New Year, New Blog

SarahVember

Most people these days like to ring in the new year with all kinds of goals, changes, and new hobbies to work on for the next year. Usually, I don’t like to set myself up for the kind of thinking that the new year is the only time to make changes, but this year I decided to try something new.

It didn’t come from nowhere; in all honesty, I was thinking about this when I opened up Christmas gifts and received some new games that I am DYING to start. The new games opened a conversation about gaming, and how quickly I tend to fall in love, or completely drop, new games when I start them.

One hour. That’s really all it takes.

So, I liked the idea of writing my own game reviews with a little twist – I would base my initial reviews entirely off of my first hour of gameplay. Of course, I would love to comment on my final thoughts about a game later on, and maybe write up some of my personal rankings of games once in a while. But the gist is that I wanted to do something that I don’t think it typical with gaming reviews – and that’s to provide a much more personal account of my experience with the games I play.

About Me

I have a strange relationship with the feeling of being perceived on the internet; it’s not typical that I’ll just give out information about who I am to random people. But, I don’t think anyone wants to hear some random person’s opinion if they don’t even know a little bit about them.

Here goes.

I’m SarahVember, I work full-time and spend a lot of my free time dabbling in a lot of different hobbies. I like reading, playing video games and board games, and touching some grass when I can. If anyone saw my desk at home it would be extremely evident that my lifelong obsession has been in Pokemon (though a few conversations with me would probably give it away, as well).

I once dabbled in the hobby of streaming, though I quickly found that to be tiring and just not as enjoyable as I hoped it would be. I just couldn’t fully enjoy the games when I felt the pressure of an interactive audience and constant eyes on me real-time. Not to mention the time-commitment that I just couldn’t put into streaming when I was busy starting a career in my field and going to graduate school.

Some of my favorite games to date are Ori and the Blind Forest (just got the sequel for Christmas!!!), Journey, Ib, and Pokemon Emerald.

Games and Consoles

I play a lot of different genres of games, but my main go-to’s are adventure, platformer, RPG, or puzzle games. There really is no specific kind of game that I enjoy more than others; my mood will usually dictate what I want to pick up for the day. I definitely don’t want to play a rage-inducing souls-like when I’m sick and having a terrible day otherwise, but I also don’t want to play a cozy, under-stimulating farming sim when my mind is trying to race at a mile a minute. That being said, I do have a preference for consoles when picking my games. Here’s a quick overview of what I currently have to work with:

• Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP
• Nintendo 3DS
• Nintendo Wii & WiiU
• Nintendo Switch
• Playstation 3 (old)
• Playstation 5
• Windows PC

Final thoughts

That’s me! I hope these reviews are enjoyable to read as I venture through games, some new and some old, throughout the year. I’m already accumulating a list of games to get started with, and it’s got me pretty excited!

What are some games you’re most excited to finally get to play this year? What are some games coming out that you can’t wait to try?