From A to Xbox

Hey everyone,

With the holidays being just around the corner I decided that a could post would be a informative post on the new consoles that came out just in time for the holidays, in this post I will go in depth about the Wii U. If you love gaming like me or have boyfriend or girlfriend that loves to play hours and hours of video games, or just to play casually from time to time it maybe hard to choose which console would be best for you. The 3 large players that come out are the PlayStation 4 from Sony, the Xbox One from Microsoft and the Wii U from Nintendo.  Now there are a couple of things that we need to consider when we are searching for the perfect gift to give our loved one, or to treat ourselves. First I think, which is the biggest thing is the price. Yep the price, if you’re like me and you work part time while going to school full time, you are more than likely broke, with student loans, the MTA and bills piling up you definitely need to put price into consideration. If you’re looking for something in the more affordable range you might want to go with the Wii U. The Wii U will only run you about 250-300$ depending where you get it and has a pretty awesome line up of games to choose from. The PlayStation 4 will run you about $399 and the Xbox One will run you about $499. Personally I grabbed the Wii U, with the new remake of Zelda the Wind Waker and Monster Hunter, I was sold quickly. With other awesome games out like Super Mario and Super Luigi as well as Pikmin how could I resist, especially with the backwards compatibility of the Wii games. After getting the Wii U the most awesome thing about it was the Game Pad. It was awesome, you could browse the web, watch Netflix, interact with it during game play, It was pretty cool to say the least. However what surprised me the most was Nintendo Land, the game that came free with the deluxe version of the Wii U. I didn’t touch that game at all because I already had other games to enjoy and it seemed like a silly addition that will just entertain me for a a little bit like Wii sports. Boy was I wrong, I had a small gathering with friends and we played Nintendo Land for hours, laughing and yelling, having a great time overall. Wasn’t until 2 am that we realized that it was getting late. The mini games are jammed packed with lots of fun things to do. My personal favorite was the Luigi mansion. In this mini game one person is a ghost the rest are Mario and Luigi and try to hunt the ghost with flashlights while the ghost hunts them back. It may not sound too fun on paper but we had a blast playing it. Nintendo land was a hidden gem, with co op games Like zelda and Metroid to versus games like Mario tag and animal crossing candy snatcher.  I would definitely recommend the Wii U, especially if you’re planning to play it with friends. The new game pad is awesome and incredibly versatile. So if you want to get yourself one for the holidays, I say go right ahead can’t go wrong with it.

Next time on my blog post I’ll review and compare the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360 with both their pros and Cons. Thanks for reading and see ya then!

With gaming going mainstream in the past couple years, especially in the U.S you might have come across the term E-Sports. E-Sports is a term that is popping up more and more these days and it stands for electronic sports. What do I mean by electronic sport? It’s a organized video game event where players compete against each other for prizes. These competitions can be on a countless number of different platforms. With prizes sometimes going up to almost $3.000.000, yep that high. On the International 2013 8 teams with a total of 40 players were competing for a total prize pool of $2,874,407.00 in a game called Dota 2.  The winning team, consisting of 5 Swedish players raked in almost a million and a half for winning the 2013 international competition.  Even though E-sports hasn’t been getting a lot of traction until just recently in the U.S, other countries like South Korea have had E-Sports as one of  their main entertainments. In South Korea the extremely popular StarCraft created by Blizzard has been the main sport of the country. Just like we as Americans love to watch Baseball and Football the South Koreans love to watch their players compete against each other in StarCraft. Being a pro-gamer is a legitimate career that comes with countless perks like good pay, fame and a big fan base.  However with the popularity this high comes with extremely high skill competitions, and with competition this high it means that you have to train, hours upon hours to be the top player.  Players join training houses in which they train sometimes even more than 12 hours a day honing their skills in the game.  Its rather quite amazing just how much training and dedication these guys put in to become the best of the best at the game.  Here is a great small clip about APM or actions per minute which shows how fast these players can move about on the screen and just how much multi-tasking is required to be one of the top players. APM with Nada and Moon. Now Korea isn’t the only place in the world where training houses and huge E-Sports events are located. All over the world including the U.S  comptetive gaming teams are being made, which actually attracts Koreans to come and play in places like the United States. Not so much because North American teams are better but that there is more money to be made here. Some of you might have noticed that during Comic Con there was a event also held there called IEM which means Intel Masters Extreme. The Intel Masters Extreme was a great E-sports event, especially since it was paired with Comic Con. Now if you’re feeling depressed because you wanted to check an event like this out, don’t worry! There is a Red Bull battle grounds event being held on November 23-24  at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom. There 8 of the top players will be competing for a chance to win $50,000.

 Thanks to F5RGBlog for the images from MLG Anaheim 2013.

Just a few days ago Comic Con visited New York and its a sight to see. If you never heard of Comic Con, its a huge convention originally for comic books but also include all arts from video games and shows, to cartoons and arts. Its an amazing experience and I definitely recommend going the next time it comes around to New York. Now most of you probably have never heard of of Comic Con so I am going to try to give you an idea of what it looks like. New York Comic Con was held at the Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan, it was a 4 day event that will run you only $85.  Or you can opt in to just dip your toes and go for one day for $30-50 depending on which day you choose to go.  Now what will you be able to experience if you do end up going? Well the amusements are boundless if you’re a fan of today’s trendy shows and video games, you will be able to listen to some guest speakers and panels, check out awesome displays, and my personal favorite, check out people in their awesome cosplays, in other words costumes. Yes costumes are definitely by far, my favorite thing to see, people have amazing ideas and put a lot of work into their costumes to make them look as close to the character as possible. Some which are absolutely amazing quality, like you are inside the game itself, its a extremely fun experience.  If you want to check out some of the pictures from comic con you can jump onto Blastr.com and check them out for yourselves. Well with all the panels including some fan favorites like the voice actor from Dragon Ball Z and great developers like Naughty Dog and RockStar, you can never get bored, all with an amazingly light and fun atmosphere. There was even an instance where one of the attendees asked Trevor Phillips (Steven Ogg) from Grand Theft Auto 5 to say “go f**k yourself”, which shows  a lot about  the level of lightheartedness in the convention, which is nice for a change. If you want to hear it for yourself you can watch this YouTube video by NuclearxFallout Trevor Phillips saying “go f**k yourself”(Warning: explicit language). All in all I believe that attending a comic con should definitely be on their bucket list if they anything media related or at least just go and see all those people dressed up in weird costumes. I will definitely be attending next year, don’t think I will be cosplaying myself but I will be there, for the fun and also the E-Sports. Which leads me to my future post, E-Sports! and how it developed into a large success across the world.

Since I was a kid I’ve always had a fascination toward gaming, let it be on the PC or the Atari 2600.  I can’t even begin to imagine the countless hours I spent playing PacMan and Combat,  on that Atari. To this day I still have that Atari lying in my closet, sadly accumulating lots of dust. With today’s gaming industry going mainstream its hard to try and keep up with every new title launching every few weeks. Sifting through all these titles to find that one gem that is worth every minute, isn’t always easy when you have an avalanche of AAA titles thrown at you from every angle. It seems that industries these days have tried to capture even the tiniest of niches in the market, anything from Role Playing Games, massive multi-player online role playing games,  to shooters, and city builders. When I mean every niche market, I really do mean every market because if you want too, you can even buy a farming simulator where you drive a tractor and farm your land. To some it may sound silly but those that are enthusiastic about farming, and want a to play as the role of a farmer can do so very easily. Now the questions arise what makes a game good, no what makes a game great and where are the industries headed and how did they ended up heading in that direction. Those questions I want to try and answer to you in my Blog, so welcome! and keep gaming!