I'm currently playing Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure again for any remaining achievements and to look at my figure collection. Here's an overview of the complete figures for the game.

In console gaming, there is a legend known as the Third Console Curse. Most consoles are not successful enough to receive a follow-up. If they are, then a third console is still not guaranteed. It is a hard industry not only to break into, but sustain a market share in. Yet something happens with the third console every time. It fails to meet the company's initial goals. Maybe it still sells fine, maybe the console has a wonderful library of games. Even if that is the case, the company loses market share and is in a worse spot at the end of the console's life than they were going into it. It could be arrogance from success. It could be a lack of perspective from being too used to success. Maybe it's just rotten luck. But it's consistent.

I'm diving back into Skylanders this week with the Giants game, the second in the series. There are 48 core figures (found on this list). I collected all of them back in 2015-6, but some are as variants like Legendary or LightCore. I got what I could from my area's GameStops when they were on sale at the end of the Toys-2-Life era, roughly 2011-2018.

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.

Knocked off a bunch more in the 360 collection. I was writing down all the digital only games I wanted to play on 360 and came across a lot of them. I own a lot more than I remember and there are ones I missed as well. This is just adding to my "collection" and making getting through 360 a real chore. I passed my usual burnout on year-long gaming projects a month ago, so I think I'm good for the distance now. Here's this week's plays plus a few buys.

The Star Fox series has always been special to me. When I turned 8, shortly after the original game came out, my parents surprised me with it on my birthday. At the time, I remember thinking the 3D graphics were incredible and the game was extremely fun. I was addicted to blasting through space and foiling Andross' plans to dominate the universe. Years on, I remember obsessing over my Nintendo Power issues that showed Star Fox 2 - the new characters and crafts looked amazing. Unfortunately, it wouldn't officially see the light of day until I was an adult, but my Star Fox appetite would soon be satiated with Star Fox 64.

In revisiting my collection, I'm trying to keep it brief by not respawning unless I can't resist it. I restarted many times in Space Invaders Extreme, for instance. I wanted to respawn in Minecraft, but didn't. Sometimes I just want to leave something for later. Going back to one I've 100% completed is kind of downer. So these are this week's revisits. 

Here's my "waiting for a car repair" blog about the 2011 games that I played relatively close to release date in order of Metacritic rating for that year. Also, I'm just noting the system I played the game on, not all available systems. 

Going down the top ranked on Metacritic for that year, these are what I played a lot within console generation 7, 

I'm getting closer to the end of my 360 games now, but it may be a few more weeks still before I move on to PS3 or Wii. I really can't wait to start those. 

I got through a lot combining the end of last week's and all of this week's gaming. I'm clearly not going for complete runs. I just play to revisit and go as far as I stay interested. Here's the lot on Xbox 360:

I'm on vacation this week for the most part. LJ and I went to Washington D.C. to visit the Smithsonian Zoo and Museum of the American Indian (also, accidently - 'cause we parked beneath it - the Bible Museum and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit), but I manged to squeeze in some gaming on a few days here and there and last week, which I couldn't report on 'cause Pixlbit was down. 

I might have gotten confused, frustrated and dead in many of them, but I enjoyed them all. Who says you got to finish stuff? It's the journey not the destination, I say. 

I'm happy to report that the PixlBit 3.0 implementation has been smoothly sailing along. I've been working on it nearly every night that I can muster the energy to do so. The progress has been very satisfying to see and I wanted to take a moment to share some more screenshots and give some details on what's done and what's yet to be implemented. If you're impatient and just want to see a big gallery of screenshots, you'll want to check here.

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. 

I dove through a bunch of my PS2 games in chonological order. I'm in the 2003 games now. Then I played a lot of my rental game, Mario & Luigi Brotherhood and took another stab at Ys Origin on Xbox. Also a few digital purchases. 

Next up in my trek through the consoles is the PS2. This will take a while because I have a lot more games for it than previous consoles and the games are a bit longer, reflecting the improvement in technology. But first, two games I forgot to play in the previous weeks. 

This is the blog from last week I couldn't get posted until now. I was snowed in on that Sunday the 31st [edit: 25th], but I made it to MK's place Mon-Thurs to play a ton of stuff as work was cancelled those days. Here's the lot. 

I got scores/progress on all my owned NES games and began my Genesis stuff. I also played the remaining games on my Xbox Series hard drive and stowed the deck to bring out the Switch next week. Some purchases made also and a return to Star Fleet (known as X-Bomber in Japan). 

I finally pulled myself away from Army of Ruin and got through all my Atari games. I packed them all up and will be digging into NES next week. 

Army of Ruin is taking over and keeping me away from my retro plans. I have half a mind to pull the plug on my Xbox to keep me away from it but I want to finish what I can first. However, an intervention may be in order. But, I did play a few retro games in the margins. 

I didn't get a whole lot of gaming time on the holidays, which is kind of strange really, but I don't have a family that plays all that much. I did get a few half days with MK playing Army of Ruin though, and I'm gearing up for what I want to play in 2026. 

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 got through a lot of GBA/PS2 stuff this week and retro on Xbox Series S. I got some good purchases on sales this week too. Also progress through the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue show, books and podcasts.