Carnival of Video Game Bloggers, Gaming My Way Edition
Welcome to the November, 2008 edition of the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers. As you no doubt have noticed if you’re reading, your regularly scheduled host, James Newton, is taking a break this month to give me a chance to host for you all. It looks like there are a fair number of new submitters this month, so welcome, and I hope you enjoy the carnival. That said, let’s dive into what you’re here for: video games!
First up this month, we have Lauren Doe at Creepcolony.com with her post Starcraft – Protoss Unit Stats. Lauren tells us this is “a thorough statistic set of the Protoss units in Starcraft.” Short and sweet, this one has all the stats of the Protoss in Starcraft, in case you need to know how best to play them… or best them in battle yourself.
Our next contributor is UnitDaGamer at True Game Headz, giving us A Goodbye Letter to Gamestop, an amusing breakup between a gamer and Gamestop. He gives all his reasons why it’s better for them to break it off, and it’s quite an amusing read. It makes me wish there was a Play N Trade in my area though, as I would love to be able to pick up a few more games for my Dreamcast.
Tony Huynh has a boatload of posts for us at LimitlessUnits.com. You’ll want to check out his Mirror’s Edge Demo Review if you haven’t had a chance to play it or the fully released game yet. He then goes on to tell us about 8 of the Most Underrated or Overlooked Games of All Time. Since I’ve only played one of the games on his list, Sword of the Berserk, it’s probably safe to say he picked a good mix. I’d like to try a couple of the others though, particularly Guilty Gear XX. He then talks about Dead Space Through the Eyes of a Game Designer. Though it’s not a genre I particularly enjoy, it sounds like it could be a fun game from everything he had to say. Finally, in his post Best Games of All Time by Genre Part 1 he tells us exactly what you would think from the title.
At The Musings Beast has a few posts to share as well. First, he gives us his World of Goo Impressions. Sounds like it might be quite a fun game: physics, puzzles, and amorphous blobs seem to mix well in gaming for some reason. Then we move on to World of Warcraft, with his posts WoW Farming: Linen Cloth and WoW Head Enchantments. The former is brief post giving some tips on where to find Linen Cloth without paying the going rate at the Auction House, while the latter is a chart of many helm enchantments in the game, and where to obtain what you need to get them.
Michael has an alert for us over at Games of Our Lives: Gamestop Won’t Accept Guitar Hero: World Tour Guitar Returns (broken links removed). Speaking as someone who has had to return products occasionally when they don’t work, this is a serious problem, and if nothing has been worked out yet, then something needs to be. Makes me happy I live in Maine, where law requires both the store and manufacturer to make proper remediation, be it a refund, exchange, or other measure to resolve any issues, regardless of what any contracts or warranties say. Still, many people aren’t so lucky on that issue, and will have to work with what they have. Thanks for letting us know about this Michael.
Old Wizard graces us with more knowledge from his tower at Old-Wizard.com with his post Top 10 Ways to Know if You’re a “Hardcore Gamer.” If you’ve read Old Wizard’s work before, you know he has a style that will polarize people on the net, and this piece is no exception. Definitely worth a read though, particularly if you’re into humor based on stereotypes of our favorite hobby.
Larry Ferlazzo joins us this month from Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day for Teaching ELL, ESL, and EFL to tell us about his favorite educational games that he found this year in his post The Best Online Learning Games – 2008. He has quite a lot to say, but if you’re looking for some free online games that will teach you or your kids something while you play them, this post is the place to look as he went over his twenty favorites.
James Newton, our usual host, joins us from The Collected Writing of James Newton with his post The Sega Top 50. From the man himself: “An introduction to my life’s work – a countdown of the 50 greatest Sega games of all time!” I must admit, when I first read this, I was hoping for an immediate Top 50 list of awesome about Sega, though I admit the approach he’s taking is likely to lead to a lot more quality in his picks. This post introduces the countdown. From there, you can look through his site to see his first few choices. He’s got a good mix of Sega titles already, and I’m sure it will only get better as he continues.
Meg from Simpson’s Paradox has a review of Nancy Drew: Lights, Camera, Curses for us to peruse. She informs us that it’s a girl’s game due to having a strong female protagonist, and “that it is not pink.” I have to say, it would be nice to see developers go more in this direction when trying to market games to girls. I know there’s a lot of debate about how necessary it actually is to market to specific demographics, but for now, companies feel the need to do so, and it’s nice to see at least one doing so intelligently. So go on and check out her review, particularly if you’re considering a purchase.
Our final contributor, Patricia Turner from Online University Reviews, has some information for us about some iPhone games in her post Top 20 iPhone Games You’ve Never Heard of. While I don’t have an iPhone myself, I’m sure that having a few of these games could help keep things lively while waiting for people to show up at your meeting spot, or for any other reason you might find yourself waiting for a bit. Give it a read, especially if you’re looking to pick out a few games for your iPhone.
Whew! That was quite a bit more effort than I expected, but it was definitely worth it. That’s all the entries for this month, so I hope you enjoyed this edition of the carnival. Next month, it will be returning home to The Collected Writings of James Newton as far as I know, so be sure to check it out when it arrives next month, and be sure to submit any posts you want us all to see then at the Blog Carnival submissions page. Thanks for letting me host this month James!
