Wow, we’re already one month through the year! January seems to have flown by, but likely because of some work busy-ness and home improvements which have caused an excessively large upheaval; thankfully that’s all behind me now (or at least it will be by the time you read this).

As the title may have spoilt, I’ve been honoured recently with nominations for two different community awards. It really is a pleasure to have been nominated for these by two excellent bloggers and as this editorial is all about giving me a chance to be a little more conversational in my blogging I’ll take this opportunity to respond to both of them here.

First up Richenbaum Fotchenstein from over at Virtuanaut nominated me for the ‘Mystery Blogger Award (created by okotoenigmasblog). Richenbaum and I share something of an interest in 90’s survival horror games and he also writes over at A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME. Most of all however, Richenbaum is always ready to jump in to the comments with a friendly word, gaming recommendation, or well-articulated viewpoint – so thank-you for nominating me! Here are the rules of the award:

THE RULES:

• Display the award logo on your blog.
• List the rules.
• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.
  
• Tell your readers three things about yourself.
• Answer five questions from the nominator.
• Nominate from 10 to 20 bloggers.
• Notify the bloggers by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Ask your nominees any five questions of your choice, including one weird or funny question.
• Share the link to your best post.

Hmmmm… three things about myself… ok, try these on for size:

My wife and I own ferrets: Ferrets are bundles of fun and excellent pets (although some people moan about the smell). We have two girls with polecat markings… in addition to our dog who loves running around the kitchen with them.

I once met Chet Vimol in a hostel in Thailand – Sure, I know what you’re thinking… who’s Chet Vimol?…. well, he starred as the ‘bad guy’ in the Mel Gibson film ‘Air America’. Weirdly, this chance encounter is one of my biggest claims to fame.

I’ve floated around in zero G – I was lucky enough to achieve a life ambition and fly onboard the ‘vomit-comet’ experiencing zero-G whilst trying to run an experiment (if floating about isn’t confusing enough, try working at the same time). This was aboard ESA’s 65th parabolic flight campaign operated by Novespace.

Ok, well weird facts out of the way let’s get on to Richenbaum’s questions:

1.What is your favorite sugary breakfast cereal and why?

I’m not much of a cereal eater, but if I had to pick one, I’d go with Jordan’s Country Crisp, strawberry flavour … with yogurt… I like picking out the freeze-dried strawberries!

2.Blue pill or red pill?

Always tricky to answer without it actually being the situation, but I think I’d go Red Pill and pull back the curtain. I know it’s cliche, but the idea of adventure and excitement makes it too much of a draw. Plus if I’d been made the offer then I think I’d always be wondering.

3. Who is your favorite superhero(ine) and why?

I’m not too much of a super-hero-type-of-person, but my recent enjoyment of the Guardians of the Galaxy Movies and Telltale game has made me appreciate Rocket Raccoon. He’s got that defective personality that makes him more ‘real’ than any of the traditional heroes, plus he’s an engineer and builds cool stuff!

4. What is your favorite video game specifically from your childhood and why?

Urgh, this is a difficult question and really depends on where you draw the ‘childhood’ line. Pre-teen years would likely be something on Sega MegaDrive which I think probably means a Sonic the Hedgehog game. I’m going to say the original because it is (regardless as to whether you love it or hate it) pretty iconic and in many ways defined that era of gaming for me.

5. Would you like to live forever and why or why not? 

I don’t know if I would ‘like’ it, but I think given a choice I’d say yes. It would be too tempting to be able to live through the changes in mankind through the centuries and see where we end up.

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My second award nomination this month was from the most excellent NekoJonez who writes thoughtful and insightful articles, often examining games that I know nothing about or are pretty different to my own particular gaming tastes – seeing things from new perspectives is one of the best parts of being an active member in the blogging community and Jonzey does an excellent job of providing that. Best of all however NekoJonez has been a kind and thoughtful blogging friend, always ready with an encouraging word or helpful comment.

• Display the award.
• Thank the individual(s) who have nominated you and include a link to their blog. A little promotion for their blog is also welcome.
• Answer the questions asked by the individual who has nominated you.
• Nominate an arbitrary number of bloggers and have them answer three questions you put forth to them.

Right, on to the questions! 

1.If you were able to erase all memories from one game to be able to fully experience it again, which game would it be and why?

I think I’m going to take a pretty liberal view with the question interpretation and assume that I get to essentially rewind time (ie. I havn’t experienced any games since this game either) and go for … unsurprisingly… Resident Evil 2. It’s a game that’s come up in my articles more than once and still ranks as one of my favourites or all time. The reasoning is how much it changed my perception of games; up until that point games had always been levels, score, lives, running jumping etc. with RE2 I actually stepped into the shoes of a character in a story, without the immersion breaking aspects of levels or a score, all I had to do was survive. For me this defined a moment in gaming and (as I wrote about some time ago) is why Resident Evil 4 never sat that well with me.

2.If you were allowed to help in the production of a game, which role would you take on and why? The role of producer, voice actor, writer, designer…?

Although Kim from Later Levels enthusiastically put me in the role of lead programmer based on my Arduboy exploits, I think my programming knowledge is far from up to the task. I’ve always imagined I would be a good artist… I’m NOT a good artist, but when has reality ever interfered with a good daydream?… I’d like to either give character pixelart a shot, or maybe even background art; creating those words that just exist quietly as the player runs by has always held a certain appeal.

3.What is one of the earliest video game memories?

The absolute earliest memory of gaming I can pin down is of playing a golf game on the ZX Spectrum with my Dad. From what I remember you had to input values for power etc and the interface was mainly just a top down map of the course and with the player’s position marked.

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Now comes the interesting part, nominations and questions!! … right, so although I was lucky enough to receive two awards, many of my favourite fellow bloggers have already been nominated so I’ll be nominating for the “Unique Blogger Award” and I’m trying not to nominate people who’ve recently been nominated. That being said, there are some excellent bloggers out there:

• Pix1001 from Shoot the Rookie
• Dan from Couch Petito
• Thero from A Reluctant Hero
• Khinjarsi from Upon Completion
• Brandon from That Green Dude

… please don’t feel obliged to respond if it’s not your thing – I just wanted to highlight you as excellent bloggers! … but if you would like to, then here are your questions:

1. Which game characters outfit do you wish that you could legitimately wear? (I’ve already said somewhere that I’d go with Link’s Barbarian ensemble)
2.  You wake up one day and ARGH! You’re Luigi! … even worse, it’s Mario’s Birthday! What do you buy him as a present?
3. Grashelumping is a word I just made up, what does it mean? (ok, I’ve done a similar question before, but I really like it!)

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January Wrap-Up:

Well, looking back at my January’s editorial I can’t say that I really tackled any of the games that I said I was going to… oh well, maybe next Month! Right back at the beginning of the month I got starstruck by a chance Twitter encounter, but the whole event left me thinking about my experience with one of my favourite games, the original Portal.

Around the same time I was playing something a little unexpected; Overgrowth. It’s a game that interested me enough some time ago for me to pick it up early access, but that’s where it stayed for a long time. With it now being finally ‘released’, I thought I would give it another go and, whilst it was interesting, I don’t think it lived up to the potential that was there sadly.

I also decided to reflect on my time with Super Mario Odyssey… although my reflections weren’t focused on the gameplay which (as I predicted some time ago) was basically as you would expect. Finally towards the end of the month I indulged in some self-punishment and blasted through a few hundred tea-sets worth of Cuphead before besting the Devil!

I’ve also been continuing my slow quest to find the definitive Jurassic Park Game. Past exploits have yet to provide anything better than my current top ranking entry: Lego Jurassic World. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been playing ‘Jurassic Park: Trespasser’, a bizarre PC title which I’ve yet to document. More exciting is that I’ve been streaming my experience with it and, despite being quite scary when I see people are watching, several excellent blogging friends have been keeping my company and laughing along at that mess of weird arm movements … and boobs… There is still the final stage to tackle and it may (or may not) have already happened by the time this is published, but feel free to add me on Twitch if you’re interested – I’m not sure if streaming will ever become a regular thing for me, but sharing unusual game experiences could be fun from time to time.

Looking ahead to February:

Obviously look out for that write-up for Jurassic Park Trespasser, I’ll try and capture in words the weirdness of the experience! Other than that I still have a backlog of a few things to tackle, but I’m not too hopeful about how far I’ll get. I have a week away in the middle of the month and February is light on days anyway, so I’m sure I’ll be back here in editorial form before I know it!

I am still looking for a new creative project – part of me is itching to go back to another Arduboy game. I have an idea that I’ve been mulling over for some time, but I’m also restless for something new. I’m still toying with the idea of fiction although I have no idea where to start so maybe.. just maybe something will come of that one day!