Gossip Gamer

Resident Evil: Revelations Demo Review

Has anyone heard about this? This game somehow slipped under my radar (granted college has kept me VERY busy this semester), so either it was very under-hyped or I just missed it. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised to see Two Best Friends playing it today and decided to give it a try myself.

Fun fact: this game was actually released last year for the 3DS. This year, they decided to relaunch it for PC and all home consoles. A bit lazy? Well, maybe. But I never got the chance to play it and I’ve been looking for a new survival horror to fill the void once I’m done with Resident Evil: Code Veronica. The game takes play between Resident Evil 4 and 5, starring Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, along with Parker Luciani and Jessica Sherawat, shortly after the BSAA was formed. However, alas - there will be no co-op this time.

BioShock Infinite’s Ending…

Well, I certainly finally see what all the fuss was about. That was A LOT to swallow and it was a bit confusing, but I do not think it was as bad as I saw a lot of people claiming. It was actually pretty interesting, and definitely not quite what I was expecting. I understood it…mostly, I think. If you needed a little clarification like I did (or A LOT of clarification), check out this link! If you haven’t already Googled the answer yourselves.

So overall, what did I think of the game? Well, I did enjoy it a lot. Columbia was a beautiful city to explore and I adored Elizabeth as your partner (seriously, most useful companion ever!). Do I still feel like it didn’t live up to the other BioShocks? Well, a bit. Can’t help but miss a lot of things, such as the creepiness, the bigger focus on Vigors/Plasmids and less on guns, and the more varied voxophones/audio diaries (there were MANY to collect, but you really heard from the same people over and over again). Still, it was a lot of fun and I loved the new ideas, challenges, and mysteries it offered. Totally recommend it for any gamer!

Inside Call of Duty: Black Ops II “Mob of the Dead” Zombies Add-On. This map will hold a special place in my heart because some of my FAVORITE gangster actors are in it - Ray Liotta from Goodfellas and Chazz Palminteri from A Bronx Tale. :)

Honoring My Commander Shepard (in honor of Mass Effect Week!)

Check out the inspiration for this post at Kotaku.

Name: Danielle Shepard.

Backstory: She was a spacer - both of her parents were in the Alliance military. Her childhood was spent on ships and stations, until she finally enlisted at eighteen. She was also a war hero after single-handedly repelling an attack by batarian slavers on Elysium, saving her crew. Her class was a vanguard. She was tough commander, but she cared about her crew like they were her family and kept them all alive. She never made a choice without considering who it effected first. She had her bad quirks: she loved to over-shop at the Citadel, slap annoying reporters, and could never quite keep her pet fish alive. She had a relationship with Kaiden and stayed faithful throughout the trilogy. Best friends were definitely Garrus and Liara.

Paragon/Renegade 90% Paragon with a little Renegade thrown in there (come on, I HAD to pwn Kai Lang in honor of Thane!).

Favorite Memory: All of Mass Effect 2. Every single thing. Even the DLC.

Which ending you chose: Synthesis. It made the most sense for my Shepard to choose it, since she would want the best for everyone even if it meant sacrificing herself.

What were your Shepards like?

MY BIOSHOCK INFINITE HAS ARRIVED! YES!

Except I still have so much work to do…

Damn you, college…

Oh the troubles of a poor student gamer…

Tomb Raider and Gears of War: Judgment both came out these past few weeks and I have had no money to buy them. However, I did manage to save up to pre-order BioShock Infinite (I had an Amazon gift card to spend!), so that will be one new game I’ll be getting soon.

As for the other two games I had been anticipating, can anyone tell me (here or in a message): how are they?

The Big Two One…

That’s right, fellow gamers - yesterday was my birthday and I finally turned 21! :) Now I know everybody loves to make a big deal about it and having the freedom to be able to do pretty much whatever I want now (go to Dave & Busters after 6, finally being able to visit Barcade…) is amazing, but it is almost…anticlimactic. The sneaking around was always an adventure…sometimes. Having no boundaries almost feels boring, but I’m sure I’ll get used to the feeling very soon. :p

I was away in Atlantic City over the weekend with my family and boyfriend - much more fun than just getting drunk somewhere like most of my friends did for their birthdays! Won a few hands of three card poker (handing over my ID so proudly to the pit boss & dealers felt SO good, and everyone was so nice and wished me happy birthday!), played some slots & video poker with Jay, drank a few drinks, and ate some amazing food. Overall it was a wonderful birthday, even got to end my day with some old school Mario Party 2 at 4 in the morning. :)

Today I met up with my best friend Victor for a few drinks for St. Patty’s Day, but I am officially BEAT. And of course my spring break is over, so back to school tomorrow. I have a lot of work to catch up on, but once I’ve recuperated I’ll get back to blogging. In the meantime…

Happy gaming!

~Gossip Gamer

Link To My Survey On Video Games & Level of Productivity →

Whew, it has been an awfully busy week but I am finally on spring break! Which translates to some much needed R&R, but I also need to catch up on A LOT of work. Unfortunately my professors assigned a lot of projects, so mean… -__-

Anyway, up top is the link to my survey that I posted about last week. I could use all the data I could get to make a good project, so please take it if you wish! As a psychology student, we have to conduct our own research project in my Research Methods course and my theme is finding out if there is a correlation between video games and levels of productivity. Studies have shown gamers show many positive qualities, such as higher levels of problem solving skills, multitasking, persistence, etc. I want to see if that is true and if the types of video games we play affect that.

Now as research participants, I do not need any personal info - just a bunch of multiple choice questions in my survey. You can skip any questions you wish and withdraw your survey results completely. If you decide to help I’d be very grateful - it’d be like a mini birthday present (my birthday is this Saturday! Woot!). :D You don’t even need to be a gamer - I also need non-gamers to just fill out the first half of the survey as well to compare results.

I want to show that gaming, while it can be negative, it can also be a very positive thing as well. Thanks for your help/consideration and I hope you’re all doing well. :) Well, back to work.

Happy gaming!

~Gossip Gamer

I Need Your Help, Gamers!

Good evening, everybody! Hope you’re all doing well. Anybody buy the new Tomb Raider yet? :D

Anyway, as some of you may know already, I am a psychology major. One of my courses this semester is Research Methods, and our final project is to conduct our own research in whatever topic we want. Naturally, I went with video games. Due to all the negative hype in the media lately, I decided look into any possible positive benefits people may have from playing video games - specifically, if they have higher levels of productivity. I came to this ideas through reading a bunch of research articles in my school’s library and most of them talked about increased levels of productivity. For example, studies found gamers are more persistent than non-gamers, can develop better problem solving skills, etc. I also want to discover if the types of video games people play matters when it comes to gaining any benefits.

So here’s where I need your help…

More Interesting Kickstarter Projects!

Ever since I discovered Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative projects, I’ve been obsessed with it. I like checking out all the interesting ideas that people have, from comics to fashion. What I love most is getting to invest in a project that matters to me and helping peoples’ dreams of making their ideas into a reality. Kickstarter has a lot of great projects in their games section, but here are a few I’ve invested in lately and some that while they have been funded a while ago, are very worth keeping track of when they release:

1. My Life as a Video Game Web Series

An exciting new live-action comedy web series about a gamer-geek trapped inside a world of video games, fighting for his life. This was funded a while ago, but it should hopefully be finished this year. Concept looks very cool and Brent Black of brentalfloss is hilarious (he’s got a great comic series and YouTube channel). Check out an interview with both creators here.