So, that Acer Aspire laptop I blogged about last time? Screen doesn't come on. I've got to get this repaired (and hope that it doesn't cost too much) so until then, I'm using my trusty, won't-die Samsung Chromebook that I got back in 2017.
Oh the platformers. I must've uttered every raw, adult, four-letter, explosive, pun-ridden, nasty word or phrase ever invented by sailors from a dozen different nations. After a dozen or so games -- each rage quit with a unique expletive -- to my surprise, I found myself settling in a bit,. I got several levels farther in games I never got out of the first level with before and eventually even started enjoying myself. . . Wait, maybe that's getting ahead of myself. Let's just say I started calming down. So here's the lot of them that I tried -- and largely failed with -- this week.
I got to 35 hack 'n' slash games in March. The early ones go quick and some later ones just stopped me dead at some point with confusing mission objectives, difficult mechanics or some other dumb thing I couldn't stand. I have been trying to stick to each game as long as I can, pushing beyond my limits. I'll try even harder next month. There's nothing like actually finishing a game. I think I finished exactly 6 of these - all mentioned below.
The month is basically over, and so I'm wrapping up my hack 'n' slash games and getting ready to start my platform game theme for April. Here's the last stuff I played this week.
So for March I have console Generation 3 as the time period (NES, SMS, Arcades, Atari 8bit, C64, Amiga, Apple II and such - you know, second half of the 80s). To limit the choices, I thought about what genres were interesting at that time to me and Beat 'em Ups came up first but more specifically Hack 'n' Slash games are really my more focused favorite. Also a limit of 20 games, although, I did make a much bigger list in case I run out. Let's get into it.
Around this time, I like to make a list of games that are releasing in the coming year that I’m looking forward to. Of course, this isn’t a full complete list, as there will assuredly be titles announced throughout the year that I may get as well. But anyway, here’s what I know now, for the most part, so let’s take a look at what games I’m looking forward to in 2025!
Two games I focused on, one handheld and one console, this week.
I have a few half days of gaming in my week that I thought, from hear on out, I would devote to handheld games. Then I'd attack the console stuff on full days off from work. That is, barring any other distraction. So this week I played 3DS and then returned to Xbox Series S.
A majority of this batch of GamerDad reviews I’ve recently written have to do with Japanese myths and legends and other related themes, so hence the title. 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!
The Castlevania Domina collection just cemented something that's been creeping in my head ever since I picked up my PSP again earlier this year: The DS library's highlights looks better today than the PSP's highlights. Back in the 00's, the PSP's graphics were a huge selling point, offering games close to console quality over a decade before the Switch. But despite a strong launch, most gamers were shocked at how it merely carved a niche while the DS took over the world. Yet one thing that the PSP had in its favor at all time were its graphics. Games looked better.
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.
My game week is over, and I've already blogged about much of it, but there's a few more details to relate.
In no paticular order, these are the games I played on my midweek weekend this week.
2023 was a year that happened and I played games during it, sometimes. Let's talk about it! First we'll take a look at the games I beat and bought and then we'll move onto the Golden Hippo Awards!
Stumbled across another Halo book, started reading, and then realized I'd read it before, but I continued on and finished it, enjoying it quite a bit, so much so, that I looked for a continuation of the story and found it in Halo: Renegades (reading now) and Halo: Last Light, all written by Kelly Gay.
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.
The 3DS was released this year. Minecraft came out of beta. The highest rated games were Batman: Arkham City, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Portal 2. Here's a list of what I put the most time into that year followed by stuff I played later and then a wish list.
There’s a fishing game in Japan by Namco called Ace Angler, and you view the screen horizontally to the ground like you’re looking into a fishing pond. It’s pretty popular, and I think I even played it once at Round 1 arcade here in the US, or at least an imitation of it. And now you can play a home version of the arcade game on the Switch with Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits. It was available digitally in the US last year, but I imported a physical copy of it because I’m a freak about stuff like that. But the game is entirely in English so there’s no language barrier here. I asked for it for Christmas, but since imports can sometimes take a while, I actually didn’t get it until around Easter this past year. And I finally got around to playing it recently. The cool thing about the Switch game is that they made the arcade game like it has its own amusement park and aquarium. So it’s like a cross between a Namco Museum game (albeit for only one arcade game) and Animal Crossing. You even create your own avatar that looks like something out of Animal Crossing, and since I like the aquariums in those games, as well as Namco Museums in general, this game really ticked off a lot of boxes for me! The game says it’s Ace Angler’s 10th anniversary, which I didn’t realize it had been around that long! But anyway, let me take you on a tour guide through the Ace Angler Aquarium and Arcade Amusement Park found in the Switch Fishing Spirits game!
The 90s TV this week was The Pirates of Dark Water, a gorgeously animated production that reminds me of animation I saw in Heavy Metal, Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings and Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair laserdisc game. Almost immediately I said to myself, "darn this show has a wealth of interesting graphics, it must've cost a fortune to make". Turns out it did, half a million per episode according to wiki. The story isn't bad either, the characters are good and the voice acting very good. Mad Krammer and I are enjoying it sandwiched in between the following games.
Playstation won the console wars. Super Mario 64 won at home worldwide. Firaxis, Valve and IGN were all founded this year. Coolness! That year I and my friend Mad Krammer were playing mostly FPS games ported from PC to PS, N64 and Saturn. Over the years, though, I've discovered quite a few others.
It's almost August when I will be focusing my retro gaming on the 90s. That's NES, Genesis, SNES, PS and N64 for me. I don't have a Saturn anymore, never had a TG-16 or Neo Geo, and I didn't play handheld games until the DS. However I do now have the option to play Game Boy and GBC games on my Gamecube's GameBoy Player. So I may break that out too. Here's a list of stuff I'm interested in from 1990, more or less.
I played a lot on Xbox Series S this week, but also used my DS, Swtich, PS4 and Retron 3. Gaming breaks included watching another episode of Mighy Orbots, Return of Ultraman, and Dragon Ball Season 2. Also saw a variety of short youtube videos.