GamrTalk Episode 3 - Axumblade on Mustaches, Most Wanted & Ratchet! Post Your Questions Inside!

Welcome to gamrTalk!

In today's interview, I will be taking the questions posed by you (yes, you!) and presenting them to the longest serving head moderator and all-round sex magnet Axumblade! So let's get cracking.

Note

I have been having some difficulties with the formatting (hence the delay) so the pictures stubbornly refuse to be any larger. Darn you VGC!!!

Coney

Axumblade

So Axumblade, welcome to gamrTalk!

From this point on I will just be copying across the entire conversation without any edits or other adjustments

Are you OK with this?

yes yes and thank you for the interview! :D

It's quite alright. Thanks for accepting!

Why don't we start with you explaining a little bit about yourself?

Well, I've been on the site since 2008. I joined the site when I first started working at Best Buy because I wanted to see what games were selling well. Like a lot of members, the charts got me lured in but the community is what kept me. :)

2008, wow. That's like 7 years of your life on VGC!

A good job you stayed for the community the way things worked out, too

So why the name Axumblade? What is the meaning of this?

It actually started on AIM back when I was in high school. One of my favorite games of all time is Super Mario RPG on the SNES. There is a fight scene you are fighting against the Axem rangers on a ship that looks like an axe blade. It used to be spelled Axemblade but I lost that password. So I just kept it as my online handle as Axumblade since.

You know I never knew that

Explains quite a lot though!

You say "one of your favourite games of all time"...care to share what your all time #1 is, then?

Note: If it's not Ninjabread Man then I'm not counting it

It's actually Hello Kitty: Island Princess. I just can't get past the opening scene so I've never played it all the way through. :/

Pah. That barely breaks into my top 10

Don't know why you rate it so highly. It's good but it's not the cream of the crop, so to speak

Not even R&C? Teeqoz will be most displeased with that.

Super Mario RPG is normally at the top of my Greatest Games list but Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, Borderlands 2, and Infamous 2 are normally really high up there.

I'm going to make sure I put more R&C love in there this year than last so it softens the blow to Teeqoz. :p

Well can't really complain about any of those titles. They're all awesome

Good call. VGC and the mod team needs more R&C love!

Yeah. Ever since Kresnik and Kantor stepped down, it's been sparse. :(

*Cough* *Cough*

Forgetting me already and I'm the one asking the questions. How could you.

And you too <3 <3 :P

That's better

<3 <3

Speaking of VGC, you've been on it for, what, 7 years and been a mod for as long as I can remember. Do you ever see yourself not moderating on this site?

I don't see myself leaving of my own volition but it depends on my inactivity most likely. I have taken long breaks on the site due to personal issues. Sometimes it gets a bit rough dealing with people making you feel like you're doing a shitty job when your actual personal life is crumbling around you.

For sure. Real life is more important than any silly little thing on the Internet and people understand that. You're one of the best users and one of the best mods on the site so you would definitely be missed! Hopefully we won't have to worry about anything negative, though. But you will always have friends here on VGC.

No doubt the other users who read this will feel the same, too

Having been head mod for such a long time, you have naturally left your mark on the site. What in particular do you think that impact is and, if you could have done anything differently on the site, what would it be?

If I could have done anything differently, I would probably have tried to be more assertive about my ideas to the mod team. Honestly, I sometimes look at Smeags ideas and think "damn. I wish I would have thought of that."

Same goes for Vek. Both guys are amazing at what they do.

Indeed they are. That doesn't mean you don't add anything though! Do you have any ideas in particular you would like to share, then?

As for my personal contributions, I feel that since mod chat has been implemented, it's definitely helped out with being more unified overall as a team.

Overall, I want the site to get back to its former glory. There are certain features that are out of my hands (database, updated numbers, prediction league). But there are a lot of other things that have been missing in recent months and even years (For instance, Michael-5 left several months ago and Most Wanted was just in limbo).

Most definitely. Some of my best memories of being a mod were (and still are) in the mod chat. I do feel like a good deal of the work that some mods do in the mod chat and their commitment can be lost on the forums though, but without these people then the team wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is.

Picking up the Most Wanted thread was a master stroke

Been very successful so far!

Perhaps with enough time and with enough support we can keep trying to improve the site and, maybe, one day it will.

Yes! We are close to outdoing last month on it! I believe we had 75 overall last month. We are close to that number already and it's only the 8th! :D

Excellent! :D

I agree. I know it's not going to be the exact same as it was years ago. But having features people care about is what made this community special to so many of us.

To me VGC needs to have something to differentiate itself from other places; something which brings you back to it. For me that's the great community; the diverse group of truly great guys we have on the site which make it a genuinely enjoyable place to be. If there's something I can do to help out these people or to diversify that content on offer, such as with what we are doing right now...I'm more than happy to do it.

It seems, then, we're both in agreement on that point!

As we are coming towards the end of the interview, I might move away from VGC slightly

Would you like to share what happened to you on the best day of your life, Axum?

lol that's a loaded question. I'll give you one of my most recent best days. I went to Asheville with my boyfriend and we stayed in cabin in the mountains with a few of his coworkers. Joel and I laid outside and just stared up at the stars and watched fireflies for a long time. Probably the most peaceful night of my life.

Sorry for that delay. I was trying not to end up sending a short essay. :P

Loaded question? Me? Never!

o:)

Sometimes the days when you do nothing are the best days. Where you can just enjoy the moment

Sounds pretty awesome I have to say. Glad you guys are getting along well!

Haha. Me too. :D

Well that pretty much sums it up then I think.

Just one more question, though

Because VGC would rip me to shreds if I didn't ask

What's the deal with the moustache? Is there anything special about it?

Honestly, it's because I've always wanted to grow my facial hair out but I've always had jobs that wouldn't allow for it. My boyfriend also has an epic beard so trying to compete with that, I needed to step my game up without copying him. haha.

Sure I speak for everyone when I say it just makes you look all the more sexy though Axum, so that's not a bad thing <3

Oh yeah, and I feel like it'll give me a major advantage in the Most Attractive User tournament. :P

=-o

Is that happening again this year?

I hope so! :P Otherwise I'm growing this facial hair for nothing! :P

True, but maybe you should ask Joel first about that :P

And that seems like a good place to leave it to me.

Thanks for your time Axum. It's been fun and very enlightening!

:-{)

Do you have any last comments for the VGC community?

You're welcome! I appreciate the interview! :)

I'd like to thank everyone for being so supportive of me all these years (even if I know it can get frustrating trying to deal with a crazy mod like me!)

Alright, how nice!

Here's to a long time still to come, hopefully!

So yes. Thanks again for taking part!

No problem. Any time <3

=-o

Cheeky! I hope Joel isn't watching

...

Honestly if he's reading this I'm screwed. But oh well! Hope you guys enjoyed this installment and, as always, feel free to ask questions and Axum will answer them!

axumblade said:

Teeqoz said:
Yaaah, Ratchet & Clank fans are deffinitely underrepresented on the mod team.... *wink wink, nudge nudge*

But now that I finally have the chance to ask a fellow R&C fan, how would you rank the mainline R&C games? (Deadlocked, All 4 One, Qforce and Size Matters don't count as mainline games for this question)

So Secret Agent Clank counts? :P

Honestly, my first Ratchet & Clank game was Tools of Destruction. I didnt get a chance to play the others until after ACiT came out. So I rank them

1. A Crack In Time
2. Tools of Destruction
3. Up Your Arsenel
4. Ratchet & Clank (mainly because of it being the first in the series tbh :P)
5. Going Commando
6. Quest For Booty
7. Into the Nexus (which for some reason I still haven't played so this would probably go above Quest for Booty.

Hah,I actually thought about also mentioning Secret Agent Clank, but I felt confident that you'd understand (which you did), sooo :-p

I largely agree with your ranking, except for ranking the original so highly (even above R&C 2 :-o ). I started with the second R&C, and didn't play the first one until I bought the collection for my PS3, and the first title just felt dated to me (Makes me all the more hyped for the remake). Into the Nexus is great, I'd personally say it has the best gameplay of the series thus far, and the weapon upgrade system is probably also the best (mixing ACiT's and ToD's upgrade system, + some refinements, aww yeah, perfect formula). Its only problem is that it's a bit short (not as short as QfB though, not at all). You should deffinitely play Into the Nexus!

Sorry, I just get excited when other people like my favourite franchise

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