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.
In conjunction with Metacritic. These are my first 10 picks for DS, going from best to worst on Metacritic.
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.
A dozen games as if I played one a month that year. What would I play now? I thought I'd share the list and make a few comments.
One billion grossers for this year were: Puzzle & Dragons, Candy Crush Saga, World of Warcraft, GTA V, COD: Ghosts, and Crossfire. Tops critically were: GTA V, Bioshock Infinite and Last of Us. My wish list below has little to do with these. The ones I'd like to play now in 2023, allowing myself only 1 game per month, are as follows.
All done with Halo Infinite. I wasn't too thrilled with returning to Ratchet & Clank for some reason, and so I started clicking the "surprise me" button within the sort drop-down menu in my digital library on Xbox. Here was the result.
Here's my Top 40 games/series. It's not quite complete but I'm sticking to 40. I also listed the devs where I could because I generally like other games by the same deveoloper. I ditched my other lists for this one. Maybe this will stick.
As of January 1, 2020, we're entering a new decade in gaming (let's not go into pedantic debates about the.year zero here). It's hard to believe, it just seems like 2010, a time of Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, and Kinect, was just yesterday, and the world of the 2000s was still fresh in my mind.
Last month was a great month for gaming. Seriously. It was better than some years of gaming. I went on a buying spree I haven't been on since I was a young adult buying PS1 games.
A week or two ago I posted a blog about how I was undecided on which game to play next, Rogue Galaxy or Final Fantasy XIII-2. I went with my heart and played the game I really wanted to play, because XIII and XIII-2 (got all the way to the last boss and got my ass kicked, and now I just want it over with) just weren't as fun as previous Final Fantasy games, and lately Level-5 just never disappoints. 22 hours in, and that streak continues, Level-5 are the new Square.
Saturday night my wife and I had the opportunity to see Video Games Live, Tommy Tallarico's incredible orchestral game concert series. (Tommy is probably best known for the soundtrack to Earthworm Jim, though he holds the Guinness Book of World Records record for working on more video games than any other person. Over 300!) This was our second time going (our first was about two and a half years ago) and it was just as good this time around. They revisited a few of the same games as the last we saw them but it was mostly new stuff. They had a Phoenix Wright medley! I might have squeaked with delight just a little bit when they started that one. Another favorite of mine was the Mega Man medley. Hearing that Wily 2 music from a live orchestra was moving. There were some expected franchises represented like Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Castlevania, and Final Fantasy, which were all really great (Castlevania was a total rock fest with Tommy himself playing the electric guitar). Last time they played the music to the opening cinematic of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm as the visuals played on the big screen; this time they played Warlords of Draenor. Blizzard sure knows how to do those things! They also played League of Legends, Skyrim, and Resident Evil 5. Even though I've played the game, I was surprised by how much I liked the music from Uncharted 2. Metal Gear Solid, Shadow of the Colosus, Mass Effect, Halo, Street Fighter II, Kingdom Hearts (I can never hear "Hikari" too many times)—so much good stuff!
As I keep adding estimated completion times to my games, I keep adding to my current playlist of shortest games to play. Two I added, and then played right away this week, were Dark Void Zero and Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale. I downloaded both of them onto my 3DS for $5 and $8 respectively.
Finally we get to the meat of the year, the games that came out in 2014 that I actually played.
I played my original Xbox today. I didn't think playing it would last too long, but I so underestimated the goodness of Sid Meier's Pirates!. But before I got ye olde Xbox over to my friend's place, I made a little Gamestop pit stop and thought to preorder a game that was already out. Silly me. I was hesitant to buy it, but this game has been on my mind now for months, and it just seemed the right thing to do. Picture below.
Both Indy and Layton are professors, but one fights with his fists outside of class and the other prefers a battle of wits; one wields a whip and gun and the other a brain. I think I wanted Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy to be more like an Indiana Jones graphic adventure like the LucasArts games.
Am I still on time, or is 2013 already as outdated as the Macarena and my lame reference to the Macarena?
I played a bunch of games this year (70 to be exact), not all were released this year. I think the most important factor is time spent, so I ranked them that way. This first blog are all the games I spent at least twenty hours with. These games I’ve developed intimate knowledge of. Some I still haven’t completed even with all that time.
Nostalgia is a powerful force, pulling you towards memories of your youth that seem so charming and innocent. It’s something we love to bask in and dream about for hours. Hearing someone wax on about their own tales of yore can be less than thrilling, though, if you grew up in a different time or a different culture. We’ve all been stuck – bored – listening to endless droning about someone’s glory days that we just couldn’t relate to. Which is why I am completely baffled that the 1970s Japanese summer vacation nostalgia trip, Attack of the Friday Monsters, kept me engrossed from start to finish and filled me with the same warmth I feel when I look back on my own childhood memories.
I was just going through my database of games I listed from last year and decided to apply my new rating system to them. I call it my "desire-to-play" column. I give each game a one to five star rating and then focus my attention on only the five star games until I play them all. I'm getting to the end of buying all my most desired games of 2013 so far, so I need another list for when I'm done with this year.
You know, I was thinking about doing a full review of this game at some point, but given that it takes me forever to get NES reviews up, I'll keep this on the brief side. This blog assumes, by the way, that you know what Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is and have either played it or read a few of the reviews going around.
My friend was home on Friday afternoon, so I went over with my 360 to play. I forgot my controller though and so played my 3DS instead.
At long last, summer session has finally come to an end at the university where I teach, and pretty soon I'll have more time to devote to my most beloved of hobbies... and, of course, to write music and do other productive things. Yes.
