My Top 5 Metal Gear Solid Games

Okay, I love Metal Gear Solid. I love all of the games on this list! But these games are not made without drawbacks, either to gameplay, pacing or even the story. Here’s my top 5.

SOLID SNAKE, the MAIN PROTAGONIST is a stealthy badass who uses a silenced pistol and expert CQC (Close quarters combat) skills to eliminate his opponents with deadly precision.

In these games, you play as Snake, or some incarnation of him.

So let’s get into the list. There are 5 games I’m going to cover in this list, not including Peace Walker or Portable Ops, so we’ll be starting with…

#5: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Yup, you can watch this game’s entire story online. Thanks, Youtube. - runtime: 8 hours and 27 minutes. Oh, and spoiler alert, obviously.

There’s a lot to be said about this one, but a complaint that most will have after playing through this is:

Too much talking, not enough gameplay! And their complaints would be well-founded because the game has almost 9 hours of cutscenes.

It has good gameplay, with an interesting story if you’re willing to sit through all of it. Lots of unique concepts and ideas from the man who made it, Hideo Kojima. (more on him later)

All in all, Metal Gear Solid 4 is a good experience and it’s a solid addition to the franchise. Earning it a spot at #5.

#4: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain/Ground Zeroes

While they are technically two different games, I’m including them as one since GZ is pretty small.

The final one, The Phantom Pain, came out in 2015, and, boy, the hype was real. This was the final installment in the series and it was meant to tie up the rest of the story for the character Big Boss (Venom Snake), along with his two comrades Kazuhira Miller and Revolver Ocelot at their Mother Base.

This was my favourite trailer for the game, it really got the hype train going. I must have rewatched this 10 or 20 times.

In an unfortunate turn of events, the game was given to us in an unfinished state. But what we got was really truly awesome, at least from a gameplay standpoint. You can approach most of the missions from any angle you want, deciding whether to go loud or to sneak in quietly.

It was revealed to us some time later that the game was missing a big chunk of its story, and that the ending was unfinished. Which was a damn shame for all of us MGS fans. That’s why I’m putting this one at #4.

Did it disappoint? Yeah, a little.

#3: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

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The codec calls get pretty weird too.

At #3 on the list we have MGS2. This one was pretty controversial, but I thought it had some of the best boss fights out of any MGS game. In this one you only play as Solid Snake through the prologue but then switch to playing Raiden, which was probably the most controversial part.

This game did some subversive stuff with its story, and definitely carved itself out its own unique spot in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Even though every Metal Gear Solid game offers political commentary with its story, this one, in particular, makes the player really think about playing games as a whole.

Yeah, I still like it even if you don’t get to play as Snake the whole time. He still plays a large role in the story as one of the main characters. Raiden’s alright.

#2: Metal Gear Solid

Yup, the original one. First and foremost, this game is great and legendary. It made its mark as an extremely fun and interesting game when it came out, in the year 1998, and was a bestseller on the first PlayStation.

Really, everything about this game was perfect in 1998. The story, the gameplay, the boss fights, and the stealth. There are tons of items to use, and many of the concepts were all-new. It was the first 3D Metal Gear game ever. It was extremely innovative.

Sorry MGS1, but the addition of first-person aiming in the future titles really helped out the gameplay experience. Unfortunately, this can be painful to play.

This is an example of a game that has not aged very gracefully. It came out over 20 years ago, which means you are going to run into some things that have been remedied in today’s modern (mostly) polished games. The top-down camera contributes to an overall janky and dated feel of the game. Which is to be expected, of course - that’s why the game was perfect for that time.

I love this game, but I can’t put it at #1 if I’m comparing it to the other titles. The wonderful thing about this is that Mr. Kojima took each of these games and improved on them every single time from a gameplay standpoint. The reason why others are lower in this is for reasons other than the core gameplay.

#1: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Okay, I gotta say, this one is one of my all-time favourite games. Metal Gear Solid 3, for me, has it all. Every element of what makes an MGS game good is in 3, plus more. It was the first prequel in the series and gave us the return to playing as Snake, which was a breath of fresh air for most fans. The stealth in the jungle is phenomenal, this time coupled with elements of survival (eating for energy, stitching your wounds) which was really immersive. Much of the game is outdoors, and so the player is offered different forms of camouflage in order to blend in with their surroundings. These details gave the game excellent replayability.

The boss fights were excellent and covered all bases of the gameplay. The story was my favourite out of any in the series due to it being easier to understand than the others, having plenty of twists and turns that, on the first playthrough, you really would not expect. The seeds are all planted, though, and after a player finishes it once they can go through again, noticing little clues sprinkled around, or the hidden codec calls, or the many, many easter eggs. This game really nails the characters, who are each extremely memorable, apart from the dashing Snake who, in my opinion, is at his absolute peak of badassery and coolness in this game.

Proving That I'm the Scum of the Earth: Mystic Messenger

Don’t read this blog.

Don’t you have anything better to do?

Think about it.

In the 10 minutes it would take you to read this garbage you could walk your dog, tell your friends and family you love them, give someone a hug, go outside and take a breath of fresh air, do your homework…ANYTHING.

Seriously.

This will probably be the worst thing you've read all week so just save yourself the effort and do something else.

Alright…

Are all the useful members of a society gone yet?

Hey, trashbags!

Today I am going to talk about Mystic Messenger and how it was pretty much the only thing keeping me going during my teenage depression years.

This is my final blog so I decided to pull out all the stops and reveal the most cringe in this long line of cringe things I like. Thanks if you stayed with me till the end. Also never speak to me again because you know too much now.

Okay, enough introduction. Onto the blog!

What is Mystic Messenger?

It’s a mobile game where you can virtually date some cute anime boys!!! Yes, you heard that right. Despite how bad it sounds it has a very gripping plot element to it (yes I just said I played a game about cute anime boys for the plot zip it). Each cycle lasts 11 days and depending on how you interact with the characters you will enter one of 5 different routes. Which means engaging in a relationship with a character. In this game, what you say is very important because it will determine if you get a good or bad ending. While starting off cute and innocent, it gradually becomes dark as secret organizations, fake deaths and abuse rise to the surface.

I won’t spoil any more of the plot because I know you’re all RUSHING TO THE APP STORE TO DOWNLOAD IT. So here’s my quick summary of each character by order of left to right of the picture above.

Zen: Pretty boy. I don’t have much else to say he is kinda self-obsessed and his route is standard.

Yoonsung: I played all the characters through at least twice EXCEPT him. Honestly, He is annoying I cannot stand him.

Jumin: I had to replay his route at least 3 times because it is hard to get a good ending. He is the cool, calm type. But, hey, he’s rich so that’s a plus.

707: THAT’S MY BOYYYYYYY. Yeah, he is the love of my life. I have played his route way too many times and, honestly, he is my ideal boyfriend.

Jaehee: It’s a bad day to be bi. Unfortunately, you just become her friend and are not able to date her. She is kinda rude in any other route but once you get to know her she is a cutie.

3 UNRELEASED Indie Games That Should Be On Your Radar

Eastward
Eastward is my most anticipated video game right now. It’s this little RPG developed by a small studio called Pixpil and published by Chucklefish Games, the people who put out Stardew Valley. It has everything I love in it: an Earthbound meets The Legend of Zelda aesthetic, amazing chiptune music, old school anime vibes, and AMAZING pixel art. Seriously, this is some of the most expressive pixel art I’ve seen in a while.

The game is set in the rundown world on the verge of apocalypse, and, from the trailer, it looks like you’ll be playing as a grown man and a young white-haired girl solving puzzles and beating up monsters. I’m hoping for a fun, quirky game with a touching story.

I’m not sure when it’s coming out, but it’ll be releasing on Switch and Steam where you can wishlist it.

In the near-future society is starting to collapse, with the human population shrinks to an all-time low. As the world around falls to ruin, a hardworking miner called John discovers a young girl named Sam deep underground in a secret facility.

Carrion
Carrion is a “reverse horror game” where you play as a big, red, amorphous blob that sticks to walls and eats people. If that premise doesn’t intrigue you, I don’t know what’s going on in your brain because that sounds absolutely ridiculous.

I’ve watched the gameplay footage for this a few times now and, lemme tell ya, it looks satisfying to play. I’m not sure what the story is, but it looks like it’s going to be the most heavy metal video game ever made. It’s like a horror/monster flick but you’re the monster.

According to the Steam page, it’s slated to come out sometime in 2020, and I cannot wait.

Coming for you in 2020. Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/953490 Carrion is a reverse horror game in which you assume the role of an amorphous creature of unknown origin. Stalk and consume those that imprisoned you to spread fear and panic throughout the facility.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is the Harry Potter game we all deserve. It’s another Earthbound-y game about a bunch of magic kids in magic school. The art style is simple and cute, the music is pleasant and bubbly, and the combat has a turn-based system with timed mechanics.

It’s being developed by one man named Chevy Ray Johnson and the music is being composed by Aivi and Surasshu who are most well known for their involvement with Steven Universe.

The trailer has this really charming rap song that’s been stuck in my head for months and I dunno how much of that is playing a role in my excitement for the game, but it’s certainly effective.

A quick Google search says the game is coming out in 2019, but that’s just a placeholder date. I have a feeling it won’t be out for a little while and that’s okay. More time to refine a game is better than putting out something mediocre.

Official website - http://ikenfell.com Music by Aivi & Surasshu - http://www.aivisura.com Vocals and lyrics by Sammus - https://sammusmusic.com Strings by Jeff Ball - https://jeffball.bandcamp.com Listen to the song here: https://soundcloud.com/aivisura/ikenfell-paint-the-future-feat-sammus

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Dylan has been playing games since he was a wee lad. For the last 25 years, he has built up a terrifying backlog of games he claims he will get to “eventually.” Unfortunately, this backlog continues to grow because of his crippling Tetris addiction, and his horrible attention span.

His other interests include: thinking up Dungeons & Dragons characters he never ends up playing, watching compilations of sad anime scenes, and trying to be funny.

You can find him occasionally tweeting here: @dylanproy

Games of Yore

Today I’m going to be doing a simple post, sharing a few games that were released 10 or more years ago but still hold up to today's standards, in my opinion. Some of the games I’ll be talking about were recognized for being good when they were first released and, even today, find themselves played by a multitude of people. This is a personal opinion list — though I’m sure there are many who may agree with me — and as such I’m not necessarily choosing the “top ten games of all time” or something like that. I’m sure many of you gamers out there have seen these or played them yourselves, so after giving it a read, tell me which games you think still do well today in the comments below.

 Fallout 3

© 2008 Bethesda Softworks LLC,

Starting off my list is a classic from the days of my childhood: Fallout 3, which came out back in October 2008. I remember sitting on my couch at home after class with a couple of buddies, all taking turns to play this awesome first-person shooter (FPS)/roleplaying game (RPG) combo.

For those who don’t know, Fallout 3 is the third major instalment in a series of games that takes place in a post-nuclear apocalypse Earth. This edition takes place in Washington D.C, Northern Virginia and parts of Maryland. The game is huge and was lauded as one of the best games of the year. If you’re a lover of FPS and RPG games, this is a definite must-play – if for no other reason than the fact it has an amazing radio station in-game: Three-Dog and the Galaxy News Radio.

© 2008 Bethesda Softworks LLC

Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn

Another RPG! This is probably one of my most played classic games. The original release was in September 2000, but it has held up fairly well over the years. While it doesn’t have top-of-the-line graphics and the engine is a little dated, it’s probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had of playing a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) port to a computer game.

While it’s the second in a series by Black Isle Studios, it far outranks the first in many ways. Taking place in the magical world of Faerun (or The Forgotten Realms, as it’s better known,) you can spend literal days playing through all the quests (both side and main) and there is a multitude of opportunities for replayability. It recently got an “Enhanced Edition” by Beamdog, which further improved the gameplay and made some decent changes to the graphics. It’s a great game if you love D&D and computer RPGs.

© 2016 Beamdog. © 2016 Hasbro, Inc.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

© 2006-2011 Bethesda Softworks LLC

Another game by Bethesda, and this one goes to the fantasy side of things.

Taking place in the world of Tamriel, The Elder Scrolls is a first-person RPG. It follows your journey as the Hero of Kvatch, travelling across Cyrodil and fighting Daedra, goblins, beasties and other evils. The game is huge – nearly as large as Fallout 3, which came out 2 years after Oblivion – and is probably the second-best Elder Scrolls game on the market from a critical standpoint. To me, though, it is the best. I spent hours on the character creation page alone and still, to this day, I find myself playing the game when I get bored with the more modern Skyrim. Oblivion is another one to check out if you’re a fan of The Elder Scrolls series, and it certainly is worth it.

© 2006-2011 Bethesda Softworks LLC,

Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Released in 2004 by Triumph Studios, this Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game is one of my favourites to have been released in the early 2000s. The third instalment in this series sees you play as a “wizard”, a rare leader who controls one of eight elements and lords over one of the 15 races. The goal of the game is fairly simple: survive and defeat the other players on the map. Players take turns in one of two ways, either simultaneously or tactically. Players control armies of up to eight troops, with various unit types and heroes to command them being available. This game is great if you’re looking to kill time and far more replayable than its modern counterpart, Age of Wonders III.  

c) 2010 Triumph Studios B.V.

(c) 2010 Triumph Studios B.V.

Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction

©2001 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc

Many know Diablo 2 and it is by and large one of my favourite games of all time, right up there with Fallout 3 and Oblivion. It’s an action roleplaying hack-and-slash game where you choose one of seven classes to do battle against the evils of Sanctuary. The game was released in 2000 and was one of my first purchases with my own money (even if I had to get my dad to pick it up.) It still is highly popular today – far more popular than its less-than well-received sequel – and the game itself still holds up well against more modern games of the same genre. If you like these kinds of games, definitely check it out.

A Screencap of my character
©2001 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

That’s all from me this time. If you liked what you read or agree with these games, give me a like. If you have others you think should be included, make a mention of it in the comments down below. Till next time, Kevin signing off. Happy gaming, friends!

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Kevin Mazurimm

Kevin Mazurimm is a second year student at Algonquin College in the Professional Writing Program. He is an avid lover of video games, owning over 400 on Steam alone, and is an up-and-coming writer of fiction.

3 Amazing Indie Games You Should Check Out Right Now

Super Crate Box
It may seem silly to include a small arcade-style game in my list of favourite indie games of all time, but I guarantee you, the hours I’ve poured into this thing are a great indicator of why I love it so much. I have an addictive personality, so things that don’t take too much attention really do it for me.

Super Crate Box is a game where you play as a tiny monster fending off an assortment of other monsters. That’s the entire premise. You run around the stage, collecting as many crates as possible. Each crate switches your weapon to another completely random one. You do this for as long as you can. The amount of boxes you get reflects your high score by the end of your round.

It’s a simple game that consumed over 150 hours of my life in high school and I regret none of it.

Night in the Woods
Night in the Woods is barely a video game. It’s a story driven side scrolling “walking simulator” about a young adult girl who abandons college to return home.

It’s not the gameplay that makes this game; it’s the fantastic story and the great characters. One of the reasons I love video games so much as a medium for story telling is because of how involved the person experiencing them becomes. This could have been a cartoon, but, without the exploration mechanics, I wouldn’t have been placed directly in the shoes of the main character and I wouldn’t have felt as involved as I did.

Night in the Woods takes a lot of unexpected turns that a lot of coming-of-age stories wouldn’t dare to. It’s a very worthwhile story for anyone who’s experienced the difficulties of being a lost 20-year-old.

Celeste
Celeste’s only been out for a couple years, so it’s funny to me that it already means this much to me. But this game perfects nearly everything it does.

It’s a platformer with a deep narrative about a girl trying to find herself by climbing a huge mountain. It borrows a lot from other games, but it refines what it borrows so much that it’s the best of its kind. The wall climbing with the platforming is reminiscent of Super Meat Boy, but it feels more than that.

If I had to pick reasons why Celeste resonates with me so much, though, it’s the story and the music. I feel like it’s rare that a video game covers mental health in such an effective way. And it blends with the gameplay so well. The music is beautiful and, at times, haunting. It does all these things in such a simple way that doesn’t demand too much attention. The gameplay takes focus, but everything else complements it wonderfully to make an unforgettable experience.

Dylan has been playing games since he was a wee lad. For the last 25 years, he has built up a terrifying backlog of games he claims he will get to “eventually.” Unfortunately, this backlog continues to grow because of his crippling Tetris addiction, and his horrible attention span.

His other interests include: thinking up Dungeons & Dragons characters he never ends up playing, watching compilations of sad anime scenes, and trying to be funny.

You can find him occasionally tweeting here: @dylanproy

Red Dead Redemption 2's Online is a Scam (no, the entire PC release is a scam)

my guy - and horsie horse

Remember Red Dead Redemption 2? That next-generation console release with the pretty snow and the horse pooping with the guns and the slow-mo cowboy. It did really well, and sales were at 25 million last August. Imagine what it’s like now. Especially after Rockstar decided to re-release the game on PC on two different platforms. First on the Rockstar Games Launcher and, soon, finally on Steam. This is after being released on both PS4 and Xbox One. But purchasing on the Rockstar Games Launcher means you don’t own it on Steam, and vice versa. If this seems like bullshit to you, you’ll be delighted to know that this is just the tip of the iceberg in ways that Rockstar absolutely scams the customer out of every possible dollar.

“We want to get as many repurchases of this game as possible,” is what the executives at Take Two Interactive must be saying with these decisions. It really does look like they are staggering as many releases of this game as possible so someone who has already bought this game before will buy it again because of a new platform or update.

With all of that out of the way, I can talk about how, yeah, the PC port is fine (other than having to use your keyboard and not your mouse to navigate any shop menu or map at all), but despite the improvements already made, the online mode of RDR2 is still designed to waste the players’ time until they finally give into microtransactions.

Wanna become a Bounty Hunter in Online? You have to pay 15 Gold Bars in order to get a Bounty Hunter’s license. Why? You don’t have to do that in the single player to do bounties. You can only get a Gold Bar until you’ve gotten 100 Gold Nuggets, which are tediously and slowly drip-fed to the player as they do missions and activities. Or just pay $13.49 for 25 Gold Bars even though you only need 15. That’s the minimum option!

Wow, look at all these cool bounties — too bad i have to pay with real-money currency in a game i already paid $80.00 CAD for

So why play? Well, if you’re starting at the very beginning (without the Special Edition) you will have the beginner revolver and rifle for potentially your first ten hours of gameplay. At least, that was my experience. The best part about that is how all the NPC’s you have to kill and fight all have the next (or next after that) tier of rifle and can two-shot you while you desperately try to make any money at all.

Even if you manage to make a little bit of money to upgrade one of your weapons from hunting or missions, you’ll realize that it’s already disappearing because of the game’s very design brought over from Single Player.

Your four cores plus your Horse Cores must be maintained with food and potions bought from the General Store, so you’re losing tens of dollars already. Plus if you want to run a posse you are paying a fee to maintain your camp every in-game day.

Still wanna buy Red Dead Redemption 2? Be my guest. But first you are going to have to go to their website and decide between the 3 editions. (click on ‘er!)

Look at all those bonuses with the higher price tags! We can even press that little “Compare all editions” button to show us what we’re missing if we don’t buy the most expensive edition. (Hint: A lot of them would be accessible with cheat codes.)

You know, paying extra money for cool outfits sounds like a decent deal to me. Even 120 dollars. A Bank Robbery Mission? That sounds pretty good. Plus… Free Access to Additional Weapons and Rank Bonuses. Oh, and a horse that’s faster than peoples’ who paid less for the game. Also, someone’s going to have to define “Gameplay boosts” for me.

Rockstar’s starting strong here by letting the player know that in their game, the only way to really have fun is to just give us more money.

You, as the player are going to have a grand old time if you buy this Special Edition, pretty much destroying anyone else who is new at the game while progressing at an actually reasonable rate. And what if you already own the Special Edition on Xbox One and want to buy it on PC? There is no possible way to transfer that game that is worth $120. You are gonna have to buy it again. #getdestroyed lol.

I, uh… yeah. Stick to single player. 😎
(And if you were thinking there was gonna be single player DLC, there’s not. Thanks Rockstar.)

Games in Mainstream Media

© 2019 Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. Valve, the Valve logo, Half-Life, the Half-Life logo, the Lambda logo, Steam, the Steam logo, Team Fortress, the Team Fortress logo, Opposing Force, Day of Defeat, the Day of Defeat logo, Counter-Strike, the Counter-Strike logo, Source, the Source logo, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Portal, the Portal logo, Dota, the Dota 2 logo, and Defense of the Ancients are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Back when I was a kid in the early 90s, games were considered something that was entertaining but really just for children. And even then, only the “nerds” played games. They were seen as something of a privilege, and when you grew out of being a child you were supposed to drop them and never play games again.

These days, that attitude has changed completely. Games have gone from fun pastime to a competitive sport, where people are earning money and fame. It’s about to hit the biggest stage, too: in the 2020 Olympics, Intel is holding an e-sports tournament for $250,000. The popularity of video games has had a massive increase and, in this blog, I’ll go through that uprising and talk about how it’s gone from a hobby to a potential career.

Intergalactic Spacewars!

A typical Spacewar machine. ©Be-quipe.com

When I was younger, the thought of playing games for a living was nothing more than a dream of a child who didn’t want to work in an office as a career. I loved playing games; they had become less of a hobby and more of an addiction to me. I knew it would never happen. I don’t think I was ever “that good,” but I also hadn’t heard of e-sports or anything similar. The idea has been around since 1972, though, with the 1972 Intergalactic Spacewar! Olympics.

The game was Spacewar, a deathmatch-style game in which players go 1-on-1 in a spaceship battle. The only goal of the game: destroy the opponent’s ship. It took place in October 1972 on Stanford’s Campus in Silicon Valley. Stewart Brand, a 33-year-old biology student, emerged victorious and became the first person ever to win a video game tournament.

The First Winner of a Esports Tournament. ©Be-quipe.com

League, DOTA, and Modern Tournaments

The 2019 League of Legends World Finals in Paris, ©Riot Games, League of Legends, LoL Esports, SortirParis.com

Jump forward to my young adult years, and the whole thing has exploded in popularity. e-Sports have become a part of mainstream media, with Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) 2, League of Legends and Fortnite leading the way.

The League of Legends 2016 World Championship finals had 43 million viewers, just slightly ahead of the 2016 NFL Pittsburgh Steelers/Denver Broncos AFC Divisional matchup. The NFL, of course, is arguably one of the most-watched sports in the United States.

The finals of the 2019 League of Legends World Champions had an average concurrent viewership of 2.9 million people with the final match peaking at 3.7 million concurrent viewers and the semi-finals reaching 3.9 million. If that isn’t enough, what game developer RIOT does during the opening ceremonies is beyond belief. During the opening ceremonies, there’s singing and RIOT uses some pretty cool digital effects — the 2018 Opening Ceremony comes to mind — to create an awesome intro to the teams and the game itself.  

©Riot Games, League of Legends, LoL Esports

The Olympics & Beyond!

With the upcoming 2020 Olympics, e-sports seek to set more records, with a tournament being held for both Street Fighter V and Rocket League. This will be the first time e-sports will be considered an Olympic event, something that many are excited about. A total of 12 nations will be pre-selected to compete and, in March, qualifiers will happen to determine the top four players of each of those nations. There will be a live qualifier in Poland where 20 teams will compete to see who earns the right to compete against Japan during the Intel World Opener at the Olympics in Tokyo. Only seven teams will earn that right, an exciting prospect for anyone who will be playing and watching.  

© Intel/Psyonix/Capcom

With so many options now available, and with so many more to come I’m sure, a career in gaming seems more obtainable than ever. While I will never be half as good as some of the ones that make money off of this, that dream may be obtainable for you, with a bit of practice and a never say never attitude. Thanks for reading! Kevin signing off. Happy gaming!

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Kevin Mazurimm

Kevin Mazurimm is a second year student at Algonquin College in the Professional Writing Program. He is an avid lover of video games, owning over 400 on steam alone, and is an up and coming writer of fiction.

Persona 5: Where Video Games Meet Anime

What do you get when you cross a gamer with a weeb???

Answer:

A worthless life form

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As an anime fanatic I took it upon my self to suffer through all 28 episodes of Persona 5: The Animation to give an adequate review and comparison to the video game.

Persona 5 is the latest installment in a series of video games featuring different groups of heroic teenagers fighting crime. They do so with their powers which they refer to as personas. Each game has received an animated adaptation, all of which are not highly rated.

I interviewed Dylan, a citizen who played through the game and he said: “It was good but Persona 4 is better, haha.”

Most die-hard fans of the series hate the animations. They claim that it is simply impossible to fit over 100 hours of gameplay into an 8-hour show.

If you think I only watched this show because the main character is cute and has curly hair… you’d be absolutely right

From the perspective of an avid anime watcher who doesn’t play a lot of video games, I agree that Persona 5: The Animation sucks. It has some good moments. There are fights and settings that are pretty cool. In general, though, it had some extremely flat characters. In the video game, you are able to take side quests that dig deep into the personalities of this gang. All of this is simply not shown in the show.

Bethany Walker

Bethany is a 20-year old girl born and raised in the Ottawa area. She attends school at Algonquin College with high hopes for a career in editing. She has had an interest in the world of Youtube since she was 14 years old. This bloomed into a fascination with anime and videogame culture. She believes that all three of these worlds have overlapping points and makes it her goal to explore them. While her interests are not commonly embraced, she finds comfort in writing on the internet.

Rocket League is Just Like Real Soccer!

Except it’s not, it’s better! In Rocket League, you can pull off some goals that were thought impossible by even the most astute of physicists. Using your rocket boost you can propel yourself through the air to do ridiculously ridiculous tasks, and amaze yourself and everyone in the process with the instant replay!!

Did you see that? The culmination of hours upon days upon weeks upon months of practice! It takes quite a man to be able to do these sorts of things. Sit back and enjoy as we take apart this goal piece by piece:

First, the ball is set up in front of the other team’s goal. It’s time to strike. First, you get airborne. Gain altitude, adjust your angle and your car will hit the ball, inertia and all. The ball is sent sailing towards the wall, in order to set it up and put it in just the right spot in order to go into the goal at a really hard angle to block. Top it off with an awesome flying spin through the air.

This is what Rocket League is. Take a look at a few more impressive goals:

Rocket League is the perfect game for those hype moments where the game is in overtime and everyone is screaming to just get that one final goal before the clock hits 0:00.

It definitely helps someone like me, who doesn’t really enjoy real sports, to understand the excitement around something with the same rule set that I can enjoy with a controller.

How Cave Story Changed My Perspective on What Games Can Be

Back in high school, I went through a bit of a pretentious phase where I would avoid any games developed by big studios. I wanted indie games and I wanted them immediately. So I decided to begin with what many consider to be the start of the indie revolution: Cave Story.

Cave Story was developed over the course of 5 years by a single man named Daisuke Amaya and it was published as a freeware title in 2004. You read that right. A completely free game developed out of pure love by one person. He did the art, story, music and the game design all on his own.

This game blew my mind on so many levels. The idea of one person making something out of a labor of love and having it turn out so perfect really spoke to me. And the visual/gameplay style is so simple! The pixel art could be interpreted as dated but that just makes the impactful story more impressive. Video games have this beautiful way of delivering hard-hitting stories through simplistic visuals and Cave Story is no stranger to that.

Cave Story tells the tale of a silent robot in a post-apocalyptic world who has to save a race of rabbit-like creatures from being turned into bloodthirsty beasts by a mad scientist. This game was surprisingly deep in the way it dealt with subjects like loss and dictatorship and it did that with very little dialogue. You get a sense of how the island you’re on is falling apart based on the design of the levels you’re going through and I think that’s beautiful.

Just imagine a 16-year-old hipster holed up in his bedroom getting way too frustrated with the final stages of Cave Story and the relief he felt when he finally beat the game. It’s weirdly cathartic to finish a game so difficult with such a satisfying ending. There’s more, too, that I haven’t done. A secret true ending is out there that I’ve yet to try for.

It’s gone through several remakes and iterations over the years including an updated Steam port call Cave Story+ and a completely 3-dimensional remake the Nintendo 3DS. The franchise continues to grow with guest appearances from the characters in games like Blade Strangers and Crystal Crisis. But it’s the original freeware version that holds a special place in my heart.

Cave Story changed the face of indie gaming forever. It showed people that anyone can make a video game. All it takes is passion and a hefty amount of time. The indie game community is thriving and it’s massive now, but back then, all we had was a handful of freeware games. Indie games have so much heart and Cave Story is proof of that.

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Dylan has been playing games since he was a wee lad. For the last 25 years, he has built up a terrifying backlog of games he claims he will get to “eventually.” Unfortunately, this backlog continues to grow because of his crippling Tetris addiction, and his horrible attention span.

His other interests include: thinking up Dungeons & Dragons characters he never ends up playing, watching compilations of sad anime scenes, and trying to be funny.

You can find him occasionally tweeting here: @dylanproy

The Power of Design is Now Yours

Think back to the late 90s. You’ve just played through the final parts of Final Fantasy 7; you’ve laughed, you’ve cried, and you enjoyed the hell out of the game. But now that you’ve beaten it, what do you do now? Wouldn’t it be great if there were more games similar to Final Fantasy, or wouldn’t it be cool to play a fantasy version of Doom? But who’s going to make a game like that?

While it may have been difficult, if not nigh impossible during the days of my childhood, these days it has become an easily achievable goal. Below are a couple of my favorite programs for use in game making, and ones that can help you design your own future masterpiece!

RPG Maker MV and Others

(C) KADOKAWA CORPORATION./YOJI OJIMA, Enterbrain Studios, DEGICA Co.,Ltd.

With the first rendition, RPG Maker 95. being released in Japan in the year 1997, (but with later renditions being released in North America as well) this is probably one of the staple game-making systems out there. It has a very simple interface, its easy to use and it is relatively cheap as far as game making programs go. All of them can be purchased on Steam, with the cheapest one going for as low as $22 Canadian. It hails itself as the simplest game development program available, perfect for beginners and people who have minimal experience with coding, and through my time using it I completely agree with this claim.

The program has many tutorials available for it, and even then, most of the program itself is easy enough to figure out. While it comes with some basic sprites and plugins, there are a plethora of resources available online to purchase or else download and use for free (with the right credits of course, some of which can be found here https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php) making RPG Maker one of the most widely diverse programs to use.

I personally am a big fan of RPG Maker MV (some info here), having clocked in over 930 hours on it, but I have used RPG Maker VX Ace (more info found here) in the past as well as RPG Maker 2003 (click here to learn more). While I have never actually finished a game, procrastination friends, I have been working on a singular project for the past couple of years and hope to one day release it. The best part about RPG Maker, in my opinion, is that Steam has a partnership with Enterbrain allowing you to publish your games directly to Steam and earn a profit from them. When you purchase any of the RPG Maker systems you are purchasing a licence to be able to make a profit from the games you make, something to me that could spark interest in potential future game makers.

(C) KADOKAWA CORPORATION./YOJI OJIMA, Enterbrain Studios, DEGICA Co.,Ltd.

SRPG Studio

This program is a new release, the English version having been released on Steam in August of 2018, and holy hell its been a lot of fun to use thus far. I’ve been a big fan of the Fire Emblem series of games since I played Path of Radiance on the original Gamecube, but once again I’ve wanted more, going as far as searching up games that may be similar.

Unfortunately for me, most of the similar games have only ever been released in Japan and that has made it hard for me to find similar games that are fun. When I first heard about this program back when it was released, I thought it was too good to be true. I waited for a bit to purchase it and finally got my hands on it in July of 2019. Boy was it ever a great purchase.

The way it works is fairly similar to RPG Maker, but instead of making a game in the vein of Final Fantasy you make a strategic Role-playing game. You have characters with stats that can use certain weapons, there’s a weapon triangle where each weapon has one weapon it is good against and one it is weak against. Characters are fairly plain looking at the moment, with only a set amount of default content available for it, but the option to edit and make characters in a 3rd party program (such as Photoshop or even a sprite making program) is there, but otherwise, you only get a few things to play with.

Copyright (c) 2002-2008 Xiph.org Foundation

I’m excited to see where this program can go in the future, as it has a lot of potential to be great, especially if you’re a fan of the types of games it caters around. Here’s hoping that one day it sees as much modding support as the RPG Maker series sees. Check out more in for on it here

These two programs can help you see your future gaming career jump-off, and I highly recommend both of them if you’re ever thinking about trying your hand at designing a game. Until next time, this is Kevin, signing off. Happy gaming friends!

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Kevin Mazurimm

Kevin Mazurimm is a second year student at Algonquin College in the Professional Writing Program. He is an avid lover of video games, owning over 400 on steam alone, and is an up and coming writer of fiction.

This is a cry for help........[My thoughts on Undertale]

‘All Undertale Characters designed by Mauro’

I have been familiar with Toby Fox’s Undertale for a long time now, and I am sure all of you reading this blog have too. If you have ever seen skeleton puns, the names Frisk and Chara thrown around or a glowing blue eye, you have come in contact with Undertale references. Since its release in 2015, the internet went completely insane. It changed the way that the public saw video games and indie gaming. The main feature I that instead of killing the enemies in front of you, it is encouraged to befriend them. It encourages peace, problem-solving and strong bonds. All of the Karens of the world are quaking because this is one video game that will definitely not cause your children to be violent.

Taken from Tenor.com

This year I finally decided to actually play the game for myself. What I didn’t realize is what I was getting myself into. Yes, I already knew the whole story, but it’s different when it is you who is actually in charge.

Pacifist - The sentimentality drove me to tears on several occasions. Going on a virtual date with Papyrus was the best date of my life (yeah I know that’s super sad also a huge bash at my ex lmao) I love it. I am super soft and getting the ending that filled everyone with love and joy warmed my little ol’ heart. Doing all the puzzles and petting some dogs made me feel as if I have fulfilled my life’s purpose

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My therapist: it’s just a gif it can’t make you cry.

The gif:

taken from makeagif.com

Genocide - Bro………Listen I did the route wrong twice so I had to kill Papyrus 3 times and honestly, maybe I’m not worthy of life.

Seriously though this route is HARD. You have to look for every single monster and kill them and it takes so much time. I was in class sobbing over the death of fictional characters (my friends can testify)

At the time of writing this, I am stuck on the Undyne fight and am unsure if I will ever beat it.

*Update it is a month later and I ended up being swamped by midterm so I have given up it’s unbeatable

Should I play Undertale?

That depends on your emotional pain threshold. It is definatly my favorite game and I hope to play it many more times in the future. The characters are so lovable I would die for the man. I recommend 10/10

taken from Tenor.com

Bethany Walker

Bethany is a 20-year old girl born and raised in the Ottawa area. She attends school at Algonquin College with high hopes for a career in editing. She has had an interest in the world of Youtube since she was 14 years old. This bloomed into a fascination with anime and videogame culture. She believes that all three of these worlds have overlapping points and makes it her goal to explore them. While her interests are not commonly embraced, she finds comfort in writing on the internet.

Twitter is an Explosion of Excellent Indie Games

Back in the early days, game development was dominated by big studios pushing their titles with TV ads and mascot characters. Although the market is still dominated by huge development teams, the small developers garner massive mainstream appeal. Thanks to the internet and modern technology, the average person can create a game from the comfort of their own home.

But how do they market themselves? If they’re lucky, they catch the attention of companies like Nintendo or Sony. Those who aren’t as fortunate have to rely on social media and word of mouth.

Twitter, especially, is incredible for finding interesting and unique indie games. Scrolling through the site on your phone can provide you with GIFs and video clips of some of the most beautiful pixel art you’ve ever seen. I would have never discovered projects like Andrew Brophy’s Knuckle Sandwich if it weren’t for Twitter. It’s this Earthbound-inspired role-playing game where you play as a disgruntled twenty-something who has to survive working at a sketchy burger joint. You don’t get that kind of shit from AAA titles.

Some other games that have caught my attention thanks to Twitter are Carrion; a Metroidvania horror game where you play as an amorphous blob of blood and guts, Kingdoms of the Dump; another Earthbound-inspired RPG about a sentient trashcan, and Eastward; a beautiful pixel art RPG about a futuristic post-apocalypse.

These developers need to get word of their games out somehow. They also need to continuously update their followers on projects they’re working on or else they’ll fade into obscurity. I love seeing how a project is coming along over the years; how the artwork and the gameplay evolves over time is super interesting. I’m grateful for the time we live in where I can get excited for a video game just because I was bored enough to log onto Twitter.com.

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Dylan has been playing games since he was a wee lad. For the last 25 years, he has built up a terrifying backlog of games he claims he will get to “eventually.” Unfortunately, this backlog continues to grow because of his crippling Tetris addiction, and his horrible attention span.

His other interests include: thinking up Dungeons & Dragons characters he never ends up playing, watching compilations of sad anime scenes, and trying to be funny.

You can find him occasionally tweeting here: @dylanproy

Nostalgia and World of Warcraft Classic

World of Warcraft Classic. It was the first MMORPG to truly break into the mainstream, growing to 12 million players by 2012. The game was seen as a giant of the genre, and no matter how many “WoW Killers” released, the game is still going strong.

A common question when it comes to old games is if they measure up to the same standards we hold them to today. It’s an interesting social experiment when a company like Blizzard decides to release the same game we’ve been playing in its original 2004 incarnation. This is what Classic is. Concepts in games that seem to be old and washed up such as grinding mobs with long travel times are coming back, it feels like it’s 2006 all over again.

This game can seem daunting to most - especially when looking at a screenshot of a max level player raiding Molten Core.

This image tells an undeniable truth about this old game. It is complicated. I can only imagine how confusing this looks for someone who has never played the game before. By design, this game will waste your time for virtual rewards time and time again. Seriously, every single one of those buttons does something and the player has to know how to use them.

So why do people still play it?

A lot of players might say that the current game (World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth) is missing something crucial - the sense of adventure and expansive world.

Before you even come close to setting foot into that 40 man raid, you will have hours upon hours into days upon days of walking, questing and slaying mobs to do. It’s almost a little obnoxious, how much time a player has to spend getting to level 60.

A central concept in WoW Classic is that time directly correlates to meaning. This is the main difference between this game and something that would come out today, in 2019.

So the main question here is: why do people come back to this game? Is it nostalgia? Or does this old design philosophy of the game actually present something worthwhile to players? I think the numbers speak for themselves.

The Death of 'Dan and Phil'

Dan and Phil, YouTube personalities, have announced that they will be straying from their ‘duo act’ to focus on their personal projects. I thought it would be an honourable time to glance over one of their channels ‘DanandPhilGAMES’ and reflect on what it is that we, the phandom, so unfortunately lost. 

Since its creation in 2014, DanandPhilGAMES has an estimated net worth of up to $1 million USD, making about $100,000 every year. And this is just their gaming channel; their mains have more than twice the subscribers. For them to just drop the channel like an old piece of clothing makes me wonder how much money these boys are really hoarding… not to even mention their tour, merch sales etc.

Their most popular video series overall is unsurprisingly their Sims Let’s Plays. Their fans fell head over heels for their lovable character ‘Dil Howelter’. With the first video in the series having over eight million views, the series is their longest running one by far reaching 63 episodes. They began the journey when Dil was a teenager and it ends in his old age when he already has grandchildren. This was also the duo’s favourite game to play.

Spooky Week

Honestly, October is right around the corner and it doesn’t excite me like it used to. There was nothing like curling up in the dark watching Dan and Phil scream at some good ol’ fashioned horror games. Whether they were terrifying like Outlast or comedic like Swamp Simulator, they never ceased to bring a smile to my face. What’s even worse is that since they canceled Phil Is Not On Fire (PINOF), a yearly Q&A session, October might as well not come at all.

My personal favourite of their gaming channel videos has to be Fireboy and Watergirl. It was a game I played when I was little and…well…they ruined it. In a good way. I remember it being a fun way to pass the time and they turned it into an epic rage battle. I just felt endeared watching two grown men get so angry at a children's game.

Where will the channel go from here?

Ah yes, the question we all want to know. Technically, they didn’t say they were killing the channel, but simply that it would go on hiatus. Then again, they said the same thing about The Super Amazing Project and look what happened to that…  A quote from Dan said that they would be taking a break like Fall Out Boy and some fans pointed out that their break was three years. Needless to say, we shouldn’t expect an upload from DanandPhilGAMES anytime soon.

Fun fact, I also met them and it was the best day of my life. I love my dads.

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Bethany Walker

Bethany is a 20-year old girl born and raised in the Ottawa area. She attends school at Algonquin College with high hopes for a career in editing. She has had an interest in the world of Youtube since she was 14 years old. This bloomed into a fascination with anime and videogame culture. She believes that all three of these worlds have overlapping points and makes it her goal to explore them. While her interests are not commonly embraced, she finds comfort in writing on the internet.

Strategic Writing

Hey there! Welcome to our blog Bonus Stage!

My name is Kevin Mazurimm. I’m a second-year student at Algonquin College in the Professional Writing program. Today I’m going to talk to you about two of my favourite things: writing and gaming, and how doing both have helped me. I’ve spent years writing little things here and there, just for something to do. At times, however, I’ve been unable to just sit down and write.

So, something I tend to do is when I’m trying to write, I’ll spend time gaming in the background. I’ve been told before that obviously I don’t care as much about writing if I’m focused on a video game in the background, and today I’m going to tell you why that’s not true. Gaming is a love of mine and has been since I was a little kid with my Windows 95 and a copy of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.

Image © GOG sp. z o.o. and ©1995 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

I started my hobby of gaming as just that; a hobby. As I grew older, it became more an escape for me and soon that translated into writing. I grew up imagining what I could change to make a great game outstanding. I used to go around imagining, “What if this game went from a first-person shooter (FPS) to RTS?” or something similar. Then I began to imagine what would happen if I wrote a game based on a game I had played. I began to realize as I got older this would be a lot harder than it sounded in my head, but I never gave up.

When I began trying to write “my own thing,” I found I couldn’t focus on it as well as I had before. I found myself more interested in gaming than in the actual writing, which kind of scared me a bit as I had always been told making money as a gamer is something that just isn’t possible (I learned later in life that this is not the case, looking at all the e-sports, let’s players, etc.).

So, one day, I was playing a game that was turn-based, and found myself waiting for an overly long time between turns. So, I minimized my game while the AI was taking its sweet time deciding what to do, and I started to write something. As I got into it more and more, I found myself tabbing back into the game less and less, and writing a lot more between turns.

I had stumbled upon something great, or at least it was to me. Doing both of the things I love, at the same time. Writing the novel that had been stumping me for months, while also playing a game I have a lot of fun playing. It allowed me to distract myself if I got stuck on how to continue a particular paragraph, and it gave me something to do in-between the long turns that the AI takes in certain games. One series of games is what helped me do this; the Total War franchise by Creative Assembly.

The game is a lot of fun for people like me who like to strategize and move massive armies across battlefields to clash with your opponents. It also gave me ideas for things I could potentially do with my own book, as there are so many variations of the game, from ones that take place in Ancient Rome to ones that follow the famous Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy series. If you find yourself suffering from writer’s block, and love games as much as I do, I recommend this strategy, as it could help you get over that wall.

Screenshot I took in game. © SEGA, © COPYRIGHT GAMES WORKSHOP LIMITED 2017.

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Kevin Mazurimm

Kevin Mazurimm is a second year student at Algonquin College in the Professional Writing Program. He is an avid lover of video games, owning over 400 on Steam alone, and is an up-and-coming fiction writer.

You've reached a Bonus Stage!

We here at Bonus Stage are both avid writers in the Algonquin College Professional Writing program and also lovers of great video games. This blog will mostly talk about various video games, methods that you can use to combine writing and gaming and various other things that involve the love we have for games. Join us on this journey and have fun along with us as we discuss all things gaming.