Kiiii's Arcade
 

I've been trying to figure out what I want my 2nd journal to be about. I did make one a while ago attempting to review 20 or some odd albums, but I ended up not liking the idea, and allowed that journal to fade away. I've finally come to an agreement with myself as to what I want my 2nd journal to be..."Video Games". It's no secret to anybody that I have an enormous passion for video games. I watch people play them through Youtube and Twitch, and I play them myself. I don't really consider it to be an addiction. I consider it a way to enjoy myself without having to go out all the time and get drunk with people I hardly know. I'm thinking what I will do here is pretty much what you'd expect. I'll talk about video games I like, some that I don't like, and I'll give my overall opinion on them. We'll be discussing games through PC and consoles, specifically ones I have played. My music journal will still provide OST from games that I like, but this will be a place for me to talk about the games specifically and to really put out there what I enjoy and not enjoy about them. So sit tight, grab your controllers, and let's get this ball rolling.

Time and time again, I will also do monthly themes where I will talk about a certain genre of games or choose a specific category, and I'll spend the whole month talking about them. Here's what you will find in this journal for the monthly themes that have taken place.

Good journal, im on board with the idea i luv games too.

idk much about pc games though but im here for the console games

Torchlight II moved from intro post to here

So first off, I want to start with one that I have been enjoying for what Steam has logged in as 19 hours. We'll just say 20 hours because why not? I'm talking of course about...

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/st...g?t=1425491972
Torchlight II

I'll be honest about it, it took me a while to actually get around to adding this game to my collection for one reason: I wasn't a big fan of the above head POV. Basically the way Diablo II/Diablo III/Path of Exile are played. However, I've been exposed to it a pretty decent amount through Path of Exile and Torchlight II that I finally came to terms with it and really did come to enjoy it. The game itself is just fantastic. It's nothing you haven't seen before in a game like this, especially with the main story being pretty short, but you get to choose from a variety of different classes such as berserker and mage, etc etc, pretty much your run of the mill classes. What I absolutely love however is the companion you get to have with you. I haven't tested it but from what I've seen, each class gets a companion, and you actually get to choose what breed your companion is. You can choose between a cat, owl, panda, all sorts of things, and they all have their own silly / mean personalities that really make your decision that much more difficult. It really does add to the game though because as you level up your equipment, you keep in mind that you want to level up your companions equipment and make sure that it's being kept to a standard that you want. It adds some responsibility to your play style and it's a lot of fun. Torchlight II is certainly a game that I would recommend to anyone of the play style of what I mentioned before. The combat is very good, the quests don't feel like the same ol' same ol' thing, and the boss fights are extremely satisfying and well worth it. You get some badass looking armor for your character and the best part about it...there's multiplayer. Yes, you and friends can create your own characters and play online with each other and destroy the enemies in your path. My friend and I have put in hours of gameplay between the two of us together on our local server and we have a blast every time.


The Nintendo 64 is and will always be one of my favorite Nintendo consoles, for many reasons, however i'm only going to talk about two very specific reasons why that continues to be the way it is today. Back when the Nintendo 64 was in it's hay day, we received not one, but two games, the first being Ocarina of Time, follow by Majoras Mask coming two years later. I'm afraid to say it, but I really do think that these two releases really helped Nintendo push the idea of "The Legend of Zelda" to it's next level. The reason i'm afraid to say that is because I know a lot of people are passionate of the older titles of this franchise, but admittedly I never really got heavily into the earlier games. From what I can remember, I was also a bit late to the party when it came to "The Legend of Zelda". I remember a few years ago, around my senior year, was my first experience of beating Ocarina of Time all the way through. I had played the game time and time again since it's release, but I never actually sat down and played it in full for myself, and man, it truly is a remarkable game. (I beat the entire game in a week, but that's only because I had nothing better to do). The story telling, the enemy encounters, everything was just perfect. It left such a good impression on me, and I know this because even today I can remember every single bit of information about the game that I learned from my first play through, and I can remember where I was, what I was thinking about, and all that. I knew of course that even though I had finally beat this one, there was one more game waiting for me to play and that is of course Majoras Mask. Admittedly, once again I knew basically nothing about this game, but I knew it was gaining popularity and it was making people "favorite games" lists pretty quickly, and thus I decided to give it a go. The overall feel of the game seems much darker and creepier than it's predecessor, and when watching other people's reviews of this game nowadays, I was right to assume that this game was going for that creepy and dark feel. Everything about it is creepy. Especially...

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/...20100106035745

I remember when playing "Majoras Mask" for the first time that I was terrified to look above me because I knew i'd find that face looking right at me. Seriously, it's ****ing creepy. Good move, Nintendo. No but in all seriousness, the moon plays a pretty substantial part in your experience as you are trying to get things done as quickly as possible before you meet your imminent demise. And let me tell you, there's nothing more depressing than seeing this happen...



Creepy stuff happening right there. Just say your farewells to Hyrule, because it's gone. Nah, I joke, but it really is one of the creepiest moments of the game seeing that happen, and you try to avoid it as much as possible.

To wrap things up pretty quickly here, I have honestly come to the conclusion that if you have ever owned a Nintendo 64, or you have the money to get one, you need to play these two games. If you're a fan of The Legend of Zelda and you have never actually played these two games, I can't consider you a true Zelda fan. But that's just me. Then again i'm a hypocrite as I don't really like the older games. Anyway, that's that.

i haven't played Majora but Ocarina of time is a good game.

It was fairly challenging and the gameplay was fun and it has a good story that is told well through the cutscenes.
the gameplay though is a bit janky and the graphics looked pretty bad.
it's not really the game's fault, it's cause the N64 just had horrible graphics.

Majora is great, and probably the best N64 game ever. The theory of Link's is great too.

Majora's Mask is pretty much the reason I'll never ditch my Gamecube and copy of the Master Edition.

I've long held the opinion that Majora's Mask was the better game, and I'm glad that the 3DS remake exists to let people replay it and bask in all it's glory. I really love the sense of hopelessness there is as everything you work towards gets undone when you go back in time.

Speaking of N64, am I the only one who had love for Pod Racer?

You are not.

Perhaps the most underrated game on the system

I'm just glad there was one good thing to come out of that movie.

I wouldn't go as far to say the graphics are horrible but to today's standards they definitely show their age.

Both of them are fantastic and deserve "top tier game" status for the N64.

I plan to get the 3DS version. I've heard good things.

So, Steam is my main source of video games. I'm definitely more into the PC gaming than I am the console gaming, even though I own a Wii U. I do play it from time to time but not as often as I do the games on my PC. At the current moment, Steam shows that I have 77 games in my library, which I think is accurate. If you're curious about my Steam name/profile etc, you can get that in my signature or right here.

Anyway, i'm going to look through my library and see which games I play the most:

• 7 Days To Die shows that I've clocked in 22 hours of gameplay. No surprise there. That's a game a friend and myself play whenever we feel like playing a decently made zombie survival game.

• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth shows i've clocked 56 hours. I'm surprised it's not more than that, but the game really is as amazing as people say it is. I just don't find myself in the mood to play it as much as I'd like.

• Borderlands 2 shows 19 hours of gameplay. That's still going up even today. I've yet to finish the game, but man I have been having a blast playing it.

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim shows 16 hours. Do I really have to explain myself?

• Rogue Legacy shows 5 hours of gameplay. Same thing with Isaac, I would play it if I were in the right mood.

• Team Fortress 2 comes in at a whopping 236 hours and still going up. Fantastic game. Great to waste a whole day on.

• Last but certainly not least, Torchlight II at 19 hours of gameplay and still rising. I play to completely finish this game including all the achievements and side quests.

They were awful imo
Take FF8, that game at the time had visually stunning cut scenes no N64 game came close to.

Most N64 games looked very blocky and ugly.
I would say Ocarina of time its one of the few N64 games that don't look that horrible.

i remember traveling the open fieds on the horse and thinking the game looked great but some dungeons still looked blocky and basic as hell.

Go ahead, you can call me a nerd all you want. I'm not afraid to admit that one of the things that I kept an interest in from my childhood is Pokemon. I love the games, I love the TCG (although I don't collect the cards anymore) and I just love the memories that go along with the entire concept. But I want to talk more about the games here than anything else. This will be in separate parts and will include my opinions / experiences with games that I have played.

First off, let's talk about the first Pokemon game I ever played:

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/9/..._EN_boxart.png
Pokemon: Special Pikachu Edition

When I was a kid, maybe around 9 years old, I can't quite remember exactly, myself and my two brothers were asking our parents day after day for the Pokemon games that everyone else was getting. At the time, I had only known that the Red and Blue version existed, and so my younger brother and I decided we'd get the same ones because it'd be cool. As our birthdays started to near, our parents had been giving us our gifts on our birthdays and my older brother got his first. He had gotten a purple see through GameBoy Color with Pokemon Red to go along with it. My younger brothers birthday had come a few weeks later and my parents had gotten him a yellow GameBoy Color with Pokemon Blue. As I saw that both my brothers had gotten their Pokemon games, I was pretty excited for my birthday to come up. Once it came around, I saw a box that was wrapped that was about the size of a GameBoy Color game box. I had opened it from the back and i'd seen a yellow box, so I was shortly disappointed until I turned it over and realized it had been a version of Pokemon I hadn't even realized existed yet. I could not have been more excited because now I knew that my brothers and I had all gotten Pokemon games for our birthdays and we were ready to play them right away.

Now moving on to my experience specifically. The minute I started playing Pokemon Yellow, I was instantly hooked. I had seen the show before so I kind of knew what to expect, but in this game specifically, I had no idea they'd be starting with Pikachu as opposed to the traditional 3 starters for the first generation Pokemon games. Plus, seeing this really made the game feel cool:



I was quickly getting my team together and before I knew it, I was taking out the Gym leaders with my Pikachu, Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, and Mewtwo (ended up getting him later on). To me, I felt like I had the perfect team, until of course I get to the Elite Four for the first time and realize that I was nowhere near as ready as I thought I would be. As time went on, I started to learn what move sets work for which Pokemon and which Pokemon are weak to what, and such and such. I've seen pictures that my mom has taken of me where I've got my GameBoy Color with Pokemon Yellow in it. I think there are even pictures spread across a couple years and same thing, still the GameBoy Color with Pokemon Yellow. I was addicted to it, and loved it to death and I never wanted to put it down. But hey, what kid would right? I mean, back then those games were the ****, and they still are.

Unfortunately to this day, I have no idea what has happened to my GameBoy Color or my version of Pokemon Yellow. I still remember the day I supposedly lost it, and I looked everywhere for it. Of course, this was years later, other version of Pokemon had come out, and my interest in the original started to fade. It's just weird to think about that it could have landed in someone elses hands and they've been playing the crap out of it. What I would give to have my first copy of that game back in my hands though.

Pokemon Yellow is certainly not my all time favorite Pokemon game, but it's definitely up there for nostalgia sake. It's still one of the more fun games to play based solely on how different it was from Red and Blue, but still managed to keep that traditional Pokemon game formula that Red and Blue did very well.

I have Pokemon Yellow. http://www.atheistnetwork2.com/image...on_twisted.gif

Great idea for a journal Ki and a dedicated games one is needed on here.

I remember when Ocarina of Time first came out in 1998 and the hype surrounding its release was huge, it was probably the most hyped game of its time, luckily of course it was a classic. It came out not long after Final Fantasy VII another masterpiece of a game. At that time the N64 was lagging behind PS1 in terms of the amount of games that were coming out but it always went in for quality over quantity, luckily I had both machines at the time, but Ocarina of Time was a real saviour for the machine at that time.

Majora's Mask was seen as the weaker game of the two but I preferred it even more for its darker feel and it's my second best Zelda game after the Wind Waker.

I read once on another thread that you're a big fan of survival/adventure horrors, as I'm a bit out of touch on which ones to play these days, which do you recommend?

Yep, we have a winner.

A few games I would mention are 7 Days To Die (it's in early alpha, but it's a lot of fun), DayZ, and H1Z1. All three of which I have played a lot of and have been having fun playing. 7 Days To Die is difficult for the fact that the more days you survive, the harder the game gets with the amount of zombies that come after you.

Fucking casual.

Having my new graphics card will make those hours go way way up.

Talk more about Pokemon games, do the GBA ones!!

I plan to go through all the Pokemon games I have played. Pokemon Gold is next.

Fire Red and Green Leaf > Red and Blue

I got a lot of enjoyment out of Leaf Green.

I tried nuzlockeing Fire Red recently only to realize I'm bad at nuzlockes.

It's got everything that made the original great, gives you running shoes, actually lets you know what new attacks do and how much damage they inflict, all the extras after you beat the Elite Four add play time, you can get Pokemon from later games, and the Elite Four level up and get different Pokemon after you complete the extras. What's not to love?

Nuzlockeing?

i think Nutzlocke means personal player challenges like beating the game without any of your pokemon fainting or beating the elite4 with a team of Magikarps, sh*t like that..

Oh... closest thing I got is I recently started a game with Crystal where I'm only going to use a Zubat/Golbat/Crobat named Batman throughout the entire game. Let me tell you, trying to train a Zubat from level five or so is hell.

good luck with that :p:

I despise Zubat, he's annoying, gives little exp and he's ****in everywhere..
Him and rattata are the worst.

So, Pokemon Yellow being one of the best childhood gameboy games I've ever played, that still leaves room for any other gameboy games that came after that to make big impressions on my childhood. And they most certainly did. And I am of course talking about the next in the series...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ld_Version.png
Pokemon Gold

This was actually the first game I had ever gotten for my Gameboy Color (which I had also gotten that same year, a few months prior). Pokemon Gold pretty much surpassed every expectation I had for it, and my expectations were high, especially since I instantly fell in love with Pokemon Yellow the minute I started playing it. I remember the day I got it too, I was so excited that I took the game right out of it's box and started playing it right away. At this time, my cousin was also starting to get into the Pokemon games and he really wanted to play along with me through Gold & Silver, however at the time that I had gotten Pokemon Gold, he hadn't received any of the Pokemon games...until the next morning where I went to his place and he started talking about a part in Pokemon Silver that he had gotten to, and instantly, we started to play.

I really can't put this game anywhere but my 2nd favorite childhood game in the Gameboy/Gameboy Color catalog, because Pokemon Yellow is always my 1st, but at the same time, there's no way any other game that I have played will ever take 2nd place. This game on my first time through was nothing but amazing. The added color, the new cities, the new rivals, and the new pokemon, including the new starters. I remember that the first time I played through Pokemon Gold, I chose Cyndaquil, and once again, I was anxiously waiting to see what levels they evolved, what moves they learn, what they turn into, etc etc. And it was still just as excited as it's predecessor, if not better. The legendary pokemon in this game were also ****ing amazing. I wanted Pokemon Gold specifically for the box art alone, but little did I know, Ho-Oh would become a crucial part in my team:



I still think even to this day, Ho-Oh is in my top 5 legendary Pokemon, and yes, before you ask, I will be doing lists for legendary Pokemon, and things like that. I just think his overall look and attitude are just perfectly done. His move set was perfect for when you caught him (at level 45 in Pokemon Gold) and it just made the game so much more worth it when you finally got to get to him and catch him. I did catch him with my master ball every single time playing through Pokemon Gold since I always wanted him to be a part of my team.

It's weird to look back and remember playing these games for the first time, but that just shows how much work and magic went into them to make them the amazing games that they still to this day remain to be. And don't worry, i'm not one of those "the old games are better" people. I actually have an enormous love for the later generations, and you will see that soon.

It's brilliant if you think about it. Zubat is weak compared to all the uber-Pokemon around him, and yet if I just spend countless hours grinding in the very first section of the game...

Zubat is actually one of my favorite pokemon of all time. Golbat and Crobat can both be an essential part of your team if you set the right moves to them. I've had a Crobat carry me through the Elite Four before in Pokemon Ruby.

In 2003, another Pokemon game was released which quickly and with good reason became one of my all time favorite Pokemon games of all time. There were two released at the time, Ruby, and Sapphire. Ruby having the picture of Groudon, and Sapphire having the picture of Kyogre. I of course went with Ruby because Groundon just looked badass the first time I ever saw him...

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/5/..._EN_boxart.png
Pokemon Ruby Version

For me personally, I find that this generation of Pokemon games was the most groundbreaking Pokemon game releases of it's time. It had everything the fans have been wanting: full color, amazing graphics for the system, fantastically created Pokemon, two amazing standard legendaries with even more to come after them, and a great battle at the elite four. Some would say that this generation felt a lot easier than the ones before it, which to some extent I can agree with. The elite four for instance seemed pretty easy even on my first playthrough, but that probably has more to do with the fact that you end up picking up a pretty strong legendary before you even get to the elite four, which is totally fine since that's the formula it's usually gone with. However, I have always found Groudon to be a little bit more overpowered than Kyogre, which is why I always liked going for him. With that aside, I think the storytelling in this game was one of the best stories of it's time, and it still to this day remains to be one of the best stories in a Pokemon game ever, especially since instead of you fighting the big team by yourself (i.e. team rocket), there were instead two different teams, Team Aqua and Team Magma (depending on the version you played, one was on your side), and as you play through the game, the one on your side tends to help you more than the other, which makes sense. I feel that added a lot of depth as you feel like you are really trying to take the enemy team down and ruin their plans. And instead of it being about a legendary that isn't even on this earth, you're basically having to deal with weather conditions of whichever legendary is causing it making the need to fix this a little more urgent. Overall, this game is in my top 3 pokemon games, with of course Pokemon Yellow keeping the number 1 spot. However, I will always find a way to play through Pokemon Ruby time and time again, and every single time I do, I get more enjoyment out of it.

Of course...you can't go wrong with the legendary music...



Definitely one of the best legendary songs ever made.

I haven't played Ruby but this part sold me on the game

"Team Aqua and Team Magma (depending on the version you played, one was on your side), and as you play through the game, the one on your side tends to help you more than the other, which makes sense. I feel that added a lot of depth as you feel like you are really trying to take the enemy team down and ruin their plans"

Does this happen in every gba game those teams are in?

Cause ive dealt with those 2 team in other games but ive never felt i particularly helped one team more than the other.

^I personally felt connected to the teams plan that was on my side. Keep in mind, Ruby easily had one of my favorite Pokemon stories to date. It was very well structured and never felt stale.

Limbo Boy
http://i60.tinypic.com/2nvxr1h.png

Games You'll Find Them: Limbo
Why I Like Them: I just love the overall simplicity of him as well as the mission he's trying to accomplish. Everything you can do as one helpless little boy is astounding.

Handsome Jack
http://i60.tinypic.com/14ale36.jpg

Games You'll Find Them: Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Borderlands The Pre-Sequel
Why I Like Them: His sarcastic attitude and overall lack of compassion for you throughout the game is wonderful. Getting a message from him when you're playing the game can be both hilarious and terrifying.

Toon Link
http://i60.tinypic.com/2hqv492.png

Games You'll Find Them: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros (3DS/Wii U)
Why I Like Them: I like most of the many renditions of Link, but I really feel like Wind Waker pulled it off the best. In the other games, I never really felt like being the kid link had much to do with the story, it was always about being the adult link. In Wind Waker, you stay a kid, and I think that's cool.

The best thing about windwaker is Link's facial expressions. :p:

they were funny as hell.

^Wind Waker pretty much has everything I love about Legend of Zelda. It's a tie between Ocarina and Wind Waker when it comes to my all time favorite Zelda game.

For me is a tie between Link to the past and Windwaker.