When someone runs their mouth about the evils of video games or how gamers are violent, stupid, lazy, or whatever the term of the month is for us....

I am linking them to this:

Blind Gamer Beats Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Normally, I will use Child's Play as the perfect example of just how awesome gamers are. However, it can and has been argued that Child's Play isn't the greatest example since a gamer can spend a mere five minutes buying an item off the Amazon wishlist for the hospital of their choice. I disagree, but that's just me.

There are quite a few other example's straight out of the tale of my life. For example, I can remember coming home from school the Spring after I turned thirteen to find that our power had been disconnected. We were very, very broke at the time, and my mom was struggling to support two kids. Given, the average month was okay. We didn't starve or anything like that. Our big 'luxury' was our respective EverQuest accounts. Like I said, a normal month was okay. But there had been some nasty storms, the car had broken down, and it had been a bad, bad month.

So, Mom didn't have the money to pay the electric bill.

Guess where she came up with the money? Two of my mother's nearest and dearest friends, whom she had met via her guild on EverQuest. I have referred to these guys as my Uncle's for almost ten years now. They wired my mom the money, telling her to stuff her promises to pay them back up her butt. In later years, it would be they who helped my mother cope with my coming out as bisexual (they're a gay couple). And even later still, during one of the hottest summers on record, they bought us a new air conditioner when they found out that ours had broken. Again, my mother was told to stuff her "I'll pay you back" up her butt.

And they aren't the only ones.

The love of my life, who I have been with for six and a half years, was one of my mom's guild mates once-upon-a-time. He and his room-mate/best friend were both officers in my mom's guild. And long before they came to visit in person (which is when he and I met and fell in love), they saved my mom's butt when our well pump got blown up by a lightning strike. However, being the gracious guys they are, they accepted her repayment ---- in in-game platinum, lol.

My family is blessed in many, many ways. Sure, we've had our hard times. I'm not saying they've been terrible, but they were hard. And were it not for the kindness of our gaming family, we'd have been very screwed on more than one ocassion.

And to be honest: Our lives would suck without them. Especially since my mother met both my step-dad and my husband via EverQuest. Not to mention my adopted "Aunts" and "Uncles" from EQ.

There's a reason my final and best essay of the Fall semester was called "Gaming Mythology Debunked" and detailed the many, many reasons why the rumors and outright lies about gaming are a disgrace and a complete fabrication. Because gaming is so much more than a hobby in my world.

Gaming = Love

I'd like to say I stayed up all night playing Dragon Age: Origins. Alas, I did not. I fail, epically. --most f'd up way to spell epic-ly imaginable. But apparently it's proper. --

However, I'm writing this post because I noticed a huge screw up in my last post. I meant to mention th eother game that currently is racing like a drug in my veins, and completely forgot to in my DA:O Excitement.

League of Legends is a Defense of the Ancients style game created by *gasp* the DoTA creators & Riot Games. For those of you who don't know, Defense of the Ancients was a custom WarCraft III map that is absolutely wicked and got such huge acclaim that Blizzard even had DoTA tournaments at Blizzcon in previous years. I never played DoTA much, but in all fairness, I've not played a whole lot of multiplayer WC III with anyone outside of my family, and unfortunately most of them didn't have time for DoTA.

Anyways, I am thoroughly addicted to LoL in ways I can't describe. Which is rather funny because I knew NOTHING about the game a few weeks ago. Didn't know the DoTA guys were working on anything, let alone their own game, etc.

To be honest, I found the game basically on accident. I saw the login screen on my brother's computer, didn't even bother to ask him what it was, went home, Googled it for some reason or another that I don't understand since I have NEVER given a damn what my brother was playing, since he has...well, not the greatest of tastes in games at times.

Considering I run mostly in MMORPG, Console RPG, & RTS circles when it comes to gaming friends, I'm still kind of going WTF, how did I *NOT* hear about this until about two weeks ago? O_O

But I digress. The game is currently in open beta, and while there are going to be some paid-for options in the future, the game at it's core is free. There is no reason for you not to go try it -- NOW.

And to be perfectly honest, the chances are highly probable that you will see me playing a very feisty, mouthy, explosives orientated Megling Gunner alongside (or against) you if you decide to play against something other than the computers at some point in your LoL career.

Anyways, consider that my PSA for the month. Ya'll know my handle. Add me to your friends list or just randomly try to massacre me. Either way, it'll be fun!

Oh, that reminds me, 360 owners feel free to add me if you like. I've had a couple people message me from here to ask if it's okay --- of course it is. I wouldn't post my gamertag if it wasn't. Promise.

To be honest, when I begged my mother to let me pay her back a week later so we could pre-order Dragon Age: Origins, it was more for DragonFlyy, my hubby. It seemed like a game he'd enjoy more than I would, and really the gore made me go "Meh". It seemed like it had a good story, and i loved the Grey Warden motto, but I just didn't expect "TOTALLY WICKED BEYOND ALL REASON".

However, after watching DragonFlyy play for an hour or so before he went to bed, I was itching to make my character and see where the game took me. Well, I had to be DRUG to bed at 6:30 in the morning (I started playing at like, 10pm, maybe 11...but I'm pretty sure it was 10).....so that should say something.

When I wrote about the game in my pen and paper journal, I actually started the entry with "Holy F...... S... (replace the ...'s and take a hint). It's just THAT good.

To be honest, I'm not even that far into it, and it's definitely up there next to my other favorite expansive, semi-customizable RPG....Fable II. I see these games as being a great deal different from say, Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc.

Anyways, I will post more about this. I can't help it, it's just so awesome.

I feel like a slacker for not posting more, especially since I've played some great games lately, such as Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box which was ASTRONOMICAL. I honestly feel the only thing they could have done better is making it longer. Which isn't saying much because I'm a horrible addict who obsessed over it for days and days and played non-stop, so I burned through it faster than a normal human being would.

I also need to play Pokemon Platinum waaaaaaaaaaay more. I feel like such a slacker for not being farther in it, but I think that might have something to do with the 400+ hours I have logged on Pearl. *Whistles Innocently*

That reminds me, I'll be driving almost two hours away just to get Arceus in a few days, lol. Yeah, I'm a junkie. I can't help it.

It occurred to me that a lot of people will look at the games I have reviewed and rated and think my perspective skewed because it seems like almost every game I've reviewed has a 10.

I wanted to explain that while I do have a few games that are in the high-end but not quite 10 area and one or two that are low, it's not because I think every game I play is the greatest game ever.

It's because most of the games I play, I can't be bothered to review or rate. I honestly should go through and rate all the games I've played, but heaven only knows if I'll find the time. I really, really don't have the time to review every single game I play. So, I review the ones that are excellent or terrible, to either encourage or discourage players from playing these games, based on their merits or godawful stature.

First, and foremost, this entry IS going be about gaming, but also about gamers and events that affect us. So, be prepared to dish on some games, and also talk a little current-events and some philosophy, too.

Oh, and just a quick heads up for those of you who may be new to my blog: I'm the ultimate nerd girl. I live for gaming, Anime, Manga, being a general Japanophile/Rabid Otaku. I learned quantum physics because my lover likes to talk geeky to me as pillow talk. And guess what: I like it. So, I will reference anime, games, geek shows, etc. I am not opposed to dragging other forms of Geek into this blog. Now then, let's get started.

I'm going to bring up a topic that we are all sick-to-death of, but that needs to be dealt with.

Yesterday was the anniversary of 9-11, as I'm sure all you American readers (and maybe some sympathetic or even hateful foreign chums) may know. Now, whether you believe it was caused by terrorists, aliens, a group of American rebels, or the Bush administration, I don't care. Forget the theories. Forget who did it. That is irrelevant to my point.

As gamers, we're constantly battling evil. It doesn't matter if you're a hardcore FPS player, an RPG junkie, or even an RTS addict. Hell, you can be all of the above. How many of you have NEVER played a game where you weren't going up against some kind of ultimate evil? I mean, c'mon, even Mario is going up against the big-bad Bowser (Unless you're playing the new Bowser-centric Mario Bros. game that releases in a couple of days. And if you are, you're an early edition-snagging jerk. Share!).

What does this have to do with 9-11? Simple, it all goes back to my games = reality theory, and it's something I haven't gotten to touch on in awhile, but I think the anniversary drives it home better than any other current event could.

I cry over video games. As much of a hard-core-not-girly-girl chick that I am. As much of a self-proclaimed dyke-mentality chica that I am. I cry over video games, anime, TV, movies, and books. And I'm not ashamed of that. And I don't think ANYBODY should be. And this is where the 8 years of mayhem that have transpired since 9-11 come in.

Most of the folks who are going to be reading this, I'm guessing, are going to be around my age, maybe a bit older, maybe a few years younger. You're either going to remember the way things were pre 9-11 and the aftermath, or you're just going to be young enough that the world you know has always been post 9-11. Either way, it's not hard to take a look at the world around us and see just how similar it has become to many popular video games.

I don't know about any of you, but I felt a lot safer walking down the street or just living my daily life before 9-11. I was fourteen when it happened. And that day, the world I knew changed forever. 9-11 was a tragedy, no matter who caused it. So many lives were lost, and in a single second, Americans were made very aware that we are not untouchable. That our government is not capable of protecting us from outside influence, or even their own corruption if that's the way you swing.

We live in a perpetual state of fear that has been fixated upon us. Whether it be by the government, the media, or just our own trauma from what happened that day, we do not think or feel the way we used to. And if you do, then I applaud you for being resilient and apathetic as hell.

The rest of us, on the other hand, are more likely to be able to relate to games like, oh, let's say Halo. Look at the human population and the fear they tremble in because of the Covenant. If you're one of those who believes that the Al-Qaeda terrorists plummeted into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, I'm sure that if you were to see a Muslim walking down the street, you would feel the same way the various Marines did the minute they saw Arbiter traipsing around their ships.

Or perhaps you can relate to the people in any number of games where the corrupt government is violating people's rights without provocation. When your phone lines were being tapped illegally or your mail was being rummaged through unlawfully under the "Patriot Act". Seriously, did this make you guys feel safer? Did it make you feel like our government was doing everything in their power to track down the one man who was supposedly responsible for this fiasco when YOUR rights were being violated? I sure as hell didn't feel safer. I felt more and more afraid.

Or maybe you can't relate to these games. Maybe you see them as "just games" like so many others do. How has this affected you?

Easy. It's put the rest of us into a state of fear where we have let the government do what-ever-the-heck it wants and violate our civil rights as American citizens in the name of "freedom" and "patriotism". And that affects those of you who are "just game" folks, because it has allowed the media to become even more controlled. Including that which anyone reading this blog probably values most: Our games.

In the events that followed 9-11, sales of Final Fantasy VII, one of the most beloved RPG's of all time by gamers around the world, were BANNED in the United States of America, because "Avalanche" is technically a "terrorist organization". Yes. That's right. The group of people who take down a corrupt corporate-government system, save the environment, and then go on to defeat the planet's natural defense systems that would wipe them out, as well as kicking the arse of one of the most scary, crazy-as-crackers villains of all time. Yes. They're "terrorists" for DOING WHAT IS RIGHT.

But politicians don't care. Anything to tighten their grip. ANYTHING to push their hold on the American people.

Whether 9-11 was caused by the "government" or the "terrorists", it is undeniable that the government has used it to their advantage to take away our civil rights. When they can BAN the sales of what basically equates to the most popular RPG of all time, and the American public doesn't even get a chance to fight it, I would most definitely say that's far from what America was founded upon, what it stands for, and what should be allowed.

But 9-11 opened the door for this. So even if you don't live in a state of fear, it affects you because you live in this country.

And thus, the cycle perpetuates, because how many times have we seen people's rights slowly be stripped away because of a war, because of a "threat", in our video games, our anime, our TV shows, our movies? Look at "Heroes".

Video games are based on reality. No, the Covenant Armada isn't about to blow earth into a thousand pieces. No, ShinRa is not destroying our planet by tapping into the lifestream. No, the EDF hasn't taken over Mars and stolen it's citizens rights for their own personal gain. But what is happening?

Our government used a tragedy to take away it's citizens rights. Our planet is slowly being murdered, whether it is by us or simply the cycle of life in our solar system. We are at war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the government only knows where else.

Did these games predict these events? Far from it. The events occurring around us have been repeating themselves throughout all of human history. Most of our media, whether it be games or otherwise, simply expound upon these ideas and use science fiction, fantasy, or even just realistic elements to make them more interesting to those of us who participate in them.

So where am I going with this? Why all this heavy, ridiculous BS?

It's simple: Our troops have been dying. Our planet's wildlife is dwindling rapidly, whether it be plant or animal. Our world is not a safe place anymore. And if you still think it is, you are sorely mistaken.

Nobody may die when you pull the trigger in an FPS, but somewhere in the world, somebody is being shot through the head.

Nobody may die when you run over someone in GTA, but somewhere in your country, somebody is being hurt in an automobile accident. Unless you're in Japan. Ya'll have a much lower number of vehicles due to spacial constraints. Though chances are some jack... from another country is over there driving on the wrong side of the road and killing one of your people, too. So yeah, there ya' go.

Of course, no child dies when you attack Stormwind with your level 80 Orc Death Knight, but how many millions of children have been slain by people from other tribes or countries who looked at them as animals because of their race, religion, or culture?

I've been picked on for years because "I take games way too seriously". And you know what? I do. Because I believe they are the ultimate art-form. The ultimate experience that lets you step into the shoes and life of someone else and experience things that you as a person will never experience firsthand because the world we live in is one where people are in boxes, and certain people experience certain things.

Most of us will never be brain surgeons or even ER doctors. But Trauma Center allows us to step into those shoes. Most of us will never be soldiers, but Call of Duty and Halo put us on the front lines. Most of us will never be great generals, deliberating on how to destroy our enemies quickly and decisively, but RTSes put that weight on us all the time.

I believe that video games make us more aware, more understanding of the world around us. If we didn't have games, most of us could never catch even a glimpse of these scenarios in our day-to-day lives.

*smiles wickedly and bows*

However, I digress. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one who sees games as a reflection of the world around us.

Either way, ya'll know where I stand the next time I bring this crap up. :)

Anyone who gets the title reference gets 10 points! :)

Anyways, it's been a very long time since I blogged here. Even longer since I blogged about gaming in this spot. And what makes me extremly sad is the fact that for all intents and purposes, my life revolves around my games and the people I love, and not much else. So why in heaven's name have I been neglecting my gaming blog, the only one I feel truly capable of writing?

Simple: I'm getting a divorce. I met him in a video game. Gaming was our shared passion.

This affected me, and my gaming, in a very bad way. I all-but-stopped playing my DS for almost a year because of the circumstances that lead up to the end of our relationship. We technically seperated about six months ago (dear God, has it truly been that long?) and it's taken me up until, oh, the beginning of August to start even bothering with games (other than RockBand) at all. I think the thing that kick-started me was the fact that me, my partner (if you've read my bio, he's the one I've been with for six years), and my little brother, were going to BlizzCon. It definitely put me back in the mood for WoW. And that's where I finally returned to.

And then I started poking and prodding at my DS, and looking at all the games I'd picked up here and there that I wanted to play, but never really started again...

And then, magic happened. The day I returned home from BlizzCon was the magical day that Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box was finally released, after I'd waited so bleeding long for it.

My DS and I were back in business. Unfortunately, starting College agian has taken a huge chunk out of my gaming schedule. However, as much as I love my games, I do love my family and friends more. They're counting on me to get my degree and get into the work force. They need me to be better and for them I shall.

A lot has happened in the past oh, 9 months or so since I last blogged. My disability went through, thus allowing me to receieve medical assistance while attending college, my seperation from my husband, oh, and finally finding out what caused me to get so sick in the first place. The demon boss has a name, and it is fibromyalgia.

And I have ever intention of kick it's pathetic little arse. Unfortunately, it's incurable. But I can fight it, and I have every intention of doing so, and currently am doing my best to make sure I take my medicine, stay as active as I can manage without being in too much pain, and am also trying to move forward with my life.

Another great event has occurred: For the first time in my entire life, I finally started to lose weight. I've lost 25 pounds in just about four months, which is astronomical for me. The most I have ever lost before was eight pounds, and fifteen came back to replace it. The fact that I'm losing the weight now that I'm receiving proper medical treatment and the disorders affecting my metabolism are under control, is proof I don't need some stupid surgery to get on with my life, and even more proof that I can, and will, get better.

So, I said I wanted to blog about games. So why am I telling you all this?

Because as anyone who has read my blog knows, gaming is very personal to me. I write about the philosophy of games, the theory of video game reality, etc. So, I figured you guys should know who and what I am if I'm to start writing regularly here. After all, it's hard to read something completely out of context :)

Anyways, I'm wrapping this entry up and going to start a new, much more interesting one to kick off what I hope will be a regular set of updates.

Cya soon, fragdolls and basement dwellers ;)

Senator Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States. Let's all let that sink in, shall we?

Because I can honestly say as happy as it makes me, I'm still in shock and still afraid to truly believe it's really happening.

And yet that small piece of hope inside me, that has waited and waited for this, that has felt like it was being crushed continually throughout the past eight years, is singing. It's telling me YES, yes, WE DID IT. We can celebrate. We can cheer. We can rejoice because change has come to America. Hope prevailed. The American people are changing. We as a nation are changing and we are headed for great things.

There is so much work to be done in my country, and I am thrilled to be a young woman in America right now. Thrilled that I can help rebuild my country after two wars and a failing economy have brought us to our knees.

Yesterday was the first time I was ever able to vote as I'm only 21.

The first time I got to cast my ballot....I got to cast it for a man I greatly admire and respect, who I truly believe has America's best interests at heart, and who will help shape my country into the amazing, peaceful land of opportunity that it should be.

I am so excited to be a part of this and I can not wait to see what the next four years will bring us under President Barack Obama.

So, today is a day that I have been anxiously awaiting for a very long time. You could say that I've been waiting for this day since I was five years old, to be precise.

You see, up until the point that Final Fantasy VII came out and took the world (and myself) by storm (followed by Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time), no game had ever even come close to comparing to Final Fantasy IV in my eyes. To be honest, if you were to ask me my all-time favorite games, there would not be one answer, because I can not pick only one.

Very few games have had such an enormous impact on my life, especially those that weren't multiplayer MMORPG's. Almost anyone who has ever really been close to me or known me can tell you that my very first crush was on the Dragoon, Kain, from Final Fantasy IV.

That's right. At five years old, I was in love with some pixels. Hey, it worked.

Now, you're probably wondering why I've been "waiting" for a remake of the game for 3/4 of my life. To be honest, I wasn't waiting for a remake. I never expected technology to become so incredible that we would have 3D games. My little mind thought the Super Nintendo was the greatest thing ever, and I used to run around daming the Sega for being a cheap knock off of such incredible technology. Don't ask.

The point is, I wasn't expecting it to ever come, but I did want it, desperately. I wanted a movie, to be honest, because I wanted to see the characters brought to life.

I never dreamed they'd be brought to life in a way that not only allows me to really SEE them, but also to ride around in my POCKET in a game that brings them to life in a new, imaginitive way that I had only dreamed about for most of my life. It is an honest-to-god Dream Come True (TM).

I can remember the day FFIV DS was announced like it was yesterday, down to minor details like what I was wearing. But what I remember most is getting up out of my PC chair, running out of my house (with no shoes on), running across the rock-ladden driveway to my mother's house, rambling in an excessively loud tone to anyone who would listen "OMFG THEY ARE REMAKING FFIV, I HAVE TO TELL GRAM!!! OMFG OMFG OMFG!!" (My grandmother was the one who bought FFIV, and it was by her side that I learned the in's and out's of the game until I was knowledgable enough to play on my own).

I then ran across the driveway, again, to my grandmother's house, blew through her door, squeeling to both she and my cousin (another FF addict), "THEY'RE MAKING FINAL FANTASY IV FOR THE DS!!!!"

My cousin's first reaction? "They're going to freaking ruin it." He used the not-nice F word, I'm censoring.

My reaction? "How can they ruin something that was so amazing? It can only get better."

So far, I'm two hours in, and I think my prognosis was right. While I was terrified the voice acting would be crap and make me loathe the game, my fears were put to rest. While I have a tendency to hate English dubbed anime because I am used to the Japanese voices from having watched subtitles, these guys never had voices except in my head.

These characters that I have loved for so long finally have a voice. They finally have a personality that is popping out of the screen with voice, visuals, and movement, instead of simply facial expressions in pixels (as awesome as said pixels may be).

I have not been dissapointed. I have only fallen in love all over. (Kain, I heart you! Even if you are screwed in the head at the moment!)

(Crap, part of my post got cut off...ARGH!)

This game is more than some graphical updates with some extra's thrown in. It is like old friends have come home from college and have grown in a new way and are telling me an old story with more life, more love, than ever.

This game has always had the ability to make me laugh, squeel, cry, and howl with anger. It brings out emotions in me that are undescribable and can only be understood when seen. There is one part in the game (I won't say what for those who haven't played it before), that I cry at every single time, even though I know what happens. Even though I can prepare myself for it and brace for it, every time, it breaks my heart and I sob my eyes out every single time.

When I first saw Cecil standing at the helm of the Red Wings commanding ship, I almost cried tears of joy. When I saw Kain, my heart skipped a beat. When I saw Rosa coming to Cecil with all her devotion, I just giggled. When we finally got to see Rydia in all her green-haired, childish, powerful, heartbroken glory, tears rolled down my cheeks.

And I haven't even gotten to two of my favorite characters yet.

There is still so much to see, so much to do, and I am so anxious to experience every moment of it, whether it be heartbreaking or triumphant.

Those of you who've been reading my blog for awhile (what little there is of it) will remember my post about gaming = emotion = reality, where I discussed Halo's emotional, realistic presence.

God love Halo, it doesn't hold a candle to this.

These aren't characters. They are old friends whom I have loved for 3/4 of my life. I have carried their sorrow, triumph, love, and bravery through me for so long, they are some of my closest friends. There has been many a time as a child when I was afraid, or worried, or unsure, and I asked "What would Rydia do? What would Kain do?" It sounds dumb, but c'est la vie.

So, thank you Square, for bringing my friends to life. For bringing them back home to me. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to start kicking butt so I can meet up with a certain set of tempermental twins.

So, Lost Magic has been driving me insane. I crammed through it and was well over halfway through the game within a few days. Then I got stuck for almost a week on one damn boss. I took a break for about a month, came back to it, creamed that boss and then another, and am, once again, stuck. It's seriously making me want to put my fist, and possibly my DS, through a wall!

So, has anyone else had experiences like this? If so, with what game?

P.S. Merry Christmas, everyone!

So, I happily snagged my copy of Phantom Hourglass the other day.....and haven't played it. Now, this is not entirely my fault. Part of it is, I haven't beaten Wind Waker yet, for a lot of reasons. It's a long story, but that's one of the big reasons PH isn't in my DS at the moment.

Part of the problem is, Dragonflyy is playing at the moment, which means he takes it to work so I'm kind of screwed during the day. I'm not one to want to sit around waiting for my latest game to get home, so I'm just saying "I'll wait until he's done."

In the mean time, I'm snagging Acorns in AC:WW, getting gold metals in Cooking Mama, training my brain, oh, and drawing symbols in Lost Magic.

My brother's birthday was Friday and while he's wanted Carnival Games for months, it was a big let down. So, we took it back and he got Custom Robo Arena & Lost Magic instead. (Lost Magic was only $20, so with CRA, $50 total. Mom covered the extra 10 that the exchange didn't).

Lost Magic is completely awesome. Don't get me wrong, the story is lacking, and the game is bloody freaking HARD....but it is REALLY fun! Once you get the hang of things, drawing symbols and sending your units all over hell and creation is a blast.

Ah, sweet DS life.

-_- Now I just need to finish slaughtering the Post-Championship portions of Pokemon, get into Digimon, and...

Ah, heck. I just need to play my freakin' games.