Category: Video Games

Conventions, Gaming, Video Games

A Washed Up Gamer Goes to E3

There were more than 68,000 total attendees at E3 this week, and I’m almost certain all of them have been gaming more than I have in the past five years. I’m retired. Too many consecutive days of realizing I’d played through the night until dawn had me putting the sticks down. Not to mention, I just can’t keep up with these kids. I’m washed.

Yet here I got the fortunate opportunity to cover E3 for NOC in the conference’s first year open to the public. I had to do this, for the culture, for the kid inside who never finished Mario 2, and for the same kid that reached the end of Streets of Rage and chose to kill my brother to take over the gang.

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Nerd Nostalgia, Video Games

Double Dragon IV: Stumbling Down Memory Lane

The NES was my staple console for the majority of my childhood. While I did not have many games at my disposal, games like Double Dragon and Double Dragon II were titles that I played just about every day on my own and with friends. I still consider Double Dragon II to be one of my favorite NES games and it influenced my tastes in games I play today. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series’ creation, Arc System Works recruited many of the original crew that made the original game to make a brand new sequel in the form of the 8-bit games I cherished as a child. When hearing about this news, I was excited and skeptical at the same time. The nostalgia side of me wanted it but would it be enough to maintain my interest in the current era of video games?

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Guest Post, Video Games

Pokémon GO and Choosing the Blackest Joy

by Lauren Bullock | Originally posted at Black Nerd Problems

As you might expect, it begins with a selection of starters: today, do you choose fuming rage, crushing grief, or helpless fear? Perhaps you feel all three. Or none. Being Black in America is not just some game that anyone can control, after all.

As a Black Nerd it’s impossible to ignore that in the same week that we gained Pokémon Go, arguably one of the most anticipated games of the year, we lost Alton Sterling and Philando Castile to police brutality (who in reality are part of an even longer list of murders by the police this week alone). Once again the debates flare up between distraction and self care, between what people “should” be talking about or feeling at any given moment. But if Pokémon taught me anything, it’s that there is always another option than the “starters” you’re given, and sometimes this, too, is its own revolutionary act. I’m talking about allowing ourselves to sometimes choose Black joy. No, the Blackest Joy.

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Video Games

My Journey Through Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Square-Enix’s MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Just when I thought my MMO days were numbered, I tried out the game and am now playing it often with my friends. Needless to say, I was quite hyped when the first expansion, Heavensward, was released in June. After playing it throughout the summer and into the new year, I have finally collected my thoughts on the game and its current state.

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Crowdfunding, Hard N.O.C. Life, Video Games

Help Dante Basco and Beau Sia Kickstart FailSafe

There is only one week left in the Kickstarter for Failsafe, a new independent video game by Game Over Studios. Co-created by poet Beau Sia and featuring voices by Ashly Burch and Dante Basco. To help get the word out about the campaign, Beau and Dante stopped by Hard N.O.C. Life to talk about the game and the new world of storytelling their exploring with Failsafe.

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Roundtable, Video Games

NOCs of the Roundtable: Super Mario Memories

This week, a classic Nintendo video game celebrated a landmark anniversary. In September 1985, the first iteration of Super Mario Bros. was released for the Famicom system in Japan. Three decades later, the Italian plumber with the 40″ vertical and suspect accent has become a cultural phenomenon the world over.

To mark Nintendo’s crowning achievement in making all of us feel super old, the Nerds convened around the old Roundtable to share some of their Super Mario memories.

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Gone Too Soon, Video Games

Remembering Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata

I had just finished teaching my fifth grade class in Japan when I heard the news that the President of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, passed away due to bile duct cancer. The news was a slap to the face to me; I had just been talking about Splatoon to some of my students.  While I am not as close to Nintendo as I was when I was a child, I cannot deny to say that Mr. Iwata’s work in the company hadn’t influenced my life.

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Gaming, Video Games

My Visit to Final Fantasy XIV’s Eorzea Cafe

With the Final Fantasy XIV expansion Heavensward coming out in less than a week, the game has been in my mind for the past few days.  It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the game. Anything Final Fantasy XIV-related, I will eat  it up. Literally.

So when it was announced that they were going to have a FFXIV-themed restaurant open in Akihabara, Japan, I was absolutely thrilled. I have the fortune to be living in Japan so it wasn’t a pipe dream to visit. Back in March, a friend was visiting me and she also wanted to go because she loves the Final Fantasy series. It ended up being one of our first places that we visited in Tokyo.

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Gaming, Video Games

How Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Renewed my Love for the MMO

Back in the day, when I played single-player games, most of them were RPGs. My first RPG was Final Fantasy IV (or Final Fantasy II in the U.S.). I fell in love with it instantly and followed the series all the way into the Playstation 2 era.

When Final Fantasy XI was announced, I was completely psyched about it. Final Fantasy XI was to be an MMORPG — a massively multiplayer online RPG. The co-op lover in me squealed — playing an RPG with hundreds of people all over the world? Sign me up!

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Anime, Video Games

VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Meets Anime Booze-Em-Up

As a person who writes and likes to people-watch, bars fascinate me. People from all sorts of different backgrounds gather in one area to have a drink or five. As a fellow customer, I would only overhear bits and pieces of other people’s lives and it all sounded really interesting. I always wondered what it would be like to be a bartender, the gateway to our alcoholic pleasure. It’s common knowledge that bartenders have the most interesting stories since they get to see and hear about everyone’s lives (whether you wanted to or not). I always wanted to see how that would be like.

VA-11 HALL-A gives me that opportunity.

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