It was the summer of '97 - we were on a family vacation in Montreal and went to La Ronde Amusement Park for the day. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I was there; a Nintendo Megadome, right inside the park. It was like a dream come true. Even better, it was right before the release of GoldenEye 007, so I got my first look at what would soon become one of my favorite games ever. We played everything we could and left, VHS in hand, promoting some of the upcoming releases, including GoldenEye. There were some other promotional materials too, a dossier that would be thumbed through hundreds of times before we were graced with a copy of the game that Christmas.

I see the end of my 360 games in sight and so started putting my PS3 games in order for some serious PS3 action in a couple of weeks, probably.

Games Beaten

I didn't beat any games in July but man, I am so close on two of them. If I had had more time for games in July, there would be little blurbs here instead.

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.

For years Microsoft hoovered up more and more of the games industry. It was shocking when they purchased Bethesda - a huge third party publisher and development house. By the time they secured the deal to buy Activision-Blizzard, it was much less so, and it was clear that Microsoft believed they could buy all the properties they needed to make GamePass a success. It didn't take long to see that their strategy wasn't working.

Yesterday, Sony dropped a few bombs on the gaming world - first, they are discontinuing support of the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita stores by next year, at the latest, with support ending immediately in some areas. Second, they will cease production of physical games by January 2028 for all releases on PlayStation consoles, leaving only another year and half before you'll no longer be able to grab the latest games pressed to a disc.

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. 

It's fun to go down the Metacritic [MC] list, so I'm doing it again for the stuff I played in 2010. 

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

What it is: Stuff I played close to the year of release or at least during console generation 7, listed in order of Metacritic ranking for 2008. 

The first thing that comes to mind is changing my Xbox gamertag. I got one in 2004 when Xbox Live Arcade dropped but a mini-game on an Official Xbox Magazine demo disc was giving me trouble in '07, and I thought a new gamertag would solve it. Well, it did solve it, but I lost touch with my old gamertag over time, and now it's probably been deactivated along with the few games I bought under it. It'll be 20 years on my current gamertag next year. It could've been 23 years if I'd stuck with my original one.

I ripped through a bunch more on my quest to get through my collection and decide what stays and goes. 

Another ten on my list to play this year going in order on the Metacritic all-time best list for DS. 

In conjunction with Metacritic. These are my first 10 picks for DS, going from best to worst on Metacritic. 

Idealized because I don't own all of these yet, at least, not in physical form. 

Fourteen this time! I'm cruisin'. 

This is my list in coordination with the all-time best OG Xbox games on Metacritic. I'm playing games in order of MC rating instead of release date this year. 

Yes, I can't believe it, but I have finished going through all my physical NGC and GBA games this week. I spent the most time with Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon and Riviera: The Promised Land. Let's go!

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. 

Games Beaten 

In mid-September of last year, I managed to get a decent deal on a used Samsung laptop that has Windows 11, runs decently, and didn't cost too much. So, coupled with the idea of a New Year's resolution and the ownership of a decent laptop, I want to blog here (and on other sites) more often and just get into the effort of writing/posting again. I've fallen out of the habit and i honestly miss it. 

Also played some Game Boy and a whole lot of Switch games. 

Happy New Year!  Let’s start it off right with game reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com!  Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe please post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it!  OK let’s begin!

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. 

Not much else than Hogwarts Legacy actually as it has totally taken over this week, retro games suffer, but there is at least something to mention.