During my temporary work layoff, I've sometimes visited a museum or game store/arcade. Here's the story in pictures.
Happy New Year! Around this time of year, I like to make a list of games that are releasing in the coming year that I’m looking forward to. Of course, this isn’t a full complete list, as there will assuredly be titles announced throughout the year that I may get as well. Heck, last year we didn’t know about Pac-Man World: Re-Pac until late summer, and that ended up being my Game of the Year in 2022! But anyway, here’s what I know now, for the most part, so let’s take a look at what games I’m looking forward to in 2023!
I made a list of what I played in 2010. Here they are in chronological order.
These past few months have been shaping up towards being rather hard on my gaming budget. There are too many upcoming games that I really want, and me being me, I'll probably end up getting all of them even though I am currently working my way through the Xenoblade trilogy. Incidentally, unless Bayonetta 3 really, really knocks it out of the park in October, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is likely to be my GOTY.
Both my friend and I beat the main story in Lego Batman 2 this week but there is plenty left to explore in this, one of the first if not the first, open-world Lego game.
I guess I celebrated Mario in a way by playing my randomly sampled game, Super Smash Bros. on Wii-U. I randomly rolled the Wii-U and the number 3. The game was number 3 on Metacritic's list of best Wii-U games.
I used my trade money to get several games at Game N DVD Exchange today. Then I spent some time with my friend and played some stuff.
I traded in the last of what I wanted to trade to Gamestop today, and just like last week, the salesman referred me to a retro store for selling the rest of my stuff. This was another one I didn't know (or forgot) about, Game N DVD Exchange in Media, Pa, a short drive from where I live. I went there and traded the rest of my stuff for store credit. I got pretty good value, I thought. Here's a video of some YouTubers who went there.
This is a retro game store I found today in Glenside, PA while trading in old games. The town just borders northwest Philadelphia.
I guess I don't have one game I'm totally obsessed with right now, so it's jumping around a lot from game to game. This will change on Nov 5 (I think) when Forza Horizon 5 drops.
This week it's clearly Halloween-style games on Game Pass rewards. I recall now that I've played a lot of horror games chasing rewards points over the year. I realized it when I got into a conversation with a Gamestop salesman and knew every game he, a horror game fan, was talking about. I did, at times, have some trouble differentiating one from another. It's what happens when you play a dozen or so games but just an hour or two each. I would probably play very few horror games if it weren't for Game Pass rewards quests. It's not my favorite genre.
I was thinking about blog ideas and it got me looking at my collection. I sorted through my demo discs which I've kept all these years, and it led me on a quest to revisit the Original Xbox. It will be 20 years in November since its release. That will make it like a classic car. I'm going to start with the demo discs of a particular year (the ones I have) and then play a game or two. I've even acquired a few new ones I haven't played before. Should be fun for my weekday gaming. So here's a demo disc I have from around the launch day, I believe, November 2001.
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #23/Blog a Day #8
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #26/Blog a Day #5
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #27/Blog a Day #4
This is the year I got into the Toys-To-Life games. I believe it was the vehicle designs for the Skylanders Superchargers that got me interested and then Gamestop's sales right after the holidays. This lead to Disney Infinity, then Lego Dimensions, Amiibo, and finally Skylink: Battle for Atlas. The genre is sort of in limbo right now, but I hope it returns. But I experienced more than just games. Here are five favorites from that year.
I've been hunting around for games for my personal library at Gamestops the last few days, like I used to all the time in the 2010s. I found two out of three I was looking for yesterday (Valkyria Chronicles (PS3), Gears of War 3 (X360) - $2 and $1 respectively), and at the store I went to today, found nothing. But I noticed a buy-4-for-$30 (all must be under $15) sale and found some stuff I wanted. It works out to $7.50 a game, which is pretty good. Here's a picture:
Xevious is number 3 on my Top 40. Question is, do I still have this game, and do I have something physical with this game on it? The answer is yes and yes, but do I have everything? Here’s what I got and don’t got.