I like to figure out a 12 part study of some sort to cover an entire year. This year it was all about history, and I was able to divide western history into 12 parts. I can't help thinking about next year already and one of my ideas is console generations. The only problem is that there are only 9 of them. So how to make it 12? Any ideas? I'll list the 9 I got so far.
When Pac-Man finally took off in popularity after its introduction to the US in 1980, it spawned a lot of competition; after all, Pac-Man is still the single most successful arcade game in history. While some were straight up clones of Pac-Man - Atari took Magnavox to court over K.C. Munchkin, their Pac-Man clone for the Odyssey - other games tried to come up with unique twists.
Not my fault these weren't posted. No Internet at home. Still the case, but posting from my office.
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #11/Blog a Day #20
For some odd reason my laptop’s WiFi isn’t playing well but I can’t restart the laptop because I’m currently converting some FLAC files into mp3 for my music player. Relax audiophiles it’s a copy and it’s for my big project that I seem to do yearly of making an mp3 or AAC copy of my FLAC library. Anyways while that is going on let’s get started to what games I played (I really only played 1)
The arcades were my first gaming experiences, and I've alwasy had a soft spot for the arcade classics. Thanks to Atari, Namco, and the Arcade Archives series, my Nintendo Switch looks like the arcade of my fever dreams. But I've always enjoyed the look and feel of arcade cabinets. When I was a kid in Arizona, the local Ak-Chin commissary always had arcade cabinets like Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, and Ms. Pac-Man, plus arcades were at grocery stores, movie theaters, travel plazas, and of course, shopping malls.
I made a list of my favorite games, and it's so darn long I have to break it into 8 parts, roughly following console generations. This, the first part, is about the Golden Age of video games: arcades, consoles by Atari, Intellivison, and ColecoVision and PC.
Good morning Pixlpeeps! It is a breezy 9:15am here in sunny Southern California and I have been awake for about three hours and I figured it was time to update my Quick Hits since I haven’t done one of these in a while so let’s catch up. I wanted to do this on the usual Friday but things got in the way and before I get going and cleaning up I wanted to do this update. Since my Aztecs are on a bye week, I’m thinking about skipping football completely but I kinda watched parts of games yesterday and I’ll probably watch parts of games today. We shall see how I feel about watching on Sunday night because Dallas is at New Orleans.
1982 was the heart of the golden age of video games, in my opinion. Flynn’s Arcade in the movie Tron, that came out this year, gives a good view of what an 80s arcade was like.
In the 80s arcades were everywhere and there were multiple home systems to choose from. I was a teenager. I rode a bike to the arcades and checked out all the home systems through my network of friends in the neighborhood. Atari had simple fun games, ColecoVision had the best arcade ports and Intellivision had the best simulations of sports. Let's take a look starting with 1980.
I played the first hour of the new Octopath Traveler demo. I had played the original demo but this one lets you do more and the save carries over to the full game. I started with the Scholar character. He's ok. Next I'm gonna try the cleric. Even though I just played a little bit I've been kinda obsessing about the game, so much that I had a dream about it. In the dream I was trying to choose which insane dream character to start with. I don't remember what they were, and I was kinda playing the game but also inside it at the same time. Yes, my dreams are insane.
I decided to go straight 5-year spans. I'm using this list for all media, not just games, so this will make it easier for music, film and books. Here's the revised list with consoles placed in the range where they released, not their life span. In playing the games, I'll stick to a console but play any game that came out for it regardless of release date.
I was like a vulture today swooping over the local mall, which didn't open in time before I had to go to work, and landing for a quick peck at the dying Toys R Us, which still isn't running a clearance sale, even though they could close any day now. It's just as well, I've been well fed this past week anyway. Over fed, really.
So, I've recently been ebaying and going through Amazon to pick up Gamecube games. Now I already have a pretty decent collection. I've got Super Mario Sunshine, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Chibi Robo, Sonic Mega Collection, and Super Smash Bros. Melee etc.. Now I did of course sell some my gamecube and some other games way back when. Gone are my DK Bongos and Donkey Konga and Jungle Beat games. And I also sold my Metroid Prime 1 & 2 games as I picked up the trilogy on Wii.
I was recently transported to the year 1976. First, I told my 9-year-old self to get with it. Then I looked at what video games I could play. I’m shallow. Deal with it.
Hey it's me again! So after I bought my NES Classic I was interested in more. That's when I saw it on Ebay. A modded original Xbox with emulators and Coinops 8. I wasn't sure what Coinops 8 was, but everything else intrigued me. NES, SNES, MSX, Genesis, TurboGrafx, Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, Neo Geo, GBA, N64, Playstation, etc. The description... Overall 11,000 games and to make it even better there are Xbox games saved on the hard drive. And they aren't terrible games either. Theres Beyond Good & Evil ,Doom 3, Fable, Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2, Fatal Frame, and more! I got this all for only 125 dollars. Needless to say it's crazy. And even crazier is playing them on an Xbox! I need some sort of counseling! Suffice it to say I'll be quite busy. But seriously... Super Mario Odyssey is coming in just a couple weeks! How am I going to beat all these games!? What should I even play first!? Who has that kind of time!? I've got no vacation days left! Why am I such a crazed madman!? Why am I such a nerd!? WHY!!!!!!!!???
My next Gamefly game rental will be Yooka Laylee. I've always wanted to play the Banjo Kazooie games but never got to them. This will be a similar game from Rare, so I'm excited to try it.
So I bought this on the Switch a few days ago. I honestly dont regret my purchase, I think 8.99 was quite resonable in price for it. I also feel that the Switch was a good platform to play it on. The Switch doesnt have many Horror games on it and while its not gonna scare you really*It will gross you out a little and make you laugh* its still kind of itches that spot. Its a point and click with puzzles and not gonna lie, you can literally beat this in one sitting. Its not a long game and while a puzzle or 2 might stump you for a minute it is quite easy. The only time I had problems was with the final boss fight and the game glitched on one of the puzzles so I had to essentially restart the area. The house you go through seemed scarey, not to mention disgusting. I think the boss that grossed me out the most was the toilet one. It also had spiders and we all know how Nicole doesnt like spiders.
Any other Killer Instinct fans here? Microsoft has done an amazing job with the series and has pretty much turned it into one of the greatest fighting games ever. If you are a fan, what will you be looking forward to in a season 4 if its eventually announced? Any characters that come to mind that you would like to see? Personally I think they did an amazing job with the original characters they added to the original cast. I also love the guest characters like Rash, and General Raam. I'd love to see more guest characters like this. A spartan from Halo maybe? Cole Train from Gears of War? I'd love to see Joule from ReCore expanded on as well and think she could be worked in. They also need to add a lot more backgrounds. They started out with every character having their own, then they got kind of lazy and stopped making them. Anyway, I'm hoping E3 has some great surprises for this amazing series.
I actually finished a title this month. Yes, its one of those type of games. Yes, the game technically goes on forever but they do have objectives to complete and credit scenes. It counts dammit!
I was thinking today of how I played my first games. I think I played in a normal way back in the 80s. On Atari 2600, I played a lot of different stuff, but what I most played were simulations of the sports I was playing, tennis and baseball. Also, I didn't have all the consoles like I have today. I only had an Atari. My friends in the neighborhood had the other consoles, and I'd go there to play them. That's how I experienced the Intellivision and Colecovision. I would go to the arcades on the weekends to play the best that was available in gaming. Games were short and it was rare to spend more than an hour or two on any one game.
Good morning Pixlpeeps! It is a gloomy Southern California day because we are waiting for the second rain storm. We are supposedly going to have at least three days of rain which we don't usually get but we are in a drought so the rain is appreciated. Later on today President Obama and family will be visiting and if it wasn't so gloomy I would make the trip out to the local airport to see their motorcade and of course Air Force One, which will be called I believe SAM 28000 (tail number) because the Air Force One designation is for the sitting president. Like all previous presidents, the things I hope for: Don't f**k up, and leave the place better than you found it. Once again I don't care about who you voted for, we now have a new President.