There’s a fishing game in Japan by Namco called Ace Angler, and you view the screen horizontally to the ground like you’re looking into a fishing pond.  It’s pretty popular, and I think I even played it once at Round 1 arcade here in the US, or at least an imitation of it.  And now you can play a home version of the arcade game on the Switch with Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits.  It was available digitally in the US last year, but I imported a physical copy of it because I’m a freak about stuff like that.  But the game is entirely in English so there’s no language barrier here.  I asked for it for Christmas, but since imports can sometimes take a while, I actually didn’t get it until around Easter this past year.  And I finally got around to playing it recently.  The cool thing about the Switch game is that they made the arcade game like it has its own amusement park and aquarium.  So it’s like a cross between a Namco Museum game (albeit for only one arcade game) and Animal Crossing.  You even create your own avatar that looks like something out of Animal Crossing, and since I like the aquariums in those games, as well as Namco Museums in general, this game really ticked off a lot of boxes for me!  The game says it’s Ace Angler’s 10^th anniversary, which I didn’t realize it had been around that long!  But anyway, let me take you on a tour guide through the Ace Angler Aquarium and Arcade Amusement Park found in the Switch Fishing Spirits game!

No, not real ticks, but THE Tick, the animated 1990s TV show based on the comic of the same name by Ben Edlund. I love this show so much: the big band swing style opening music, the humorous parodies of super heroes, the shear wackiness of the stories, and the loads of visual jokes that go on in the background or worked into a scene. It's smart, it's fun, it's silly; a perfect triple scoop icecream cone of a show. Oh, and I played a load of video games too. See below. 

I picked up a few games today at Game Junkies along the lines of early 90s (2 Genesis, 2 SNES and 1 NES game) but not any of these listed below which were unavailable or pricey. Good thing many of them are available digitally with subscriptions or relatively cheap. Here's my list for '92.

Interesting year dominated by Street Fighter II and TMNT in the arcades. Bungie and ID companies were founded and GameInformer began this year. I made a list of stuff I wish to revisit or try for the first time. Thought I'd share it. 

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. 

It's almost August when I will be focusing my retro gaming on the 90s. That's NES, Genesis, SNES, PS and N64 for me. I don't have a Saturn anymore, never had a TG-16 or Neo Geo, and I didn't play handheld games until the DS. However I do now have the option to play Game Boy and GBC games on my Gamecube's GameBoy Player. So I may break that out too. Here's a list of stuff I'm interested in from 1990, more or less. 

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.

80s retro gaming is the topic today. Here's what I played last week (or earlier this week) on various collections I have.

Games Beaten

I'm slowly creating a list of 80s retro stuff I want to revisit. This is for 1981.

Hey folks, I have some big news for you all!  You know how the Super Mario Bros. Movie is coming out soon, right?  Well if you go to see it, make sure to watch the credits because my name is in there under “Plumbing Consultant.”  You see, in the movie, it shows the bros. as plumbers, and the animators needed to make sure the pipes they were working on looked correct.  And since I work in the plumbing section of a major hardware store chain (true story), they had me do that.  So why didn’t they hire a real plumber for that?  Well, licensed plumbers are expensive, and they wanted to save some money so they had me do it instead.  And because I do work for a major hardware store, they’re partnering with the Mario movie to sell special plumbing tools.  So for a limited time, you can get plumbing wrenches, pipe cutters, and plungers with red or green handles, like Mario and Luigi!

It’s the end of the year so you know what that means?  It’s time for my “Best Games of 2022 Awards Show!”  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!

15 Years of Super Mario Galaxy!

Latest game related snaps. 

I read part two of the new Bloodborne Lady of the Lanterns comic, played several board games, bought some stuff at the convention I went to, and played a bunch of stuff I'll probably save for another time because this blog is already going to be longish. 

Pac-Man World: Re-Pac was recently released, and it’s a remake of Pac-Man World, a 3-D platformer originally on the PSOne to celebrate Pac-Man’s 20^th anniversary.  Pac-Man World may not be one of my favorite Pac-Man games, but I have a lot of special memories about it that I thought I’d share with you in this blog.  Plus my opinion on the remake, what has changed and stayed the same, etc.  So grab a bowl of Pac-Dots and let’s get chomping!

“And now, the most anticipated epic adventure of the year will never come to a theater near you. Final Fantasy VII.” And so began my interest in RPGs. That commercial blew my 12-year-old mind back in 1997. Besides the impressive animations shown (which we would later learn were only cut-scenes), I was intrigued at seeing that we somehow jumped from Final Fantasy III on the Super NES to now VII on the PlayStation. “What manner of sorcery is this?”, I wondered.

Can you believe Klonoa has been around for 25 years?  That makes me feel REALLY old!  I remember when I first played that game in college and reviewed it for The Dallas Morning News.  If you don’t know (and shame on you if you don’t), Klonoa is a series of (mostly) 2D platformers by Namco.  And they’re really good, too!  The quality of these games really had an impact on me and they’re some of my favorite titles on the PSOne and PS2.  For the 25^th Anniversary, Namco released a collection of the PSOne and PS2 main games, which we’ll talk about here.  But we’ll also go through the other games in the series as well!  Oh yeah, there may be some spoilers here and there, but I’ll warn you when they come up.

We’re celebrating a couple of milestones with this podcast!  First, it’s our one-year anniversary since we started doing this podcast.  And second, this is our tenth episode!  So to celebrate, here’s a special episode where my brother Jeff and I talk about our favorite music/rhythm games!  

Got some Happy Meals at McDonalds to get a few Thor Love and Thunder toys just for fun. I had a lot of rewards points for using the McDees app, so why not? I had hoped the figures worked a bit like Skylanders on the Happy Meal web site, but I couldn't get the one I got to work. I think the "game" just plays a song tied to the figure anyway. Then I played some actual Skylanders on 360 and then switched to Series S for the usual routine. I skipped out on the Switch that day not wanting to plug it into my TV, which only has two HDMI jacks. But I have Triangle Strategy and more Mario + Rabbids to play there.  

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!

Let’s celebrate the start of Summer with some game reviews I’ve recently written at GamerDad.com!  Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  OK let’s begin!

I found more interesting video game print ads in old comics I picked up in the bargain bin at my comic shop (Ren and Stimpy and Pirates of Dark Water no. 1).