I see the end of my 360 games in sight and so started putting my PS3 games in order for some serious PS3 action in a couple of weeks, probably.

I played a lot of digital titles this week and stuck with almost none of them (no respawns) but enjoyed myself quite a bit. Also some disc-based ones I did stick with a little longer.

I'm currently playing Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure again for any remaining achievements and to look at my figure collection. Here's an overview of the complete figures for the game.

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.

I had a really good time with Xbox 360, or 3tricksy as I like to call it, this week. This is what I got to in my journey through all my 360 games.

Knocked off a bunch more in the 360 collection. I was writing down all the digital only games I wanted to play on 360 and came across a lot of them. I own a lot more than I remember and there are ones I missed as well. This is just adding to my "collection" and making getting through 360 a real chore. I passed my usual burnout on year-long gaming projects a month ago, so I think I'm good for the distance now. Here's this week's plays plus a few buys.

This week, Nick returns for another solo cast of PixlTalk! Starting with site updates, Nick details what changes he's been making and the progress on some new features that are coming soon. Next he goes through some of his Pseudoregalia and Super Kiwi 64 thoughts, as those are the games he's been playing lately, followed by what he'll be playing next. Finally, the main topic - Engineering the Fun Out. Nick talks about his experience with the new 3D Zelda games and how he manages to completely ruin the experience for himself, despite not really wanting to.

Around this time of year, I like to make a list of my best games SO FAR, because usually the AAA titles are released later in the year during the holiday season, and the titles that came out earlier tend to be forgotten.  So here’s when those games get their due.  Keep in mind that this is my list only and no other outside opinions contributed.  And if a game isn’t on this list, it either just didn’t appeal to me as much or I haven’t had a chance to play it yet.  Ok with that out of the way, let’s begin!

Even from the outset, Pseudoregalia proves to be a fascinating game. Visually, it's striking - evoking the PlayStation 1 - you won't see many games that look quite like it these days, and few, if any, are able to pull off the style successfully. Similar to a title on the PlayStation, you're dropped into the game without much fanfare and with only the ability to jump. You have no map to help you navigate, no weapon to defend yourself, and compared to later in the game, extremely limited mobility. Exploring Castle Sansa and its surrounding areas will net you a sword and upgrades to it, as well as myriad upgrades to your movement abilities, enabling you to reach more parts of the castle.

I often make my own fun when I'm at MK's like I've half lost my mind. It's an enhancement to gaming I enjoy (singing in my head right now is Iron Maiden's, "Can I Play with Madness"),

Hey folks!  Got a very special podcast for you today!  30 years ago this summer, I started writing game reviews for a major newspaper, and I’ve written game reviews for other newspapers and websites ever since!  When I did this for my 20 year anniversary, I just wrote a blog, so I figured I’d be different this time and do a podcast.  So come join me as I share my favorite memories and experiences writing game reviews for 30 years!

The Star Fox series has always been special to me. When I turned 8, shortly after the original game came out, my parents surprised me with it on my birthday. At the time, I remember thinking the 3D graphics were incredible and the game was extremely fun. I was addicted to blasting through space and foiling Andross' plans to dominate the universe. Years on, I remember obsessing over my Nintendo Power issues that showed Star Fox 2 - the new characters and crafts looked amazing. Unfortunately, it wouldn't officially see the light of day until I was an adult, but my Star Fox appetite would soon be satiated with Star Fox 64.

I skip town for a couple weeks and the site looks totally different!

For years Microsoft hoovered up more and more of the games industry. It was shocking when they purchased Bethesda - a huge third party publisher and development house. By the time they secured the deal to buy Activision-Blizzard, it was much less so, and it was clear that Microsoft believed they could buy all the properties they needed to make GamePass a success. It didn't take long to see that their strategy wasn't working.

Revisited this week on Xbox 360:

Happy 250th birthday, America!  To celebrate, here are some reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com.  Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  OK let’s begin!

Yesterday, Sony dropped a few bombs on the gaming world - first, they are discontinuing support of the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita stores by next year, at the latest, with support ending immediately in some areas. Second, they will cease production of physical games by January 2028 for all releases on PlayStation consoles, leaving only another year and half before you'll no longer be able to grab the latest games pressed to a disc.

It's my pleasure to present to all of you the latest iteration of PixlBit! It feels unreal to finally be launching this new version of the site - I've spent a lot of hours over the past few months building everything out and getting things in a state to launch. It's particularly unreal to be typing this in the brand new editor and getting this new content posted after such a long dry spell.

In the last part of my PS4 tribute blog, we looked at the games I enjoyed on the PS4 that were classic collections or remakes.  And on this one, we’ll look at the more AAA titles (well as AAA as I get anyway), as well as the indie titles on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Like I said before, most of these games you can enjoy on other platforms, I just played them on PS4.

Here's my "waiting for a car repair" blog about the 2011 games that I played relatively close to release date in order of Metacritic rating for that year. Also, I'm just noting the system I played the game on, not all available systems. 

It's fun to go down the Metacritic [MC] list, so I'm doing it again for the stuff I played in 2010. 

When a game console is considered “dead,” I like to write a tribute blog about that console and its games.  While most people would probably consider the PS4 ‘dead’ for a while now, I’m still reviewing games for it.  I guess a game console is really only considered ‘dead’ once you stop playing it.  But since recently I wasn’t able to get simple games like LEGO Batman and Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection on the PS4, I figured it was about time.  I’ll probably do a similar blog with the original Switch later towards the end of this year.  Most of the games on this list you can play on other consoles as well, I mostly used the PS4 as a third party machine if I couldn’t play or review it on the Switch, or if I’d rather play it on the PS4.  Anyway, there are so many games I’m going to split this up into two parts.  And the first part is going to be all about classic game collections, and remakes of classics and styled games.

Going down the top ranked on Metacritic for that year, these are what I played a lot within console generation 7, 

What it is: Stuff I played close to the year of release or at least during console generation 7, listed in order of Metacritic ranking for 2008.