Got some time today (car repair again), so I'll finish up making notes on the list of best Wii games on Metacritic, now starting at those rated under 75.
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.
2013 is really the start Console Generation 8, but to me it's still Gen 7 because the Xbox One and PS4 came out late in that year, and I didn't get either one until maybe a year later. Yes the Wii-U was out in 2012, the 3DS and PS Vita in 2011, but it really felt like Gen 8 fully to me in 2014. So this is the last year I'll review until I get past all the Gen 7 systems in my retro journey this year.
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 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.
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.
In 1991, Origin Systems gave Game Boy owners a taste of the Ultima series with a unique entry, Ultima: Runes of Virtue. Unlike many Ultima spinoffs, this was actually developed in-house at Origin Systems, by many longtime Origin staff who had most recently worked on Ultima VI: The False Prophet. As a result, the art style in this games resembles Ultima VI.
'cause it feels so good. Stuff I played a lot in the 7th generation of consoles, 2005-2013ish.
I kinda can't wait to do this sort of overview for DS games when I get there in a few weeks.
Idealized because I don't own all of these yet, at least, not in physical form.
It's always fun to go down the list of Metacritic's top games for a system or year. Here goes for the GBA, which I'm trying to play alongside my PS2 games. It's all about the early 2000s.
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 been a long time since we’ve seen an entry in the Metroid Prime series - 18 years, in fact. It was 8 years ago that Metroid Prime 4 was originally announced and its development was more than a little turbulent. Initially developed by Bandai Namco, it was later scrapped completely and development was shifted back to Retro Studios to start the project over. In the end, Retro has delivered a solid new entry in the series, but one that doesn’t totally capture what originally made the series so compelling.
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.
I won't get to NGC this month, but it's fun to peruse the Metacritic best-of list anyway. These are largely exclusives to the system I've played or have thoughts about.
Back in 2022, Pac-Man World: RePac was released. It was a remake of the original Pac-Man World game on PlayStation. I even wrote an article about it here. I encourage you to read that article I wrote because the original Pac-Man World game was a very special game to me as a game reviewer, and the remake was even my Game of the Year in 2022! I wondered if Pac-Man World 2 would get the RePac treatment someday, and this year it did! I didn’t like Pac-Man World 2 as much as the original, but it was still a special game to me and I thought I’d explain why in this article, and go over my thoughts on the RePac version of this game as well.
My girlfriend and I am going on a short vacation to our old college in central New York this weekend. Among other things, I'll be looking to see if that arcade machine, Sky Shark, is still there in the pizza shop I used to go to. The odds aren't good after so much time. But anyway, I played a lot of games this mid-week-end that I have (I'm off wed/thurs regularly) trying to decide what to keep of my 90s game collection.
It's the 90s for me this month and maybe for two months, we'll see. I got my Retron 3 and Genesis up and running so far. Here's what I got to this week.
Recently, I livestreamed an (almost) complete playthrough of Richard "Lord British" Garriott's 1982 RPG, Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress. These videos were originally simulcast on my Twitch and YouTube channels.
Got another batch of game 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!
