After months of driving by and playing the “Oh yeah! They’re open” game, Matt & I decided to try out Smashburger on Windward Parkway. Both of us had been madly craving a juicy burger and thought we’d check out the new kid in town instead of visiting our favourite Five Guys.

Apparently we chose the worst possible night to venture into the unknown.

When we entered the restaurant we noticed that nearly every booth was full or had just been vacated as garbage or debris needed to be cleared away. There was a family and two gentlemen ahead of us in the line. One employee was working the registers with a second jumping on and off if they were able to. When the men in front of us stepped up to order, we heard the cashier explain there was a wait as they were dealing with an influx of customers redeeming Groupon vouchers that were expiring this evening. Twenty five minutes seemed a touch long, but since I’d never been here before I felt it was worth the wait to try something new.

We weren’t planning on dining in so after grabbing a menu off the front counter (the wall unit being empty when we arrived) and checking out their offerings, we both decided to build our own burgers. Matt added three premium topping to his: Pimina cheese, peach BBQ sauce and vidalia slaw. I went with a basic cheeseburger: lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup and mustard on their classic egg bun with a slice of sharp cheddar. We also ordered a side of their sweet potato fries seasoned with garlic, rosemary and olive oil.

Since the waiting bar and bench were full, we took the table directly in front of the registers and patiently waited our 25 minutes.

I watched and listened as new customers arrived being told of the wait time and placed their orders. Not everyone wanted to wait, but those with expiring Groupons did.

After 30 minutes had passed, I begun to notice people approaching the shift manager asking for refunds. Most of these were families with younger children. Completely understandable as asking a three year old to patiently wait for food is virtually impossible.

At this point I have realized that the store is way too understaffed and unprepared for the influx. The kitchen is overwhelmed and the shift manager was doing her best to accommodate the patrons, but clearly feeling the pressure. Why the store manager wasn’t here was beyond me, but I do hear one staff member from the kitchen tell an angry customer that he did come in on his day off.

50 minutes into our wait, Matt wonders if we should cancel our order and go someplace else but I tell him no. It’s been 50 minutes! Surely our order will be up soon, considering how many customers canceled and left.

The shift manager comes over while she has a small break from refunding to offer us a couple of vouchers for free burgers on our next visit and apologizes again for the wait. But when she returns to the desk to fill them out, more people cancel and she forgets to give them to us. The employee expediting from the window gives them to us when we bring it up and ask how much longer our food will take. He estimates another 10 minutes.

By now our stomachs are growling and we’ve hit the point of no return – we’re sticking it out and going to try these burgers. Our eyes are glued to the counter and we watch as some food goes to the few other tables who stuck it out while other food go back to the kitchen when they realize they just made a canceled order. Everyone except for the one employee at the window is in the back preparing food. The dining room needs serious attention but most likely won’t see any until the backlog is gone.

At 9:24pm, we finally see our food make its way into the take out bags. Starving, we forgo our usual quality check and drive straight home to eat.

We should have checked.

Back at the apartment, Matt takes out his burger to discover the vidalia slaw missing. There is no way we are going to go back now, so we just suck it up and dig into our meal.

I didn’t find the burger special. I’ll chalk that up to the kitchen being so far behind. My bun had gotten soggy in the 5 minute drive from the restaurant back home and I wasn’t a fan of the giant leaf of lettuce hanging over an inch outside of the bun. I had to tear a good bit off so my first bite wasn’t completely greens. The meat itself was cooked medium-ish, fine for me but not so much for Matt who thought they were all well-done since we weren’t asked how we’d like the meat done. The sweet potato fries were very tasty, but unfortunately had a bit too much olive oil on them making them greasier than I would have liked.

Having worked in the food service industry, I can sympathize to a degree with what happened at Smashburger tonight. Sometimes you get a rush out of the blue that throws you for a loop, but you roll up your sleeves and get it done. However, they knew those Groupon vouchers were going to expire and the store manager should have scheduled a few more bodies to pitch in if need be. It’s easier to send people home than it is to get them in when you need them on short notice.

But I won’t judge them on tonight alone. In a week or so we’ll head back to claim our free meals and hopefully enjoy a much better experience. If not, Five Guys will remain my go-to burger joint.

Photos from Alpharetta-Milton Patch

But all I wanted to do was make banana bread. So I did.

I probably shouldn’t have made any, being as we just started a new meal plan two weeks back. The dietitian didn’t say I couldn’t bake anymore, just to watch how often I do and to limit my intake of sweets. But today’s a long day at home alone while my husband’s at work and then out bowling with his development team. So I figured a little treat to perk me up would be a good thing.

As an added bonus, I noticed three very ripe bananas on the counter this morning. Probably what planted the whole banana bread thing in my brain when I stumbled through there for breakfast.

Then I had a debate with myself about adding chocolate chips. I probably shouldn’t have but what the hell, it’s a treat. At least I put in less than I would have a few years ago.

Not that baking something easy like banana bread takes up a lot of time or anything. But Tweeting about it and texting a friend taunting them with it sure will keep a girl too busy to remember to write.

Mmmmm Banomnom Bread!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas, smashed up
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used milk choco)

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add in eggs & mix well. Mix in banana and set aside. In a smaller bowl, stir together remaining ingredients, then add to banana mixture. Pour into a greased loaf pan (9x5x3 inch) and bake for 50-60 minutes at 350F, or until a toothpick comes out relatively clean. Then let it cool for a bit so you don’t burn your taste buds off. =)

The first (and most basic) of the patterns I bought from VelvetElvii’s store is a quote from one of my favourite episodes of The IT Crowd, “The Final Countdown”. In this episode, Moss has been accepted as a contestant on Countdown, a popular UK spelling show. As an eight time winner, he is invited to the elusive 8+ club, where his new nemesis, Negative One, challenges him to a game of Street Countdown (played exactly like regular Countdown but on the street). He accepts the challenge with the following quote:

Once I had finished that one, I felt inspired to pay tribute to one of my favourite Xbox Live Indie titles. Luckily, the cover image for I Maed a Gam3 W1th Zombies lends itself well to cross stitching as each x is pixel perfect. I hand counted out each line and stitch, taking a couple of days to finish the majority of it. Now all that remains is finding the best grey to add “Indie Games” to the header.

My third bit of stitching came to me while perusing the DS and 3DS games on Amazon. I was looking for good deals and new games to add to my wishlist when I spotted the Bit.Trip box and thought that would make a great next project. If it turned out, I’d show it to a friend who happens to work at Aksys. If it didn’t, no one would ever see it. It did turn out, and now has the honour of being the first bit of Aksys fan art posted on their website. This was another free hand project.

Next up is a Nyan Cat pattern from VelvetElvii for my husband. While I work on that, I’ll be on the hunt for a new video game cover to stitch up.

October 14th Update:

Many thanks to all of my friends and family members who helped me reach my goal this week. I couldn’t have done this without you. You will be putting smiles on faces and for that, you are heroes.

Now onto my gaming schedule for the big event! I will be starting at 0:00am Oct 15th and playing for 24hrs straight (with potty/food breaks and a shower thrown in). Here’s my gaming breakdown.

0:00am – 4:00am: A mix of Fallout New Vegas DLC (Honest Hearts & Dead Money)

4:00am – 9:00am: Silent Hill Homecoming

9:00am – 2:00pm: Persona 4

2:00pm – ??? : Gears 3 campaign on Insane with @tehflakes and @ThrallMind

Depending on when we end campaign mode, I may switch to You Don’t Know Jack or play something on my PSP (I like to give my 360 cool down time as she’s getting older). You can follow me on Twitter for updates.

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On October 15th, 2011, I will be participating in the Extra Life fundraiser, playing video games for 24 hours to raise money for the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. For as little as $1 an hour (that’s only $24!) or any sized flat donation, you can help me raise funds that will help children and their families while they undergo treatment. All donations are tax deductible and every penny of it will go towards Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

My Goal: To Raise $1000

Click here for my Fundraising Page

I took part in the very first Extra Life event which helped raise money for the Texas Children’s Hospital. Now, through the power of the Children’s Miracle Network, Extra Life is able to make sure the funds raised can go to whichever hospital in the network you wish to support. The reason I chose Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is my husband. When Matt was younger, he had leukemia and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (as Scottish Rite at the time) was the centre that took care of all of his treatments, including his chemotherapy.

I haven’t finalized my play by play for this year’s event. Odds are I will be doing some sort of streaming, whether from home or at Battle & Brew in Marietta with the InDisTeam. I will try to accommodate any requests that I can, including which games to play, etc. Sponsorship from companies is also welcome, just shoot me a private email if you want to pursue that avenue. Keep your eyes here for updated information on my plans and list of games I will be playing!

Many thanks for your time, support and participation. =)

But video games of this magnitude cannot rely on game play alone. There needs to be a strong and compelling story to bring a player back time and time again. Sure you can slap multiplayer into any game nowadays, but for someone like myself – someone who appreciates solid storytelling – that is not what is going to keep your game in my console for long. This, unfortunately, is where the first two installments in Gears of War fell short for me. More so Gears 2 than the original.

Gears of War has taken a lot of heat from gamers for the weak and under-developed plot that strung together the first two titles. Rightfully so. The first title in any trilogy lays the groundwork for what is to come, and they did an okay job. We were thrown into a fight for survival against an enemy that wanted control of our planet’s surface. We worked with what little information we had and, like any regular gamer, expected to have the blanks filled in for us as we progressed.

Gears of War 2 disappointed everyone. Fans only gained a couple of snippets of important information: what happened to Dom’s wife and the reason why the Locust headed for the surface.

At this point, I had pretty much given up hope for a decent ending to the story.

Then I picked up Aspho Fields, the first of the Gears of War tie-in novels. I’ve never been a huge fan of tie-ins in the past as most of them rehash actual game story or bring it up over and over again, adding little new information or background to the characters. They are nice side stories for sure. Aspho Fields started out a bit too dry for me, but as the author found her footing I found myself devouring the story. Here was what I was missing from Gears 1 and 2. Here was the story the game was so desperately lacking.

With each book, author Karen Traviss gave us more and more back story on the Gears universe. We found out the events Emergence Day, learned about the Pendulum Wars and the toll that decades long battle had on the people of Sera. Every bit of important detail that was missing from the video games could be found in these books as they bridged the gap between the ending of Gears of War 2 and lead us to the beginning of the end.

However, this is not where the bulk of your story should be. All of this development should be contained within the original form of media. Not shoved off into tie-in novels that only the most die hard of your fans will read. It is one thing to put out a couple of books or a one-shot comic for your franchise; it’s another to abuse your fans by forcing them to buy all kinds of additional content to get the full story of your universe. When you build a world for a particular audience, you need to cater to them. Don’t make them feel as though all you want is more money, which is kind of how I feel at this point with Gears of War.

I love the books. I have all four of the books written by Ms. Traviss. There is a ninety-nine percent chance I will even pick up the next (and hopefully, final) Gears of War novel, purely because I love well-written books and want to see this whole story surrounding Marcus Fenix wrapped up. And I am excited for the final Gears video game because they smartened up and brought her in as the lead writer for this last game. Reading her books and knowing Gears the way that I do, from it’s mediocre beginnings on the 360 to what it has become for me thanks to the novels, I am going into the final battle knowing that finally we are going to have a Gears game with a real story to bring it all together.

At the end of the day, I know that I will have enjoyed my experience with the Gears series because I’ve made the choice to invest in the story. The same cannot be said for so many others – others like friends who’ve given up on the games because they were let down, or others who will play the third game without knowing everything I know because they just want to see the ending and hope all those hours will count for something. And you can’t fault those people for not wanting to have to buy books or comics that form the backbone of the story.

In a perfect world, Epic would have hired the author of the novels from the beginning and relied on the games to tell the story of Sera’s demise. If there ever was a video game franchise that could use a retelling in the same vein as all the comic book hero re-imaginings we get every other year, it would be Gears of War. Three solid games using everything that’s been published would undoubtedly have improved this series and with some game play tweaks, made it one of the best and well-rounded series of this generation. I really hope that Gears has been a learning experience for the team at Epic, and that they will consider the importance of story development in future titles.

God knows they need some major help in that department.

Release delays will never be a thing of the past, this much we know is true. There will always be issues that will force a studio to push back titles that just aren’t ready to meet that final deadline. But are there people right now who are turning a blind eye to major problems in order to push out incomplete code and make investors happy? I truly believe so.

This mentality that it is acceptable to release an inferior product and force a patch to users a month or so down the road is an insult to gamers and the hard working people who’ve invested years building a final product they should be proud of. In most cases, these patches fix minor issues with the game that QA hadn’t found yet or some conflict that has the potential of occurring with new add-on content. Releasing updates like these and staying on top of any reports from gamers is wonderful customer service. It proves to your fans that you appreciate their investment in your creation, that their time, money and loyalty is cherished. This kind of attention to detail and your community is what helps your team evolve, making you better developers and increasing your fan-base.

This is what helps to keep fewer copies of your product out of the used game market.

Case in point: Fable 3 from Lionhead Studios. Unfortunately, this game, which should have been an epic third installment from one of the great minds in video game entertainment was riddled with launch week problems. Once gamers began to notice their Hero’s butler had lost his voice, we started to see other flaws spring up. Soon enough, we removed our rose-coloured glasses and noticed just how much was actually broken. More and more bugs were being reported, including my report of how my game froze while joining another Hero’s adventure, causing my character to lose everything I had spent so much time collecting. It took them nearly a month to get a patch together addressing the laundry list of problems reported, and even then, some issues were not (probably could not) be corrected.

Was this a case of moving ahead with production knowing full-well that there were still too many issues with the software, just wanting to get their Holiday release profits? It sure feels like it to me. Months after this mess began, I am still absolutely livid about what happened to my Fable 3 adventure. Days after that patch was released and still did not fix my problems, I took the game to GameStop and traded it in. Six months later, I am still seeing comments on the original YouTube video documenting what happened to my character saying it has happened to others. Odds are at this point in time the issue will never properly be addressed. Lionhead will put together a couple more DLC add-ons for the game and move on to whatever they have planned next.

While this is the biggest example I have, it is not the only one. Bethesda (by way of ZeniMax and Obsidian) hasn’t had completely stellar performances with their Fallout titles or Oblivion. Unfortunately, it’s a risk you take when creating these large, open worlds. Try as you may, the likelihood of your QA dept being able to detect every last bug is virtually impossible. But when your games are known to suffer from major freezing issues, there has to be something you can do to fix it before moving ahead with a sequel or another title using the same engine. It’s unfortunate that there was no real improvement regarding this issue between Oblivion and Fallout New Vegas’ release. There were four years between Oblivion and Fallout New Vegas, and in all that time there was nothing they could have done with the engine to reduce this problem? Or were they also hoping that forced patches would help us think the issues were resolved?

We seem to have accepted this sort of behavior from developers, not holding them up to the standards we have come to expect from them and know they are capable of. We don’t call them on their mistakes and easily forget (but not necessarily forgive) those moments that ruined a game for us. If we want high quality games that we can play the day they launch with little to no problems, we need to speak up and make sure they feel it where it counts: their pocket books. If we don’t voice our concerns on our blogs, news sites, community and game forums, they take our silence to mean they are doing a bang-up job. They like to complain about how they see no profit from the sale of used games, especially within the first 4 weeks of a titles release. Honestly, Mr./Mrs. Bigshot, if you ensured you were giving us the very best, nearly 100% flawless experience, I can assure you fewer gamers would be trading your game in during the initial sales period.

Last year, I was bitter when Gears of War 3 was pushed back by Microsoft in what appears to be an effort to bolster their Holiday 2011 calendar. Not just mildly upset, but really very mad about the whole thing. I was angry the game had been moved for fiscal reasons, but after spending the past week with the beta, I can honestly say I am glad that Epic has been given more time to flesh out the game and make sure it is as close to perfect at launch as it can be.

Instead of begging, pleading and doing ridiculous things to Twitpic for Cliffy B on Twitter, I waited for my pre-order code from GameStop to be valid and spent a good amount of time playing King of the Hill and some Team Deathmatch during what was Week 2 of the Gears 3 Beta. With the help of good friends I was able to get back into the swing of Gears, having not touched Gears 2 in well over a year. They were patient with me as I got accustomed to the controls and worked on catching up to the rest of them. New friends were made, good times were had, headsets were used, the Humpty Dance was sung.When I first jumped into the beta I spent a lot of time playing King of the Hill. It had just unlocked at the start of Week 2 meaning everyone who was in the beta the week before would be cramming in the necessary 20 or so matches they needed in order to unlock new weapon skins and characters. Those first couple matches for me were brutal. I couldn’t remember how to reload or switch weapons and I kept getting stuck in cover at the worst possible moments. (Hell, I still do but more on that in a bit.) This mode is pretty reliant on cooperative play. A timed ring appears on the map and you must rush to claim it for your side in order to earn the points it doles out. Your control over the ring can be broken by an opponent who blasts his way in and kills you all, thus taking it for themselves. First team to reach 170 points takes the round, and matches are always best of three no matter what mode you are playing.

After getting all the games in I needed for KOTH I moved onto Team Deathmatch, the only other mode available at the time. Each side is allotted 15 respawns, meaning you need to be more cautious of your actions and using teamwork to flush out the last man standing (or hiding somewhere with the Boomshot, just waiting to blast your head clean off your body). Deathmatch is what everyone wants to play and what everyone goes back to as soon as they clean up their required games in the other modes. It’s the most competitive here, as the K/D ratio for some people is sacred and more important than bodily nourishment.

Make way for the Cole Train! (Old Town map)

As I write this, I am about a dozen or so matches away from finishing up the Capture the Leader matches that I need for those unlocks. As you could probably guess, CTL is similar to Capture the Flag. Your goal is to defend your team leader and capture that of the enemy. There is no base to take the captive back to, so it’s really all about finding a good spot to hang out in and make sure your team comes out victorious. One player is randomly selected as the Team Leader at the beginning of each round, meaning there can be up to 3 different leaders per match. Respawns here are unlimited and the Leader never dies. Of the maps I’ve played this on, I think I prefer Checkout, an upper level department store inspired map. There are some very defensible positions you can hold down with minimal worries about having the enemy respawning right in your lap.

My overall favourite map in the beta is Old Town. It could be because this is the map the people I play with prefer to use, however I think it’s more likely that it’s the one I know best, with Trenches a close second. Old Town is just beautiful, scenic and has all kinds of wonderful little hiding spots. And it has the chickens. Those poor little chickens, often in the line of fire and too stupid to just leave the area. I like to take a moment when I spawn by the waterside to just look out at the shimmering clear blue water and think “What a lovely place to slice someone in half with a Lancer!” There is a glitch on Old Town when playing Capture the Leader that I noticed today. On the side of the bell tower close to the blue boat there are some benches that I’ve seen Leaders somehow climb up onto which seems to glitch them into the side of the building. So no matter what you cannot grab them when they are vulnerable to being captured.

Trenches is a dusty, grungy mining area which for obvious reasons is nearly 100 percent various shades of brown. There is also a loud siren that goes off just before dust storms move in, kicking up clouds so thick it’s nearly impossible to see more than a foot in front of you. Trenches is the map where I became familiar with the Oneshot, a super powerful sniper rifle that I have fallen victim to several times. You can also find a couple of Boomshields and the Mortar here, and if you’re lucky a handy dandy Scorcher to light the place up.

The Gears 3 beta is loaded with powerful weapons, old and new. It wouldn’t be a Gears game without the trusty Lancer, standard issue COG equipment. You can also use the Retro Lancer, it’s bulky and slightly less accurate predecessor, complete with it’s poor aim and actual lance-shaped tip perfect for spearing your opponent in the gut. I’m not a huge advocate of the Retro for two reasons: the first being that I am not great with feathering the trigger to get those really accurate shots, and the second because seeing people just running around like idiots trying to get their Retro Lancer executions annoys me greatly. During the beta you can select either Lancer or the Hammerburst as your main weapon and between the Gnasher and Sawed-Off Shotgun for short distance fighting. (You can also change your load-outs while you wait to respawn if you don’t like what you’re using.) I am really hoping the Sawed-Off is moved to the power weapon category as it seems far too powerful not to be in that category. So many people I have played against would rather charge at you with their Sawed-Off than use any sort of strategy to play the game. While this isn’t the case for everyone, it’s become enough of an annoyance to make me hope it will join the Boltok, Gorgon, Boomshot et al. and we’ll have a standard shotgun as a secondary option alongside the Gnasher in the retail version.

Savage Theron with the Lancer on the Checkout map

There are things that bother me that I had hoped would have been fixed before the beta launched. Like getting stuck in cover during a roadie run or trying to pull off a wall but not being able to. These were issues I had with Gears 2 and I thought would have been higher on the list of improvements and fixes for the third installment. I’ll be in the middle of running and barely nudge the side of some sandbags when I’ll find myself taking cover and promptly being lanced from behind. That is not cool. Or I’ll be in cover and trying to roll out of the way of someone charging full speed ahead with the Sawed-Off, only to find that I must have been swimming in a vat of superglue 5 seconds earlier. While these may seem like minor issues to people who aren’t familiar with Gears of War, being able to effectively use the cover system is imperative to one’s survival. That and being able to get out of cover when you see someone lobbing an ink grenade at your face.

Ribbons and medals have been a nice added touch to the beta and I’m looking forward to earning them all over again once Gears 3 hits the shelves. While I know I will never get one of each ribbon, I know I’ll be having a great time doing my best to help others out (as evidenced by the vast amount of Personal Assistant ribbons I’ve collected already). Ribbons are small acknowledgments of your round per round achievements, like being the first one to die, assisting on 5 kills, being the player on your team who spent the most time in cover, multiple kills with one shot, etc. Medals celebrate your overall achievements. Some are silly, like playing so many times as a female or performing X amount of executions, and can be earned up to four times, with each rank requiring more effort to reach. These medals also come with some nice bonus points toward raising your overall rank. Ribbons give you some points, too, but medals and performing well in each round you play are where the real points for ranking up lie.

Well, it’s back to the beta for Week 3 for me. I have reached Rank 11 and I am hoping to at least unlock all of my weapon skins and characters before the beta comes to an end. I still haven’t unlocked my Golden Lancer! Here’s hoping I can at least have that accomplished by the end of this week.

Anya gets gutted from behind on the Thrashball map

Nine out of ten gamers have one. We don’t mean for it to happen, but new and shinier things always seem to come our way, leading to last week’s new release finding its way to the stack of games we promise ourselves we will get back to just as soon as the summer lull comes around.

For some of us, it’s not so bad. Less than a baker’s dozen of past releases remain sealed or still have that fresh from the factory smell. And we will get to those, just as soon as we finish up a season of whatever EA Sports title or in-depth RPG is causing the hold up. For others (primarily those working in the industry, whether it be as developer or journalist), that stack of games is more likely triple what a normal gamer has waiting.  It’s not that you don’t want to play them, because you most definitely do, but in between playing or making games for work, plowing through weekly review copies and picking up the ones you aren’t comped, it doesn’t take long to watch your backlog develop into a monster. Right now I have 69 uncompleted (by my standard) titles in my backlog as I am writing this. That is including Dragon Age 2 which I know I won’t have finished (read-unlocked all achievements) before I get my hands on 3rd Birthday. This is how they break down:

Wii – 1, DS – 8, GameCube – 5, PS2 – 8, PS3 – 7, PSP – 9, 360 – 31

Most of these are games I bought with the intent of playing them right away. Like Metal Gear Solid 4 which I did play right away, the night it came out. We had a midnight launch at the store and when I got home at 2am, slightly damp from the automatic sprinklers on my short walk back, I played until I hit the section I’d run through in a demo at the very first E4All Expo. Went to bed and honestly haven’t touched it since. Why? Really, I’m not sure. I haven’t been in the mood to go back to it and I don’t feel that same draw toward my PS3 as I do to my 360. I know I want to play it and the other games in my PS3 backlog. And I will. Just as soon as I finish Tools of Destruction.

When tackling the beast I’ve let my backlog become I try to focus on one game per system at a time. I may have four games on the go, but as long as each system is only working on one title, I feel like I have a bit more control. Husband has the TV for the night and is playing something of his own? Great! That means I’ll sit down and work on something from my handheld stack. During the week I’ll work on my console games in-between writing and the other nonsense I accomplish. If I’m lucky I might knock out two to three games in a month – only to have them replaced with something else right away. I like to buy more games as a treat whenever I successfully remove one or two from my stack. I keep an eye on Amazon sales and check out Fry’s every week or so, looking for some great deal I can convince my husband to buy for me with puppy dog eyes and “I finished X, X and X!”

So just how do I determine when I am finished with a game? When I unlock all achievements/trophies in a game? Or maybe when I’ve completed the main storyline?

Honestly, each game is different. I know what kinds of games are my strongest and which are my weakest. Getting through the story mode in an FPS is just as great an accomplishment for me as getting every last side quest in an RPG. Take Modern Warfare as an example. I bought that game knowing full well that I suck at FPS games. I enjoy them immensely, but I know I am not likely to fare well online with more dedicated players (even amongst friends). No clan is going to want me on their squad, and I have no silly aspirations of thinking I could compete with the more serious MLG players. I made it through the story on a fairly easy mode and gave it another shot the next level up. When I hit a wall, I knew it was time to retire the game. Because I had at least finished the story, I count it as a completed title, no longer part of my backlog.

The same cannot be said for adventure and role playing games. With those, I need to explore and complete as many side quests/hidden missions/treasure hunts as possible. Even if they have no achievement or trophy attached to them. I did indeed complete that 100 level grindfest in Final Fantasy X-2…. twice. I will finish every meaningless fetch quest in Oblivion for armour that is inferior to what I have now just so I can see them in the completed quests log. I will spend 90 minutes with that blasted bomber in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood so I can say I destroyed DaVinci’s war machines. I will push myself to finish Alan Wake on Nightmare mode. These are the games where that 100% completion rate matters to me.

Each gamer is different when it comes to defining when they have completed a game. Some gamers play for high gamerscore and trophy counts while others, such as myself, play the games we want to play on the systems we want to use purely for the love of gaming. I know I will never have a 100K gamerscore on Xbox Live or have a platinum collection on PSN to rival those of my friends. And I’m OK with that. Right now, all I want to focus on is enjoying the games I haven’t yet, one to four games at a time while I keep feeding the monster.

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Before I go, I just wanted to share some link-love for the Gamer Banter blog exchange series initiated by GameCouch. This month we’re all discussing how we define “completing” a video game.

Zath: When Do You Know That You’ve Completed A Game?

Gunthera1-gamer: I have never completed a current generation game

Silvercublogger: What Do You Mean By Gamer Banter

The Game Fanatics: Gamer Banter: To Beat a Game

SnipingMizzy: Is it over yet?

Game Couch: The End?

OXCGN: When Is A Game Truly ‘Finished’ For You?

Gamer Banter is a monthly video game discussion series coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email Terry for details.

MyGamerCard Says Farewell

This morning I turned on my computer, loaded up Firefox and was shocked to see a green R.I.P. message in the box where my Xbox Live Gamercard belonged. It was with a heavy heart that I clicked on it and was taken to the MyGamerCard website, and it was weighted down even further as I read Morgon’s goodbye to the community that was no more.

While I may not have been an active member of the forums there, I did appreciate that I could proudly display my Xbox Live achievements to my friends and visitors of my sites. My gamer cards are like badges of my accomplishments and I want to share them with the world. Yes, even the cheap achievements from CSI.

You can read about the reasons why MGC is no more for yourself. A deadly combination of cheaters and what appears to be a corporate move to bring a service like this to gamers from in-house (what Sony does with it’s PSN ID) left the MGC team with no other choice.

I set off in search of answers and went to the next logical blog for information: Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson. The very first thing I noticed was that he still had a Gamercard in the top corner of his blog. Definitely not the one from MGC. I searched the page for information. If anyone would have news it would be him. After finding nothing, I tweeted at @XboxSupport asking if they had any information.

“@XboxSupport: @yuki_hime We don’t currently have official info to share about that. ^JD”

OK, so they either don’t know anything about it right now or they just can’t talk about it. Fair enough. I still wanted to know more about this new card Major was sporting, so I decided to do what any curious person would do and view the source code for his page. Sure enough I found the link to this new card, but since I am no programmer, the rest was gibberish to me. I copy and pasted the link into a new tab and replaced Major’s tag with my own. It worked!

Screencap of my new GamerCard

The link to my new card is http://gamercard.xbox.com/en-US/Yuki%20no%20Kokoro.card You can check yours out by replacing my Gamertag with your own.

Now we play the waiting game, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for Xbox to give us news about our new cards, how they will work, and when we’ll be given the code to use so we can update our websites and Facebook pages. Hopefully we will find out this afternoon. There have already been some reports in fluctuation in the Live service which usually happens whenever there is an update in progress.

Fingers crossed we know more soon!

This year will be no different from the last who knows how many years since I started buying games with my own money. We all know all the headlining triple A titles will come out in the Fall as part of the Holiday sales push, our summer will be relatively quite, with a few A and AA releases to interrupt our plans of clearing up our backlogs. Every year is the same, a pattern we have come to know, accept, and still grumble about.

2011′s video games schedule has a whole bunch of 3s in it, some of which I will be playing, others that I have long since abandoned. Here’s a rundown on the titles I am most excited for:

Dragon Age 2: When my husband bought Dragon Age with some of our wedding gift money I was playing Final Fantasy XIII. I’ve always enjoyed my Japanese RPGs to Western ones, but FFXIII left such a sour taste in my mouth that I stopped playing it and decided to give Dragon Age a shot. So many of my gaming friends praised it and Matt would play it from the minute he got home from work until I dragged him to bed. It didn’t take long for me to get sucked into the shoes of my character and within a couple of weeks I had played through the game with three female characters, slaughtering thousands of Darkspawn. Since the last fantasy “RPG” I played was Fable 3 (an abomination if ever there was one), I’ve been itching for something new now that I have finished Fallout 3.

Only Patapon Fever on my PSP

Patapon 3: I adore these music loving, battle hungry, rhythmically inclined eyeballs! After passing on Patapon 2 purely because it was only available in North America in digital format, I can now take my Patapon army on a new adventure as the third installment will be out on UMD as well. Patapon 3 will also include multiplayer, which I am intrigued by and hoping that I will find enough people I can play with online who won’t quit out if things aren’t going their way.

3rd Birthday: It’s about *bleeping* time, Square! The last time we saw Aya was in 2000 on the PS1, a couple months before the system would be replaced with the PS2. 3rd Birthday is not a port but a game built exclusively for the system which means there is a lot riding on it’s shoulders. The PSP sadly never had as much support as I wish it had, and with 3rd Birthday coming out as the system seems to be ending it’s production cycle, I feel bad for the little system that should have but didn’t. It’s depressing in a way to think that this is going to be one of the last PSP games I buy and add to my already too small PSP library.

Sorcery: Sorcery is the main reason I wanted to get Playstation Move. After watching the cool trailers and demos I thought to myself, “Hey, that actually does look like a lot of fun, and with a controller in my hand I don’t look like that big an idiot playing something like this.” Fantasy has always been one of my favourite genres and I am not going to pass up the opportunity to pretend I am drinking magical elixirs and weave spells together with the Move wand. Now if only there was a She-Ra & He-Man Masters of the Universe game. I could have The Power!

Silent Hill Downpour

Silent Hill Downpour: You know, I still haven’t finished Homecoming (because my father in law is borrowing it, although I don’t think he’s played it since I first lent it to him) and I really should get on that before Downpour comes out. And while I have a lot of love for Silent Hill, I am beginning to worry it has peaked and is going the way of Final Fantasy. I hope and pray that Downpour proves me wrong, but I am not going to let rose coloured glasses keep me from being completely honest when I do lock myself in a room for a week with the lights out to play this one.

Elder Scrolls Skyrim: Well, it’s a new Elder Scrolls game, so of course this is on my list. The only thing that will interrupt my time dealing with evil magicians, demons and thieves and mixing potions in Skyrim will be when I need some mindless violence, and for that I will proceed to the next game on my list….

Gears of War 3: Setting aside my annoyance with Microsoft and their decision to push Gears to Holiday 2011 because they had nothing else exclusive set for the season, Gears of War 3 is the game I am most excited for. I know that I was very vocal with my feelings over Twitter when the news came down the line, but I refuse to let that ruin my excitement for a franchise that has been very dear to my heart. Before I moved to the US and married my husband, Gears 2 was one of the games he and I would play online frequently to help ease the pain of living so far apart. While I would have been happier with it coming out in April, just weeks after our first anniversary, I anxiously await the day we can sit down on the couch together and finish this Epic story together.

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.

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