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.

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.

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. 

Going down the top ranked on Metacritic for that year, these are what I played a lot within console generation 7, 

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.

Just a few but with some interesting death throes in most of them. 

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. 

Idealized because I don't own all of these yet, at least, not in physical form. 

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

Next up in my trek through the consoles is the PS2. This will take a while because I have a lot more games for it than previous consoles and the games are a bit longer, reflecting the improvement in technology. But first, two games I forgot to play in the previous weeks. 

This is the blog from last week I couldn't get posted until now. I was snowed in on that Sunday the 31st [edit: 25th], but I made it to MK's place Mon-Thurs to play a ton of stuff as work was cancelled those days. Here's the lot. 

I got scores/progress on all my owned NES games and began my Genesis stuff. I also played the remaining games on my Xbox Series hard drive and stowed the deck to bring out the Switch next week. Some purchases made also and a return to Star Fleet (known as X-Bomber in Japan). 

I'm definitely feeling a farming frenzy coming on: glued to the screen, not moving for hours, barely aware of my surroundings, forgetting to eat. It's on the verge of unhealthy obsession, but I just laugh about it and pull myself away at the end of every "weekend" and get back to work.

I decided to go strictly with games released in the 70s next month. This really limits the video game landscape for me, but I made a list, and I'll see what I can do with it. Here's what I got so far. 

I'm on a kind of staycation this week. I made some real life journeys to NYC and some virtual ones to WWI France, a fanciful place called Teyvat, baseball land, and Marvel's NYC. 

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. 

Games Beaten

Games Beaten

Good morning Pixlpeeps! It’s been a minute but I’m back, and how about that we get an extra day in February. Well it’s been a different couple of weeks where it’s either been cold and rainy, really warm, and now windy in Vegas, but either way I like it. I do wish we had more snow this year but I think that’s over now. Anyways let’s go into what I’ve been playing and what I finished.

Games Beaten

Over the Thanksgiving holidays I played quite a few games on Xbox. I'll try and list them below, but December, which starts today, is going to be nothing but Switch games, especially the Super Mario RPG remake I got last month. I've discovered that if I don't put the Xbox away, I will never get to anything else, so into a case it goes. I have plans for 2024, so I may not use it again until next September. More on that later. Onto the last two weeks' plays. 

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. 

I remember this year mostly for the being disappointed with the World of Warcaft MMO. I wanted another another strategy WoW. But there was also the release of the DS, which got me back into handheld gaming, and cueing up for my first midnight release for Halo 2. The rest of the world was buying GTA: San Andreas and Pokemon FireRed/Leaf Green, numbers 1 and 2 in sales respectively. Half-Life 2 was a notable winner on Metacritic. Here's some stuff I played and want to play. 

I saw this 90s animated show called King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. I was attracted by the excellent colors and drawing of the animations. It's about a football team that gets transported to King Arthur's time by Merlin to save Arthur and his knights from Morgana. It's a neat premise. I find the writting a bit dull but not stupid. The real thrill though is the inventiveness of the animation and action. I hope to watch more of it. It's all on youtube.