My (most unexpected) Liebster Award

We’ll have something a little bit different this week, dear fellow gamers. A couple of days ago, I discovered that I had been nominated for the Liebster Award—to my utter surprise, shall I say. The blogger who honoured me with a nomination is YvoCaro at LadiesGamers, a delightful lady in her fifties who makes a point of keeping gaming and is an inspiration for me as far as my gaming future is concerned, and I thank her profusely. This was all the more unexpected as the social side of my blogging is quite poor: apart from occasionally commenting on my favourite gaming blogs, I behave like a grumpy old bear, content to post articles when they are written and leave it at that. But since I’ve been nominated, I will rise up to the challenge with gusto!

For those of you who know as little about the Liebster Award as myself before I was nominated, it is a tag whose primary purpose is to promote interesting blogs as well as give bloggers the opportunity to reveal funny anecdotes that they probably wouldn’t have mentioned otherwise. It involves answering a set of 11 questions issued by the blogger whom nominated you, then revealing 11 fun facts about yourself, and last but not least issuing your own list of nominees along with your own questions for them. Without further ado, let’s go Liebster and start with IvoCaro’s Eleven!

1. Can you tell something typical about the country you live in?

I live in Europe, these perilous and remote shores that Japanese RPGs hardly ever reached back in the days. I have cried tears of blood over this, but things are fortunately getting better nowadays. A little bit. 

2. Why did you take up blogging?

I’m quite keen on analyzing and dissecting games, preferably concentrating on details that you don’t find in professional reviews, and blogging seemed to be the perfect terrain to do so. I’m my own editor, which is incredibly fulfilling! The many excellent gaming blogs I read also gave me a lot of élan and helped me take the plunge, although I was literally terrified when I posted for the first time. Reserved gamer is reserved!

3. Do you set yourself a goal of number of blogs per week or month?

The rhythm of one post per week came rather naturally after a couple of months. More than that feels too rushed, and less feels not compelling enough. One per week is perfect!

4. Where do you get your inspiration to write?

As a rule, I need to finish a game before being able to start writing about it in earnest—the only exceptions being long-running games such as roguelikes and simulations. Then, I mull over the whole experience until I nail down what I call “the Angle”, i.e. my own structured analysis of the game. “The Angle” is often fairly subjective, as I tend to pore over some points and gloss over others; it reflects the mental prism through which I view games and the elements that matter to me as a gamer. So it’s really the meeting between games and my gaming subjectivity that sparks posts into life! :D

5. Do you own more than one gaming device, and which ones?

Definitely! I’m a bit of a collector, so I own several copies of some of my devices. As for what these devices are, here’s the list:

—Gameboy Advance: I own four of them, including a precious backlit model.

—Nintendo DS Lite/Nintendo DSi: I own one DS lite and five DSi, including an XL model.

—Nintendo 3ds/Nintendo 2ds: I’m very proud of my “Fire Emblem” Nintendo 3ds XL, and I own a 2ds which is incredibly comfortable to play. I also own a North-American 3ds, and I’m not excluding to buy a couple of extra models in the years to come.

—PSP: I own five models in various colours.

—Vita: For now, I only own one. I wouldn’t be against purchasing a Japanese Vita with gorgeous colours, though…

6. What are your favorite kinds of games?

I have an undying love for the Holy Realm of RPG, as you may have guessed already. :D I’m also a huge puzzle game aficionado, and I tend to adore games that mix RPG elements with puzzle elements, such as the Zelda and Golden Sun series or Avalon Code. Dungeon puzzles could be my daily bread!

7. What are your three favorite movies?

That’s a bit of a hard one, because I very seldom watch movies… But I would say Groundhog Day, the Shrek saga and Inception: the first two for their obvious comedic appeal, and the last for its mind-blowing narrative and gorgeous aesthetics.

8. What is your go-to music when you feel sad?

There is one track that always puts me in a perky and bouncy mood: Get Lucky by Daft Punk!

9. Does your work or study match your blogging topics?

Not at all, and that's probably for the best. Although I love gaming dearly, that would be a bit too much of a good thing. 

10. If you have a partner, is he or she into gaming?

I have a partner… Who’s not one bit into gaming, but very tolerant and occasionally curious about the whole thing, which is great.

11. What kind of pet do you have?

I don’t have a pet right now, but I used to take care of an adorable old female cat a couple of years ago. As a whole, I just cannot resist cats.

Now let’s go for the fun facts! I’m not too keen on revealing private details, so I’ll keep it gaming-centered. That’s what we’re all here for after all, right? :P

1. I read gaming magazines every morning while eating my breakfast, my magazines of choice being Retro Gamer, JV and Pix’n Love.

2. I held a fifteen-year-long grudge against Sony, starting when they took the gaming industry by storm by releasing the Playstation. I deemed them responsible for having destroyed gaming as I loved it, all flamboyant pixels and vivid colours, and replaced it with ugly polygons and shitty shades of brown. The gap was only bridged a couple of years ago when I purchased a PSP.

3. All my gaming systems were destroyed in 2000 when the family’s apartment was flooded. After that, I retreated into emulation and didn’t purchase a gaming system for the next ten years.

4. Super Mario Land on the Gameboy was the first game I purchased with my patiently saved pocket money, back in 1990. However, I would beat it only ten years later on emulation. Hard game is hard!

5. Talking about Super Mario Land, I babbled about the game to such extent that my father still remembers the name of the first boss—the accursed King Totomesu—to this day, a good twenty-five years later. (But hey, I spent days stuck on that boss! I had to vent out my frustration somehow.)

6. Since portable systems are not popular in my country, I rely heavily on importation to keep me supplied with games and consoles. I'd say that a good 95% of my games and systems are imported, if not more.

7. I like playing games while listening to TV shows, all the more so if the in-game music is mediocre.

8. I’ve always been a portable gamer at heart: first by obligation, since my parents didn’t want me to occupy the only TV of the house with my gaming—this was Europe after all, a part of the world where most people have only one TV set, all the more so in the ’80s and ’90s—then by choice, when I was finally allowed to purchase a Sega Megadrive and realized that I preferred the coziness and intimacy of portable gaming after all. That Megadrive remained the only home console I ever owned.

9. Since the end of the 16-bit era, I’ve never been tempted by any home console game… That is, until very lately, when I found myself yearning to play Bloodborne after peeking at a playthrough. I certainly won’t buy a PS4 just to play that lone game, though—especially since I don’t own a TV in the first place.

10. I first though of buying a DS in 2008, but didn’t do it because I was afraid of not finding enough games to my liking. Knowing that my DS collection now counts hundreds of games, it’s highly ironic in retrospect. For the record, I finally got my first DS in 2011 and it was a gift from my sister. 

11. One of my favourite gaming systems ever is the Game Gear. Although it was enormous, ate batteries like candies and had a small library of games that were ridiculously easy for the most part, and although I certainly wouldn’t replay most of these games nowadays, the Game Gear left an unequivocally positive impression on me. Game Gear games had a special and unique atmosphere, visually as well as aurally, and I adored every single Game Gear game I purchased and played, which cannot be said about any of my other gaming systems. (Except for the Vita, which is doing fine until now; could it become my new Game Gear? Well, I’d certainly like that, thank you very much.)

Now is the time to introduce my nominees! I decided to give the Liebster to bloggers who didn’t get it lately, which led me to exclude a couple of my favourite blogs. No offense meant, really; it’s all for the sake of avoiding repetition. Without further ado, here are the happy winners!

My RPG Blog

The Sun Rising Blog

Stay at Home Dad Gamer

And here are my Eleven for them, dripping with gaming curiosity:

1. Can you tell something typical about the country you live in?

2. Why did you take up blogging?

3. Do you set yourself a goal of number of blogs per week or month?

4. Do you have a favourite gaming system, and if yes, which one and why?

5. What do you think of the current console generation?

6. What are your five favourite gaming genres?

7. What was your first gaming system?

8. Do you see yourself gaming until a ripe old age, or is it something you may give up after a couple of years?

9. Does your work or study match your blogging topics?

10. Which were/are your favourite gaming eras and why?

11. Last but not least, which gaming system(s) do you currently own?

Voilà! That’s all for the show. I’m quite curious to read the answers to these questions, if these honorable bloggers are kind enough to answer them. :D This was an interesting and entertaining experience, and I thank IvoCaro again for giving me the opportunity to stray from by usual writing path! That was quite refreshing for me, and I hope you enjoyed this little incursion into my private gaming life. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!