Hey everyone, Sorry for the delay in posts on 8-Bit Girl. It's been a very busy month or so for me. However, I'm posting an unboxing video later, so they'll be a post going up at some point tonight. I also have some blogs I need to get lined up, so stay tuned. Thanks for waiting. :) 8-Bit Girl x
You may have noticed that posts on here have become a little sporadic as of late. Whilst recent life changes (a breakup, move into my flat, for example), may be part of the cause of this, behind the scenes, me and my friends have been cooking up a brand new blog that we are now pleased to unveil and collaborate on...
Yes, today marks the blog's 1 year anniversary. This time last year I had just posted my first ever blog entry, had no dedicated Twitter or Facebook, and absolutely no readers. Now, I'm here with a 450+ fanbase on Twitter, close to 200 on Facebook, and god knows how many of you actually just come to the blog to read it...but judging by my daily pageviews, it's quite a lot!
I want to take this time to say thank you for all of the support. Without all of your kind comments, shares of my posts, etc, I probably wouldn't still be here one year on.
So I'll share with you my first ever post for 8-Bit Girl once again. Hopefully in a year my writing has progressed somewhat, and my posts have got a little better. I'll let you all be the judge on that one. :) L.A. Noire-Worthy Of All The Hype?
I'll (hopefully) be giving the blog a bit of a revamp soon, with a new banner, logo etc, and I plan to continue my reviews, interviews, news posts etc, as long as you all want to keep reading them!
I have been reading Eric Bailey's reviews for a while now, and recently had the pleasure of interviewing him for 8-Bit Girl. Eric is the brains behind NintendoLegend.com-which Eric uses to complete a time consuming, but awesome challenge. What is the challenge in question? Well, under the pseudonym of Nintendo Legend, Eric has pledged to play through and review every North American released NES game.
As you can imagine, that means a whole lot of gaming! Nintendo Legend reached it's one year anniversary, and Eric got in touch with me with a press release he has compiled to be displayed by myself on 8-Bit Girl.
I send NintendoLegend.com and Eric Bailey my congratulations, and I shall now leave you with the press release from Eric himself below.
NintendoLegend.com – Eric Bailey has loved the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game console for over 20 years. Although he does enjoy picking up more titles, he has always been more of a player than a collector, preferring loose cartridges that he can actually push into the machine than any complete-in-box sets. He has a huge respect for such collectors, but a couple years ago, he had an issue when he was trying to research information on NES games he did not have and wanted to possibly try playing sometime.
He found that he was dissatisfied with the available reviews currently residing throughout the Internet. Nobody, not even certain NES experts, had a full set of trusted reviews available to browse. In fact, many sites that had a section specifically for NES reviews were woefully incomplete. But on sites with reviews for every title, like GameFAQs.com, the reviews varied wildly in their opinions, length, writing quality, factual legitimacy, and style. This was especially an issue for slightly obscure titles, where nobody could seem to agree on whether it was any good, nor could they express their opinion in clear terms.
Exactly one year ago, he began his mission to simply have one page on the Internet where all the NES titles were listed in alphabetic order, and each title had a review for it, with a rating score. Thus began the NintendoLegend.com project, which he often describes as “one crazy retro gamer's quest to write a quality review for every NES video game ever released in North America.”
In one year, that first review has been followed by over 150 more, and has truly become a labor of love. What began as a generic Wordpress blog and a new Twitter account has blossomed into a website with 8-bit flavor, a humble following, and a swell of new visitors through NES-related Google searches and links from more prominent websites such as NESGuide.com.
“The best part of it, probably, is the conversations I've had the privilege of having with fellow retro gamers passionate about the NES,” Bailey explained. “There's always been a great source of enjoyment in finding commonalities with people, and retro gaming is no exception. I've had a blast doing this, and I think people are really beginning to realize that I'm serious about building this library of what I hope to be a complete collection of informative, comprehensive, well-written, fairly objective, enjoyable-to-read NES game reviews. We'll see.”
Despite a couple significant hiatuses brought on by “real life” events, questions concerning his direction and techniques, and the occasional minor controversy or disagreement brought on by a review or Facebook post, Eric has consistently shown a commitment to a formula of simply posting NES reviews, one after the other, as a following gradually builds to see him through the entirety of the challenge and wish him the best.
YouTube is used for a variety of different reasons-from personal video blogs, to fan made homages, but what 8-BIT Girl was most interested in was the amount of good video gaming YouTube channels there are on this hugely successful website.
One such channel has been created by Callum, who goes under the pseudonym of "Tenatios." One of Tenatios' biggest passions is for video gaming, which you can clearly see on his YouTube channel. The channel is largely home to recordings of his play-throughs of a variety of games, as well as hints and tips to achieve a multitude of tasks in the games he has currently completed.
Tenatios has kindly agreed to an interview for 8-BIT Girl to discuss his decision to create a video gaming YouTube channel, tips to new users, and much more.
What is it about gaming that appeals so much to you?
Oh my god there is so much about gaming that appeals to me, now i've been gaming since I was the wee age of 5 but the main thing I would have to say that has always brought me back is being able to play as all these different characters, one minute you can be a fat italian plumber saving a princess from a giant turtle and then the next you could be a super sexy spy girl on a top secret mission for the American government.
It's these experiences that I love about gaming, to be able to take up the persona of these characters and sort of take a break from your real life to do these extravagant things, this is why some games just don't appeal to me though, like football/sport games or fishing ones, I mean come on, you can do these things in real life and it'd probably be more fun to do so
Games in which you can create your own characters in though....Oh my gosh if a game has character creation it's pretty much just won me over straight away.
Why did you decide to start sharing your video game experiences with YouTube watchers?
I started off a few years ago looking for guides to games I was having trouble with, it was at that time that I discovered Lets Plays, so after a year or two of watching them and becoming quite addicted, theres just something about watching someone play a video game while talking that is just really entertaining to watch, moreso if the person is actually interesting.
Through that time i've obviously seen my fair share of good and bad LPer's or Let's Players, and both sets have inspired me to make my own for different reasons, the bad ones I have seen have made me think to myself "I can do better than that while the really good people who I still watch to this day, just to name a couple, BikdipOnABus and 666TheHeartless666, have made me think "I want to be as good as them one day" So I set out to prove I can be good, hopefully as good as those I idolise through playing games that I love.
Are there any moments in your YouTube channel that you are particularly proud of?
I am fond of all my videos, they are like my children who have been thrown out into the vast ocean known as YouTube and forced to fend for themselves against the masses of other children who have also been thrown into that ocean, the ones I'm most proud of though would have to be my Assassins Creed Brotherhood guides, they've all gotten great amounts of views and attention and pretty much no negative feedback on them, sticking with my analogy it’s like they've found the armbands needed to help survive in the water and are learning to breast stroke at a good rate.
On top of this, I would have to say the best moments on my channel have to be receiving comments and messages from people, there really are some great people out there in amongst the trolls and flamers and its always great to be able to reply to their comment.
What advice do you have for people thinking of (or are currently in the process of) starting a YouTube gaming blog?
Advice eh, well there’s a few good words of wisdom I shall tell thee: First of all watch people who are good, it doesn't matter what you intend to do gaming-wise or even with anything else really, watch people who do what you want to do well and learn from them, and write down a list of things they all have in common if it helps, these are the things you will have to embody to become successful.
Secondly, record well and EDIT, seriously invest in some good software to record whatever you're doing, capture cards or DVD recorders are a good way to capture gameplay, NEVER COMMIT THE CARDINAL SIN OF RECORDING IT WITH A DAMN VIDEO CAMERA. Once you have whatever you need recorded be sure to edit it, even if it’s just to cut out an annoying cough or the moment where your mum interrupted.
Thirdly be interesting and pick an interesting game to play, review or just have in the background, now it might sound obvious that you have to be interesting but so many people get it wrong, raging all the time or just not knowing what you're doing or talking about is a sure fire way to failure.
Lastly, be audible, I tend to mumble a lot in day to day life so for my recordings I speak louder and clearer so people know what I'm on about and as a result people have actually said I have a nice voice, I don't see it myself but what can you do eh.
What's next for Tenatios in relation to gaming?
Currently I am just about to finish my first ever Lets Play of Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts so after that is finished I shall be playing through the original Banjo Kazooie and after I finish playing through the darkness I shall be moving onto a blind play through of either Amnesia or Silent Hill Homecoming, in an attempt to potentially scare myself crapless to amuse my fans! Hopefully whatever I choose it won't bore me instead.
In addition to this I shall be starting to do game reviews/first impressions text based stuff for games on my new shiny blog, the first of which will be Banjo Threeie Chapters - Chapter 1, god I do a lot of BK stuff don't I, after that who knows what the future will hold.
