In the last part of my PS4 tribute blog, we looked at the games I enjoyed on the PS4 that were classic collections or remakes.  And on this one, we’ll look at the more AAA titles (well as AAA as I get anyway), as well as the indie titles on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Like I said before, most of these games you can enjoy on other platforms, I just played them on PS4.

These are games that are still stuck in my memory today. Many highly rated games are good, and I've been revisiting them, but these are the ones that come to mind first when I think of 360. 

Games Beaten

My girlfriend and I am going on a short vacation to our old college in central New York this weekend. Among other things, I'll be looking to see if that arcade machine, Sky Shark, is still there in the pizza shop I used to go to. The odds aren't good after so much time. But anyway, I played a lot of games this mid-week-end that I have (I'm off wed/thurs regularly) trying to decide what to keep of my 90s game collection. 

The dreaded stealth gameplay got to me again in several new games I tried out this week. But I finished Doom Dark Ages, discovered some new Atari games, and got sucked into an old classic again. 

Earlier this year, the ESA announced they would be cancelling E3 yet again and they wouldn’t have it anymore.  So I wanted to say my final goodbyes and reminisce on my favorite E3 memories here.  The reasons why I didn’t do this earlier when they first announced it I was pretty busy at the time, and I figured I’d do it when E3 usually occurred around now.

Princess Peach Showtime is out and in the game, Peach gets a starring role as she dons new outfits in stage plays.  So I thought it might be neat to go through all the outfits she has and what they are like.  But keep in mind there may be some spoilers here and there, so watch out for that.  OK, let’s pull back the curtain and start the show!

According to wiki, the Genesis and Game Boy won the sales race for consoles and handhelds; Daytona USA and Mortal Kombat II were the winners in the arcades; and Donkey Kong Country for consoles. It's interesting, but what this blog is about is more self-centered. It's my wish list. So here 'tis:

I briefly touched on a handful of games and then my friend and I got back into Diablo II for a good long time. Finally, I dug into Horizon: Zero Dawn on my PS4. 

I'm a big fan of the Pikmin series. My eyes are always on the lookout for games that use its minon-controlling mechanic like the Overlord games or Hotel Transylvania 3: Monsters Overboard. I even try and shoehorn that mechanic into games like Diablo II. The Necromancer character lets me command groups of skeletons and golems. So when TinyKin appeared on Game Pass one week, I had to play it. 

Well hello there! I don’t like to toot our own horn too often, but this may be the best episode of Nerds Without Pants of the year. Is Stage Select a banger? Not even close. Is Video Game Cage Match one for the record books? Fraid not. But Consumption Junction is a blast, and hopefully you think so, too!

Hey folks, welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! Julian is on vacation, so these show notes are gonna be super basic. Xavier Kreiger joins us again to talk about our favorite summons in video games, and lots of other things. Also, Justin got a soundboard. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Welcome to the Pac-Man Museum+!  My name is Cary, and I’ll be your tour guide today.  Oh man, wouldn’t it be cool if there really was a Pac-Man Museum and I worked there?  I’d be in heaven.  Anyway, Pac-Man Museum+ is a collection of arcade and console games featuring Pac-Man.  Kind of like the Namco Museums, just with Pac only.  It’s available on most current consoles and PC, but I got the PS4 version because it was cheapest at 20 bucks.  Plus it was a physical version, which I always like.  Although I’m tempted to get it on Switch as well so I could have all those games portable.  And I hear it’s also on Xbox Game Pass as of this writing, so if you have an Xbox One or X/S, check it out!  All right, so come along with me on the tour of the 14 games on this collection!

Back during the PSOne days, Square released a mascot kart racing game featuring cute versions of their Final Fantasy staple characters.  You know, chocobo, moogle, white and black mages, etc.  It was called Chocobo Racing.  I wanted to get this game when it came out, but I was poor college student at the time and couldn’t afford to get it at full price.  Plus I heard it was getting a lot of bad reviews, so I decided to wait for a while.  Shortly after I graduated college, I found a new copy of Chocobo Racing at a flea market and it was only 20 bucks.  And since I had a bit more disposable income by then, I decided to get it.  And you know what?  Despite it having such bad reviews, I really liked it!  Sure it was no where near as good as Mario Kart or other mascot racers at the time such as Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing.  But I really liked how they implemented Final Fantasy themes and tropes into the gameplay and presentation.  So when Square-Enix showed a sequel of sorts last year coming to the Switch called Chocobo GP, I was really excited and wanted to get it.  So now I finally have it and I wanted to talk about it and all the characters and tracks found therein.  So let’s get started!

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.

Well what do you know, I got hooked into playing Minecraft even though I'd finished the achievements. I took a pitstop to delete a bunch of games off my hard drive but then right back to Minecraft.