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Showing posts with the label video games

“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: Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age

I played the original FFXII way back in the day, and I didn't love it. The graphics were great, but Vaan annoyed the crap out of me, no one really stood out, the game battle mechanics were meh, and--a personal pet peeve--Ifrit and Shiva and my other favorite summons had been relegated to airships in favor of a new crop of espers. When Zodiac Age came out, I decided to give it a second shot--and it fell into my queue because my game TBP list is greater than my free time. But, at last, I found a moment, and I'm once again exploring Ivalice. And I still have mixed opinions. Vaan is still grating, though he doesn't seem as bad after he finally understands Basch didn't kill his brother. I didn't find much use for him in my original go-around, but this time, with the job system, I've been using him in battle a lot. As a shikari, so far he's fairly well-rounded when it comes to health/speed/strength, though I'm struggling with what I want his second job t...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: Detroit: Become Human or an Interactive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

If you're looking for a game with a lot of action, then this is not the game for you. However, if you're looking for a game that challenges the way you think and every decision affects the outcome of the story, look no further! DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN lets you play as three different android characters in a not-so-distant future full of rising tensions between humans and the androids who serve them. As you play, a timeline is created for each character based on the decisions you make for them, which is cool because you can see how one simple choice bends the future in several different ways. I've only completed a single playthrough so far, and while I was mostly satisfied with the outcome, I have a couple characters that I would like to improve their futures. A single playthrough doesn't take too long, but the replay value promises to give me my money's worth--which, by the way, was a bargain in the Quantic Dream collection with HEAVY RAIN and BEYOND: TWO SOULS. T...
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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: On the Final Fantasy VII Remake (from an FFVII Fanatic)

Happy 2016, folks! First off, I’ve decided to stop calling myself a casual gamer. I may not be a hardcore gamer, but I do take my games seriously; therefore, I am a gamer. What does this have to do with Final Fantasy VII? Everything. FFVII was the RPG that opened my heart to gaming. The immersive story pushed me to keep going even after I died repeatedly trying to get past that giant freaking snake. (If you’ve played, you know the one.) I was so in love with the characters that I didn’t want their stories to end, and when they were continued through spin-offs, I eagerly bought them to live in their world for just a little bit longer.. Thank you, Crisis Core, for the uncontrollable sobbing, by the way. Over the years, Square-Enix has teased us with demos for the new platforms, showing us glimpses of what a remake could be like, planting the dream of traveling through a HD Midgar with a detailed Cloud Strife and crew. And now it’s going to be real. I’m ...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Going Back (Or more Dragon Age)

In the midst of my Dragon Age: Inquisition campaign, I ran across the character Hawke from Dragon Age II. Seeing that default character lounging on top of my newly acquired base of operations flipped a switch for me, and I knew right then that I had to go back. One of the coolest things about the Dragon Age series is that what you do in the game has consequences not just in that title, but the following games as well. The alliances you form, the choices you make, even certain discussions can influence the world around your character. You, of course, can play the games separately, create fresh characters for each one, but then you end up with a default story line and history. I thought it would be fine, that I could settle for a fresh start, but seeing that default Hawke and recalling how different my Hawke was revealed the truth: I had to go back. Back beyond Hawke to the very beginning when, through unfortunate circumstances, my Dalish elf became a Grey Warden. I had to go b...
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Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns--Early Thoughts

I recently started Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns to pull myself out of the rabbit-hole that is Skyrim. It's been a nice change of pace. Instead of leisurely traipsing across the countryside slaying dragons or whatever undead creature gets in my way, I'm now racing time to collect enough souls to populate a new world before the old one collapses. I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail the first time around. And that's okay, I think. I'm enjoying the open world and not being stuck to a rigorous linear path. The battle system is much improved over the paradigm shift from the previous FFXIII games, flowing smoother from one shift to another with a simple touch of a button. I'm still working on setting up effective skills, but I'm getting closer to having a good set for overall battle. The graphics are breathtaking, the world beautiful and rich. I like the way random battle is sort of back into play; sometimes you see the fiends wa...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Final Fantasy X Epiphany

Since the death of my 60GB PS3, I’ve been a little burnt out on games. None of my newer games have been able to pull me in. Trouble was, I wanted to play something. Anything. But the God of War games my new machine came with just couldn’t hook me. So, one day I thought, Why not an old game?   I switched on my old-school PS2. And I popped in Final Fantasy X. It’d been just long enough since I’d played it that I forgotten enough about the gameplay for it to be interesting. It took a bit to adjust my vision to the lower graphics, but then I was off, immersed in the story and enjoying some turn-based battle. As I played, I started thinking about the reasons I was enjoying FFX so much more than I had newer Final Fantasy games. Here’s what I’ve come up with:   Random Encounters They can be annoying as hell when you’re rushing across a map to reach a destination, but they add a sense of danger that non-random encounters lack. Random Encounter—I’m just gonna stroll ...
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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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