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.
Continuing the share, my games of the 80s, maybe a few others if I'm into it. This is 1981.
I'm not really playing any 80s games this month (I'm still trying to weed my collection) but I am doing the 80s in other media this month, so I thought I'd at least write something about the games I played from this decade.
I'd like my media project for the year include video games, or games in general, but they just doesn't work because video games are so new and what came before them isn't so interesting that they could take up months of free time. But let me back up. What is my media project for the year? It's to go through human history in twelve parts. This is September and I'm in the 1970s, finally a decade that includes video games. If I had made gaming match the project, I would've been stuck with board/card games for eight months of the year. That isn't going to happen, not even for one month. Truth be told, I couldn't even spend a whole month on 70s video games. Only by the 80s are there enough video games to keep me going for a month.
Well, I refined my randomizer table and came up with something better and that works like a DnD Encounter Table. I also customized it for myself. This is a project for next year, I think. I'm so exhausted by my current plan (go through everything I own and weed out the undesired), I want to think ahead. So here goes.
I'm going to RetroCon here in Oaks, PA with MK this weekend. Not sure what I'll find there, but it's always interesting. We've been going to it for a few years now. Lots of old TV actors, voice actors, memorabilia, cosplayers, and games and stuff you can buy. I'll link a video below. But first, what I played this week on PS3.
I got to thinking about how to create a Random Encounter Table for PS3 games, because I always loved those things from my DnD days way, way back. Here are my results from the top 200 PS3 games on Metacritic.
To be honest, I started Xbox 360 sometime in May. So it took around four months to go through everything in my physical and digital collection and play a few new ones too. Here's the list of stuff I ended with. Note that I've been playing in order of Metacritic rating, and so these are the lowest rated games I have (doesn't mean they're are actually that bad though).
It was the summer of '97 - we were on a family vacation in Montreal and went to La Ronde Amusement Park for the day. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I was there; a Nintendo Megadome, right inside the park. It was like a dream come true. Even better, it was right before the release of GoldenEye 007, so I got my first look at what would soon become one of my favorite games ever. We played everything we could and left, VHS in hand, promoting some of the upcoming releases, including GoldenEye. There were some other promotional materials too, a dossier that would be thumbed through hundreds of times before we were graced with a copy of the game that Christmas.
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.
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!
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).
This is the last of the OG Xbox games I played from my collection. It's all DS now for a while.
Idealized because I don't own all of these yet, at least, not in physical form.
It's time to run down the list of GameCube games on Metacritic. It's fun and brings up memories and helps me decide what stays in my collection and what I need to pick up. Here goes.
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.
I only have a few here I put on my must-play list, but I like to look at everything anyway and perhaps try something new if I can find it for cheap enough. Remasters are also of interest since sometimes they vastly improve the experience. So this is Metacritic's top PS2 games 26-50 with comments.
I'm going down the Metacritic list for PS2 and seeing what might be worth trying out. Journey along and see the sights.
My first task in 2026 is the Atari years, 1977-1984. The system dominated the home console wars until the Famicom in '84. Arcades were king and PCs were just beginning to explore more complex experiences but for a high price. Here's a very personal breakdown of those years. I'm sure others have different ideas of what's most notable.
It's fun to go down the list of best of all time on Metacritic and make a personal list of favorites. Here are mine for the original Xbox.
An imagined library of games I would have from the best of the 2010s. In order of rank on the Metacritic list for those years.
It’s spooky season, and I’ve got some treats for you! No tricks! It’s game reviews I’ve recently written at GamerDad.com! About half of them are Pokémon related, so that explains the title of this blog. Also there’s a new Pokémon game that just came out. I’ll probably get it soon, as I did like the first Pokémon Legends game pretty well. Anyway, please click on the links to the reviews and read as many as you can, and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!