The Duck’s Gaming Hoard Part 2

Hey there, everybodies, we’re back for part 2 of my video game collection tour!  In the previous episode, I showed off my PlayStation-related figurines from Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Ratchet & Clank.  If you haven’t checked it out, please do.  This video, on the other hand, covers all the random things I couldn’t fit into the last video, which mainly includes Nintendo and PC items.  Behold the Duck’s plushie collection, including my harmless plush versions of the Five Nights at Freddy’s characters.  Watch in awe as you witness one of the largest figurines known to mankind (probably not, but it sounds cooler that way), Scervo from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.  And let’s not forget some iconic items from the Zelda series, like Link’s Master Sword and Hylian Shield!

The Duck’s Gaming Hoard Part 1

Thanks to my discovery of the wonderful thing that is a comic convention (a misleading name indeed when it covers gaming, movies, and TV in addition to comic books), I have been able to amass a semi-respectable collection of video game items, including figurines, plushies, and replica weapons and the like.  It also fueled my obsession to the point that I have felt compelled to purchase these things even when I’m not visiting the comicon.  I just can’t get enough gaming goodness!  Wherever these wondrous items came from, the point is, my collection is pretty sweet.  I guess.

Breath of the Wild: A Review

It is probably safe to say that The Legend of Zelda series is one of the most beloved in video game history.  With a history of 30 years and counting, it is only natural, then, that such a series would need to change, either to keep up with improving technology or to prevent itself from becoming stale.  For these reasons, the series has indeed undergone many changes in its long history, with varying levels of success.

Ocarina of Time was revolutionary for the series just as Super Mario 64 was for the Super Mario Bros. franchise, for the Nintendo 64 characterized the grand change from the 2D games of the Super Nintendo era to brilliant, albeit rather polygonal, 3D.  With the GameCube, we started seeing larger worlds with Wind Waker’s Great Sea and Twilight Princess’s expanded version of Hyrule.  Twilight Princess also remains, to my knowledge, the only T-rated game in the franchise (probably because of Thelma’s…upper body), as this was apparently the series’ attempt to become darker and more adult.  Skyward Sword for the Wii tried to mix things up further by placing some of the game’s challenges outside the dungeons and incorporating advanced motion controls.

A Triumphant Return to Final Fantasy XII

For the past several years, I have intended to return to Final Fantasy XII for my second playthrough.  But, as is often the case, what I intend to do and what actually happens are two very different things.  I repeatedly had other games to play, keeping the twelfth numbered installment in the Final Fantasy series on the shelf.  Plus, I have to admit that I always had a bit of a grudge against the game.  I remembered being pretty apathetic towards the characters, I wasn’t very fond of a politics-related storyline, and…  Now this last one is kind of silly, but…I thought the game was too big.

Too big, eh?  I like large open worlds to explore far more than I like cramped or linear stages with little freedom to move around.  I love searching through every nook and cranny and discovering new things, a task that is, naturally, far more rewarding in a large world than a small one.  And yet, I recall several times in the past saying I didn’t like FF12 because it was too big.  What’s the deal?

Gee, I sure hate that this game gives me more than my money’s worth.

Virtual Bastion is Coming

It was four years ago that I teamed up with Hatm0nster and Cary (from Recollections of Play) to create the collaborative gaming community known as United We Game.  It was here that viewpoints could be exchanged and opinions respected, as in the end, we are all a community, a community of unique individuals united by a singular passion.  Over the years, we have grown and have even expanded into Youtube to share our love of gaming in another medium with an even larger audience.

It’s time we took the next step.

Foxy Cosplay: The Head Part 3

Based on the number of posts covering this topic, Foxy’s head has obviously been the most involved part of the costume, and I suppose it makes sense.  A face is far more important than a leg or a foot, after all, and so I simply must make it perfect.  This is also the process I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning, adding the fur and other various details to the head.  Now he’s really going to start looking like more than just a foam blob.

FFV and the Joy of Feeling Competent

I have mentioned it from time to time, but over the last few years, I’ve been trying to catch up on a whole bunch of retro games I had missed.  And at this point, I’m largely done.  Sure, there are definitely more retro games out there that I should play one day, but as for the games I really wanted to check off my list, this goal has been met.  Final Fantasy 4-9, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, EarthBound, Super Metroid, Super Mario RPG, all present and accounted for.  The last one on my list to play was Final Fantasy V, which, like Final Fantasy IV, is probably pretty obscure for anyone who hasn’t been playing Final Fantasy since the beginning.  (Thank you, Kingdom Hearts.  You introduced even non-Final Fantasy fans to characters like Cloud and Squall, but not once do you mention FF6 and prior.  With the exception of Setzer, of all people.  Setzer.)

Final Fantasy 4 and 5 were the only games not explicitly on my list, but they came with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6, respectively, and who am I to pass up on an essentially free pair of games?  While FF4 was merely to pass the time and to say with confidence that, yes, I’ve played Final Fantasy 4, I must say that I enjoyed Final Fantasy 5 far more than I expected to.  Let me summarize the game a bit for anyone who might not be familiar with it.

Uncharted, We Meet Again

Sometimes, it feels as if certain games come to exist in my house thanks to pure fate.  Most of my games I seek out myself, but Uncharted is one series I never once put my mind to acquiring, and yet, here I stand the owner of not one, but two, entries from the series.  The main reason why Uncharted never really appealed to me was because I’ve never been a fan of games that are too…realistic, I guess?  There’s just something about games that feature realistic-looking humans or even just good, ol’ planet Earth that don’t appeal to me.  (I mean, the Sly Cooper series seems to take place on Earth, but it’s populated by anthropomorphic animals, which is okay in my book.)

When I bought my PS3, it was accompanied by Uncharted 3.  I decided to play the game, since I had it in my possession, after all, and while it was pretty cool, I quickly forgot about it shortly after completion.  For a short while, I considered checking out the first two games, and then that just never happened.  And yet, that was certainly not the last I would see of the series, even if I didn’t know it at the time.  It was with the recent purchase of my PS4 that another Uncharted game snuck its way into my gaming shelf once more, the fourth (and final?) entry in the series.

Fancy seeing you here, Nathan Drake.  Long time no see.

Bonus Time: Youtube Commenced!

In recent weeks, I have been meaning to make a comeback on my personal Duck of Indeed Youtube channel.  And how exactly does a Duck go about planning such an endeavor, you might be asking?  With spreadsheets.  Yes, the work behind creating videos for Youtube, at least for me, involves color-coded charts and to-do lists and schedules.  I never realized before how much of a data-obsessed duck I am until I looked back on all my work and reminisced over how much fun it all was.  That’s right, charts are fun.  For most, I would suspect these kinds of things would be a tedious chore, but for me, data is a hobby.

While I have plans for more complex videos in the future, that will all have to wait until I have the skills and the technology to do it.  (I found a $350 camera for $100 on Amazon if you buy the pink version.  So tempting.)  In the meantime, I already have roughly a year’s worth of simpler videos planned out, with dates and everything.  I have been busy!  These videos will include readings of my fan fiction, starting with my first collection of short stories.  (I break my stories into groups of 100,000 words; collection 1 was finished a few years ago, and collection 2 is still in the works.)

Foxy Cosplay: The Head Part 2

Well, the Duck has been hard at work constructing the noggin of the frightening, yet also strangely adorable, Foxy the pirate from Five Nights at Freddy’s.  Last time I talked about this cosplay, I had described how to make the main frame of Foxy’s head out of plastic canvas.  The next step was covering it with upholstery foam.  I’ll try not to bore you guys with the details, but this was certainly one time-consuming process.  A lot of people glue the foam on, but I hate working with glue, and some glue causes the foam to get hard and puff up, so I just sewed it onto the canvas using lesser-needed colors of thread.  I was able to use leftover scraps of foam to cover Foxy’s head, which was pretty nice, as it prevented these pieces from being wasted, and I even managed to avoid opening my final roll of foam.  (I bought an extra roll because I thought I’d need it…but I didn’t.  Now I can save it for some future projects I have in mind….)