Sci-Fi: I See You Hiding There, Little Genre

  

Sci Fi YA

When I was in college, my girl friends and I would meet everyday for lunch. Like the Sex and the City girls, we’d pick a place and discuss whatever we wanted that day. Unlike them however, our conversations mainly revolved around literature and television rather than sex. As single lady nerds studying literature (library sciences for me though) in college, conversations about literature and pop culture came normally to us. During one of these lunches, a close friend of mine said something that has stuck with me. She said that she loved Sci-Fi and Westerns because they were, in her opinion, the only two genres that went well with everything. I agreed completely.

   Sci-Fi may not be the most popular genre in the market right now. Often, it gets misclassified or lumped in with regular fiction because of secondary elements. But it is still very present in all media. If you can dream up a genre and a medium, odds are you can find something that has somehow melded with it.

Gaming Wednesdays 3: The (de?)evolution of Final Fantasy - Part I

The original Final Fantasy was released  on December 17th 1987, almost a year after the first Dragon Warrior. Following the Dragon Warrior formula of swords and sorcery fantasy but improving on the exploration and battle mechanics, Final Fantasy quickly became a prominent name in the RPG genre. Featuring a turn-based battle mechanic and a large and somewhat open world, the game tickled the imagination of those fortunate enough to play it.

Since this first title, the franchise has undergone many revisions. Many fans of the series, as does my friend, have commented on how the series began an exponential rise in quality which peaked somewhere between Final Fantasy VI or Final Fantasy VII, and since then the series has been in a steady decline. I'm here to argue that this is not the case, that the history of Final Fantasy and the quality of its (main, numbered) games is filled with ups and downs, and that, if graphed, it would look more like a cordillera than a lone peak. 

Gaming Wednesdays 2: How to Get Into Gaming (if you're new to gaming) Part 1

I promised last week that I would talk a bit about people who are new to gaming. They are, after all, the only logical potential consumers of the Steamboxes which were the subject of last week's post.  And so, if you, dear reader, are not a gamer but think that videogames seem fun and are thinking about getting into gaming, this post is for you. And for everyone else, feel free to flame in the comments section.

So you want to get into gaming. A lot of other places will recommend whatever their personal preference of latest console is. Instead, I will give you the lowest cost gateway.