Not enough time to do my Time Warped blog because I was too busy gaming today. I got another silver slim PS2 to play some retro stuff that I'll mention in a later blog. Then I played more retro stuff on XBO that I'll also mention later. Finally I can quickly mention the other 3 games. 

More Forza Horizon today. I played a lot of multiplayer for achievements. I got in on a group to play the Playground mode which is three gameplay styles (Infection, Cat and Mouse and King). Infection has one car be infected and the rest run from it until everyone is infected. The one who lasts longest wins. Cat and Mouse is a race where there's two teams, cat and mouse, and the cats try and stop the mouse team from finishing the race (only a mouse can win the race). King is like the inverse of Infected. One is labeled King and the rest have to steal his kingship by hitting him. The one who remains king longest wins.

It’s no secret to the people at PixlBit that I am a huge fan of the Saints Row series. The last two games are among my favorite games from the last generation, and I eagerly await the next chapter in the increasingly bonkers tale of the Third Street Saints. In the interim, I am certainly interested in Agents of Mayhem, a spinoff of Saints Row that seeks to blend the over the top humor and gameplay from that franchise with the character and special powers of squad based shooters like Overwatch. After playing the game at E3 I am still interested, but I also have some concerns.

I guess I’ll just do a short life update for this edition of BaD, since I have a few small things to talk about since the last blog.

We recorded Nerds Without Pants last night. It is a great show, even though there are some technical difficulties, and I hope you’ll give it a listen when it drops next Wednesday. For the Stage Select topic, Angelo wanted us to select our top three video game intros. This was a difficult task, and I had been thinking about it for the entire two weeks before finalizing my picks. We all picked some awesome games, but of course we could have gone for hours on this one subject. So I thought it would be fun to talk about just a few of the games that almost made my list.

I've crossed out the games I put in my cart, but decided against. I wanted to cap things as close to $20 as possible (wound up with 5 games for about $22)

Games: Time is precious, and I just don't have the desire currently to spend much of it on video games. I am become kasual! No more ambitious lists of what I will play in the new year, as they never come to fruition anyway. Will stick to one or two games at a time and probably only play a few hours on the weekend. And only what games interest me at the moment, not what everyone says is the hot new shit. So....

Last few years I've been keeping a spreadsheet of all the media I've experienced. I've got games, books, movies, and music recorded. Let's do games. 

I think this is the latest I've ever posted my monthly recap. Life has been nuts! We bought our first house at the beginning of July (it was a long process getting to that point) and we are expecting our third baby anytime within the next week, so July was a crazy month of moving in and preparing for the new baby. Plus I've had pretty frequent overtime—nice for the money but not for moving in and prepping for baby  But I did manage to get some gaming in, as you shall see...

Now that I have finished up Saints Row IV, I was expecting to jump into DOOM, but that didn't really happen.  I started up the first level and made it about halfway through, but I guess I am not feeling a big budget PS4 game.  So, I jumped back into Chrono Trigger on the Vita, which I had started over my vacation.  Chrono Trigger is just such a fantastic game, and alonf with FF IV got me into RPGs when I was younger.  We had some RPGs on the NES, but they didn't pull me in like FF IV and subsequently Chrono Trigger...

A potentially quick update.  I made it back from third world countries and that vacation was amazing.  I read significantly more than I had expected and burned through the three books I brought along...  Name of the Wind, The Fabulous Riverboat and Darth Plageuis.  I played some Downwell, and had fun until I hit the third 'world' or whatever they call them.  I also started up Chrono Trigger on Vita and had forgotten how much I love that game.

 Holy fucking bejeezus there were some cool games at E3. It's actually terrifying how many games I need to talk about, but talk about them I will.

I wanted to play some Saints Row Iv today (Monday) but cloud saves were offline, so I played some Miinecraft instead. Then I watched the MS E3 Conference live on Xbox 360 and then back to Minecraft because I got somewhat disinterested in Saints Row IV even though cloud saves came back online. 

Good morning Pixlpeeps and Happy Friday! So earlier this morning in my little piece of Southern California we had an earthquake that was felt from San Diego to LA, and my little desert town was close to the epicenter so it was a bigger deal than normal. I have this weird knack for waking up right before earthquakes and I woke up looked for my phone to see the time and shaking

Got myself this remake of the original PS2 Odin Sphere for PS4 today. I love Vanillaware games, especially their art style which is very Japanese, colorful, and zany all at the same time. Plus they usually do game genre's I really dig like strategy, rpg, or some mix of the two. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, I say. Here's a pic:

I didn't really bounce around too much after finishing up Axiom Verge.  I ended up settling into another game in the vein of Axiom Verge, Metroid and handheld Castlevania...  Shadow Complex.

Played through the whole of Metal Slug 1. I love it except I don't love the arcade, quarter munching, game mechanics. They throw at you impossible waves of bullets and bombs so you die and have to put in another quarter to continue. I don't have to put the money in, but it's still frustrating to die so much. I never did get really comfortable with the Wiimote ( the classic controller wasn't supported) but it was ok. I downloaded Metal Slug 2 on virtual console for Monday. I can use the classic controller for that. 

I saw Captain America: Civil War on Friday with Mark. I'm not a huge fan of the Avenger's movies but they're fun. This one was pretty good. I liked Bucky, Winter Soldier, the best. He has the best look and fights very agressively. I liked every fight he was in. Yea, he's troubled, being partially mind controlled and all (not a spoiler if you know the comics) but I actually like him better for it because he's more human than these mostly pristine do-gooders (Iron Man has his flaws, sure, but he basically has good intentions). I didn't like how they left Bucky though. No spoilers, but it was a boring wrap-up. I wanted to see more of him riding motorcyles. 

I hooked up my slim PS2 today to play Neo Contra. This is a top down twin-stick shooter. I suppose it's in the Contra series. The best thing about it was the opening cutscene which was so full of over-the-top action that made me laugh.

Started off Sunday with Scrabble for PSOne. This is a good TV version of the board game. Everything works fine. You have a tournament mode to play against A.I. characters and solitare in case you don't have anyone to play with. I played some tournament mode for a while before I got kind of bored of it. Get it, board? Yea, that's dumb. Anyway this was good to have way back when but now I have Scrabble on Xbox Live where I can play online. Yea, I don't need this anymore. 

Started early yesterday with River City Random on NES. This is a brawler, but unlike most brawlers of the time, you feel surprisingly free to do what you want. I think it's from the variety of things you can do and places you can go. You can kick, punch and throw enemies; pick up items and use them as melee weapons or throw them. There's the usual street fighting stuff like sticks and chains, but there are also every day items like baseballs and just blocks of stone or building matterial. You move in a 2D side-scrolling world but you can open doors or enter passageways in the background and enter a park or shopping district. This gives the game a good illusion of being in a 3D world.

Started out today on Xbox 360 and downloaded the Games with Gold: Saints Row IV and Sunset Overdrive for XBO.

The other day I was in Gamestop getting Saints Row IV and I was told that buy 2 get 3 free sale on toys to life figures was still going on. My eyes popped out wide and I went to take a look. I couldn't think of what Skylanders figures I still wanted. I already got quite a few. So I left without buying anything. For the moment. 

Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition, on consoles, is Diablo III plus The Reaper of Souls expansion. With that comes a lot of tweaks to the main game that makes it different enough to warrent having a seperate title and a seperate set of achievements/trophies. Mark and I played through most of the main game's four Acts and about two thirds the way through the new Act V. We're both at level 70 now and just gaining paragon levels, which gives you points to allocate within four different stats.