Ultros immediately drew me in with its gorgeous neon sci-fi aesthetic, but it kept me hooked by completely subverting my expectations as the game progressed. At first glance, and by the developer’s description, it appears to be yet another Metroidvania game - which, frankly, have gotten to be extremely plentiful and much less interesting due to their abundance. But quickly, you realize this is no normal Metroidvania - nor is it quite a roguelike despite the cyclical nature of the experience. It borrows these designs to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
1985 was a little light in gaming for me but it was notable to most of us in the west as the year the NES was test marketed in the U.S. that October (and nationwide in Sept. '86). I was unaware but it can't go unmentioned. Here's everything I remember clearly.
Beat, Heart, Beat is an action-rhythm platformer that puts a unique spin on the auto-runner, incorporating a midwest emo soundtrack and a truly bizarre cast of characters and premise. Through fifteen unique levels/songs, you’ll avoid obstacles, attack in three directions, chain combos, and try to do it all to the beat to earn the highest scores. The short quest relies heavily on replayability and high score chasing and your enjoyment will likely hinge on your affinity for the distinctive midwest emo soundtrack.
Oh gaming. Perhaps I was spending more time on sports, records and photography, but there was plenty of arcade visits still going on, not to mention playing my friends' consoles at their homes. Here's what I played and remember.
Whether you asked for it or not, chances are, Generative AI is now a part of your day-to-day life. Increasingly, it’s been worked into every facet of, well, everything. If you’re like me, it’s become a huge part of your work life too, regardless of whether you asked for it. GenAI is changing our world; it’s deskilling workers, weakening labor power, increasing the surveillance power of institutions, and reducing our collective agency and intelligence.
Started PS3 gaming this week. Booting up worked fine, faster than even X360. Got youtube running on it too, also with less issues than 360. The PSN store lost its search option but you can still buy things if you add funds to your account from another device (I'm using the phone app). Also Device Sign In just popped up yesterday and had me apply another password to my account. I guess it's Sony's way of forcing two factor identification and to ensure a robust password. Kind of annoying but I got it to work. There's some good stuff in the store I want, so I'll be testing digital downloads soon. Anyway, here's what I played this week:
One of my favorite things about the original Splatoon was that while you were waiting for an online match to start, you could play a little 8-bit arcade style game. I even wrote an article about them here. I missed having them in the sequels, but I can understand why they took them out. I think most people would rather play in a practice arena doing what they’ll actually do in the match while they wait, and I think some of the extra arcade games were locked behind amiibo figures anyway. But I still liked them because I’m weird I guess. So I was pleasantly surprised that the arcade games made a return in Splatoon Raiders! I don’t even remember anyone talking about them in previews or reviews, so it was a surprise to me! So I’m going to talk about them here!
Another mega-batch of games as I forge ahead and try to wrap up my 360 revisit. I'll stick with the physical games first.
OK students, class is back in session! Your assignment today is to read as many GamerDad reviews I’ve recently written and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. You’ll get an A+ if you do. OK, let’s begin!
I can't seem to find my draft of this blog right now, so I'm rewriting it hastily and with much less content due to time limitations. In any case, this is 2012, the stuff I played during Console Generation 7 and mostly not later, because a lot on the Metacritic list I played years later or literally in 2026. Let's go.
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.
I'm getting closer to the end of my 360 games now, but it may be a few more weeks still before I move on to PS3 or Wii. I really can't wait to start those.
The first thing that comes to mind is changing my Xbox gamertag. I got one in 2004 when Xbox Live Arcade dropped but a mini-game on an Official Xbox Magazine demo disc was giving me trouble in '07, and I thought a new gamertag would solve it. Well, it did solve it, but I lost touch with my old gamertag over time, and now it's probably been deactivated along with the few games I bought under it. It'll be 20 years on my current gamertag next year. It could've been 23 years if I'd stuck with my original one.
I ripped through a lot of stuff this week, being impatient to get through it all, the slightest annoyance sending me to the next game in my collection. But, I had a lot of good experiences anyway. I'll break these 360 games into two categories, physical and digital only (or, Xbox Live Arcade as it used to be called).
'cause it feels so good. Stuff I played a lot in the 7th generation of consoles, 2005-2013ish.
I got through a lot combining the end of last week's and all of this week's gaming. I'm clearly not going for complete runs. I just play to revisit and go as far as I stay interested. Here's the lot on Xbox 360:
I'm on vacation this week for the most part. LJ and I went to Washington D.C. to visit the Smithsonian Zoo and Museum of the American Indian (also, accidently - 'cause we parked beneath it - the Bible Museum and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit), but I manged to squeeze in some gaming on a few days here and there and last week, which I couldn't report on 'cause Pixlbit was down.
This is the last of the OG Xbox games I played from my collection. It's all DS now for a while.
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!
The next 25 games on Metacritic for the GBA. I'll have my favorites, but I'll look up everything and see what's available to me to try out.