Words of Wisdom

So... Tomorrow's my birthday! Woot! I'm turning 24... and it has been quite the year. I don't know if I feel older or wiser or what not, but I thought it would be fun to give you wonderful people 24 pieces of wisdom that I have gleaned from my years as a gamer-wife.

So here it is, 24 things I have learned from video games
(in no real order)

1. Being a princess is nice, but you always get captured by some ugly lizard/dinosaur thing or trapped in a tower. I'd rather wear a really awesome weaponized suit, roll into a ball, and kick some butt instead of waiting for an Italian plumber to save me.
2. When dealing with any sort of undead type creature: shoot it in the head. Then remove said head and burn it all... just in case.
3. No matter how many times they make World War II into a video game... the Allies still won.
4. I am a much better driver when I'm in a go-cart and have banana peels to through at people.
5. Never pass up a chance to get extra lives, coins, fruit, weapons, or gold rings... in fact, hoard everything, because the second you pass up that banana peel, you'll have Yoshi tailgating you and no way to get rid of him.
6. If you live in a magical world, listen to fairy... otherwise she won't shut up. If you live in the real world and see/hear a magical fairy... seek help.
7. Throw bombs in the bushes. That's where the cool pokemon live.
8. Watch out for your allies, they may seem incredibly annoying with their constant "Help me, Fox" but they're nice to have at the boss battle.
9. There is always a boss battle.
10. If you get to a really hard enemy, but you have everything you need to defeat him, that's not the boss. He's the boss's kid brother and now that you have no ammo left, the real boss is coming.
11. Big boobs only bounce when standing still.
12. If the story has you losing this battle, it doesn't matter what level you are, you will loose... it's just destiny (or how the game was written).
13. Always level early on. You can never be too prepared.
14. If you can pick it up, do so. You never know when you'll run into someone who will pay big bucks for that scrap metal you've been hoarding.
15. The die rolls are random, no matter how much it seems like the AI is cheating.
16. You can never have enough wheat... or ore.
17. The enemy is always at the top of the tower, or the back of the dungeon.
18. Animal friends aren't just cute, they can be helpful too.
19. I am very directionally challenged, but great at reading maps!
20. Everyone loves the music when you win a battle, or achieve some great feat in the game.
21. Great stories last forever.
22. A game doesn't have to be incredibly complicated or have the best graphics to bring a smile to your face.
23. Motion controls make you look stupid. So play with a friend, because when you both look stupid, it's fun.
24. The point of a game is to entertain you. It doesn't matter how many times you died, how long it took you to finish an area, or how many trophies you won. If you enjoyed your time, it was all worth it.

Well, that's that. Happy Birthday to me and Happy New Year to all of you out there!

Blombs

Shout out to Javier L, one of the creators of Blombs! One of my readers makes games- how cool! I tried to play said game, but my touch is super old and won't play it. :( But, as a reader, Javier's game gets a thumbs up on principle!

Magic the Gathering

This summer my Gamer taught my to play Magic the Gathering (MTG).  MTG is a card game where you attack one another through various spells and summoning creatures.

MTG has that stigma of being played by man-children who live in the momma's basements, and well, that is a little bit true. To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled to learn to play, but Philip had taken it up again and was spending quite a bit of time on the game. So... as a good gamer-wife I thought I should at least learn the basics of the game so I could tell what was going on.

Now here's what happened, I got awfully frustrated learning to play the game, but now that I have the hang of it, I actually like it! It takes a bit of time to get used to, and I'm not very good, but I have a lot of fun with the game.

What's this boil down to for you? Well, if your guy plays, you might want to pick it up. You can't beat how much fun you'll have the first time you beat him and it's actually a really fun strategy game!

You can find some cards to get started here.