I played a lot of digital titles this week and stuck with almost none of them (no respawns) but enjoyed myself quite a bit. Also some disc-based ones I did stick with a little longer.

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.

Another lot of games I revisited this week on Xbox 360.

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.

Welcome to another episode of PixlTalk! This week is another solocast featuring Nick and in a similar format to the last couple weeks. Nick chats about some of the site upgrades and demonstrates how to use a couple different features. He also enumerates exactly what features are coming next to keep an eye out for. He also talks a bit about his time with Penny's Big Breakaway and Agent 64. Finally, the podcast's main topic covers trends in gaming, both from the AAA and indie space.

Got another batch of 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!

I had a really good time with Xbox 360, or 3tricksy as I like to call it, this week. This is what I got to in my journey through all my 360 games.

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.

This week, Nick returns for another solo cast of PixlTalk! Starting with site updates, Nick details what changes he's been making and the progress on some new features that are coming soon. Next he goes through some of his Pseudoregalia and Super Kiwi 64 thoughts, as those are the games he's been playing lately, followed by what he'll be playing next. Finally, the main topic - Engineering the Fun Out. Nick talks about his experience with the new 3D Zelda games and how he manages to completely ruin the experience for himself, despite not really wanting to.

I can't seem to find my draft of this blog right now, so I'm rewriting it hastily and with much less content due to time limitations. In any case, this is 2012, the stuff I played during Console Generation 7 and mostly not later, because a lot on the Metacritic list I played years later or literally in 2026. Let's go.

After a very long hiatus, PixlTalk is back for Episode 83. For now, you'll only be able to watch this episode on YouTube, but soon the RSS feed will be updated appropriately in order to bring all of the PixlBit podcasts together into a single feed. In this episode, Nick discusses the state of the industry after both Sony's digital-only announcement and Microsoft's huge layoffs, the games he's been playing recently, and a little bit of site information and where things are going next. Tune in to hear more in this reboot of PixlBit's original podcast!

I often make my own fun when I'm at MK's like I've half lost my mind. It's an enhancement to gaming I enjoy (singing in my head right now is Iron Maiden's, "Can I Play with Madness"),

The Star Fox series has always been special to me. When I turned 8, shortly after the original game came out, my parents surprised me with it on my birthday. At the time, I remember thinking the 3D graphics were incredible and the game was extremely fun. I was addicted to blasting through space and foiling Andross' plans to dominate the universe. Years on, I remember obsessing over my Nintendo Power issues that showed Star Fox 2 - the new characters and crafts looked amazing. Unfortunately, it wouldn't officially see the light of day until I was an adult, but my Star Fox appetite would soon be satiated with Star Fox 64.

I'm going to try this again. The blogging tool ate the last blog I wrote.

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.

It's my pleasure to present to all of you the latest iteration of PixlBit! It feels unreal to finally be launching this new version of the site - I've spent a lot of hours over the past few months building everything out and getting things in a state to launch. It's particularly unreal to be typing this in the brand new editor and getting this new content posted after such a long dry spell.

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.

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, 

I'm getting closer to the end of my 360 games now, but it may be a few more weeks still before I move on to PS3 or Wii. I really can't wait to start those. 

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 lot of stuff this week, being impatient to get through it all, the slightest annoyance sending me to the next game in my collection. But, I had a lot of good experiences anyway. I'll break these 360 games into two categories, physical and digital only (or, Xbox Live Arcade as it used to be called). 

'cause it feels so good. Stuff I played a lot in the 7th generation of consoles, 2005-2013ish.