My Top Fictional Video Game Destinations

Escapism is one of the best parts of a video game, and it is made even more satisfying when the world you are exploring in is beautiful. Video games often get a lot of criticism for their violence, but people also need to take a step back and realise just what a positive impact visiting beautiful fictional landscapes can have on people, too. 

While my list could go on forever, I have decided to compile a list of just some of my favourite fictional video game destinations that I wouldn't mind visiting. Take a look below!

Whiterun

There's a lot of places in Skyrim that would be amazing to visit, but Whiterun has some truly stunning views. Whiterun is a major city in Skyrim, a major commercial hub that has plenty of foot traffic. 

Animal Crossing 

The Animal Crossing series is always been one of my go-to's when I just want to relax, or cheer myself up. Everything in the world is pleasant, pretty, and oh-so-cute! If I was able to, I could imagine myself spending my future retirement in a place like that.

Isle Delfino

A holiday destination for Peach and Mario in Super Mario Sunshine, Isle Delfino is such a sunny, pleasant looking place that I wouldn't mind spending a holiday on, either! Featuring a theme park, a sandy beach, a peaceful bay, a bustling plaza, fishing port, volcano, and a small village, there's plenty to do here.

Koholint Island

Like a lot of places on this list, it is best to imagine that you are visiting them after the bad guys have been taken care of (or, before they have arrived to cause mischief). The fictional dream land of Koholint Island in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening would be a beautiful place to visit! Framed by a massive egg atop Mount Tamaranch, it is made up of a quaint villages, swamp and pond areas, a beautiful beach, and prairies, and caves. I cannot wait to see how this all looks in the Switch remake!

Hyrule

Serving as the setting for many Zelda games, Hyrule is a beautiful land filled with deep forests, tall mountains, deserts, vast lakes, cities, villages, and temples. The landscape changes considering on where about's you are playing in the Zelda timeline, but the beauty remains consistent! 

Albion

The land of Albion changes a fair bit throughout the Fable series, but one thing remains among each map - it is a pretty stunning place. From the cobbled streets of Bowerstone, to the gorgeous countryside of Oakfield, it would be wonderful to visit here.

Toussaint

Ah, Toussaint is definitely easy on the eye, and is perhaps the most picture-perfect place on this list, in my opinion. Included as a destination on The Witcher 3's 'Blood and Wine' DLC, Toussaint is famous for it's wines, so what better way to enjoy this beautiful landscape than to sit back and take it all in with a glass at hand? 

Columbia 

The first of two Bioshock destinations to feature on my list, Columbia is a stunning city in the sky that would be delightful to visit if the whole place didn't go to pot! The steampunk architecture, combined with the bright and breezy feel is rather pleasing. 

Rapture

Taking away the splicers, and transporting it back to its heyday would make Rapture a pretty wonderful place to visit. The combination of glaring neon lights, a city infrastructure, and the natural beauty of the deep sea would be jaw-dropping to witness. Imagine staring out of the wide windows of one of the buildings you are in to see a massive blue whale swim past, for example?

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is a cute, quaint looking place that would be perfect to visit if you are looking to de-stress, escape a hectic lifestyle, and take some downtime. 

What would your dream destinations be? Let me know on Twitter!

Throwback - Gaming with my Brother

Us gamers can be pretty nostalgic people. We all look back wistfully at old gaming memories we still hold dear to us. Look at the reaction on Twitter when the Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot remasters were confirmed - people who were playing this the first time around were delighting that a piece of their childhood was making a return. 

So, this got me thinking about my fond gaming memories growing up. A lot of my gaming took place sitting next to my brother, handing the controller back and fourth to one another when either of us died in-game. I've brought my brother Jack on board for this one, so join us as we reminisce about a selection of games we both played through together, and loved!

Couldn't seem to find an old video game pic of us,
so here's me and Jack playing Incy Wincy Spider with our Dad instead!

My Comic Con Survival Guide

San Diego Comic Con is just around the corner, and it got me thinking about comic cons in general, and what I usually do to prepare to going to one.

Comic Cons can be pretty fun. It's a great way to meet like-minded people, pick up some geek merch, and meet some celebs. Check out my Comic Con Survival Guide below!

My Mario Mug!

My friend Ross (who is also a fellow blogger on Geek Mash) bought me this great mug for my birthday last month. The plain mug is supplied with Mario stickers so that you can create your very own stage! 

Check out the pictures below of how I designed mine:

Happy Birthday, Shigeru Miyamoto!

Happy 62nd Birthday, Shigeru Miyamoto!

One of the most influential members of the gaming industry, Shigeru Miyamoto is responsible for some of the best-selling, critically acclaimed games of all time. Joining Nintendo in 1977, Miyamoto helped to create the companies' most popular franchises, such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin and Donkey Kong. He can be credited for lending his creative vision to the companies' popular systems, such as the Wii, SNES, N64 and more.

A true gaming legend, Shigeru Miyamoto now works for Nintendo as a 'Creative Fellow', a title given to him after Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's death. 

So, happy birthday Shigeru. Your games were credited as the reason I got into Nintendo as a kid, and I really thank you for that. 

Feature Friday: Enigmasystem

Today's feature comes from deviantART member Enigmasystem. Hailing from Germany, she has a fantastic digitally painted style. 

Her gaming related pieces show particular strength, with this homage to Mario gaining a Daily Deviation reward on dA today.

Check out some of her art below, and then head on over to her gallery to see more!

Hoothoot from Pokemon

Mario faces a colossus Piranha Plant

Super Smash Bros. 

Tomb Raider (2013)

Yoshi Inspired Skirt!

Check out this fantastic Yoshi skirt created by Etsy user Ashley Mertz (username GoChaseRabbits). It's a great skirt that personally I would love to own and wear myself!


The skirt is available for £30.43 ($45.99) and is tailor made to fit the measurements for the buyer. You can pick up your own here. 

Watch The Wreck-It Ralph Trailer!

Many of you have probably already seen this by now, but if you've got a spare few minutes, then definitely check out the trailer for Disney's Wreck-It Ralph. 


Wreck-It Ralph tells the story Ralph, a Donkey Kong style game character that gets fed up of playing through the same game for the past 30 years. Soon enough he is jumping through a number of games, and meeting plenty of familiar game faces along the way. 


Check out the trailer below. You'll notice several familiar characters, including Bowser from Super Mario, Zangief from Street Fighter, and Clyde from Pac-Man amongst others. There's also some witty nods towards characters, such as a Samus style space chick voiced by Glee's Jane Lynch. 


Wreck-It Ralph will be released on the 15th February 2013. 

Art Feature: Gabe Rose

Today's feature comes from deviantART member Gabe Rose. 


Gabe has a fantastic style, and has drawn pieces from a variety of fandoms, including Harry Potter, Tim Burton films, and gaming. Here are a few of his video gaming pieces below, but be sure to check out his gallery!

Street Fighter Part 2

Tomb Raider Reborn

Zombie Mario

Megaman Vs. Sonic

Earthworm Jim

Jak and Dexter's 10th Anniversary!

This year has been full of gaming anniversaries, from Tomb Raider to Zelda, Mario and Metroid. Now, here's another one. The 5th December signalled the 10th anniversary of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, which this time ten years ago earned a release on the Playstation 2. 


Now I am sure that there are plenty of my readers who are fans of Jak and Daxter, and I'd love to do a special blogpost to celebrate this latest gaming anniversary. A retrospective look back at the game, in a way. 


I've done a few of these previously, including the Zelda Retrospective. 


If you'd like to be included in this blog post, then please email me with your comment on the series. It can be anything about it at all! I'll pick the best from the bunch to display in the post.


Also, I'm looking for any great Jak and Daxter fan-art, so again, please get in touch if you have anything you think I should include.


Thanks everyone, and I hope you enjoy the anniversary celebration blog when it is eventually up!

8-Bit Holiday Wreath

Well, December is finally here, and many of you will be starting adorn your house in festive decorations. Perhaps you fancy getting into the Christmas spirit, gaming style? Well, look no further than this great looking 8-Bit LED Holiday Wreath I came cross on Think Geek today. 


Crafted from EVA foam, the 8-Bit LED Holiday Wreath appeals to the old school gamer, and comes complete with blinking gold coins (think Super Mario), cherries (Pacman), a SNES controller and a Mario 1UP mushroom in a Santa hat, a rupee (Zelda), an aircraft (Galaga), and a Slime/Slib from Dragon Quest Monsters. 

The wreath will set you back $19.99 (£12.93 for all us UK people). 

Are you planning a bit of a geeky Christmas? Email me your gaming themed Christmas decorations at kayleighjpowis@gmail.com , and I may feature them! 

An Interview with Tom Oliver

I love reading a good web comic from time to time during my internet browsing time. I was recently linked by a friend to Tom Oliver (Inyuo on deviantART), who not only creates excellent comics, but game themed ones at that.


I got the opportunity to chat with Tom about his comic strips, gaming, and future projects. 

Q. Hello! Could you introduce yourself for my readers?

Hi, my name is Tom Oliver (more commonly known on the internet as Inyuo) and I sporadically make comics about videogames!

Q. You draw a lot of gaming comic strips. What inspired you to start creating them?

Well, the simple and somewhat vague answer to this would be ‘videogames’ and ‘comics’. As a kid I used to nag my parents to buy me something called Sonic the Comic, which was probably my first experience of comics and games being combined into a single thing. This sparked an avalanche of horribly-drawn Sonic the Hedgehog comics, and it all just sort of carried on from there. And despite 15 years of practice, I still can’t draw Sonic properly.

Actually making comic strips has escalated in the last 5 years, thanks to discovering webcomics. The first gaming webcomic I got into was VGCats, which is a pretty good place to start as it wasn’t excessively copy/paste visuals or wordswordswords. This got me back into making comics to show off to my mates, often about videogames or films or whathaveyou, and they must have been met with enough positive feedback as I kept making them!

Q. Is there a particular game or series that you enjoy creating comic strips for in particular?

Aaaahh this kind of changes continuously, but if I had to say one off the top of my head, it would probably be the Ace Attorney series. The characters are incredibly animated and personality driven, which makes them dead fun to draw. There’s also a lot of material to make comic strips out of, particularly if you look past the “he says objection a lot imma make a joke about that!”.

That said, I’m pretty sure that a disproportionate amount of my doodles consist of Link from Legend of Zelda. I would like to say I spend a lot of my time drawing less well known and perhaps more personal characters, but no. If I’m drawing something in the back of a notebook, it’s probably Link.

Q. Have you got a comic strip that you are most proud of so far?

This also varies a lot, often depending on what game I’ve been playing recently, but I’m always rather happy with the Party In My Pants comic. If I look back through my gallery, I normally stop on this comic and compare it to what I’ve been drawing recently, then start worrying that I’ve actually regressed in comic-drawing ability. Sure, the joke’s nitpicky, but I still love the expressions and am impressed that I actually made a comic that has over 4 panels and doesn’t look quite so rushed.

Honourable mention also goes to Tone Depth. I had a lot of fun drawing that horse. 

Q. In your experiences, how has it been sharing your own gaming comics to the internet populous so far?

It’s been relatively smooth, actually! Granted, I haven’t made it any further than Deviantart, which is a bit like the paddling pool of the internet in terms of critics, but responses are generally positive and I don’t think I’ve ever received any out-and-out hatemail (I’m thanking my internet obscurity for that!).

When submitting a comic to the interwebs, though, it is a little disheartening when it either doesn’t do as well as you’d hoped or better than you think it deserved, purely based on the popularity of the game it was about. It’s nice to think that a comic strip’s popularity is a reflection of how funny or well made it is, but I do tend to see a correlation between “popular game” and “lots of hits”. Then again, making comics with as dedicated and varied fanbases as video games, people are obviously going to focus on the games they know, and avoid the comics of stuff they haven’t played, regardless of the actual comical content. I know I’m a pretty terrible person for sticking to series that I’m aware other people also enjoy, but I just hope I don’t end up churning out mindless comics of Super Mario solely because people will like anything with Super Mario in it.

The reverse of this, of course, is that if I ever manage to make a popular comic of an unheard-of game, then it must be a pretty damn good joke!

Q. Can you recommend a game or two for my readers to play?

Yes I can! I have no real reason for suggesting these other than the fact they are hands down my favourite games, but go play Skies of Arcadia and Jet Set Radio Future! The former is all about floating islands and air pirates and flying ships shooting each other, and the latter is an incredibly stylish, incredibly ridiculous game about rollerblading gangs blowing up robots with graffiti! It’s got 

Q. And finally, what's next for yourself?

Well first I’m planning to finish my degree! I’m currently a Third Year Biology student in England, which means that this is my final year of university and the workload really gets piled on! Unfortunately, that pretty much guarantees that comics will be as infrequent as ever, though I’m still going to try and keep the account as active as I can (excusing general laziness).

And while it’s not on the cards at the moment, a proper website will probably be up some time in the future: they aren't exactly expensive and it would be nice to upload comics to somewhere that’s a little more personal. The most important thing about this, though, is that first I need to ensure I can update regularly, which I really, really don’t at the moment. This will easily be my biggest downfall if I don’t get it right, so I think I’m going to wait until I am well and truly prepared.

Finally, I’ve been messing around with a bunch of my own regular, non-videogame comic projects that may make their way onto my deviantART account. As much as I enjoy gaming comics, it’s good to tinker with original stories and characters to see how well I can portray my own ideas and storytelling. That said, I don’t have anything substantial to show for it at the moment so I probably should keep schtum!

Anyway, thanks for the interest in my comics and giving me the opportunity to be interviewed! There are a lot of fantastic webcomics out there, but I hope this helps answer any questions there were about mine in particular, or has intrigued people enough to go check them out!