Community Voice #15: PlayStation Move – Casual or Hardcore?

The PlayStation Move was just released this past week, and many people are still asking one question:

Can the PlayStation Move be a hardcore gaming product?

Community Voice #13: Do You Cosplay?

You all know that cosplay is a huge part with the gaming, anime, comic and overall geek culture. There are conventions in every region of the country, as well as all over the world to give us a chance to showcase our hard work and love of the culture, as well as an opportunity to just be who you want to be without the judgment of your everyday peers. The amount of hard work, money, time and detail put into these costumes is mind-blowing. Sometimes people get it to a T, and are willing to wear and walk around in the most uncomfortable things for the love of both their work and the games they emulate. (That Left 4 Dead Tank cosplay does not look fun to wear all day!)

So what I want to know is, how many of our readers out there are cosplayers and who have you cosplayed as? Do you make your own costume? Picked it up online?

Community Voice #12: Background Music: Good or Bad?

I recently read a short editorial in EGMi lamenting background music in games. The author, Paul Semel, points out how he always turns the music off in his games, as he feels many times the music ruins the experience. "[I]'m . . . not into music in games because, most of the time, it doesn't make sense to have music in those games. If you were a secret agent sneaking up behind an enemy combatant, you wouldn't crank some Metalica." I think he makes a good point, but I found his article all the more interesting because I often find myself wishing my games had more music. For example, as much as I enjoyed romping through exciting fields and deserts in Monster Hunter Tri, I really found the overall lack of background music disappointing.

Are games better off without musical accompaniment, or are they a necessary part of the gaming experience? Sound off in the comments.

Community Voice #11: How Long Do You Like Your Games?

We've discussed it before here at Spawn Kill: the issue of game length. Recently, one of the developers of Joe Danger, Sean Murray, wrote a blog post about the subject, and it got me thinking about it once again, especially since it's a concept I ruminate about often.

Kill Kast 14: Gaming Merch and Our Fav Soundtracks

The Kill Kast is back again and we hope to start a new streak of consecutive podcasts. In Episode 14 Stephanie, Eric and Rebecca get together to talk about what they’ve been playing which includes Dragon Quest IX, StarCraft 2 and Mafia II. We go through some recent news such as Mass Effect hitting the PS3, the Windows Phone 7 and the Sony PSP phone. For our topic(s) this week we discuss last week’s Community Voice and what you all said along with our recent Staff Picks and why we love those soundtracks. We also talk about Dragon Age a whole lot, mainly why Origins is so awesome and why Dragon Age 2 has us worried. It happens. I think it's high time we just start a separate Dragon Age podcast...

Community Voice #10: Your Favorite Game Soundtracks

Last week, all of us here at Spawn Kill got together to list some of our favorite game soundtracks. After all, gaming would be a far less entertaining experience without the stirring melodies to accompany our jaunts through space, the wild west, the Mushroom Kingdom, or wherever the wonderful world of video games may take us.

However, being the generous sort of folk that we are, we felt it was only fair to open up the floor for all of you to weigh in on what game music keeps you humming long after you've hit the "power" button. Do you prefer the classic nostalgia of 8-bit blips, or do you relish the full orchestra? Perhaps you go for more of the eclectic or avant-garde works. Perhaps you're a rhythm game junkie! Maybe it's a little of everything. Whatever your faves, we want to hear them, so feel free to post your picks in the comments, and don't be afraid to include a YouTube link so others can enjoy your selections!

Community Voice #9: Do You Nerdgasm Over Gaming Merch?

Just the other day while I was checking out the Jones Soda website, I noticed they were selling Dungeons and Dragons Spellcasting soda. There was nothing unique about this soda other than the labels they used on the bottles, which depicted different scenes from the popular tabletop role playing game. The geek in me wanted them badly, but my logical side eventually won out after seeing the price for shipping ($55 in total for six bottles of soda to Canada, yikes).

Community Voice #8: What Do You Do With Your Old Gaming Magazines?

A lot of us have subscriptions to at least one magazine, some of us even multiple. Personally, I receive GameInformer, Official Xbox Magazine, and EGM right now. It creates quite the stackage in my room month by month. Sometimes I tear out some of the ads that look really appealing and save them in a folder (I'm an ad nerd if you don't know me) but mostly they just take up space.

So I'm curious, what do you all do with your magazines after you read them? Toilet paper? Recycle? Donate to a local laundromat? Or some intense arts and crafts project (I did this once for a contest...) that you can tell us about? Or maybe you're just stacking them up until you can be a participant on the TV show Hoarders. Let us know in this week's Community Voice!

Community Voice #7: Do You Like to Sing in Games?

Perusing the list of summer game releases coming up, I sighed at the thin crowd lined up until September. I noticed a few singing games coming out over the summer from Disney like Disney Sing It: Family Hits and Disney Sing It: Party Hits. Family Hits got me nostalgic for the old Disney songs and I broke out in shower tunes of Aladdin's A Whole New World. Taking a break from The Little Mermaid's Under the Sea though, Kingdom Hearts kind of burned that song into the ground for me...

So it got me wondering, do you all like to sing in games? Are you the lead singer of a plastic band when your friends get together? Let us know what your favorite game to sing in is! SingStar? Lips? Karaoke Revolution? Desperately awaiting Glee? Or will you be joining me on some PS3 Aladdin reminiscing? Let us know!

Community Voice #6: New Gaming Technology

This generation of hardware has been promised to us to last much longer than previous generations. With that, it seems we've hit some sort of period in the gen where new technology is running rampant on the current generation of consoles and handhelds that we already own. Prime example was how much of E3 was dedicated to showing the Kinect, PlayStation Move and Nintendo's 3DS. Are you digging each company's upcoming bits and bytes of technology? Weigh in and let us know your stance on each of the Big Boss' tech and which just tickle your fancy or gaggle your geese, or... something.