In console gaming, there is a legend known as the Third Console Curse. Most consoles are not successful enough to receive a follow-up. If they are, then a third console is still not guaranteed. It is a hard industry not only to break into, but sustain a market share in. Yet something happens with the third console every time. It fails to meet the company's initial goals. Maybe it still sells fine, maybe the console has a wonderful library of games. Even if that is the case, the company loses market share and is in a worse spot at the end of the console's life than they were going into it. It could be arrogance from success. It could be a lack of perspective from being too used to success. Maybe it's just rotten luck. But it's consistent.

I only have a few here I put on my must-play list, but I like to look at everything anyway and perhaps try something new if I can find it for cheap enough. Remasters are also of interest since sometimes they vastly improve the experience. So this is Metacritic's top PS2 games 26-50 with comments. 

I'm going down the Metacritic list for PS2 and seeing what might be worth trying out. Journey along and see the sights. 

Played this week. 

Valentine’s Day is coming up, so I got you all something special.  Game reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com!  Just what you wanted, right?  Right?  Well, anyway, 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!

This is roughly the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii generation that I'm revisiting in July. I thought I'd take a peek at the top 16 on Metacritic for these years which will become my retro game list for that month. I like to make some notes on each too. 

I can't resist looking ahead to the games I'm going to try and play for my retro gaming in June. This will cover the years 2000-2005, which is the Xbox/PS2/GameCube/Dreamcast/GBA generation roughly speaking. This also becomes a sort of shopping list when I'm out at the game stores. I like to make some notes along the way too, so here is the greatest games of all time list from Metacritic, 1-16,  for those years. 

It's been an interesting week trying to work down the metacritic list for '95-'99, grinding for Game Pass Rewards points and beating Diablo IV. Details follow. 

This is what my friend's Barbarian in Diablo IV says all the time as we're battling together. I can't resist repeating it whenever I hear it. He's got to work on keeping his rage meter filled. Anywho, I'm waiting for his cleaning lady to finish with his apartment before we game it up today (my day off). I thought I'd relate my progress on the late 90s Metacritic list I'm made. 

I can finally source Metacritic on a complete list of games across all systems. '95 seems to be the start of where they have enough reviews to use. I thought I'd post their list of top 14 games and then my current list of May retro plays picked for very different reasons. I do this just for fun and hopefully a little conversation. 

Easter is the next holiday coming up, so here’s an egg hunt with reviews I’ve written lately 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 hop to it!

Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! Julian has a big announcement this week: the beginning of a project to upload and archive the entirety of NWP’s 11 year history on our channel! Then we talk about a ton of games before getting into some light headlines.

Went to Fan Expo in center city Philadelphia on June 3rd with a friend of mine who was after celebrity signatures. I met several, plus comic creators and a lot of cosplayers. 

This episode of Nerds Without Pants is coming in a wee late, but we think you’ll dig it! We start with Headlines, and close the segment with a beefy discussion about Xbox: where it’s been, where it’s at, and where it’s going.

I grabbed all the rest of the Outlaw Nation comics in the bargain bin to see what other game ads might be found. There were a good number of them. Here are the 1-pagers.

This is what I picked up last time I was at Classic Game Junkies. I'm also including an item I saw there but didn't buy. 

Hey there! This is the craziest Nerds Without Pants EVER! We only got a handful of songs for Stage Select, so instead of talking about 7 or 8 songs and calling it a day we decided to create an entire two hour block of radio programming that approaches UHF levels of insanity. Yep, this is happening. Check it out!

“Elevator” and “action” aren’t words that typically belong in the same sentence. But lo and behold, Taito released an arcade game in 1983 that would pair a mundane function with the trappings of a spy thriller in the game Elevator Action. You play the role of a secret agent that finds himself at the top of everyone’s hit list. Avoiding certain death requires cunning, skill, and riding a lot of elevators. It made a big enough impression to become a cult classic that people remembered fondly.

Out of this World (aka Another World) was initially developed and released for the Amiga and Atari ST personal computers by French game designer Eric Chahi in 1991. The game was later ported to the Super Nintendo, among other home consoles. Out of this World garnered much praise for its intriguing visual style and storytelling ability. In most games from this era, text or dialogue was usually the vehicle used to drive the story forward. But this one did it differently. Instead, the ever-changing situations, dangers, and victories all worked together to tell the story without a word.

The 3DS celebrates its 10th anniversary

Welcome to Nerds Without Pants! Well, we asked for epic video game music, and y’all did NOT disappoint. Let’s get right to it!

As I mentioned in previous TG-16 Mini blogs, the Mini has two different menus you can choose from.  One has US releases on the TG-16 side, and one has Japanese games on the PC Engine side.  Since we’ve gone over all the US releases, now we’ll look at the Japanese ones.  I’ll split these into two blog parts.  In the first one we’ll look at the Japanese games I’m not so familiar with, and then in the final blog we’ll look at the games I’m more familiar with.  So let’s get started!