Video Game Tuesday: What Makes Good Seasonal Events

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a topic many MMO players will recognize! It’s all about What Makes Good Seasonal Events!

Seasonal Events?: I mean stuff like Brewfest in World of Warcraft, or The Rising in Final Fantasy XIV. These events come up every year and celebrate either a real holiday or a game related one, Brewfest is WoW’s version of Oktoberfest, and The Rising is FFXIV: A Realm Reborn’s launch anniversary holiday.

Okay so what’s an example of a good Seasonal Event?: Last year’s The Rising was an amazing event that brought the players and developers closer together than any other in game event I’ve ever participated in. To give some context, I did the “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been” Achievement in WoW, twice (Switched mains right after Wrath launched.)  But more importantly it needs to allow spontaneous engagement and disengagement depending on the player. Having to wait to participate in the event sucks, and should be an open world thing. Not something locked behind a Matchmaking tool.

What’s an example of a bad Seasonal Event?: Sparrow Racing League from Destiny is a great example, to get anything useful out of the event, other than having fun, it took tons of races to unlock even decently relevant items and the dreaded RNG still might screw you over (I know it did for me!). Not only that, but SRL hasn’t returned since it’s one and only launch, despite constant requests by the community to reactivate it. Oh and it didn’t fulfill the above requirements, at all.

Here’s a list of my favorite in-game events: 1. The Rising, for reasons I linked above. 2. The Wrath of the Lich King Pre-launch event, aka The Zombie Plague (Yes it was a one time thing, but damn if it wasn’t some of the best fun I had in that game outside of ICC25H.) 3. Children’s Week, Because I loved to hear people complain about bringing the orphans into PvP for the achievement (Pro-tip: Do it on the very first day of the event, although I think they made it a Feat of Strength and it doesn’t count towards What a Long Strange Trip anymore.)

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday! Are there any fun Seasonal Events you love? Leave a comment below!

 

Retro Game Friday: Mario Kart 64

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering one of my favorite racing games of all time. It’s Mario Kart 64!

Gameplay: The gameplay is simple, and beautifully chaotic with players constantly vying for first place, only to be knocked out by the Spiked Blue Shell and fall into last place. It’s a simple formula with loads of fun. I don’t think I need to go into how fun it was to play at a party. I had many a good time with friends playing this game. Also Rainbow Road is purely evil and fun to ram friends off of.

Art: It’s aged poorly, but the real draw of this game now is the gameplay.

Music: Classic Mario. Nothing else need be said.

Overall: If you’ve never played this game, you need to do so with a friend or two. It’ll be fun.

For those who like: Racing, Mario Kart games, Chaos and Mayhem, Multiplayer Fun.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Lemmings

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a really old game. It’s Lemmings!

Plot: There wasn’t one, not really.

Gameplay: The goal is to guide at least a certain percentage of the green-haired, blue-robed lemmings from the entrance to the exit by clearing or creating a safe passage through the landscape for the lemmings to use. It was pretty fun, but it was also really fun to find ways to not only clear the levels but also kill any extra lemmings in new and interesting ways.

Music: Don’t remember it, sorry it’s been way too long.

Art: I don’t remember it very well, but it was pretty pixelated.

Overall: Might be fun to go back and play a remake.

For those who like: Puzzle Games.

Not for those who don’t like: Puzzle Games.

Anime Sunday: Summer Wars

 

This week for Anime Sunday I’m covering a movie! It’s time to enter the eternal battlefield of romance and cyber warfare with Summer Wars!

Plot: Kenji Koiso is a young student at Kuonji High School with a gift in mathematics and a part-time moderator in the massive computer-simulated virtual reality world OZ along with his friend Takashi Sakuma. Invited by fellow Kuonji student Natsuki Shinohara to participate in the 90th birthday of her great-grandmother Sakae Jinnouchi, Kenji travels with her to Sakae’s estate in Ueda.

Plot: The plot of this movie is great, and is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. It may be an Anime movie, but it made me laugh and cry which makes me confident in saying that it’s one of the better one’s you can see. I won’t go into the plot as it’s quite good.

Characters: The character’s in this movie are all wonderfully deep and awesome, although Kazuma is probably my favorite character. Natsuki and the rest of the cast though aren’t bad at all though and I loved the entire cast.

Artwork: Produced by Madhouse this is easily one of the best looking movie’s you’ll watch except for anything made by ufotable.

Music: The music is just as good as the Artwork.

Overall: If you want a great relaxing movie to watch with anyone, regardless of age, you’ll all enjoy it thoroughly.

For those who like: Great Stories, Amazing Artwork, Fantastic Music, Excellent Cast of Characters.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Retro Game Friday: Black and White

This week’s Retro Game Friday is about a game I first played at my cousins after my brother slammed the car door on it. (My hand is thankfully fine, I might have really hurt him if it was permanent damage). It’s Black and White this week!

Plot Synopsis: The player begins the game as a newly created god, born from the prayers of a family. After saving the family’s drowning son, the player follows the grateful family to their village. There, the player chooses a Creature (His animal that can help him with his/her followers).

Plot: Okay the plot really isn’t that great, blah blah get people to follow you and either torture them with hellfire or heal them with holy light to get more followers. The plot really wasn’t that great, but the gameplay is quite excellent.

Gameplay: This game allowed you to do pretty much anything you wanted to with your followers, if they annoyed you and you wanted to throw them out into the sea or into a few mountains you could do just that. Want to rain hellfire or have your Creature fling poo at your enemies? You can do that. It’s a pity this game came out years ago and not now, it would be amazing I think to see it running in 1080p.

Art: The art is okay, it definitely hasn’t aged well. Great for it’s day though!

Music: Can’t remember it at all, sorry I normally do for games like this, but I don’t remember it at all for this game.

Overall: If you want a true god simulator you can’t find many better than this one!

For those who like: Being really evil to NPCs, Simulators, Just having fun screwing with NPCs.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.