Aimee Hart

Bastion! It's super fun!
 

I have entered!

How does 5 days of uninterrupted gaming sound? How about doing it in an amazing luxury retreat in Palm Springs? That’s exactly what Duracell Optimum is giving to one lucky gamer.
It gets better! The contest winner will be flown first class to Palm Springs and whisked to the “Duracell Estate” where they will be able to game distraction-free for 5 glorious days. Seriously. No chores - the winner will have their own housekeeper and chef! And who needs to work since they will get $2,000 cash. And no worries about a dead controller, since a stack of Duracell batteries will be ready and waiting.
Duracell Optimum batteries are designed with gamers in mind allowing for them to Game Longer with less distractions. Optimum batteries actually deliver longer life in the leading alkaline battery powered wireless controller. You know the pain of getting into the meaty part of a game and then getting distracted. And so does Duracell. That’s why they want to help one gamer to get away from it all, avoid those distractions, and just game.
Entries can be submitted through Twitter, Instagram or Reddit. All of the details and official rules can be found at gamelongergetaway.com.
 

That’s one hell of a deal. I would be interested in the trip, but being that I’m a classic gamer with a slight handful of exceptions, the gaming part of the prize would be more or less wasted on me. But my girl might be interested, as she is on FF14 all the time.
I’ll give her the link here and have her come to the forum to check it out. She’s not the biggest poster on forums. Including the ones I’ve built and run. But I’m thinking she would see a lot of rewards by joining VGR. I know the returns were immediate for me.

Just bought some goodies from the PlayerAuctions link. Incredible prices for anyone who is interested. Worth a look, tbh.

As Ubisoft once said, women are harder to animate...
Joking aside, I think that's a good question. To be honest, I can't remember a lot of the enemy characters in TLOU because a lot of them looked the same. Not to excuse the lack of ladies though.

The Witcher 3

Is it really a game of Skyrim if you're not reading about the Lusty Argonian Maid? But in all seriousness, I find Skyrim's texts super boring at times so I never bother with them. Dragon Age and Mass Effect I do, because I'm more invested in their worlds. Assassins Creed too because I find history, even if its really inaccurate at times, rather interesting.

Unless it's a game I really, REALLY, 'oh my god I must HAVE IT' want, then definitely not. I'm poor and I can't afford to buy so many games.

I would snack on Nuka Cola, Radroach and Mirelurk because in a world like Fallout I could care LESS about what I eat

I hope this means they'll take on as much Telltale staff as possible and hopefully help with giving them severance money.

I think if you love narrative games enough then TellTale Games will always have an audience, even in spite of their aging engine. That said, I do agree with you all that after a while people are going to feel as though they are getting lazy and just simply don't want to develop the engine any longer. To put it bluntly: they are getting cocky and its biting them in the ass.

I think nostalgia is a really blinding thing when it comes to video games. As you said, there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm also under the opinion that relying too much on nostalgia ultimately leads to a lack of variety.

I've probably said this a few times already, but I think one of my more controversial opinions is that I just couldn't get into one of the most highly rated games of 2017: Super Mario Odyssey. It just didn't click for me, and I feel that the nostalgia probably clouded many people's judgement for that game. That said, getting fun out of nostalgia is fine--there's nothing wrong with that. I will try and give it a second chance once I get my backlog in order!

You know, I've no idea what my game of 2018 will be because I've actually played very little! Most of my time seems to be on Overwatch. Then again, I've played a few Switch titles that I ended up really enjoying. GOTY-worthy though? I might need to get back in touch with you about that one.

I've got really mixed feelings about it. Ni No Kuni 2 can be really fun but it's so predictable, and it makes the story seem kinda flat. There's a lot of collecting to do too (which I expected) and the game was far too easy before. Thankfully they've changed it so that there are more difficulty levels. That said, if you've got money to spare then I would give it a go because the game IS cute. 

It sometimes feels like I'm swimming against the tide with my backlog. There's just not enough hours in the day!

I absolutely *adored* the original Ni No Kuni. One of my fave JRPGs of all-time. How're you finding Ni No Kuni 2? I was a little put off by the real-time combat system, lack of Studio Ghibli's involvement and the seeming lack of cute monsters to catch. I wanna check it out at some point and I've seen it for around 25 quid. Would you recommend it?

I'm learning Japanese! It's an exciting language and can be really rewarding if you put your heart and soul into it. Skateboarding sounds fun! I've only been on a skateboard once and broke my arm so I think that may have put me off for life. 

Gaming can be extremely tiring after a while, which is why I think it's really important to get another hobby. As I write a LOT about video games for a lot of sites, it can be really tiring at times to be like 'well guess I'll play some MORE video games' after writing about them for so long. Thankfully I'm using my spare time exercising/learning another language. 

I don't say that I have an very big back-log. I have like 90 games on my steam account. But that's nothing to some others out there that has over 1K of games. And yet I only played like 20% of the games that is listed in my account. Half the time I stick with the same games you know lol

That is a serious back-log, haha.  I am not in too bad of shape right now as there has been a bit of a summer lull in releases since God of War and Detroit and I have been using this time to get caught up.  But I always have my GameFly queue building so there are about 30+ titles on there that I would like to get to at some point.  I am finally playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and that is one I have been wanting to get to for some time.  I am more worried about how I am going to schedule my time once September and October get here as there are so many big titles being dropped late this year that I want to play, Spider-man, Red Dead, Spyro, Fallout, Tomb Raider, AC Odyssey, Biomutant, Darksiders, etc, etc the list goes on and on.

For me I think it's gotta be The Witcher 3. All the towns and cities you visit have their own culture and way of speaking and I love that about it. It's a vibrant world and so very fascinating. I could get lost overhearing people talk to each other for hours.

Great story although I'm still digesting it. If he's an originator, why is his work fanfiction? Do you suppose he had any connection to Dragon Fire by Steve and Lori Cole back in the 90's?

I've got mixed feelings when it comes to the whole thing. One feeling that does stand out the most, however, is that I truly don't believe Sony will lose out by allowing cross-play, and so why decline people the chance of playing with their friends? But, and this is a biiiiig but, I also don't think Sony's arrogance will cost them anything drastic. People will always go out of their way to hype Sony up, and with games like The Last of Us 2 and Death Stranding coming out, they'll soon be seen as the most beloved company. And this is coming from someone who loves Sony and their exclusives, lol.