In console gaming, there is a legend known as the Third Console Curse. Most consoles are not successful enough to receive a follow-up. If they are, then a third console is still not guaranteed. It is a hard industry not only to break into, but sustain a market share in. Yet something happens with the third console every time. It fails to meet the company's initial goals. Maybe it still sells fine, maybe the console has a wonderful library of games. Even if that is the case, the company loses market share and is in a worse spot at the end of the console's life than they were going into it. It could be arrogance from success. It could be a lack of perspective from being too used to success. Maybe it's just rotten luck. But it's consistent.
Another ten on my list to play this year going in order on the Metacritic all-time best list for DS.
This is my list in coordination with the all-time best OG Xbox games on Metacritic. I'm playing games in order of MC rating instead of release date this year.
Yes, I can't believe it, but I have finished going through all my physical NGC and GBA games this week. I spent the most time with Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon and Riviera: The Promised Land. Let's go!
I got through the last of my PS2 games, or so I thought. Here's what I got to this week.
Army of Ruin is taking over and keeping me away from my retro plans. I have half a mind to pull the plug on my Xbox to keep me away from it but I want to finish what I can first. However, an intervention may be in order. But, I did play a few retro games in the margins.
I'm ending April this week even though there are a few more days left and moving on to my next theme. It was a grueling month for me who has so little patience for repeating levels and making that perfect jump; but I, like they do in special ops training, pushed beyond my limits as much as I could. I'll be putting up a blog of all the games I played over at wordpress very soon and a what-I-liked best of blog here. Here's what I got to this week before I decended into incremental games out of exhaustion.
Oh the platformers. I must've uttered every raw, adult, four-letter, explosive, pun-ridden, nasty word or phrase ever invented by sailors from a dozen different nations. After a dozen or so games -- each rage quit with a unique expletive -- to my surprise, I found myself settling in a bit,. I got several levels farther in games I never got out of the first level with before and eventually even started enjoying myself. . . Wait, maybe that's getting ahead of myself. Let's just say I started calming down. So here's the lot of them that I tried -- and largely failed with -- this week.
It was all Switch this week. I feel like i'm cramming in playing the systems I largely ignored during the year in this last month. Better late than never.
The Castlevania Domina collection just cemented something that's been creeping in my head ever since I picked up my PSP again earlier this year: The DS library's highlights looks better today than the PSP's highlights. Back in the 00's, the PSP's graphics were a huge selling point, offering games close to console quality over a decade before the Switch. But despite a strong launch, most gamers were shocked at how it merely carved a niche while the DS took over the world. Yet one thing that the PSP had in its favor at all time were its graphics. Games looked better.
Wow, 2023 has been an incredible year for gaming, one of the very best! And here we are at the end of the year, so let’s look back at some games, shall we? You guys probably know that I’m a big Nintendo guy. In fact, I don’t even have the other consoles (mostly because I don’t have time to play them all). This was a great year for Nintendo, we got so many fantastic games on the Switch. This year I beat a total of 26 games! (I was hoping to beat 30, but you know how it goes)
