Member of the Month July 2016 (HyruleBalverine)

Due to some unfortunate circumstances, I'm posting this month's interview on behalf of B8TINGU. All credit goes to the interview master himself!


Name:

Kent M Smith; I always use the middle initial because my father and I share a first name. Ironically, I went by my middle name for years because my father didn't want me to be a "Junior", but now that I'm an adult and prefer to use my first name, my family calls me Jr.

Where do you live?:

Marysville, Washington. For those that don't know the area well, it's about a 45-60 minute drive north from Seattle, depending on traffic.

What do you do for a living?

I process frozen seafood. A lot of time, I am on one of the lines that process crab (and there are a lot; I sort of feel like Bubba from Forrest Gump listing them, but here are some that we process: Blue King; Red King; Southern Red King; Dungeness; Opilia; Bairdi; Brown King). We also process Salmon (a few different types, depending on the season and the customer), Cod, and Halibut. To get an idea of how we do the salmon, here's a youtube video I found, which I actually think was filmed at my work, that the company who makes our filet and pin bone machines released: https://www.youtube.com/attribution_...eature%3Dshare
Food we process has gone to Trader Joes, Walmart, Costco, the local casinos, and even out of the country.

Tell me about your Gamertag?

With HyruleBalverine as my gamertag, I imagine that it would be no surprise to anybody that I rather enjoy both the Legend of Zelda series and the Fable Series. When I first created my gamertag about 5 years ago now, I think, I was originally looking for ways to incorporate the two series via the word Hero or Triforce, but couldn't find one that I liked that wasn't already taken. I really didn't want to go the numbers route to making one work, so I tried to be as original as possible. One of the reasons that I went with the Balverine portion is that when I was in high school, one of my buddies either went off of the deep end or just took too many drugs, but he tried to convince me that I was, in fact, a werewolf (he and his girlfriend, apparently, were fighting an inter-dimensional dragon with their spirit animals/guides to help them). That was something that always stuck in my mind; plus, I like werewolves. Perrin was probably my favorite character in the Wheel of Time series (read it if you have no idea why I'm making this reference here).

When did you start playing?

Um... when I could first hold a controller? My gaming days started with an Atari back before I was even old enough to go to school. When the NES came out my parents purchased one for the family. The first video game that I ever purchased myself was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES, which I purchased with gift money from my grandparents. My first system purchase was the SNES, which was made with the very first paycheck from my very first real job (man, that seemed like a lot of money back then, [laugh]
As for when I started playing Xbox, I had an original Xbox after it first released, but I didn't start playing 360 until around 2010, when I played a friends and then bought my own before the end of that year. I've had the same account and the same gamertag since.

What's your play style? Ex: booster? Completionist? How often and long do you play?

My play style has varied. I've always had the completionist attitude, even though some games I know I'll never finish. That's just part of my personality. I don't mind boosting achievements that are next to impossible without doing so, especially ones that seem to require random chance, like the ones for World Series of Poker, or the poker related ones in Red Dead Redemption. I used to play a fair amount during the day, but work cut into that a little. Now that I've been seeing someone fairly steadily, I don't game as much. Which is really funny, because she's a gamer, too. When I play, I don't often fight for 100% completions as hard as I used to. Because I have a few games on my profile that can never be completed, such as that Little Mermaid one on Win 8, and some that I just didn't complete before the servers shut down (not to mention a few Xbox One apps that got discontinued before all the achievements were obtained or obtainable), I don't quite feel the pull to get a high completion rate. I try to play for fun now, as much as I can... even though that inner compulsion for neatness and completion still kicks in sometimes (Project Spark, I'm thinking of you right now).

What is your current gaming set up like?

I have a 32" plasma tv sitting on my dresser in my bedroom. I have my Xbox One plugged into it and my Xbox 360 plugged into the One. I have the Kinect for both (360 on top of the TV, currently sitting next to my Vision Cam; One in front of the TV). I have more games than I care to admit, many of which I haven't even started, so I only have the ones that I've currently started on a shelf in the closet in DVD racks for easy access. Those I haven't started are boxed up to remove some temptation.

Tell me a good gaming story or experience? ex: Epic win/fail, marathon, accomplishment, a time you visited a game convention or met someone...or anything.

I don't know about good or bad stories, but I do remember when I was boosting to get Seriously on the original Gears of War. As I got closer to the elusive 10,000 kills (and anybody that's gone for it knows that it doesn't pop until well after 10,000 kills ;-\ ) I started joining a lot of sessions. And I do mean a lot; I think that one weekend I played about 18 hours straight on both Saturday and on Sunday (36 hours, plus whatever I did on Friday night). By the time I finally got the achievement, I knew that I never wanted to see that particular multiplayer map again. I went out of my way to avoid it on Gears 2.

Do you have a special shout out to anyone in particular in the gaming community?

Not to anybody in particular, but anybody here that participated in the Rising Star boosting session on TA last weekend, you have my uttermost thanks! I was able to get it on both platforms, which makes this game much easier to deal with now.

What's your favorite game genre?

I don't know if I have a favorite genre, per se. If I think a game is good, I'll usually play it. If a game is free, I often play it, though with some of these Free 2 Play games popping up, I've started less and less of them. If I had to pick one, I'd probably go with Action/Adventure or Action/Adventure Sandbox, especially the newer ones that tend to have some RPG elements to them.

What’s your favorite game on 360? ONE? Of all time (any system)

For the 360, I'd have to go with "South Park: The Stick of Truth" because I enjoy the show and to me that game was exactly what I licensed property game should be like. It truly felt like an extension of the show, from the animation, to the humor, to the story itself.
For the One, I really haven't played too much on there yet. I've mostly used it for the apps, but I liked AC IV and what I've played of Tomb Raider.
Of all time, it simply comes down to the Legend of Zelda. It's hard to top the experience of how I felt as a youngster playing Ocarina of Time on my N64.

What is your worst game and Why?

Pretty much any sports game. I'm not the typical guy that is so into sports that I get into fantasy leagues and game leagues. I just don't care for them, so I rarely touch them. I get more into the experience of enjoying a game at the stadium with the other fans more than the games themselves, I think.

If you were a Video Game or game character who and why?

Hands down, Link. There are so many good characters to choose from, but Link gets amazing weapons and skills and has gotten to do so much over the years.

Are you looking forward to any new releases?

I haven't preordered a game in some time, but I think that I'll probably do so with South Park: The Fractured But Whole; and likely Kingdom Hearts 3, if it ever actually gets a release date. I mean, we've been hearing about it for years now.

What else do you do besides gaming?

I've dabbled with genealogy off and on; I've recently gotten back into working on models, though I don't do it much; I was able to do the Beast Mode Challenge last year, so have started trying to get into better shape since then, mostly by hiking (and I've actually started scrapbooking a little bit of that). I've lost about 35-40 pounds and have gone down from a size 40 waist to a size 34 so far. I'll make a post in the forums in August to say if I beat my time from last year's challenge at this year's. I've also been considering getting a few art supplies to take up drawing again, which I haven't done since high school, nearly 20 years ago.

Do you collect or not so much?

Not so much any more, unless you count video games [laugh]. I finally had to force myself to stop going into GameStop because I kept buying more games even though I have so many that I haven't started. I will pick up a few random collectibles here and there, including patches for each state I visit to add to the jean jacket that I have, but nowhere like I did when I was younger and had more of a disposable income.

What's your favorite feature on GTN?

Honestly, I think it's the badges. It helps feed that need to get stuff without having to actually buy anything. Plus, some of them give me a challenge to strive for, to push myself in some way. I like that.

What would you tell people about GTN if you were trying to get them to join?

It's a great community of gamers and the site is constantly growing and evolving to become the best it can possibly be.

Is there anything you would like added to the site?

The only feature that I've thought about adding to the site was a section specifically for walkthroughs, which has already been a feature request topic in the forums, so I think Eric has some plans or ideas about it.

We must be within a couple of years of each other. The ages seem to line up well.

We must be within a couple of years of each other. The ages seem to line up well.

Originally Posted by futiles

I was born at the tail end of 1978.

This was a great interview I hate sports games too.. Seems like we have a lot in common. I really thank Obsidian for helping me out. Won't go into detail here about what happened because this thread is about Hyrule.

Good read, congrats!

I was born at the tail end of 1978.

Originally Posted by HyruleBalverine

And I am the beginning of 1977. I figured it was about two years...

Good read.

(P.s. Glad you got the rising star achievement in project spark in that session. It truly is the most awful achievement in that game.)

Excellent read, congrats!

Congrats HB!

Congrats! I love these as get a great insight to our fellow gamers

Great read. Welcome to the MotM club!