The VGZ blog

Welcome to the first post to introduce to you the VGZ Challenge. I am hoping this will be a fun experience for all and will enlighten us all about gaming, not only over the years of gaming, but maybe about our gaming tendencies and thoughts. All of the games that the staff and myself are picking for these challenges have had a bit of thought in them, and reasoning that goes beyond them being just another game that gets lost along the discussions of games. Maybe through the mix of these games you will find an experience that makes you get nostalgic about a particular event in your past, or maybe it will form an experience that you will remember for awhile, Or, maybe none of these and you’ll just be happy to be pushed in the direction of playing some games.

First of all, for the rules of the challenge.

CHALLENGE RULES:

1. To participate, you must complete a game listed in this blog post. Each month, we will announce a grouping of 3-5 games of which are valid for the challenge. By completion, we mean beating the story mode or single player campaign of the games of the challenge. If there is anything special that needs to happen with a particular game, we will make sure to make a point of it in the synopsis of what you need to do.To prove that you completed the game, you must take a picture with a camera, of any sort even a camera phone picture will do. In this picture there also must be a handwritten thing of sorts looking like this. It should at the very least include your forum name, “VGZ Challenge # Completed” The name of the game(or an abbreviation if its obvious what it would be)and the date.

2. No cheat codes allowed. Obviously, we have to do this on the honor system, But trust me, we will know if you cheated. Also, that goes for FAQs, We have a chat and a forum where you can ask questions, so avoid the strategy guides/walkthroughs/FAQs.

3. For any retro game you are allowed to emulate the game obviously. You can use whatever emulator on what ever platform you want to complete the challenge if you go that route. Extra points may be awarded if the original cartridge/CD/ and/or Console are used.

Since this is a contest of sorts, We just want to make a note that participating in this event(s) does not entitle you to anything. Any sort of prizes or giveaways are completely at the discretion of the VGZ Staff including myself.(I was told by a lawyer to put that there, just to cover our asses)

That being said, you must be now thinking to yourself, “Well Brennan, Why would I want to participate in such an activity?” Well, because you will gain levels! Each game will have a point value associated with it, when you complete a game you will earn these points, these EXP will go towards a leveling system where you can gain in “Levels”, at particular levels, you may be able to earn special things for your achievements! More details on that sort of stuff will be available shortly, probably once people start turning in some of the challenges.

Now then, now that we got all that fun detailed stuff, Let me announce the games for the First VGZ Challenge.

First off for the Multi-platform current generation game which is worth 10 EXP: Mirror’s Edge.
This unique First-Person experience with elements of free-running which a few of our staff said felt was unfairly pushed aside last year, so we want you all to prove us right or wrong that it was a pretty fun experience. It should be pretty cheap used and easily available for rental, and you can complete it on any of the platforms that its available on (360, ps3, PC).

Second, our console exclusive game for this challenge which is worth 5 EXP: Dead Rising(360).
This fun 3rd person action title most of our staff have played and have had a fun time, but if you have not tried it yet, we think you will enjoy it. We are well aware of the wii port of this game, but most of you would agree that it was not that great and could probably be forgotten. For this challenge, you need to make sure you get the real ending (with extra mode).

Finally, our retro game for this challenge which is worth 5 EXP: Ducktales (NES).
This should be an easy platformer for any gamer to beat, and a good warm up to platformers, I have a feeling with our retro choices may turn up some of the harder platformers that the 8 and 16 bit eras have to offer. Since we have no way of checking, you can play whatever difficulty you want (since we realistically cannot actually check your difficulty on this game). Id suggest at least normal, its not the most difficult game we could have picked.

We figured that we would start off with some easier games to get into and work our way into to some harder challenges. So…What are you waiting for?!? GO PLAY SOME GAMES!

Game on,
Brennan