A while back I reviewed the PlayDate, a new handheld gaming device that has a crank on the side that you can wind to control some of the games. The other unique thing about this device is how you get the games. They come two at a time and are downloaded automatically on the handheld each week on a Monday. I talked about a few of them when I wrote my initial review, but since I didn’t have all the games yet in ‘season one,’ I said I would talk about more of the games later when I get a good amount of them. So now that I’ve got a few more, let’s go over what they are here!
It’s time to work out and get buff with a strict regimen of reading my recent reviews over at GamerDad.com! Please click on the links and read as many as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d really appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
In the gaming days of years yonder, there seemed to be no limit to what developers could dream up as a basis for killing some time. And when they couldn't create a game revolving around humans playing sports, saving the world, or destroying aliens in space, they could always turn to the animal kingdom for inspiration. So in 1985, Ascii Corporation made a little ditty in the arcade called Penguin-Kun Wars. The player chooses one of several animal characters to fight it out using dodge balls in a small arena. It was a unique idea as no other game like it yet existed.
Expansion Pass 2 Game #3/Blog a Day#25
It’s a lot of 2’s today. Good morning Pixlpeeps and it is a cool morning here in Hawaii. It’s currently 6am so no sun but in about an hour there should be some sun, let’s get started.
In 1996, UEP Systems released Cool Boarders on the PlayStation. It was one of the few pioneers of snowboarding games on home consoles. The popularity of extreme sports was steadily gaining momentum in the United States, as were releases of snowboarding titles from other game developers. So it was only natural that UEP Systems would follow up in 1997 with their sequel, Cool Boarders 2.
Boy this has been one roller coaster of a year, with lots of ups and downs. But it’s the end of the year so you know what that means? It’s time for my “Best Games of 2021 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!
When I was a kid in the pre-NES days, vertical shooters were a large part of my gaming diet, as they were a huge part of the gaming landscape. Since my family had home computers, I played clones more than I did the arcade originals or their official home versions on consoles like the 2600. These games generally fell into one of three major categories: Space Invaders clones, Galaxian clones, and Centipede clones. In this blog I will talk about the games that spawned the third type of shooter - Centipede and Millipede.
There are many types of games, but what video games have still yet to rival tabletop games in is roleplaying itself. Western RPGS like Dragon Age and Divinity can tell grand stories, and offer players branching stories and conversation choices and a variety of ways to solve problems. But the essence of tabletop roleplaying – of creating and playacting a character of your own design, revealing their traits and desires though their actions, limited only by your imagination and the GameMaster’s leniency – is still very limited in video games. I’m not disparaging them; I’m just saying that playing a “role” is still in its infancy in interactive media, at least compared to tabletop games. I don’t know if that’s because it’s difficult to create video games that do this; or if games designers are just focused on other things – yes, it’s interesting to not be limited to binary choices and rigid solutions to problems and enemies; but what is less developed in games is the ability for the player to create and playact characters of almost limitless variety.
It was common practice for game developers to make radical design changes for the first sequel of a popular game in the early NES days. It was no different with Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Released in North America in 1988, Konami decided that a few changes were in order. The previous game primarily focused on platforming, defeating the boss of the current stage, and moving on to the next location in linear order. Conversely, Simon’s Quest took the series in a new direction with an open, Metroid-esque style of exploration and a few RPG elements to boot. Castlevania had entered a new frontier.
Ever since Namco’s Pole Position made its debut in the arcades in 1982, the racing genre has been considered an essential medium in the gaming world. The increase of video game consoles making their way into homes throughout the mid-to-late ’80s further solidified the popularity of racing games. Players looking for deeper mechanics than what was available from the current offerings of the day could rejoice when Kemco published Top Gear in 1992- one of the first driving games for the Super NES.
Note: This is my second attempt to post this blog. My first attempt, the site ate everything after the introduction to Xanadu.
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #11/Blog a Day #20
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #13/Blog a Day #18