All posts for the month March, 2012

So, I subscribed to GameFly the other day…

As one who follows the online video hijinks of the Game Informer staff with a loving eye, I was deeply saddened by the news that Phil Kollar, prolific writer of many things J at GI, will be departing for greener pastures in the very near future*. This means, among other things, he will no longer have access to the Game Informer vault, a large repository of nearly every video game released since GI became a magazine back in the early 90′s. As a result, according to his Twitter account, he is compensating by subscribing to GameFly.

I find this intriguing. It says a few things to me:

As a someone who needs to stay up on the gaming industry, Phil Kollar needs to continue to play games.
Apparently GameFly is a decent service to keep up on playing games.
As someone who would like to get into the gaming industry, and whom it would behoove to play more games, maybe I should look into GameFly.

Yes, I was basically endorsed into buying a subscription to the video game version of Netflix. And hey, since I cancelled my Netflix account several months ago, this should fill the void in my monthly bills quite nicely.

I never quite bought into GameFly before; my roommate used to have it, once upon a time, and it took him three weeks to procure a copy of Mod Nation Racers when it first came out, which suggested that I shouldn’t count on playing any new releases. Still, for catching up on old games, it sounds like a positive experience, so we’ll go from there.

The benefit for you, dear readers, is that you’ll have more content to glean in the future. After all, there are just a mess of games I haven’t played yet, and that I should probably experience before the industry moves on to greater things. Who knows, this might even spark more motivation to continue to play games and to write more based on my experiences*!

At any rate, I wanted to give you folks a preview of things to come, i.e. ANYTHING AT ALL IN THE WORLD. Thanks for sticking around; you shall be rewarded for your patience =)

Game On: Snow Day interview (Bozeman Daily Chronicle – 3/16/12)

Every third Friday of the month, I write a column on gaming for our local newspaper, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. I’ve been trying to find my groove in what I want to do with this bit of real estate in the paper’s weekly entertainment section, but so far I’ve had great luck in gathering ideas; my first month was marked by my second pre-release review game, Dance Central 2, and I feel like I’ve starting to find my voice lately.

Case in point: this month, I actually did a bit of journalism (go fig, right?) and conducted an interview with the proprietor of a new gaming store in town. It was my first interview piece since college, but I didn’t get any unhappy emails from my Chronicle editors, so I must have done something right, or at least not incorrectly.

Fun fact: I actually recently received a text from the store’s owner the other day complementing me on the article and thanking me for the publicity. Good to know that some people in this town are actually reading my work. Makes me feel all nice inside =)

Title: “Local gaming store specializes in classic games, obscure products”
Outlet: Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Publish Date: 3/16/12

“Tucked away next to the Fresco Café on North Seven Street is Bozeman’s newest shop for video games, Snow Day.

Not your average gaming emporium, Snow Day specializes in older, “classic” games, ranging from the Nintendo Entertainment System all the way up through the Sega Dreamcast, with many more in between.

Snow Day is operated by Ben Himsworth, who previously owned Bad Taste Records, which opened in 2004, and The Movie Dungeon, which opened in 2008 and shared building space with Cactus Records on Main Street.”

Read the rest at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

Thirty hours and counting with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Gamer’s Guide to Life – 3/6/12)

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has been a sort of pet gaming project for me during the past few months. I always get excited whenever a big publisher ike EA or Activision decide to start a new gaming franchise, and the closer Kingdoms of Amalur got to launch, the more my anticipation mounted. After spending close to a month with the game, I am more than satisfied with how it turned out, and continue to fire it up whenever I feel like absolutely throwing my evening in the trash in lieu of questing, grinding, and oogling at gorgeous high-fantasy environments.

In fact, I liked the game so much that I wrote an extended impression piece for Gamer’s Guide to Life. Not quite a review, but far more than a garden variety preview, I think it bears closest resemblance to the write-up I did on Dark Souls back in October, in that I write about the game with my reviewer’s cap on, but without the benefit of having played it to completion.

At any rate, I still feel like this article summarizes the game well, and helps shed some light on why this game is positively dominating my social life. Enjoy!

Title: “Thirty hours and counting with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning“
Outlet: Gamer’s Guide to Life.com
Publish Date: 3/6/12

“I try to stay away from open-world games.

I appreciate the charms of their huge, sprawling environments, and I understand what attracts people to them, but they’ve never held sway for me. I prefer my games focussed, linear and respectful of my time. I want bang for my buck, and I like moment-to-moment gameplay that keeps me on the edge of my seat. After resisting the likes of Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV, I’ve finally met my match with EA’s newest fantasy RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Except it isn’t for the reasons I thought. Whenever a game gets into my head, as Kingdoms of Amalur has, it’s because the story has firmly snared me in its tendrils, or because I’ve bought so heavily into the game’s world. Instead, I’m counting down minutes on the clock until I leave work, raring to go home and fire up my Xbox 360, because Kingdoms of Amalur is so bloody fun. It’s both exciting to play and engrossing to explore, and it renders me incapable of playing for less than two hours at a time.“

Read the rest at Gamer’s Guide to Life.

1 Comment

by iamaparade on March 14, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Gamer's Guide to Life, Impressions

Tagged 38 studios, EA, hack n slash, kingdoms of amalur, what a (open) world, xbox 360

Posted by iamaparade on March 14, 2012

http://andrewtesterman.com/2012/03/14/thirty-hours-and-counting-with-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-gamers-guide-to-life-3612/

Where’d you go?

You doubtlessly may have wondered where I’ve been this past month. The story is long and tedious (consisting mostly of attending Best Picture nominees and watching Game Informer’s Overblood 2 Super Replay), but what’s important is that I’m back.

I’ve been struggling recently with how best to proceed with I Am A Parade. On one hand, I know that I need to get in the habit of producing regular content, and I Am A Parade is a great site to do so; on the other, I also need to do my best to contribute to other gaming-related projects I have commitments with. This balancing act is what led me to stall out (hence my extended absence), but I’ve come up with a temporary solution: I will continue to post links to stories I write for other sites, and gradually work on new content from there. Ideally, I Am A Parade will offer daily gaming content, but right now I need to concentrate on producing any content at all.

Not to worry, though! I do have some great stuff in store for you folks, including the return of Replay Wednesday and Five for Friday, as well as original opinion pieces, reviews, and previews. Like any good MMO, this blog is bound to go this way and that in an attempt to establish its identity, and any patience you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Also, like any good MMO, I am more than willing to listen to community feedback. Got a good idea of what you’d like to read about? Let me know, and I’d be more than happy to give it a shot.

Thanks again for being patient. Look forward to more content soon, but for now, here is a video of one of my favorite moments from The Simpsons.

I Am A Parade

All posts for the month March, 2012

So, I subscribed to GameFly the other day…

Game On: Snow Day interview (Bozeman Daily Chronicle – 3/16/12)

Thirty hours and counting with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Gamer’s Guide to Life – 3/6/12)

Where’d you go?

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