Up until Lies of P released, I thought it was impossible for anybody not named FromSoftware to make a great Souls-like. We’ve certainly seen plenty of teams adapt the formula to 2D successfully, but despite the similarities, those titles feel more like variants on the classic Metroidvania formula than a proper Souls-styled game. False Hero, though, leaves no question where it draws influence - this 3D Souls-like, the product of a single developer, is imbued with everything that made the Souls series great. It even manages to add its own twist to the formula, creating its own identity in the process.
Whether you asked for it or not, chances are, Generative AI is now a part of your day-to-day life. Increasingly, it’s been worked into every facet of, well, everything. If you’re like me, it’s become a huge part of your work life too, regardless of whether you asked for it. GenAI is changing our world; it’s deskilling workers, weakening labor power, increasing the surveillance power of institutions, and reducing our collective agency and intelligence.
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.
But here they are. All the stuff I played last week while my car was laid up with repairs.
I know I said I'd be blogging more regularly, but it's been an insanely busy season at the park. We had major construction going on to update some very old infrastructure, and that cut our parking down from 80ish parking spaces to 40ish parking spaces. We're one of the ten busiest state parks in the state now, and I spent most of my time doing traffic control. Yellow safety vest and all. Anyway, back to 80ish parking spaces, a new entrance booth (with electricity!!! Never had that before, lol), and a new bathroom building. Both were desperately needed. And now I have 17 days left of my season, then it's off to work in the local, independent pet supply store down the road, after a well deserved sanity break.
Summer is winding down, so let’s have one big last bash 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 post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
Mario Kart World was recently released as a Nintendo Switch 2 launch title. I was lucky enough to get a Switch 2, thanks to help from my family. So let’s take a road trip tour at all the tracks you can race on in the game. So grab your road trip snacks and let’s roll!
I’ve got everything you want in my Game Review Summer Party. We’ve got all sorts of different kinds of pool parties, umbrellas, frozen treats, and more! So please click on the links and read as many of my recent GamerDad reviews as you can, and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
Good morning Pixlpeeps! It’s been a minute but I’m back, and how about that we get an extra day in February. Well it’s been a different couple of weeks where it’s either been cold and rainy, really warm, and now windy in Vegas, but either way I like it. I do wish we had more snow this year but I think that’s over now. Anyways let’s go into what I’ve been playing and what I finished.
It’s another newsie edition of Nerds Without Pants! You know the drill by now.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! Julian totally forgot to come up with a Stage Select this week, so we just have a beefy Consumption Junction for you, and another Video Game Cage Match that rhymes. We hope you enjoy it!
It's a Headlines edition of Nerds Without Pants, coming in hot, because Julian feels like death warmed over. Enjoy!
A couple of months ago 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, and then another batch of ten more about a month later. And now I’ve got my final batch of ten from season one, so we’ll go over those as well as my final thoughts on the PlayDate.
Can you believe Klonoa has been around for 25 years? That makes me feel REALLY old! I remember when I first played that game in college and reviewed it for The Dallas Morning News. If you don’t know (and shame on you if you don’t), Klonoa is a series of (mostly) 2D platformers by Namco. And they’re really good, too! The quality of these games really had an impact on me and they’re some of my favorite titles on the PSOne and PS2. For the 25th Anniversary, Namco released a collection of the PSOne and PS2 main games, which we’ll talk about here. But we’ll also go through the other games in the series as well! Oh yeah, there may be some spoilers here and there, but I’ll warn you when they come up.
You may not know about the Pocky and Rocky game series, but they’ve had four titles under their belt with a new one that just came out! They’re 2-D shooters, but they don’t auto-scroll (think Ikari Warriors or Commando), but it’s the theme that makes them stand out. The games have a Japanese myths and legends motif. They’re really fun games, but also really hard! Or maybe I just suck at them, I dunno. Anyway, since the new game just came out, I thought I’d be your tour guide in this shrine featuring all the games in the series! So let’s begin!
I deserted my Switch for the last month or so to play Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on my PS4. I really enjoyed it, usual Lego game buggy issues, crappy vehicle handling, and all. I like having hub worlds to play around in along with the actual game levels, which Tt has been doing a great job with in the last several Lego games. Going to talk a bit about what I like to call the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
It was last weekend (May 7th) in my area, and I picked up a half dozen or so previews for new or recently released comics. Most of these inside contained excerpts from full comics to come. It got me looking forward to a few.
The 1980s was a decade with no shortage of TV action/crime dramas featuring a suave loner with a high-tech vehicle on a crusade to champion all that is good. At the top of the pile was Knight Rider. Each week, David Hasselhoff hit the road to stop criminals with the help of KITT- a super-advanced Pontiac Firebird Trans Am voiced by William Daniels (aka Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World). A popular show in syndication by 1988, Knight Rider was the perfect candidate to get a licensed video game on the even more popular Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). So now, sit back and join me on this shadowy flight into a dangerous world of a man who does not exist.
Expansion Pass 2 Game #2/Blog a Day #26
Some Friday and Saturday gaming while eating mint cookie bites. I'm counting those calories, so it's not unrestrained snacking.
Last time we looked at the arcade cabinet shaped NEO GEO Mini, which has a total of 40 games! That’s enough to split this blog series into two parts, so here’s the second part with the rest of the games on this mini console.
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.
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #2/Extra Blog a Day #29
Note: This is my second attempt to post this blog. My first attempt, the site ate everything after the introduction to Xanadu.