Magical Items and Skeletons who drop the golds

Diablo III is out, folks. Well, officially for what, a week already now?

I have to say, I love this game. It combines like, four of my favorite things: Money grubbing, loot grabbing, monster thrashing,and co-op. Srlsy, I'm AWESOME at dungeon crawlers. I still remember playing the first one...all locked away in my dark bedroom with only the soft, evil glow of the computer screen to light up my mesmerized face.

Of course, I don't know how fun I am to play with. My boyfriend thinks I'm adorable, but I imagine my game tomfoolery probably just annoys the hell out of everyone else. BF seems to like my annoyingness (this is a word because I said it is). Most people run around killing things and silently gather their gold and loot, saving mention for when we go back to town to sell or trade. "Who needs a magical staff of plus 10 mutation?" Or something of the like. Me? Oh, no. I'm super excitable. Everytime a monster drops gold I squeal with glee, "MONIES!" And I mean, every time. Items? Almost as bad. If they are magical items, I definitely make people wait while I clear my inventory so I can pick them up. Cause, there is another thing, I COLLECT EVERYTHING TO SELL. Because, even 2 gp is worth my effort. mwahahahaha

I am really good at collecting shit and killing monsters, just sayin.

This saturday is beer and diablo day. We tried for last saturday, but we stayed up too late (5am) the night before playing rockband. I felt less than human on saturday. I think we got in maybe 4 hours of play total. One of my friends commented, "isn't it just the worst when your video game playing time gets in the way of your video game playing time?" I think he broke my brain.

MONIES!

Dead Island - best game to play with my boyfriend EVAR

So, I have this inexplicable obsession with zombies. Pretty much the entirety of my adult life I have loved zombie movies. If you count adult life from like, 19 or 20. I think it started with my never ending quest for a truly horrifying horror movie - thing is, no horror movies are actually THAT scary, so I will always be able to continue said quest (although some of the Japanese ones are pretty good). At some point I stumbled upon some of Romero's stuff and it was ON. Actually, I think I can trace the exact time. I was 20 years old and Romero's remake of his own Dawn of the Dead was out. At that point I had already gotten into the resident evils, but it was really Romero.

Anywho, that isn't the point. The point is, by awesomesauce boyfriend is well aware of my zombie addiction. Even before we were really seriously dating. Shortly after we became roomies, he got me a dismember me zombie as a stocking stuffer for Christmas.

Anyway, off topic. So, my dude found this game called "Dead Island" on steam. We finally started playing. It is just...awesome. You can totally exterminate zombie scourge by kicking them. <3 It is coop and RPGish in that you have skill trees you can build. Also, you have to use your resources wisely. I'm serious. You have to repair weapons. You also scavenge. The setting is a tropical island resort. It is open world.

You basically choose one of four characters. They each have a back story. My guy and I are playing both the female characters. BA chicks, lemme tellya. Anyway, you go around the island trying to help save a group of survivors. You have side quests, for example, finding missing people and directing them back to their loved ones who survived, or, bringing medical supplies to help the wounded, or, finding insulin for the diabetic. I'm such a hero, yo.

It is just... play it.

True Conversations While Playing Video Games

True conversations while playing Video games with the bf

The man downloaded a mini game version of war hammer for the ps3. It is basically a fun little dungeon crawler that we can play cooperatively. I get to run around and kill things while collecting points and prizes. Of course he knew I would like it. I love running around exploding foes, I don't know why. Anyway, the following two conversations really happened while playing. The first one happened when I had powered my character up enough for a special move and the second after we needed health and realized we could share it if we were in close enough range.

Power Up Conversation:

Me: (My character is on special move and zooming around exploding foes erratically) Woooooohoooooooooo. ahahahahahahaha. weeeeeeeeeeee! I'm like gir in mech armor! Wooooooooo.

Boyfriend: Lol, yes.


Health:

Me: I need health!
Boyfriend: There's one over there. Crap! (he accidentally grabbed it first)
Me: Damn!
Boyfriend: Wait! It's healing us both! I think if we stand next to each other it will heal us both. Cuddle Marines!
Me: Cuddle marines!

a few minutes later - after deciding we were definitely referring the proximity of shared special effects as Cuddling. :)

Me: I got a healy!
Boyfriend: Cuddle! I need health, too!
Me: Get over here, cuddle!
Boyfriend: We could write our own chapter of space marines called cuddle marines.
Me: Yea! wait, don't you think we would get kicked out of the space marines if they caught us cuddling? I am pretty sure that isn't allowed. I am pretty sure two brothers of the space marines would get in a lot of trouble cuddling.
Boyfriend: Lol, yea.

Girl gamers: Why aren't there more of us?

Video Games

Eventually, I would like to make this an actual paper, but for now, I am blogging it.

I am girl gamer. Okay, it's out. My big questions are - Why aren't there more of us? and Also, what is it that makes us want to or not want to play video games? i feel like, if I can answer that, I can answer the whole "why won't my girlfriend play video games?" question I am sure guys, well, at least hardcore gamer guys, sometimes wonder. I really come to these questions because I went through a weird phase where I completely stopped playing games. I am slowly getting back into it, but I dramatically swapped from games all the time to nothing. What happened? Why did I stop, why am I getting back into it now. I think in my case, it has to do with the relationships I was in and am in now. This could be a part of an answer to my question. So, I will start with this, my own personal experience, and then perhaps branch out to other possible reasons.

The thing is, I played video games since I was very young. I loved the Nintendo, and later the SNES, then the PS, PS2, and eventually my PS3. I loved playing computer games and console games. I loved the text based computer games for awhile, until we got a better computer and I could play doom, diablo, the 7th guest. OMG games. My older brother and I would network our computers together and game all the time. We would play in our separate bedrooms, using the game to chat. Total nerds. My girlfriend and i would stay up all night trying to beat one game or another. I remember when I brought the lion king to her house, she sat my ass down and I couldn't leave until the game was completed. When I got older, I would rush home from work - usually around 11pm because I worked at restaurant - head up to my room and play games until I passed out. When I met my now-ex-DB boyfriend, I told him I liked video games. It was one of the reasons he ended up pursuing me and asking me out. I played a few with him and then I just stopped.

WTF? I LOVED games, and all of a sudden, I avoided playing them. I would make up all kinds of excuses to get out of playing a game with him, yet when he got me the newest Spyro for Christmas, I totally put in the two 10 hour gaming sessions to beat it.

I think I now know why I stopped playing games with him, but it is really weird. I hated playing games with him because he was so controlling about it. I never did anything the right way. Instead of helping me in a new game by explaining something, he would just tell me what to do. n other circumstances, he would straight take the controller from me. Even games I liked and I was good at, he would act like I was a complete idiot. Only when it was just the two of us, though, which was weird. We would often have another couple or two over to play Diablo or Warhammer. I would reluctantly join, but then he would be really nice. Patronizing almost. I had been broken down to the point where I would ask him "Did I do okay? I held the beach really well, didn't I?" I needed his approval. It got so bad that I stopped even asking for help if I even tried to play a game. I would hand him the controller or ask him to tell me how to make a character. It made me not want to play.
Those two 10 hour gaming sessions I put in for my love of Spyro...I got through it, even when I would get stuck in place and he would try to take the controller, or say I must have done something wrong. I was like "Back teh fuck off, bitch. Spyro is MY game." Yea yea its a girl game, but whatever.

This is especially weird because when we started dating, it wasn't like that at all. He respected my mad skillz. He would say things like, "I love that you are a gamer," and "I can totally tell you think like a gamer by how you approach new rooms in prince of persia." What happened? I still don't know. I might have a few theories. Maybe he subconsciously didn't like that I was encroaching on his world. Maybe he expected me to play a certain way and when I didn't it really bothered him. He always said he had different expectations of me because I was his girlfriend. Maybe he was just a really controlling person. Maybe it was all of those things.

Four years of that shit. The relationship eventually dissolved.

Now, I still am a little gun shy. Game shy? But I have this awesome guy who is being really gentle with me about it. He is nurturing my game habit. He finds games he thinks I might like and suggests them. When he watches me play, he just watches and talks to me and encourages my silly outburst (I talk to video games, especially in boss fights, I talk some serious mad shit). When we play games together, he never yells at me, or take the controller unless I ask him to. He will play anything with me he thinks I will like, and doesn't force me to play shit I don't like. Although, as I get more comfortable playing games, I will obviously play more of his games with him.

I still shy away from it though. Sometimes I like the idea of it, but I never can get myself to do it. I have two games that I only started but never finished. I liked playing them - they are both very different games.

So, I come away from this little exercise of comparing experiences with several things.

First, I might start judging my relationships based on how the guy interacts with me while gaming.

Second, this was only one example of why I stopped playing games and could be a reason for many girls to stay clear of gaming. Is it that gaming is generally considered a boy activity and so they treat their girls like crap? That doesn't really make sense though, because most guys are turned on at the prospect of a girl gamer.

Third, is it interaction of the people? Maybe some couples just can't play games together. Or certain games. Maybe fewer girls play games because their significant other is controlling about it.

Fourth, what keeps the rest of them from the games? Is it that they don't really know that there are a ton of different types of games out there? Does it have to do with the way we think and process information? Are we just too damned busy doing everything else that we do? Did not enough girls have a big brother to introduce them? Is it that games are totally considered a boy thing, and if so, why is gender even an issue? Do games need to be marketed more to girls? Is there a way, if a guy truly wants their girl to game, for the gaming boyfriends of the world to get their girl into it?

On that last one, I wanna bet there are. I mean, my boyfriend's tactics worked well to get me back into playing games: Patience, finding things I actually liked, making a point to play the game WITH me and not FOR me.

I don't know. I think there is something here. I want to start talking to people and figuring out if they a)play games with their significant other, b) play games at all, and c) why or why not.

There are some interesting journal articles out there about women in the gaming world. I think I should probably start there. I have too many questions and when you work in my own experiences, it becomes a big mess, as demonstrated by this blurb.