I know I am not the only person reading this that has played Call of Duty Black Ops in their past life. Perhaps you even play it now. Perhaps you are frustrated with Activision and their insanely high prices for mediocre games as of late. During this last Steam sale, my boyfriend decided to pick up Call of Duty Black Ops I because he’s been itching to play a round of zombies again for years now. This feeling of nostalgia forced him to give in and spend $30 on a game that is been out we’re over a decade now.
Don’t get me wrong, I grew up with this game. I really loved the Kino Der Toten and Der Riese maps and the songs that came with them. To be honest, I never really cared for the other maps, but these two were enough for me to purchase the game two years prior, as I had the same itch. However, since then, I have become painfully aware of Activision’s practices. I am someone who tries to be socially conscious about issues facing women and minorities in the gaming industry, and it is something that I have had to consider as I near graduation and navigating the working world. Companies like Activision make me fear working in this industry, despite majoring in media arts and game development. I also think that they grossly abuse their player base by trying to charge them 60+ dollars for a half-baked game. Their practices remind me of what CD Projekt Red did with Cyberpunk 2077 just a year ago.
For what it’s worth, Black Ops I zombies is classic. I’m not a fan of Activision in any sense. I wish that my partner and I didn’t have to give a gross company this money in order to play a classic game. I do feel conflicted. But I’ve already done what I have done, so I might as well enjoy it.
Hey! Did ya hear?! The new League of Legends inspired series, Arcane Is now available to stream on Netflix. People like it so much that it stole Squid Game’s thunder and people are raving about the strong characters and themes about classism and other important topics. Personally, I was not expecting too much, but I was thoroughly surprised myself (and I’m not just saying that because my favorite champion, Heimerdinger, has a supporting role). But for those who don’t play League of Legends, you may be wondering, “Should I watch the series if I don’t know anything about League of Legends?” and the short answer is yes. I do think that it is a lot easier to understand the context of these characters if you know a basic understanding of the lore behind the game, but between the visuals, music, storytelling, characters, and themes, Arcane is a fantastic masterpiece that can be enjoyed by anyone.
Having said all of that though, I want to make it very clear: do not play League of Legends just because you like Arcane. On its own, the game has a learning curve and a lot of skill, which only comes with a lot of time and practice, and even then, that doesn’t guarantee that you will be good at the game (just ask my professor, poor guy). League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), meaning that you are pitted against other players, likely with the same or similar skillset and experience that you do. As these people also go through the growing pains of learning how to play the game, you are almost certainly going to be subject to hate and less than desirable players. I’ve had my fair share of these people, and they have made me step away from the game before, and the truth is, not everyone can handle that long term, as those kinds of people tend to be bad for one’s mental health.
Another reason to reconsider playing the game because of Arcane is the skill level of some of the champions you find in the series. There are eight notable champions featured in the series, and I know for a fact that five of them have a YouTube essay explaining why no one plays that champion, and a lot of those champions have harder mechanics and kits that don’t make them as viable when it comes to the game meta (what is deemed popular and/or playable on a mainstream level). While a couple of examples are easier, entry level champions (Jinx and Caitlyn come to mind), the role these two champions play in-game is one of the harder roles to pick up.
If you really decide that one day you want to play League of Legends, I can’t stop you. But for your own sake, please do not disappoint yourself by playing the game because of Arcane. Please enjoy both entities for what they are overall, even if the two are tied together.
My origins in gaming really started with strategy games. My dad, being the absolute nerd he is, had various CDs of games he would spend hours at the computer playing. I was exposed to Age of Empires, Age of Wonders II, and Age of Mythology from a very young age, with the latter of the three being formative in my motivation to get a Steam account later in life. Though, despite my former exposure to strategy games, somehow, the Civilization series was unknown to me until my ex-boyfriend brought up how obsessed he is with Civilization V in particular. Weirdly enough, he was very eager to teach me how to play the game, nuances and all. But nonetheless, I accepted his help. It got to a point where I spent over 10 days’ worth of time learning how to play this game over the course of one winter break, challenging myself and trying to unlock every achievement (as of writing this, I only have 203 out of 286).
I have always found strategy games to be the most intriguing. Truth be told, I don’t really know why I think that, all I know is that I like them a lot, and Civilization V helped cement that for me. As of right now, I sit at 494 hours in the game, and it is my most played game in my Steam library. Naturally though, as obsessed as I was with the fifth installment of the series, I was curious about the sixth. I got my hands on it through the Epic Games sale and played a game with one of my best friends from high school, only to feel utterly disappointed. I remembered how confused I was when I first played Civilization V and I tried to give Civilization VI a chance, but it felt too complex for its own good. And maybe some people like that, but I personally don’t. What I love about the fifth installment is that, despite its faults—such as broken achievements, janky multiplayer support, and the infamous Ghandi meme, it doesn’t make your head spin to an uncomfortable degree. On a technical level, Civilization VI is the better game. But where it excels on that front, it lacks in overall simplicity and charm.
I am a sucker for survival games. I absolutely love them. Ever since I played through Raft with my crush-turned-partner, I found myself craving to play a game like it. I think there’s something really intriguing about the survival genre and it’s very compelling. Of course, there’s always Minecraft, but it’s so accessible to a point where I wanted something else. and one day, I happened to pop into one of my friend’s Twitch streams and they were playing a survival game known as The Forest. On the surface, I took The Forest as a game that was very similar to Raft, which is what I wanted, because I can be resistant to change. what I quickly learned after I finally bought the game recently, though, is that The Forest is Raft’s much darker cousin.
In The Forest, your plane crashes, and your son, Timmy, goes missing, and you must fight for survival against cannibals and mutants while finding your son. So, it is essentially the land version of Finding Nemo (okay, I mostly jest). You find items and kill various animals so you can build shelter and other tools to help you survive and fend off any enemies while trying to find evidence that will eventually lead you to find your son. What really caught me off guard with this game was the horror aspect of it. I compared this experience to Raft, a survival game that is not horror based whatsoever, but rather, focused more on the adventure aspect of a survival game. I found myself to be very jarred and startled at points when I encountered cannibals or other hazards, to a point where after a while sometimes animals that I saw in the corner of my camera view would make me jump out of my skin. While I eventually adapted to the horror aspects, it’s still hard to ignore the dark nature of this game. having said that, I found myself always wanting to play it with my group of friends, who admittedly knew a lot more than I did. and since a multiplayer game can hold up to eight people, I suppose it is fair to suggest but eight heads are better than one in this scenario.
I wouldn’t call The Forest one of my favorite games of all time. I have seen the end of it, and I thought the ending was compelling and really forced the player to think. but this game doesn’t have the same meaning to me as other games, especially when Raft left such an impact on me and my expectations for the survival genre. By no means would I say that this is a bad game, though. I think it is fascinating to see what you can do with the materials you have and the limited amount of storage for them. You really have to think on your feet with this game, which is something I personally can appreciate. if you like survival and horror video games, then I would recommend this one, especially with friends (because real talk, they really do make games a lot more enjoyable).
Last week, I went on a very passionate tangent about the failings of Cyberpunk 2077 on account of CD Projekt Red mishandling this project. Cyberpunk had been hyped up for years, and many, including myself, immediately compared it to the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, upon its release.
I remember the first time I opened the Witcher 3. I was in quarantine, I was sad, and I would block out any and all sun light. I found a cheap version of the game on G2A and I was desperate to feel literally anything at all. What I felt the first time I delved into the story was astonishment. it’s easy to tell that the people behind this game really did care about the story they were working with and the characters and establishing them, something I really did not feel when I played Cyberpunk. Geralt, is a very likable character while still having his edge. You really do feel like you are in his world, and you feel immersed into it further by his dialogue and the story choices throughout the game. The Witcher 3 uses multi-level storytelling, meaning of certain decision at one point in the game can impact the entire outcome at the very end. There really is a sense of importance when it comes to picking one decision over the other because of the way their storytelling is implemented.
On top of that, you have the other characters who all have their own interesting backstories and motives and there isn’t a single one that gets boring or annoying. I personally really liked Keira Metz, Yennefer, Triss, and of course, Ciri. I could also appreciate the establishing world that we were given for these characters, as it very well established them in that context.
Finally, what I liked about The Witcher the most was that it was so free range and that there were so many side quests to do that it never got boring being within this world. with there being several territories, hidden sites, and treasures to steal, oddly be enough, I found that the most intriguing part of the game. I liked how it had an impact on where I ended up later in the game, whether that be level wise, item wise, or skill wise.
It’s hard not to compare these two games to each other as they were from the same company. But in all fairness, CD Projekt Red knew what they were getting into, and it’s hard not to acknowledge the stark contrast in likeability between these two projects.
I might as well have spent about six or seven years under a rock when it comes to modern gaming. I remember when GTA V came out like it was yesterday. I was so excited to play it after it had been out for a year, and the next thing I know, I completely zone out from modern gaming altogether. I stopped carrying about when the next Call of Duty was going to be out or what was new and exciting. The next thing I know, I’m 19 years old sitting in my dorm room and finding myself fascinated with all these games that I missed out on. I almost exclusively played the same GameCube and Xbox games for over half of a decade, but I had heard about tragedies such as No Man’s Sky being a complete failure when it first arrived. It simply was just something I thought I had moved on from.
Last year, for the first time in my life, I found myself excited for a new game coming out, and that game being Cyberpunk 2077. Funny enough, I actually had not heard about it before I met someone who I ended up having the biggest crush on. They got me interested in the game, and I was excited to flex on all of my friends telling them I preordered it. it was a very vulnerable time of my life. I was taking 18 credits and working third shift at FedEx, I was pretty damn miserable, but hey, at least I was able to afford the game, right?
I’d heard all the feedback and criticisms. I was horrified to hear that it was bricking older generation consoles and making computers with even the finest graphics cards freeze. I never finished the game, but for what it was worth for its two weeks of relevance, I thought it was fun but I knew it was very problematic and it wasn’t perfect by any means. but as I stopped playing the game, it was as if I felt more aware of my surroundings, or rather, the failures of CD Projekt Red. You mean to tell me that the people who made the Witcher 3, one of my favorite games, are also responsible for this? Well, after I did some more research, I learned that the Witcher 3 was not perfect on arrival either. Maybe it was just another No Man’s Sky, and so I decided to give it some time, but with every hotfix and patch, it doesn’t feel like it is improving. It’s been a year and I don’t hear about people raving over Cyberpunk 2077 like they do with No Man’s Sky, a game that had a lot of love and time put into it after its release. Cyberpunk had been teased for years, constantly being pushed back until it finally came out. Of course it was hyped with customizable genitalia and trans representation and posed as a more progressive game for our modern era, but in hindsight, it was all a ploy. Yes, we should be representing people of all identities, but it feels as if this was a deflector for the massive problems behind the game. They had several years to work on this game and yet there are still massive bugs that impacts the overall gameplay. CD Projekt Red had more than enough potential to prevent this. But instead, they have a broken game that was pulled from the Playstation Store and have exploited and gaslit people, including myself, into thinking that Cyberpunk will be better and that they care. But for me, I refuse to buy into it. Cyberpunk is a mess. Maybe someday, but I don’t expect that to be anytime soon.
I don’t know about y’all, but I have an open secret: I play League of Legends. It’s funny, I went from flaming my little sister for playing this game to playing it out of spite. But then I met my partner through a mutual friend, catalyzed by this game. I still remember the champions that the two of us played to this day. As I got to know my partner, League became a larger part of my life and I found myself to be increasingly more addicted to it as time goes on.
In all honesty, I want to hate this game. I hate the toxicity of the game and a lot of its player base. I hate certain champions that counter my favorite champions. I hate how it wastes my time. I hate some of Riot’s practices in regards to this game and its lore. And yet, I have no shortage of people that will invite me to a game after a long day. I get really excited when I have a kill/death rate of 20/4/13 as Heimerdinger, a champion that is very disliked. I hype up my friends when they do really well in a game.
As I keep playing this game, it feels as if I am deluding myself into liking this game, if that’s what I can call it at this point. It makes me feel happy, sad, angry, stressed, and exhilarated all at once. I’ve reached a point where I’ve gotten too good at certain champions (if you’re wondering, I play Lulu, Sona, Heimerdinger, and Lux) and I feel like I shouldn’t be as good at them as I am. I don’t know if or when I will step back from League, especially considering that it is a cornerstone of my relationship (fun fact, he’s on our school’s varsity League team), but it’s not like I hate this game, although, I do receive quite a bit of flack from non-players about why I bother with the toxicity of the game.
