In so many ways. I have picked up lovely new tunes through many various avenues. For example, thanks to Jeri Smith-Ready’s SHINE, I am now a fan of Glasgow band, Frightened Rabbit. All it took was a mention, and I got curious enough to search iTunes. Now I’m in love, hehe! I discovered the awesomeness of Within Temptation in a similar fashion. I was sitting in the car bored, waiting, and I pulled out my phone to look up anime music videos on YouTube. As an already confessed Final Fantasy fiend, I searched out FF videos. I came across a FF: Crisis Core vid set to Within Temptation’s Angels , and was blown away. I got chills watching that video, and I had to hear more...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Final Fantasy and Why I Don’t Love the Latest Ones

In a previous post, I talked about my late-found love of video games and how Final Fantasy VII was my entry into the gamer world. Now, I want to talk about the franchise and why so many fans are pulling their hair out. Many of us are hoping against hope that FF: Versus XIII will revive the joy we felt playing the older games. There’s a lot of talk about how the new games have lost their Final Fantasy feel—not that they’re exactly bad games, but like the movie FF: Spirits Within, they shouldn’t be called Final Fantasy. Here’s my deal: Like a good book, Final Fantasy VII had characters. Real, fleshed-out, past-bearing, issue-having characters that felt real. As I progressed through the game, new tidbits would come out, and there was always another story behind the one I was experiencing. It gave FFVII a depth that allowed me to immerse myself in the world.   Now, others had great characters, too, but some (ahem…XII) the characters fell flat. Honestly, the only one in FFXII...
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Final Fantasy VII: My Gateway Game

I am a late-bloomer when it comes to gaming. I’d played one here and there (mostly at my younger brother’s insistence) but I never really enjoyed one until I was in my senior year of high school. That’s when two of my friends forced upon me a game featuring a spiky-haired guy with a really big sword. I’ve been hooked ever since. For me, Final Fantasy VII was like an interactive book. There was plenty to read with all of the written dialog, and though it had a main story line, it was sort of Choose-Your-Adventure with the free-roam world. Because I wasn’t a game-player and really not good at mashing buttons under pressure, the turn-base style allowed me to actually get somewhere on the game. And the materia system? Still my favorite magic system ever. I loved this game…but then I got stuck. And started dreaming about how I was going to get around the giant SNAKE in the marsh. I couldn’t catch a chocobo for the life of me. Then graduation and tests and college applications swa...
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