Strategy Guide Reviews

A Strategy Guide for your Strategy Guides

Monday Gaming Diary: New Witcher 3 Strategy Guide

By 2 Comments

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Complete Edition Collector's Strategy GuideI’ve known that Prima Games was going to publish a new strategy guide for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that would include the two expansion packs for awhile now. That said, it didn’t hit me that I could add a second Witcher 3 strategy guide to my bookshelf until I received the official newsletter from the publisher last week. Then it dawned on me; wait, I could finally have that motivation to play AND finish The Witcher 3, ja?

Of course I said the same thing about the Skyrim Legendary Edition of the strategy guide. Whoa, here’s an even FATTER book with everything Skyrim has to offer! Surely now I’ll get through the game, right?

Well, I got further, I can say that. And then I remembered why I stopped playing the first time around. The game is just not for me. Too little story and too many distractions. I need an even balance. Well, okay, that’s not true; I need a story as good as the quantity of distractions. If I wanted to run around with no true goal, I’d play No Man’s Sky or Elite: Dangerous. Yeah, I went there.

Technically, The Witcher 3 should be a completely different tale in game completion. The story of Witcher 2 was incredibly deep, and I’ve heard it’s much the same with the third iteration. With this, I’m not really sure what’s stopping me. Is it fear? Is it the thought of being completely overwhelmed? Is it a lack of time? Is it my review schedule? Is it me making a lot of excuses? Eh, probably all of the above.

If I do decide to tackle this next strategy guide, aptly named The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition Collector’s Guide, then I will have to fully commit. No more slacking. No more putting off reviews. Once I sit down with The Witcher 3, there is no getting up. There is no stopping for something else. There is no looking for what else is shiny and new. I will play it until I finish it or die trying.

I may have just talked myself out of playing this game once again. I’m the worst.

Monday Gaming Diary: Getting Back into Reading

By Leave a Comment

This summer has been a weird one for me, to say the least. With the job ups and downs and traveling, I’ve felt extremely burned out when it comes to gaming. Like I’ve lost my passion, which kind of blows. It’s part of the reason why I’m so behind on strategy guide reviews, whereas the other part is that I’ve been so busy with other reviews and travel. I’m ready for it all to come to an end, where I can find more time for gaming for myself and delving back into the greatness of strategy guides. In the meantime, I’m filling up my time with reading, both books and comics.

Lately the book front has been taken over with Warhammer 40K novels. I recently picked up the novel for Quantum Break, but it’s not what expected, meaning that it’s not extended lore; it’s a novelization of the game. If it gets to be too much, I will probably chuck it and get back to the Inquisition War in WH40K.

I’ve also jumped back into comics rather hardcore, catching up with all of my subscriptions as DC and Marvel both change hands with Rebirth and post-Secret Wars. Plus, I’ve really missed keeping on top of my video game comics. I get this way every few months or so, when I decided enough is enough and something has to give. Usually that something that has to give are books and comics or this site, and I’m tired of the things I love taking the backburner.

I love reading as much as I love strategy guides, and you know what? I don’t love reviewing games I don’t care about. That’s what is going to give this time.

I say that after I turned in a review for PS4-exclusive Bound this morning, which I did not care about. That’s probably why I’m so burned out. And maybe it’s because I’m getting older. I think I need a nap.

Oh and there’s this thing of beauty I stumbled upon from WTF Marketing.

Monday Gaming Diary: Catching ’em All in Pokemon Yellow

By Leave a Comment

Pokemon Yellow

Before Pokemon Go, I’ve never played a Pokemon game before. The first time I was tempted to try one out and see what was up with the hype was with Pokemon X & Y, and I can’t say exactly why that was other than I thought the Pokemon looked cool on the covers. Not the best reason in the world, but it was the first time I ever had the urge to check one out. People who play them insist they are amazing RPGs, but I never got into them because of the 90s cartoon. It proliferated Cartoon Network back in the day, and I thought the characters were just too damn annoying to get into. Now the Pokemon themselves were pretty cool, but they weren’t enough to keep me entertained, not to mention how awful Team Rocket was and still is.

Thanks to Pokemon Go and how ridiculously fun that is, I talked to my eldest child, who loves all things Pokemon, about playing the upcoming game, Sun & Moon, together when it releases. But then I had that tug I often get when jumping into an established franchise, where I feel the need to start from the very beginning. I checked out the eShop for the Nintendo 3DS, saw that the original 3 Pokemon games were available, and then purchased Pokemon Red for the child and Pokemon Yellow for myself. Blue is my favorite color, so I honestly don’t know why I chose Yellow over Blue, and it wasn’t because Pikachu was on the cover. I thought Ash would get to choose a Pokemon at the start, which included Pikachu as an option, similarly to the show. Apparently not, as the boy started off with Charmander and I have a Pikachu who follows me around. Damn mouse refuses to stay in his pokeball.

The kiddo and I play together at night, comparing where we are and giving tips how to defeat Gym Leaders. I finally understand why this series has been so beloved for the last 20 years, and like most things, I wish I had given it a chance sooner. Although, I’m really loving this time playing with my eldest, which I doubt would be the same if I had played the games before. I think X & Y and Sun & Moon are both in our future. There are worst things, I suppose.

But now that I’m back from vacation, it’s time to get back to strategy guides. I still do that here, right? Maybe?

Monday Gaming Diary: Losing Tolerance for the Grind

By Leave a Comment

For the last several weeks, I’ve been reviewing Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force, which is sort of an enhanced edition of the original game that released on PlayStation 3. I really enjoyed the first half of the game, and the story overall was pretty darn entertaining, but when you reach the second half, the prerequisite of the grind creeps in. And it’s not welcome. I’m not sure the grind ever really is.

Fairy Fencer F ADVENT DARK FORCE_20160713214229

Enjoyment turned to pure annoyance. If there were interesting side quests to undertake to help with the grind, perhaps I would have enjoyed it a little more. The sub-events are okay for grinding, but they’re also extremely short. The actual side quests are the absolute worst. They’re a series of fetch or kill quests that can only be completed during certain parts of the game, when different enemies appear. I’m used to most RPGs requiring fetch quests as side quests, but they’re often mixed in with other pieces for character development or other story elaboration. This had none of those things, leaving me with little desire to do any of these quests.

As a result, I was grossly underpowered to continue with the story missions, forcing me to replay areas repeatedly in the name of the grind. I finally bumped the game down to Easy because I loathed the grind so much. Maybe back in the day we found the grind charming, but it’s the principle reason why I haven’t finished so many JRPGs, especially the older games. RPGs need to find a way now to either eliminate the need for the grind or come up with more satisfactory ways to grind than fetch quests that don’t add a single thing to overall story. My patience, as well as my time, is wearing thin for this sort of thing.

That’s one reason why LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been such a lovely distraction. There’s no grind, just silly fun with LEGOs and Star Wars jokes.

Monday Gaming Diary: Summer Games Done Quick 2016

By Leave a Comment

Summer Games Done Quick 2016

This week, most of my life was hijacked into watching this year’s Summer Games Done Quick, the 24/7 speedrunning marathon that goes one week in the name of charity. Some of the speedruns were races against one another, but most of the runs were just in good fun. I never heard of this event until last winter with Awesome Games Done Quick, when Chris suggested I give it a look. Yeah, I was hooked.

All day during work, I had the Twitch stream running in one monitor. In the evenings, I ran Twitch on our TV downstairs. I stayed up way too late some nights watching some of the speedruns I was highly interested in, such as the Bethesda block where I watched a guy get through my 10 hours of Skyrim in five minutes. I even enjoyed watching the runs of games I never heard of, just to hear the guys and girls playing discuss what they love about the game and explain what they are exploiting to speedily dominate this particular section.

There were plenty of runs that I missed due to airing in the middle of the night or because I had class this weekend, but I’m so glad I got to see the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World runs as well as the Super Metroid race. I’ve never played Super Metroid, and you can bet your ass I’ll never try it now. Never.

I had to sign off for bed after the Super Metroid race, and they were only holding one more run after that, Super Mario RPG. I was pretty sad to realize that I was turning it off for another six months, as this is some awesome gaming. I’ll never have these skills, and I’m really okay with that. I’ve always enjoyed watching people who were better than me at games, and there’s no better place to do that than Games Done Quick.

Now to wait until January for the next Awesome Games Done Quick. Until then, I’ll keep checking their archived runs so I can watch the runs I missed.

Top Posts & Pages