Cannot be Tamed Questionnaire: Part Three

Wrapping it Up

Over the last few days I have been answering a Gaming Questionnaire, and with a little luck this morning I should be wrapping that up.  You can check out part one and two and see what the earlier answers were, or you can check out the original survey here.  Without further stalling… here goes the answering of the final leg of this survey.  Be Warned…  this leg of the journey is going to include several spoilers… so

SPOILER WARNING!

14. Most memorable moment in a game:

I alluded to this in one of my answers yesterday, but the most memorable moment for me while playing a game was in a Link to the Past.  I can’t explain this fully without spoilers, so if you have not played The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past I highly suggest you do that and maybe skip this answer for the time being.  In the game you spend a lot of time running around collecting all of the objects you are used to from a Zelda game all in the attempt of rescuing Zelda from the dark wizard Aghanim.  After collecting the Master Sword, the pinnacle of the original game you journey to the tower in Hyrule Castle where the Dark Wizard resides and do battle with him.  Up until this point I totally thought I was moments away from beating the game, and a little disappointed at just how short the experience was.

When the finally defeat the wizard, and I remember the battle being rather challenging at the time, you expect to collect your rewards and move on after beating the game.  Nope!  You are warped into the Dark World and you set upon a different quest.  I remember my jaw almost hitting the floor as I realized “there is a whole other world!”  This was the very first time I game had done this to me, set up the starter world / real world bait and switch so successfully.  In those moments this one game forever changed the way I looked at game in general.  So when I played Rage for example… I was totally expecting a bait and switch that unlocked the real game, but alas it was just a really short storyline.

15. Scariest moment in a game:

Crossing Kithicor at night will I think forever be the scariest thing I can think of in any game.  For those who are not familiar with it, in the original Everquest there was a zone that sat between the West Commonlands and Rivervale called Kithicor Forest.  Both Rivervale and the Commonlands were starter zones and during the day Kithicor was a nice level 15 hunting zone.  However at night it changed completely and was filled with tons of level 50 undead creatures that spawned moments after dark and stayed up until the daylight hours.  Everquest was an old school game and the only way to move around was to do so by foot.  There were a number of druid and wizard ports but those required finding a person of that class, and more often than not it was more trouble than actually running there would have been.

In Everquest there was a concept called “running the zone line”.  Since this was an early game a lot of the zones were big squares, and by quirk of the spawning and pathing code the zonelines were generally relatively safe places, though later on they purposefully made some of them dangerous.  There were many a time that I would zone into Kithicor just as it was getting dark and praying I could make it across the zone before attracting unwanted attention.  In all the times I ran Kithicor, I never actually aggro’d any of the high level undead, but this did not stop me from living in fear of them.  It felt like I was constantly moments away from a horrible and grizzly death.

16. Most heart-wrenching moment in a game:

This one took me a little bit to think about it, but the more that I did the more I was certain there was one exact moment that I had to talk about.  Well written stories have a way of taking a character that you start out disliking and maybe even hating a little bit… and turning them into something you have come to love.  Mass Effect 2 was my first foray into that game series and as such I have a deep love for many of the characters that were introduced in that game.  One of them that turned from someone I disliked to someone I came to adore was Mordin Solus.  I went ahead and linked the moment for those who have not played the series or plan on playing the series.  Essentially through the story line you find out that he was responsible for the genetic disease that caused the Krogan to become sterile.

In Mass Effect 3 he sets out to undo what he had done and is sabotaged by his people and namely the STG the secret group that he was originally a part of.  I replayed this section of the game over and over to see if there was a way I could stop this from happening, but as far as I know there simply isn’t.  In order to distribute the cure to the Krogan, Mordin realizes he has to die.  “Someone else might have gotten it wrong” is his only explanation.  I just finished watching the video I am embedding, and man…  I still get choked up watching him sacrificing himself in his usual logical manner.  It is an absolute sucker punch directly to the feels.  Thank you Mass Effect for being able to do this several times during the course of the game.  I still think if you turned Mass Effect into a television series, it would be amazing.

17. What are your favorite websites/blogs about games?

This one thankfully is a rather short answer.  If it is in my blogroll I read it regularly, and suggest you also read it.  My blogroll has gotten so large that I had to implement a database driven system that shows like 20 random blogs at a time, especially since I have a habit of showcasing specific groups of blogs like the Newbie Blogger initiative classes or Blaugust.

18. What’s the last game you finished?

The last game I finished was Divinity: Dragon Commander and you can check out my Steampowered Sunday feature on it here.  I had previously beaten Divinity II and loved every moment of it, so in preparation for the release of Divinity: Original Sin I started playing a ton of games by Larian Studios.  If you have not played any of their games I highly suggest you check them out.  Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity are the only two I have not played yet, but I hear they are both excellent Diablo style games in spite of the fact that they have horrible names.  They have this odd habit of not making games in the same genre twice.  Dragon Commander for example is this strange Civilization/RTS hybrid, Divinity II is a Skyrim-esc game, Divine/Beyond are Diablo style games and Original Sin is a hard core PC RPG in the style of Baldur’s Gate.  It is a really interesting company, and they make some awesome games.

19. What future releases are you most excited about?

The only game on the horizon that I am really excited for is Destiny.  The reason why I got a Playstation 4 was in huge part because of this game.  We had a ton of fun playing it as a group in beta, and I look forward to doing so again when it releases in September.  Really interesting FPS with role-playing game elements and at the same time built around a really good shooter engine.  The game was gorgeous and the game play extremely enjoyable.  You can check out my some of my initial thoughts here.  My only frustration is that those playing on Microsoft consoles and those playing on Sony consoles will be on separate servers.  We have Microsoft to blame for this one, because they place some odd restrictions on the manufacturers.  With FFXIV for example it is on PC and Sony consoles… and all of the players play on the same server.

20. Do you identify as a gamer?

In spite of all of the negativity surrounding the term, I definitely identify myself as a gamer.  It is just a part of what makes up me as a person, but it is a very important one.  I feel like if we stop using the term gamer, it will become yet in another line of slurs hurled towards people.  We need  gamers out there doing good and elevating the title to something more than just a basement dwelling misogynistic man-child.  I try my damnedest to leave every gaming community I am part of better for my presence there.  I try really hard to remain a mostly positive voice, and lead through my actions.  So yes, I identify myself as a gamer and it is because I have hope that the term can be something more than derogatory.

21. Why do you play video games?

I guess I have always played video games for as long as I can remember, so at this point there was no single moment that got me into gaming.  I am a gamer in all senses of the word… I love video games, board games, pen and paper, even puzzles and the occasional word game.  More importantly with video games it allows me to do things I cannot do in real life.  I cannot fight back an alien invasion hell bent on the extinction of humanity, nor can I crawl through a dungeon and slay a dragon.  Gaming lets me live out lives that I simply could not through any other medium.  Sure you can read about someone else’s story in a novel, but gaming lets me make my own stories in vivid three dimensional glory.

All Done!

I did in fact manage to wrap things up today.  Look forward to a real post from me tomorrow!