"I dont' need no stinkin' badges" you might say, but they're really nice to get in video games, and they have cool designs. I got several this week I'd like to share in addition to making comments on all the others things I played this week. It's self indulgent, I know, but maybe one of these games will spark some conversation. Onward.
Oh, watched the whole first disc of Batman The Animated series and discovered this video game show called Video Power. It's from the 90s. It has a kid DJ who gives you tips on games before and after a pretty lame animated cartoon. I just skip the cartoon and see what he has to say about Shinobi or whatever game it is that episode. Commercials plug the Tiger handheld games relentlessly in the first episode. Aside from the watching, there's the playing disclosed below.
I played a lot on Xbox Series S this week, but also used my DS, Swtich, PS4 and Retron 3. Gaming breaks included watching another episode of Mighy Orbots, Return of Ultraman, and Dragon Ball Season 2. Also saw a variety of short youtube videos.
While they aren’t as huge as they were a few years ago, mini consoles are great because they package some of the systems’ best games onto one tiny console you can relive the classics on. But the problem is they don’t put ALL the great games onto one console! Luckily last year SEGA released a second version of their Genesis Mini console with more different games, including some unreleased and SEGA CD titles. I heard it was kind of hard to get, and even though I paid a tiny bit more for mine than I wanted to, it still wasn’t that bad. So let’s take a look at what’s on the Genesis Mini 2! There are so many games (60 in all) that I’ll have to split this blog into two parts. So look for the next part in a week!
80s retro gaming is the topic today. Here's what I played last week (or earlier this week) on various collections I have.
Alongside gaming, my gaming buddy and I watch some cheesy TV. Last month it was Thunderbirds, and right now it's Ultraman Returns, the 1970s Japanese TV show that revived the Kaiju craze in Japan. The show is in subtitles, but it is really fun. Just like Thunderbirds, there are tons of real model sets, vehicles and planes for the special effects. And then there are the wrestling matches between Ultraman and the Kaiju of the day. Each episode shows off another kaiju, and the Blue-Ray collection has a Kaiju Roll Call booklet. Here's the first batch we been watching.
Got a late start, so I'm moving fast through what I played this last week.
I played a little bit of several titles, but what I mostly played was Earth Defense Force 2025 with my friend and an assortment of randos.
Last year there was a game that came out that I really wanted to review called Arcade Paradise. I requested a review code three different times and was denied each time! I really wanted to review it, too, because it’s a time management sim where you must run a laundromat business, but you are secretly running an arcade in the back with dozens of fictional arcade games you can actually play! I actually had an idea for a business that was half laundromat, half arcade, and I was going to called it Quarters: Good Clean Fun. So this game really resonated with me. If I had gotten a chance to review it last year, it definitely would’ve showed up on my Game of the Year list somewhere. But this year I used some Christmas present PlayStation Store points to buy it, and sure it was only 20 bucks so I was kind of cheap, but this stuff adds up if you’re not careful. Anyway, so now that I’ve played the game, I thought I’d write a blog about the arcade cabinets you can play on it. Oh yeah, and slight spoiler alerts here and there, but I don’t think it matters much.
All done with Halo Infinite. I wasn't too thrilled with returning to Ratchet & Clank for some reason, and so I started clicking the "surprise me" button within the sort drop-down menu in my digital library on Xbox. Here was the result.
I took a few short breaks from Halo Infinite, but my friend and I keep finding more things to do in it.
I finished with Fire Emblem: Awakening and Disney Infinity. I started free-2-play game Starlit Adventures on a random roll of the dice. I rage-quit Forza Horison 5 and for relief played Microsoft Solitaire Collection and watched a ton of youtube. Sometimes, I get a bit tired of losing at games.
Well hello there! I don’t like to toot our own horn too often, but this may be the best episode of Nerds Without Pants of the year. Is Stage Select a banger? Not even close. Is Video Game Cage Match one for the record books? Fraid not. But Consumption Junction is a blast, and hopefully you think so, too!
For years, there has been a heated debate among fans of the Mega Man series regarding which one is the best of the original hexalogy. After the facts have been laid out and philosophical life lessons thoroughly dissected, the debate usually boils down to Mega Man 2 vs. Mega Man 3. Which is the greater of the two? Well, no matter which side you’re on, we can all agree on the thing- the cover art for Mega Man 3 finally got it right! No more awkward stances or that pistol-for-an-arm-cannon nonsense. Of course, he didn’t look as good as on the Famicom cover, but that’s another argument.
August is coming up in a few days. My plan is to watch/play favorite and new media from the 80s. I also like to review what I watched/played back then. So here is a list of the games I played the most in the 80s year by year.
Back during the PSOne days, Square released a mascot kart racing game featuring cute versions of their Final Fantasy staple characters. You know, chocobo, moogle, white and black mages, etc. It was called Chocobo Racing. I wanted to get this game when it came out, but I was poor college student at the time and couldn’t afford to get it at full price. Plus I heard it was getting a lot of bad reviews, so I decided to wait for a while. Shortly after I graduated college, I found a new copy of Chocobo Racing at a flea market and it was only 20 bucks. And since I had a bit more disposable income by then, I decided to get it. And you know what? Despite it having such bad reviews, I really liked it! Sure it was no where near as good as Mario Kart or other mascot racers at the time such as Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing. But I really liked how they implemented Final Fantasy themes and tropes into the gameplay and presentation. So when Square-Enix showed a sequel of sorts last year coming to the Switch called Chocobo GP, I was really excited and wanted to get it. So now I finally have it and I wanted to talk about it and all the characters and tracks found therein. So let’s get started!
The 1980s was a decade with no shortage of TV action/crime dramas featuring a suave loner with a high-tech vehicle on a crusade to champion all that is good. At the top of the pile was Knight Rider. Each week, David Hasselhoff hit the road to stop criminals with the help of KITT- a super-advanced Pontiac Firebird Trans Am voiced by William Daniels (aka Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World). A popular show in syndication by 1988, Knight Rider was the perfect candidate to get a licensed video game on the even more popular Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). So now, sit back and join me on this shadowy flight into a dangerous world of a man who does not exist.
Being in the arcade business well before 16-bit consoles came along, Sega always had a discerning eye for what would catch an avid gamer’s attention. Their games covered nearly every genre out there at the time. If you wanted to be a high-flying jet pilot, Afterburner was your game. If you always wanted to ride like the wind with your partner at your side, OutRun owned your quarters. And in 1989, if you wanted to be a law enforcer with a lot of firepower and plenty of criminals to test it on, ESWAT: Cyber Police had your fix. While the Genesis version wasn’t a 1:1 port- sporting a slightly modified premise and fewer levels- the game was a worthy effort with a few quirks that kept it from being an A-lister.
While I was trying to stick to my retro game playing, my friend was still deep into Dishonored 2. As an assassin, he had lots of bodies to hide and it was funny to watch him fill up bathtubs and decorative ponds with them. Kind of gruesome but the physics of throwing a whole body around in this game is pretty funny.
Is it modes or moods, I'm not sure, but I had two modes I was in today. One was the mode of chasing after rewards points, the other was playing any old-school-looking turn-based RPG I could find on Xbox's Game Pass.
