Hello to all you lovely people who will (hopefully) read my blogs! Today, I am going to cover the mentor blogs that I chose and why I chose them. So be prepared for an in-depth analysis of them. I will be covering Kotaku, Gameranx, TenTonHammer, and PCGamer, Whew! Let’s break them down, shall we?
Let’s start with Kotaku. Now, I use Kotaku for a variety of things. reviews, their “Before you Buy (game name here)” articles, as well as their Beginner Guides to (Insert game here). I actually really like their reviews and beginner guides. Their review for my new favorite game in the beloved Dragon Quest series, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age really helped prepare me for the game, and I definitely agree with some of the things they stated about the game. For example, their opening sentence in the review: “Dragon Quest XI is the best game in the 32-year-old series.” Bold words, coming from not only me, but the reviewer, Tim Rogers, and myself. Ask any Dragon Quest fan before XI came out in September of 2018, and they would have stated that Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was their favorite. Now, most would most likely state XI as their favorite.
Up next is Gameranx: Now, I don’t use them a whole lot, but I do use them for looking at updates for some of my video games, including upcoming DLC (downloadable content). I used them quite a bit when the Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC was revealed to keep up with the news. For example, at Sony’s State of Play last year, in 2019, Gameranx had an article with these words in the opening blurb: “Square Enix have released a brand new trailer for their highly anticipated DLC expansion for Kingdom Hearts 3 at Sony’s last State of Play event for 2019!” Gameranx is hosted by people who are very passionate about games, and this blurb shows it. I hope to show that same kind of passion in my own blog posts.
TenTonHammer is a blog covering news about MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, MMO for short). I use them quite a bit for one MMO I play, The Lord of the Rings Online, mainly guides to each class I play. Here is a nice overview of what class I play, the Guardian: “In a group, [The Guardian] is a protector of his fellows, putting the safety of others ahead of his own and keeping the enemy focused on his
actions rather than the actions of his comrades.” I would like to replicate their style of short, brief overviews.
Lastly, we have PC Gamer. I used them a lot for mod listings to one of my favorite video games, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, specifically, their top ten listings. In fact, I’ve even installed mods that I normally wouldn’t install just because PCGamer made them sound cool! For example, the mod “Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul” overhauls the game to make it more challenging and deadly. Here’s their brief summary of it: In regular Oblivion, the world levels up at the same rate you do, which means every battle presents roughly the same amount of challenge. Oscuro’s Overhaul changes all of this, setting different level caps for different areas, turning Cyrodiil into a dangerous and unpredictable wilderness. Oscuro’s Overhaul tweaks almost every other aspect of the game as well. Magic is easier to cast, advanced creature AI ensures animals react to you realistically, and boss characters have been scattered throughout the world to provide extra challenge and some desirable loot drops. A series of smaller mods are also incorporated, adding AI tweaks, balance alterations and hundreds of new weapons and items to the game.” I hope that by the end of my project I will have influenced you folks to try something new, like I have.
And there you have it! Those are four out of my six mentor blogs that I chose! I sincerely hope that those of you who read this learned something new. Next blog post will be what got me into gaming, so look forward to that!
Works cited:
Biazzo, Jordan. “Kingdom Hearts 3 Re Mind DLC Set to Release in January, 2020; Watch New Trailer Here.” Gameranx, 10 Dec. 2019, gameranx.com/updates/id/188327/article/square-enix-details-announces-kh3-re-mind-dlc/.
“LotRO – Guardian Class Guide Overview.” Tentonhammer.com, 15 Sept. 2010, www.tentonhammer.com/guides/lotro-guardian-class-guide-overview.
Rogers, Tim. “Dragon Quest XI: The Kotaku Review.” Kotaku, 4 Sept. 2018, 12:30 PM, kotaku.com/dragon-quest-xi-the-kotaku-review-1828646512.
Senior, Tom, et al. “Ten Essential Oblivion Mods.” Pcgamer, PC Gamer, 16 July 2010, http://www.pcgamer.com/ten-essential-oblivion-mods/.
My Gaming Journey-A Retrospective: By Tim G. 