Brett's Gaming Blog

So when coming back to the game blog my first intention was to talk about all sorts of aspects of Final Fantasy 15, and now could not be a better time to dive into the story for me. I just spent the past weekend plowing through a good chunk of the latter half of the story. *Minor Spoilers* I guess... If you were unaware FF15 is divided into two parts, you start in an open world where half the story takes place, but 99% of the game play is, and then the second half of the story is delivered in a very linear fashion, with very little freeroam available. Now I have to say I'm not completely through to story yet, so I'm sure my opinions are going to change slightly, or at least I hope they do, but I have truly no clue what is going on in the story. I was following along for awhile, Prince Noctis was having a grand ol' time with his buddies. But once the real conflict started things started to get lost really quickly. The motivations of the characters outside the party and ...

I don't know if back is the right word, more like restarting? Maybe. So four years ago I starting this gaming blog. I enjoyed writing blog post on Facebook, but wanted a site to call my own, so I started on Blogger. I really wanted to be a game journalist, and although that would still be a dream come true, it's not a dream I'm still chasing. But I still really love video games. So that's why I'm coming back. Maybe it's just for me, but maybe it's for you too. The other reason I wanted to start writing again is Final Fantasy 15. This game has been a long time coming, and I can't help but want to talk about it with the world, as I have been doing for the past month. I was going to start back on the blog sooner, but I kept putting it off, like I do most things in life, especially creative endevors, and ending sentences. One thing that was holding me back was trying to make sure I had a voice, a cohesive message, but who am I kidding, I don't at all. ...

I've been wondering what it would be like to visit IGN's offices ever since I started following their site pretty closely a few years back. The videos just don't do it justice. I finally got my opportunity yesterday. The illustrious podcast Beyond celebrated a milestone event, their 300th episode, by hosting one killer of an event at their headquarters. Myself and 400 other fans packed ourselves in a small room to witness Greg Miller, Colin Moriarty, and Andrew Goldfarb do their thing. The podcast was amazing and had a slew of guests including Chris Roper, Ryan Clements, and Shuhei Yoshida. I got to meet Ryan McCaffrey, head of Xbox at IGN and host of podcast unlocked (which I follow intently) and also got to meet up with Mitch Dyer co-host of the same show and personal buddy (we've met twice, were buddies now). I also interrupted Mark Ryan Sallee's time to ask where the Tech Fetish Fresca machine was. He is as handsome as they make him out to be. I did not end up w...

Hello San Fransisco! I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I'm currently in the big city taking a little time off, but also to visit IGN for the first time. So far I have not seen much of the city, at least not yet (the local transit scared me after my experience leaving the airport), but just being here has inspired me to push myself harder to write more. San Fransisco is home to a lot of great things when it comes to the video game community, and I'm here to take that all in. I'm crashing on an old friends couch and I after only being here for 12 hours I can already tell this is going to be a fun trip. The two guys I am staying with are currently developing a games and knee deep I'm the games industry. Getting to hear about their story and their lives in San Fransisco is life inspiring. That's why I'm writing right now! If I want to be a writer I need to take action. Does it have to be about games? Nope. Can it be about the two guys I'm crashing with ...

The Last of Us is a unique game. It's hard to put my feelings about it into words. At it's core the game is about survival. You play the role of Joel, and aging male who has lived through the apocalypse. You travel across the United States with a young girl, Ellie. I don't want to get into too many spoilers, but each stop along your journey plays out in different interesting fashions. The different encounters, especially the ending of the game, really make you think. Think about life, about what you're doing, and about what really matters. At the end of the game I was left with more questions than answer. Not questions for the game to answer though, but questions I needed to answer for myself. What would I have done? If I were there what would be the most important thing in my life? What could I not live with out? These questions still go unanswered. It's hard to answer them without being put in the situation. I'd like to think I'd make the right decision,...

I have been waiting for Battleblock Theater since the second I finished Castle Crashers. For those of you who don't know The Behemoth, they are a developer who for the past several years have been working on mainly Xbox Live Arcade games. They released Castle Crashers back in '08 to huge success, and have hotly been working on a follow up game since then. It is finally here in the form of Battleblock Theater. BattleBlock is a platform puzzler on it's surface, but it's also much more than that. The game includes co-op and an online arena mode, but that's just the beginning. The animation, action, and decapitation is really the heart and soul of BattleBlock. With everything The Behemoth put into BattleBlock it's no surprise the game turned out as amazing as it did. My favorite mode in the game is by far the main story. In story mode you either play solo or co-op. While playing co-op you are forced to help each other through the level to be successful. The inte...

This past week RosterTeeth, the well known creator of web content, celebrated its tenth anniversary. During their weekly podcast they celebrated the momentous date, but something the founder Burnie Burns said during the extravaganza struck a chord with me. During the show he stated he enjoyed hearing how people first heard of RoosterTeeth and Red vs Blue. Gavin Free, who was on the panel, shared his story from back when he was 14 and started watching what is now a ten season machinima back around episode five. I fell in love with Rooster Teeth during it's first season of Red vs Blue as well and that's where my story begins. The story is nothing to glorious but still a nice trip down memory lane. I'm 25 years old now, so back then I must have been only 15, a year older than young Gavin. I was in high school and played a lot of Halo like any good teenager was in those days. I remember my friends and I were at a local playground after dark (because th...