New Item Received: [Blogger Recognition Award]

Any more nominations and I’ll start getting cocky.

Let me start by saying that if you haven’t seen hungrygoriya’s blog, you should definitely take a look. It’s like a trip down memory lane. She’s the one that has nominated me for this particular award, and I have to say that I’m flattered and thankful she would pick me among the others that also received recognition from her.

To give a little more insight into what her page is about, you’re best just looking at it yourself. She writes about her love for older games and her escapades to find them. It’s like a trip down memory lane seeing what she posts. I like visiting her site because it slaps me in the face with a bit of nostalgia, in a good way. Reading sites like hers has become a bit of fuel in my quest to find my own old games even.

Thank you hungrygoriya for tapping me for this award. Now I must pass on the favor.

Falcon Reviews: An Origin Story

In November of 2015, I started a blog to give me a platform to write game reviews on. It was… enlightening. It’s a ton of work to write honestly (especially for free). Previously I had spent years reading professional reviews on the various gaming websites like GameInformer, Polygon, Destructoid, and The Jimquisition; in fact I still do.

However, something in me made me want to write about video games. Call it a combination of wanting to get my own opinion out into the world and needing to do something with this mass of knowledge that my brain became so adept at accumulating thanks to my tenure in gaming retail. Nevertheless, I created Falcon Reviews on Blogger. Go ahead and take a look at it…

It’s bad, right? It’s visual vomit at best and I tried to do some half-assed scoring system. Luckily my wife found WordPress and showed me what tools they have on here to create blogs, and at that point I knew I needed to start over.

I started off by carrying over the two reviews I had written. One for Halo 5: Guardians and the other for Fallout 4. As time went on I began making changes to my style, redesigned the blog entirely again, and here I am now.

Some things I’ve learned

1. If you’re just starting out, you want to find your voice. What are you trying to say? How would you say it? What emotion are you wanting to instill in the reader? Think about things like that.
2. I’m not meaning to be judgmental but I’ve read some truly godawful blogs that I won’t link here because I don’t take delight in pointing and laughing at people. Make your posts readable. Don’t post in huge walls of text. Break up your text with pictures. Make it fun to read. Look at how professional websites lay out their content and structure their articles.
3. Don’t try to force yourself to write. I know that may sound counter-intuitive, but if you’re struggling to write something because your heart isn’t in it, take a break. Your reader can tell when you’re forcing it, and it doesn’t feel right. To borrow from a wonderful analogy: Writing is like farting. If you need to force it, it’s probably shit.

My nominations

Now I’m supposed to nominate some other bloggers to be recognized:

• Anidaan – The Moral of the Story. I’ve been reading Anidaan’s blog for a while now and given how I’m a fan of story heavy games. Anidaan’s most recent post is about how we idealize superheroes in our fiction.
• Oyoa – GamingGirlAndLife. She mostly posts about things that cross her mind that are related to gaming, even getting into YouTube again after a hiatus. She’s a busy person too, yet she somehow finds time to play games, write about them, and make videos.
• Gamer2006 – Gamer2006. Relatively new on the scene, Gamer2006 writes about Nintendo related things exclusively, which is a foreign world for an Xbox/PC guy like me. A bit younger, Gamer2006 has a knack for writing. Check out the site!
• Ashley – Robo♥beat. Over there, Ashley writes about nerd stuff in general, including science fiction in particular (which is a favorite genre of mine). I only stumbled across her site recently, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far.
• Jennifer – NerdThoughtsBlog. Well I’m a little biased but I feel like I have to recognize her. My wife Jennifer is the reason I started blogging in the first place. She helped me jump ship to WordPress and leave Blogger behind.

What now?

You folks that have been tapped, you have the opportunity to recognize another blogger. Just follow the rules below!

The rules:

• Thank the blogger that nominated you.
• Attach the award to the post.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give a piece of advice or two to new bloggers.
• Select 5 other bloggers you want to give the award to.

Thanks again hungrygoriya!