Those epic RPGs shot me down. I couldn't take it any more. Neither could I take my rediculous listomania. I was totally overwelmed and so dove into some lighter, shorter fair and found some cool games. Check, check, check it out (to the sound of the Beastie Boys song with those words).
It's hard to pull myself away from some of these games but that's my plan. Here's what I finalized my month with this week.
A list of games I'd like to revisit in order of Metacritic score for the years 2004-2006 with some notes.
Most of my gaming time has been Mad Krammer and I playing the Wizardry remake, but I squeezed in a retro game and the usual Game Pass Rewards game. I also traded some old games I don't like to Game Junkies and picked up some others. Game Junkies is becoming my regular Friday morning haunt of late.
Recent reviews I’ve written over at GamerDad.com are blooming, so please click on the links below and read as many as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
Retro first, then new stuff. That's how I do it now whenever I'm in front of my gaming set up at Mad Krammer's place. I'm on Gen 4 now and Genesis, SNES and Game Boy. Here's what I got to this week:
It was fun trying out a lot of NES games this month thanks to the NES collection on the Switch subscription service and a few available on collections on Xbox. I also had a few cartriges too for the original experience. Here's what I got to this week plus new stuff.
This month, Nintendo is releasing Mario vs. Donkey Kong. It’s a re-release/remake of a game on the Game Boy Advance that came out about 20 years ago! It’s also the first appearance of the Mini Mario characters, an army of little wind up Mario toys. These little guys would go on to star in their own series of spin-offs. But those games kind of all run together because many of them look and play similarly. So I thought in honor of the new game’s release, I’d go over each one and see what makes them special, if only for a little bit. This Mario vs. Donkey Kong series also has quite a few games in its belt, more than what you might think. And the history of these games stretched back farther than what you might expect, too! So let’s check ‘em out!
2023 was a year that happened and I played games during it, sometimes. Let's talk about it! First we'll take a look at the games I beat and bought and then we'll move onto the Golden Hippo Awards!
Made a list of 2022 games I'm interested in. It's a kind of shopping list. Thought I'd share it.
Over the Thanksgiving holidays I played quite a few games on Xbox. I'll try and list them below, but December, which starts today, is going to be nothing but Switch games, especially the Super Mario RPG remake I got last month. I've discovered that if I don't put the Xbox away, I will never get to anything else, so into a case it goes. I have plans for 2024, so I may not use it again until next September. More on that later. Onto the last two weeks' plays.
New console, Happy Meal toys and games played this week. Also OG Astro Boy episode 1 watched. Black and white and very influenced by early Disney animations. Good stuff.
With Super Mario Bros. Wonder being recently released, everyone is talking about the new power-up that turns Mario into an elephant! I didn’t realize Mario was such a University of Alabama fan! He DOES wear red all the time, though! Roll Tide, Mario, Roll Tide! Anyway, Elephant Mario isn’t the ONLY elephant in video games, so I thought I’d talk about my other top video game elephants. So let’s stomp our feet and trumpet our nose! These aren’t in any particular order or anything, though.
Not the losers of the World Series but the ones drawn by Osamu Tezuka and animated in a tv series - you know, the really important stuff. Not having the 1963 series, I watched some episodes of the 2003 Astro Boy. It's pretty good. Great animation. Sometimes a very kids oriented story in some episodes but still enjoyable to aged me. Mad Krammer just bought the '63 series, so I'll get to that soon. Anyway, gaming.
So recently I played through Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe on Switch. Knowing that I’m a huge Kirby fan, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t get this game back when it released in February. Well I don’t really like paying full price for Switch re-releases and remakes, especially when I already paid for these games back on the original console. So I waited and asked for it for my birthday, which is what I usually do for games I want to get, but don’t have to play right away. So since I had already played this one back on the Wii, I decided I can wait and put it on my birthday list. After playing it, I have to say that unlike a lot of other Switch rereleases, this one’s actually pretty good and adds a lot of extra content. One of the extra things is an amusement park with ten Kirby mini-games from past titles! And since I like to write blogs about games that have a lot of mini-games, especially if they are presented in a museum or amusement park, let’s take a tour of Merry Magoland!
Looks like I'll be watching Phillies baseball next week too as they move on the NL championships. It's usually after video game time though, so I'll still have a report to make. Here's this week's by hours played as far as I can estimate since I didn't take exact notes.
I watched some Mobile Suit Gundam Wing and MSG SEED on youtube. I only found a few episodes dubbed into English, most are with subtitles, which I like to avoid. It's a neat show. I'm constantly reminded of US IPs like Halo and Pacific Rim while watching it. GUNDAM just basically means the neural interface with a robotic battle suit, like with Master Chief and Cortana or the piltos and Jaegers of Pacific Rim. Seems this show, just like the hair styles, like their robots all spikey. Fun stuff, and complex. The stories in MSGW are deep in polical intrigue, Earth vs. Rebels, not unlike the colonial uprisings in the Halo universe. I enjoyed it in between lots of gaming that happened during Labor Day weekend as outlined below.
2000 was the year of the PS2. Remember the lines as people wanted not just a game system but a DVD player? I got one later. However, Pokemon still ruled home game sales: Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver and Pokemon Stadium all contributed. Microsoft bought Bungie and PopCap was formed. Mad Krammer and I were really into the Dreamcast, and I bought a PC I could finally call my own. Here is a list of stuff I've played or want to play today in 2023 (darn it, that's 23 years ago!).
Playstation won the console wars. Super Mario 64 won at home worldwide. Firaxis, Valve and IGN were all founded this year. Coolness! That year I and my friend Mad Krammer were playing mostly FPS games ported from PC to PS, N64 and Saturn. Over the years, though, I've discovered quite a few others.
I saw this 90s animated show called King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. I was attracted by the excellent colors and drawing of the animations. It's about a football team that gets transported to King Arthur's time by Merlin to save Arthur and his knights from Morgana. It's a neat premise. I find the writting a bit dull but not stupid. The real thrill though is the inventiveness of the animation and action. I hope to watch more of it. It's all on youtube.