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 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).
I kinda can't wait to do this sort of overview for DS games when I get there in a few weeks.
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.
After a brief time with Monster Hunter Stories, I really managed to focus this week on my PS2 stuff and get through a lot. Then I traded a bunch of them, but also picked up some new ones.
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.
I've been going through my games like they were parts of a mini-game collection like NES Remix. I play to determine if I'm going to keep them or not. Or, I set some high bar of difficulty that gets me killed fairly quickly. It's also a test to see if I get sucked into a game for longer. Here's half of the stuff I sampled (I'll write up the rest tomorrow).
Seems like a lot of stuff I played this week but between retro games with low gameplay time and various rage-quits it's not as much time spent as it seems. Here's everything, 'cause I need to write.
Earlier this year, Capcom released a collection of their Marvel licensed arcade games. It was pretty surprising that they did this, seeing how Marvel is owned by Disney now and all. But they made it happen! I got the physical release of this recently, so I thought I’d ‘take you for a ride’ and check out all the games on this collection.
I'm playing games from 2019-2021 this month (after I finish with ME: Andromeda), and so this is my 2020 list of favorities and ones I'd like to play if I get the time. The list is in order of release. It's as if these were the games I bought day-one - some, yes, but most no.
What I played this week and the various stuff I picked up on the cheap from the soon to be closed Xbox 360 store, some from Game 'n' DVD Exchange and from a new store I discovered called Just Press Play in Lancaster Pa.
Shifting gears again this month. Now I've decided to focus on the best games of the years 2004-2006. I went through the Metacritic list and picked out what I liked.
It's been an interesting week trying to work down the metacritic list for '95-'99, grinding for Game Pass Rewards points and beating Diablo IV. Details follow.
In no paticular order, these are the games I played on my midweek weekend this week.
. . .about Generation 3 in console video games, but more specifically the years '84-'89. It's my theme for March this year. I couldn't resist expanding it to include arcade, PC and board games too. I thought I'd share it here.
November in my year-long trek through the years brings me to the 2020s. Somehow I miscalculated and didn't make December the 2020s, but whatever. December can be 2023 and no other year. So what about 2020? PUBG wins the revenue war with 2.8 billion and Persona 5 Royal tops the critics charts with a 95 on Metacritic. About the only game I've played a lot on these two lists (sales and critical) is Dragon Quest XI. Here's MY list for 2020.
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire retook the sales crown in 2003 making it five years since '98 that the franchise won it. Mario Kart Double Dash, a game I always wanted for its co-op but never got, was #2 in '03. Steam was fully released out of beta and Call of Duty began. Here are the games I'd like to play again or for the first time.
Pokemon finally got topped in sales by Grand Theft Auto this year with Vice City #1 and GTA III #3 in the U.S. . Critical acclaim went to GameCube's Metroid Prime and Zelda: Wind Waker. The Sims topped all-time PC sales beating out Myst this year. Microsoft bought Rare and Gametrailers began online. Remember Gametrailers? I used to check out that site all the time. Now for games I wouldn't mind playing again or for the first time.
Watched this 1983 one season bomb of a show called Wizards and Warriors and played a bunch of retro games and a few more modern ones.
Willow is a 1988 dark fantasy movie I never watched as a child. Yet the name still rings a nostalgic bell in my brain. Strangely, I didn’t consciously pay it much attention until I stumbled across the NES game sometime in the mid-2000s. But seeing the name and characters on the cover felt deeply familiar in a way I still grapple to understand. Maybe I saw the movie poster and heard its name in passing as a kid but didn’t think much of it until discovering the video game later in life. Initially released by Capcom in 1989, Willow was a calculated attempt to create a game with broader appeal since it was based on a property with characters familiar to its audience. Fortunately for Capcom, those calculations were entirely correct.
