The first time Kratos and Atreus head into Svartalfheim, the story keeps you moving fast enough that a lot of side content slips by. The Myrkr Tunnels are one of the worst offenders. You come through them on your second trip to the realm, the story pulls you forward, and by the time you think about going back you have no idea how to get in again.
Ultros immediately drew me in with its gorgeous neon sci-fi aesthetic, but it kept me hooked by completely subverting my expectations as the game progressed. At first glance, and by the developer’s description, it appears to be yet another Metroidvania game - which, frankly, have gotten to be extremely plentiful and much less interesting due to their abundance. But quickly, you realize this is no normal Metroidvania - nor is it quite a roguelike despite the cyclical nature of the experience. It borrows these designs to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Not so many games really. Actually, my favorite thing this year wasn't games but audio recording. My best friend and I would get together in breaks from our different colleges and go on road trips. Our favorite thing was to record ourselves doing skits or other nonsense on cassette tapes while listening to our favorite music. I still have them, some 30 or so. I converted them to CDs in the early 2000s and stored them as files on a now defunct hard drive. However, MK and I would go to arcades still here and there. I watched a lot of movies as well.
I've been without a car this week which has made it hard to get to MK's for gaming, but I managed it one day by bus. Here are the results.
But mostly video games. I noticed "leisure arts" on a book cover just now and thought it funny. '84 is the year I became a PC gamer for the most part. Bye bye to consoles for the rest of the 80s. That stuff's for kids, or so I must've been thinking as a late teen. I'm still going to mention NES and SMS later though. Who can resist that.
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.
My trials and tribulations as I go through my PS3 collection. I'm still in the top 100 critically on Metacritic.
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.
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.
I'm currently playing Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure again for any remaining achievements and to look at my figure collection. Here's an overview of the complete figures for the game.
2013 is really the start Console Generation 8, but to me it's still Gen 7 because the Xbox One and PS4 came out late in that year, and I didn't get either one until maybe a year later. Yes the Wii-U was out in 2012, the 3DS and PS Vita in 2011, but it really felt like Gen 8 fully to me in 2014. So this is the last year I'll review until I get past all the Gen 7 systems in my retro journey this year.
Around this time of year, I like to make a list of my best games SO FAR, because usually the AAA titles are released later in the year during the holiday season, and the titles that came out earlier tend to be forgotten. So here’s when those games get their due. Keep in mind that this is my list only and no other outside opinions contributed. And if a game isn’t on this list, it either just didn’t appeal to me as much or I haven’t had a chance to play it yet. Ok with that out of the way, let’s begin!
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.
But here they are. All the stuff I played last week while my car was laid up with repairs.
When a game console is considered “dead,” I like to write a tribute blog about that console and its games. While most people would probably consider the PS4 ‘dead’ for a while now, I’m still reviewing games for it. I guess a game console is really only considered ‘dead’ once you stop playing it. But since recently I wasn’t able to get simple games like LEGO Batman and Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection on the PS4, I figured it was about time. I’ll probably do a similar blog with the original Switch later towards the end of this year. Most of the games on this list you can play on other consoles as well, I mostly used the PS4 as a third party machine if I couldn’t play or review it on the Switch, or if I’d rather play it on the PS4. Anyway, there are so many games I’m going to split this up into two parts. And the first part is going to be all about classic game collections, and remakes of classics and styled games.
One of my brothers got married a couple of weeks ago, hence the title of this blog. So congrats to him! And I also got married as well. Sort of. You’ll just have to read on to find out! Yeah, sorry to use clickbait on you all, but it’s fun when it’s fun. Anyway after all this wedding stuff are more 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. OK let’s begin!
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.
I got through a lot combining the end of last week's and all of this week's gaming. I'm clearly not going for complete runs. I just play to revisit and go as far as I stay interested. Here's the lot on Xbox 360:
It’s always nice to get to review a game I really wanted to play. It happens less and less nowadays. So as a big Bluey fan and genuinely interested in good games for kids, I’m glad I got to review this first game on my review blog list. So please click on as many GamerDad game reviews as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s do this!
This batch of GamerDad reviews I’ve recently written focuses a lot on Super Mario Bros. Wonder stuff, hence the title of this blog. It also has kind of a Spring theme, with lots of articles involving flowers, birds, and um, fish. So 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!
First, some new stuff, then the old stuff. Eight more down and less than a dozen left. I'm chomping at the bit to start into my DS collection.