So let’s do one of those tag things!
I’ve decided I want to take a break from ranking certain franchises for the moment, so I’m looking into doing some more gaming stuff that’s full of variety, and I just so happened to come across The Gamer Tag. I came across it while looking through The Hannie Corner‘s site and if you don’t know what it is, it’s just a whole bunch of questions about games, I thought it’d be a nice way to cover a whole bunch of topics in one post, so let’s do it!
1. What is your all-time favourite video game?
Really simple one this, Octopath Traveler. I could go into why right now, but that would make my answer to this question about a thousand words long, so instead I suggest you go and look at my Game of the Year 2018 post to see why I love that game so much.
2. What is your current favourite video game?
I assume this means, the game I’m actively playing at the moment, which coincidentally, thanks to the PC release, is also Octopath Traveler. However, for the sake of variety, I’m going to say Towerfall Ascension, because I and my housemates will play that almost on the daily and it’s so much fun.
3. What is the greatest weakness of your favourite game?
This is a really interesting question, for Octopath Traveler I think it would have to be the path actions, which are your out of combat abilities, they just seem a bit tacked on and pointless. All of the uses for them seem to have been crowbarred in order to justify their need in the game and ultimately I don’t think the game would’ve been any different without them.
4. What is the greatest strength of your least favourite game?
I’ve never really thought much about what my least favourite game is, but I suppose it would have to be Medal of Honor: Warfighter, which is just a boring and straight up offensive game. I suppose it’s greatest strength would have to be the shooting. It’s nothing special, but it is at least competently done, which is more than can be said for most other things in that game.
5. What is your favourite video game genre?
This one is extremely difficult for me to answer, I took a look at my top 10 games list to try and work this out and a whopping 9 of the games were all different genres. I guess at a push, I’d say RPGs and Turn Based Strategies are what I get the most out of, but there’s really not much in it. I do however know that my least favourite genres are First Person Shooters and MMO’s because I just find them boring.
6. How long have you been playing video games?
Since my mum gave me her Game Boy when I was about 4 or 5ish. Although I think before that I may have played a bunch of flash games on websites like Cbeebies before then, but as you’d expect, my memories of that time aren’t the clearest.
7. What was the first game you ever played?
Again, not counting any flash games I may have played, I think it was Bugs Bunny and the Crazy Castle on the Game Boy; a game that’s not nearly as difficult as I remember it being…
8. What game have you clocked the most hours into?
Minecraft, and it’s not even close. I was 11-12 when Minecraft first came to prominence so I was right in the demographic for kids who went all in on it. It took me a little longer than most to get into it, but once I did, I never stopped and I still play it regularly to this day, so my hours are easily well over 2000, maybe even creeping up on 3000 now.
9. What was your longest gaming session?
I don’t have any specific memories in regards to this one, but there are a few times I can think of. The first of which would be one of my many days playing Minecraft in the summers of 2012 through 2015ish, I couldn’t pinpoint a specific day for you, but I know there were several days that I pretty much only broke to eat. There are also several days where I played Civilization 5 with friends long into the night, doing entire games in one day more than once. Finally, would be whenever a new Pokemon game launches, from the moment it’s in my hands, it’s pretty much all I do other than eat and sleep until I’ve finished it; for two years straight now I’ve received the game Friday afternoon and have finished it before Sunday is done. So somewhere among those times is my longest gaming session.
10. What is your personal definition of a “perfect” video game?
That’s a tough one because as I said, there isn’t really any one genre I gravitate towards, so I’m gonna have to go in general strokes here. I think it would honestly just be something that’s a fun start to finish. Even my favourite games have low points, be they for story reasons or otherwise, but a game that it just straight up a blast from start to finish would be great, and also something with a really fun and easy to pick up multiplayer mode so I can play that with a whole bunch of people.
11. What is the most “perfect” you game you have ever played?
I guess the closest game to my description about would be Towerfall Ascension. The singleplayer mode in that is pretty much fun the whole time, and the multiplayer – which is where the meat of the game is – is responsible for some of the best times I’ve had playing games with other people. All it really needs is an online mode and it’d be pretty much there.
12. Who is your favourite game developer?
This is a hard one to answer because it switches around a lot depending on what I’m into at the moment (and what I’m not…Bethesda…). But generally, the two development studios that consistently put out games I think are great are Platinum Games of Nier: Automata and Bayonetta fame, and Nintendo who have been on fire since the launch of the Switch.
13. If you had unlimited funds, talent and technology to create any game you could ever imagine, what would you make?
Either a Pokemon game with all of the regions & Pokemon in it, with some new stuff thrown in there and a big story tieing it all together or a wrestling game in the style of the WWE 2K series with every promotion and all their wrestlers licenced to be used in the game.
14. Who is your favourite hero character from a game?
See this one is actually quite difficult, because when I connect with the story of a game, it usually not to do with the protagonist, there are great ones out there for sure, I can’t think of a game that’s got me to connect specifically with the protagonist in a way that films or TV can. I suppose it’d have to be Thomas from Thomas was Alone, although it’s hard to say he’s specifically a hero, so failing that it’s gotta be H’aanit from Octopath Traveler, even if she does speak like a twat.
15. Who is your favourite villain from a game?
Honestly, I pay even less attention to the villains than I do the heroes. That said, I do actually have a good answer here in Gary from Bully. The guy is such a manipulative arsehole to everyone around him, and because Bully is set in a school, you actually have to be clever and find an opportune time to give him his payback because you’re in school and if you just go and beat him up you’ll be expelled. The unique setting of Bully really helped to boost a pretty good villain into a great one.
16. Who is your most hated character of any game?
Jacob Frye from Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, what an annoying, self-centred wanker.
17. Rank the following media formats in order from least to most favourite: Video Games, Books, Movies, TV Shows, Music.
Least favourite is gonna be movies. I’ve never been a big movie guy, once or twice a year something will come along that I enjoy, but I don’t like going to the cinema and will very rarely want to actively go and see a film.
Next is books, this probably would’ve been last a year ago, but earlier this year, I got into a couple of really good books and it’s made me realise I like reading a lot more than I used to.
Following that is TV, which would be higher if there was more stuff I actually watched, but outside of Doctor Who and Taskmaster, I don’t watch a great deal.
Then it’s music because it’s what I do pretty much whenever I’m not doing any of the other ones I’ve mentioned so far; I just get this real sense of joy from listening to music I like, and none of the other mediums can really do that.
Then video games are of course number one, it’s what I spend most of any given day doing and it’s become a huge part of who I am.
18. What gaming systems do you own?
PC, DS, 3DS and Switch. There is also an Xbox One in my house but I never use it for games. I primarily game on the PC, but there are certain games I prefer to play on the Switch, plus I use the Switch for Nintendo exclusive titles, as for my DS’s, they’re essentially just Pokemon machines.
19. What was your first gaming system?
As mentioned above, the original Game Boy that my mum gave me. The full list of games I had on it were: Bugs Bunny and the Crazy Castle; Wario Blast; Wario Land; Super Mario Land; Tetris, and probably a couple others, but I didn’t play them.
20. What is your favourite gaming system and why?
The Nintendo Switch, the portability of it is fantastic, and they’re getting better and better games to run on it now. Not to mention a Switch is a very easy console to break out socially too, with you always having at least two controllers to hand, and plenty of games on it designed for “couch gaming”, I think I’ve had more fun playing the Switch, than any other console. Not to mention, any machine that lets me play Skyrim while lying in bed gets bonus points.
21. Do you prefer to play male or female characters?
Female characters for a couple of reasons, 1) They just look cooler, 2) The customization options with outfits and such like are usually way more versatile, 3) So few games let you play with long hair as a male (I have long hair IRL) and 4) In many old games where you could pick your gender, the game would still act like you were a male even if you weren’t, and I just think it’s stupid that I can be playing as female and be referred to as “he” the whole time.
22. Do you follow walkthroughs, or do you play through on your own?
Most games I’ll stick to playing it myself for the most part, but will happily resort to a walkthrough if I get stuck enough. I’ll also tend to look at walkthroughs once I’m finished with a game’s main story to find where and how to access any post-game content there may be because otherwise, I’ll just miss it. There are also many games, like Bully, that I only ever played because I watched a walkthrough and thought it looked really cool, and while knowing most of what was going to happen did take away from the experience a bit, I never would’ve found the game at all if it wasn’t for walkthroughs.
23. Have you ever been to a gaming convention?
No, and I don’t really want to, it’d be cool to play some demos and maybe get some exclusives, but at the end of the day I’d get that news anyway and it just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
24. Do you prefer physical or digital copies of games?
Digital, with the exception of Pokemon, which I will always buy physical copies of. The main reason I prefer digital is just a space issue. I’ve got over 600 games on my Steam account, if I had physical copies of all of them, I’d need a whole room to store them in, it’s just impractical. However, I do like physical copies for collector’s value, hence why I get them for Pokemon.
25. What game are you most excited to come out this year?
Pokemon Sword and Shield, what I’ve seen so far look wonderful and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
26. What game are you most excited to come out in the future?
Elder Scrolls 6, I need that in my life.
27. What video game travelling party would you most like to join?
The Royal Procession from Final Fantasy 15, I’d be useless in combat, but we would have some next level banter.
28. What’s your favourite video game soundtrack?
Either Octopath Traveler, Pokemon Platinum or Sonic Mania, all of these tracks have songs all over the spectrum of emotions and I love listening to them.
29. What’s your best memory of a video game?
I always hate questions like this, because it’s essentially just “pick the best thing”, and there’s so damn much to choose from that nothing sticks out. What’s sticking out most in my mind right now though, is the past year of living in my uni house, which I’ve just moved out of, playing games with my housemates in that was always an absolute blast, and we’d play games almost daily. I think I can extend that to pretty much anytime I’ve played games socially, but that’s what is currently at the front of my mind.
30. What’s your worst memory of a video game?
Again, nothing all that specific stands out, but there are plenty of games that I’ve enjoyed for quite a while, that I start to hate by the end and I feel obliged to finish them because I put so much time into them. Farcry 4 is the best example I can think of, I was so fed up by the time I was finished with that I haven’t even looked at Farcry 5; Darksiders 2 and Just Cause 4 were also games that got on my nerves during the final chapter, to the point where I genuinely Alt+F4’ed out of Just Cause 4’s final cutscene because all it did was tease the next game.
31. What film, TV series or Book would you like to see as a video game?
I really want a proper Doctor Who game. I know there have been a whole bunch of attempts, but they’ve all been absolute crap. I’d really love a AAA style Doctor Who adventure where you get to run away from monsters and solve clever puzzles and just generally ponce about through time and space.
32. If you could cosplay as any character from any game, who would you choose?
I would really like to do H’aanit from Octopath Traveler but, to put it delicately, I don’t quite have the physique required to pull it off.
33. What video game character represents you the best?
Tom Nook, gimme your money.
The Strong Style Smark 