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. =)

Xbox 360

• Alan Wake – The Signal & The Writer DLC (Completed!)
• Beautiful Katamari
• BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
• Blue Dragon
• Brutal Legend
• Dead Rising
• Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (Completed!)
• Fairytale Fights
• Last Remnant
• Left 4 Dead
• Left 4 Dead 2
• LEGO Batman
• Lost Planet
• Mass Effect
• Mass Effect 2
• Orange Box
• Prototype
• Portal 2
• Record of Agarest War
• Silent Hill: Homecoming
• Simpsons Game
• Soul Calibur 4
• Tales of Vesperia
• TMNT
• Transformers: The Game (Cybertron Edition)
• Virtua Fighter 5
• Viva Pinata
• Viva Pinata 2
• Viva Pinata: Party Animals
• You Don’t Know Jack
• You’re in the Movies

Playstation 3

• 3D Dot Game Heroes
• Kung Fu Rider
• LittleBigPlanet
• LittleBigPlanet 2
• Metal Gear Solid 4
• ModNation Racers
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
• Singstar +Dance
• Sport Champions

Nintendo Wii

• Squeeballs
• Super Mario Bros. All Stars

Nintendo DS

• Big Bang Mini
• Feel the Magic
• Luminous Arc 2
• Master of Illusion
• Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2
• The World Ends With You

Playstation Portable

• Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles
• Death Jr 2: Root of Evil
• Patapon 1
• Patapon 3
• Persona
• Silent Hill Origins

Playstation 2

• Persona 4 (Completed Oct 4, 2011)

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.

Status: Finished once on Normal, started New Game+ on Nightmare
Achievements: 31 of 50
Gamerscore: 415/1000
DLC Purchased: Original American McGee’s Alice (Online Pass Content)

I love the dark and macabre, things that make me jump out of my seat or emit a small scream. Horror movies and games filled with puzzles are right up there in my books and I will go out of my way to watch and play what others consider “bad”. Ages ago, when you could rent PC games and not have to worry about DRM, I seem to recall trying to get my hands on the original American McGee’s Alice and it almost always being out. A dark and twisted retelling of the classic story appealed to me but I honestly don’t recall playing more than a few minutes of the original. Alice: Madness Returns seemed like the perfect opportunity to visit both the new and old versions of the young girl’s Wonderland, thanks to the Online Pass offering the first game for free.

Our young Heroine is struggling with the memories of her family’s unfortunate demise from a fire that engulfed their home. Alice believes she is somehow responsible, and after a long stint in an asylum, she has been released into the care of psychologist Bumby. Because Alice is prone to sudden outbursts, he is encouraging her to forget about what happened so she can move on with her life. After one of their sessions, she sets off to pick up medicine from the chemist, stumbling across a white cat she just can’t help but follow. After a run-in with her old nurse, Alice finds herself falling into Wonderland.

But it’s no longer the Wonderland she remembers. Something sinister is destroying Wonderland, infecting everything it touches. As Alice chases after the cause of the corruption, she realizes that in order for her to truly move on and regain control of herself, she needs to find those memories she’s been trying so hard to forget.

The sinister train running amok in Wonderland has corrupted nearly everything, leaving enemies of all kinds behind to stop Alice from reaching her destination. Varying types of Ruin, Card Guards, and other unique enemies are littered about, waiting to taste the cold, bloody steel of Alice’s trusty Vorpal Blade. You’ll also find a couple of ranged weapons to help deal with the flying pests, a parasol for defense, the Clockwork Bomb, and my favourite, the Hobby Horse. It’s great for smashing things and the horse head changes as you upgrade it, which can be done to your four major weapons by spending your collected Teeth (ewwww!).

The Cat Came Back, He Just Couldn't Stay Away (Oops! Wrong Cat)

Another handy tool in Alice’s arsenal is her Shrink Sense ability. If you are stuck and not sure where to go, Shrink Sense will often help by revealing hidden drawings on the walls and floors with directions or other useful information. You also use this ability to find hidden pathways and heal yourself using the violets you’ll spot throughout each area of Wonderland. Always be on the lookout for these violets and use your Shrink Sense often to find and fit through Key Holes leading to memories, other collectibles, or just setting you back on the right path.

In addition to the memories scattered about each area of Wonderland, you’ll also want to keep an eye out for purely collectible, perk-free Bottles, Snouts to pepper for the Duchess which will open up new pathways or bestow upon you a picnic basket of health and Teeth. There are bonus challenge rooms called Radula Rooms where you will have to perform a task (surviving or killing all enemies, answering riddles, etc) and will acquire red paint used to increase the amount of Roses in your health meter.

When Alice is down and almost out, she can active Hysteria Mode, becoming an invincible slaughtering machine. Her attacks pack a stronger punch and she won’t take any damage while Hysteria is active, but make sure you keep a good eye on the meter. You don’t want to be in the path of a ranged attack with little health remaining in your meter. Dodge often and look for any Roses left behind before Hysteria Mode runs out.

Finish the game using Hysteria only once for an achievement/trophy

So far, everything sounds purrfectly wonderful. (See what I did there?)

I need to start off the critical part of this review by saying that I really feel as though Spicy Horse was rushed to make a deadline without delays. This really comes through in the game at pretty much every turn. Graphically, what should be a vibrant yet sometimes dismal and dreary world is flat and often underwhelming. There is very little texture happening in the environments, which is a real shame considering the potential there is for mind blowing colour, detail and ultra-realism. This game screams for Tim Burton’s touch, but just never gets to that level.

My next major issue with the game is the collision detection. You’ll be walking normally along the predetermined path when suddenly, as the tiles below your feet change from one type to another, you are stuck. Pushing forward on the control stick does no go because it’s as though your walking into an invisible wall. Oftentimes, you’ll need to jump or back up and jump over the seam to proceed forward. Or you’ll be walking along a hidden path using Alice’s Shrink Sense ability when the game doesn’t recognize that the two tiles are supposed to be connected, causing you to fall to your death. And don’t get me started on the steam valves. Okay, do. Throughout the game there are steam valves you will use to float around or help you reach new heights. When they work properly, they are a fun challenge. When they don’t, you’ll find them turning you around after you’ve lined up your jump point or glitching you in the middle of the steam which keeps it from pushing you up towards the top of the mist as it should. I’ve found that the times when I get the most frustrated with the game happen when steam valves are involved.

The story in Alice: Madness Returns takes a while to really get moving. The first couple of chapters, your really trying to piece together the cut-scene information and data gathered from whatever memories you’ve been able to locate. The chapters are rather long, and you can play 45 minutes to an hour at some points without learning any new details. Once it does pick up, you are quickly able to see how certain memories fill in the gaps of Alice’s forgotten past. Friends have become foes, foes have become friends. I really am enjoying the story of Alice’s decent into madness and watching how she grows as she tries to save Wonderland.

My last big gripe with the game is the abuse of the “Rule of Three”. Yes, it’s been an industry staple since forever, but I think we’ve come far enough since then to evolve a bit and not have to rely so heavily on forcing people to do the same thing three times in a row. In the case of Alice, it is truly maddening. Three tasks to help the Hatter, three tasks to help Carpenter, wash, rinse, repeat. It’s not a very compelling reason to keep the player coming back for more. It’s as though the level designer just ran out of ideas for things to do and wanted to drag out each chapter for as long as possible.

When the Steam Valves work, they are fun to float around in.

Overall Opinion

So, I’m sure by this point you are scratching your head wondering why the hell I kept playing if I was running into so many near disc snapping situations. Well, simply put, when the game works, it is fun. It has challenging moments that don’t want to make you throw your controller through a window, tough but entertaining enemies (tee hee hee “Bitch Babies”!), and I am a fan of the dark and twisted.

Like I mentioned several times on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, the game is not a bad game – just rushed. Given more development time and resources, I’m sure several of the issues I had would have been dealt with. And with what little marketing EA has done for the title, it seems they just want to get their investment back as soon as possible, pay the last of the bills and pretend this game never happened. A real shame considering all that Alice: Madness Returns could have, and should have, been.

Purchase Alice: Madness Returns from Amazon

Ayumi’s upcoming single “Progress” is the official theme song for Tales of Xillia, which will be released on Sept 8th in Japan for the PS3.

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.

Status: Finished once as a female Rogue
Achievements: 38 of 55
Gamerscore: 665/1130
DLC Purchased: Dragon Age Legends (Facebook app) bonus items

Not really a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins with some of that TV spin-off feel, Dragon Age 2 boasts a more polished feel both in game play and graphics, but falls short in the story development category. If you can’t see how Bioware plans to tie aspects of the two together for Dragon Age 3, you might want to stop playing RPGs.

Potential spoilers lay ahead. I am doing my best to avoid them but since this game does tie into Dragon Age: Origins, it is difficult to completely ignore them.

The story begins with Lothering destroyed by the Blight, as Hawke’s family flees towards the Kokori Wilds hoping they might find passage to Kirkwall. Here they run into husband and wife Wesley (a templar) and Avaline (recently fled from Ostagar), do battle with some Darkspawn, witness the death of one of their own, kill another, and run into Flemeth. And that’s all in the first ten minutes or so, as we are apparently “playing” the tale of Hawke as told by future companion Varric to the Seeker of the Chantry. So far, so good. The story has us speeding along towards Kirkwall and rushing through that first year which takes place at the same time as Origins.

When you finally get to start Act 1, you are living in the slums of Lowtown with your gambling uncle who lost the family home to pay of his debts, with one of your siblings as a companion (more on Companions later on) and Avaline, who became a member of the City Guard. From this point, quests in your Journal will be broken into Rumors, Main Plot, Companions, Side Quests and Secondary. For obvious reasons, you’ll want to make sure you do as many non-plot progressing quests as you can to level up your party as well as hunt down other party members. The main focus of this Act is to convince the dwarf Bartrand to let you join his expedition into the Deep Roads. Your thoughts are to bring back enough treasure to buy back the family home and make your mother’s life a comfortable one.

As with Origins, there are three major political groups in Kirkwall: the Chantry, the Templars and the Circle of Mages. The Mages of Kirkwall have been slowly rebelling against the Templars and their Knight-Commander, and this is one of the major areas you will have to deal with. Another controversy is the shipload of Qunari who showed up on Kirkwall’s doorstep claiming to have shipwrecked and are waiting for others to retrieve them. Their presence is causing some backroom plotting and discomfort among the people. Don’t worry; you’ll be dealing with this little matter as well.

The Arishok

Of all three Acts in Dragon Age 2, Act 1 was my favourite. At this point in the game, everything was still fresh and exciting, the story was pretty solid, and it is during this act that you gather up your companions. Mid-way through Act 2 the story becomes predictable and watered down, moving much too fast for my liking.

There are also way too many pointless “quests” that show up in your Journal. Apparently the people of Kirkwall all suffer some sort of early onset Alzheimer’s and leave things in the darnedest places. You’ll be picking up odd trinkets from crates and chests when suddenly you’ve found a lost item that belongs to another Kirkwallian. You just so happen to be able to divine exactly who it belongs to, so you deliver it and get a small reward. These are great in the beginning when money is harder to come by, but just get ridiculous as the game progresses. Ctrl+Alt+Del has the best comic take on this ridiculousness.

One of the biggest downfalls is the limited area in which you are able to adventure with your party. Your map consists of a daytime and nighttime Kirkwall (some quests can only be completed at night) and the Sundermount region (the mountain, the Bone Pit, and the Wounded Coast). The dungeons (caves, alleys, homes) you visit all have the same layout, but not all areas are available to give some insistence they are indeed not all alike. It just doesn’t feel like much of an adventure when every single thing looks the same.

Most of your Companions will be forced upon you and pretty hard to miss. The first one you acquire is either your brother Carver or sister Bethany. Who you end up with is dependent on what role you choose for your character. If you are a warrior or rogue, you’ll get Bethany; go mage and have the eternal rivalry of Carver. Avaline sticks with you after the incident in the Wilds. Varric, your biographer, is a necessary inclusion and joins you after being denied by Bartrand. You’ll be able to pick up Merril when you deliver Flemeth’s amulet to the Elven Keeper at Sundermount, and find former captain Isabela (remember her?) at the Hanged Man. Another old friend joins you, one Mr. Anders, now bound with Justice and hiding from the Grey Wardens and Templars in the bowels of Darktown.

Future Guard Captain Avaline

The one all the ladies want most is the moody anti-magic elf Fenris. He broods, wears dark clothes… if he sparkled I think all the Twilight fans who don’t play video games would convert. The only way to get Fenris into your party is to undertake the Lost and Found quest from Anso in Lowtown at night during Act 1. Miss this quest and you’ll have to wait until you create a new character or go back to an older save point to add him to the team. Romancing him can be difficult as his hatred for magic will make sure anytime you aid or side with the mages (and he is in your active group) he’ll gain Rivalry points. You can pursue romances with everyone except your sibling (for obvious reasons) and Varric. My first character successfully swept Fenris off his feet, and I plan on taking Isabela to bed next (mostly because there is a crafting resource you can only get from one of her quests that you can’t find otherwise).

Anders, Isabela and Flemeth aren’t the only Origins favourites to make an appearance in Kirkwall, but I don’t want to spoil anything for you. Just keep in mind that how you ended your imported Origins game will affect the possibility of certain things and conversations happening later on in Dragon Age 2. If you haven’t finished Origins or want to see how the story would differ with other outcomes, Bioware has other versions of the tale you can import when creating your character. I’m glad I imported my third female character from Origins (a female Warrior who wooed Alistair and became Queen).

Character development and tactics are the same as in Origins, allowing you to create powerful Champions and Companions suited for intense battles. Each Companion has a unique set of attributes that is also affected by their relationship to Hawke. With the exception of protective gear, you can change your party’s equipment and find special undergarments to enhance their preferred look. Enchantments can be added to any gear with available slots for that extra edge. I’m glad there weren’t huge changes in this area and what was tweaked makes the encounters flow much better.

I also haven’t noticed any differences between my female character’s story and my husband’s male Hawke adventure. Here you only have the choice of being a human Champion, but unlike Origins, the sex of your character doesn’t seem to have any affect on either outcome. Disappointing if this is indeed the case and I didn’t miss anything.

Overall Opinion

Dragon Age 2 is fun, but too short and too predictable. Since it is more of a companion story to Origins, the “2″ is really misleading but I understand why they decided to go with a number in the title. The lack of new areas for exploration and the repetitive nature of the dungeons feel like they copped out and just wanted to push this story out to tie Origins and the Champion’s tale to Dragon Age 3. Cameos from Origins were a welcome bonus, but the romance department can still use a bit of fine tuning. We really need to move past the need to throw a bunch of whiny, broody men in as romance options. Not all women (or men) want to have to deal with men that do nothing but mope around feeling sorry for themselves. A non-dwarven version of Varric would have been a great touch. If you haven’t picked this up yet, I recommend waiting until you catch it on sale as $60 feels a little too high for what you are actually getting.

Purchase Dragon Age 2 for Xbox 360, PS3 or PC from Amazon

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.

~~~~~

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.

Things were going pretty smoothly in the beginning. I gathered the support I required from allies who would die to see a revolution in Albion. Men sacrificed themselves to our cause. Using my latent talents, I was able to change living conditions for poorer folks, rescue towns from dangerous creatures and mercenaries, and ultimately become the ruler Albion needed to save it from the approaching storm. Millions amassed in my treasuries which I shared with the people.

Life as the Hero Queen of Albion was good.

And then things took a turn for the worse.

It began with my dear servant Jasper losing his voice in my Sanctuary. From what I had heard from other Heroes, this was a common problem. Spontaneous laryngitis was an affliction that had for centuries been in his bloodline, something he failed to disclose when he applied with my mother for the job.

Later on, I joined a fellow Hero Queen to aid in the collection of silver keys and gnomes scattered across her lands. As we all know, those pesky gnomes Brian gave life to are snarky little jerks who need to be put back in their gardens. My comrade had difficulties with her Sanctuary, though, which frequently left her trapped in the room or on the map and unable to return to her exploration. While we quested together, the same thing happened when I visited my Sanctuary. I was trapped looking at a map and nothing save leaving the realm completely would help either of us.

Shortly after this incident, I became aware of problem with my questing scroll. For some reason one of the things on my To Do list was written down twice. Surely this was an error that would clear up once I successfully rid the cave of the offending Hobbes in question. Sadly, this did not happen. The Guild Seals were correctly added to my total, but only one of the Hobbes entries was stricken from the list. The second remains to this day.

The breaking point came when I attempted to join my Hero Queen partner once more. I had made sure to record my history in the Albion annals so as not to forget any progress. It was not to be. My attempt to cross into her world ended up with me in suspended animation, forcing me to pull the plug on that experiment. After a few minutes, I returned to Albion only to discover that the worst possible thing had happened to my character.

Now that I was a naked male with nothing more than a touch of magic to wield, there was nothing more I could do. My family commune must have crumbled to nothing. I’m sure the five nannies in my employ left since they hadn’t been paid in a while, leaving my husband to care for not only our two children, but the ten adoptees I rescued from the Bowerstone Orphanage. Alan most likely sent them all back because a single father cannot take care of a dozen children all on his own and make sure the castle staff are well-fed.

I cannot help but wonder if the QA department at Lionhead Studios was overwhelmed during Fable 3′s production and if certain issues were overlooked or ignored so that the game could be on retail shelves in time for Holiday sales. The disc shipped to stores with a known duplication glitch, an issue patched with a mandatory Xbox LIVE update on November 6th, but so far nothing has been done to help those with the first two problems I mentioned.

The question remains: Why does it seem like over ninety percent of AAA titles coming out of the larger studios come to market riddled with issues? Is the software they are creating too advanced for the hardware currently running it or is it simply a matter of pumping out entertainment during peak sales windows? Are studios trying to lower production costs by not having enough testers on hand, or disregarding certain bugs so that the programmers don’t have to log more hours?

More and more it feels like gamers are being subjected to quantity over quality software. We always see slews of titles release during the Winter Holiday schedule, with obvious reason. With exception to the perennial sports titles, we witness publishers such as Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, SEGA, EA and others pump dozens of games each year and several of them suffer from horrible frame rates, poor controls and bugs that make releases almost unbearable to play. Thankfully, we have great smaller studios producing experiences such as flOw and flOwer (thatgamecompany), Limbo (Playdead), and P.B. Winterbottom (The Odd Gentlemen) as alternatives, freeing us from being slaves to the Bobby Koticks of the gaming world.

After this fiasco, I admit I will be thinking twice (if not thrice) about purchasing titles from Lionhead. This misadventure was a slap in the face and not something I am soon to forget. Shame on you, Lionhead. Shame. On. You!