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.

1986 was the year I went to college which likely distracted me from the NES and SMS releases. I was most concerned with my Apple computer that year, but I'll go through all I've subsequently gotten into and some notable facts (notable to me anyway).

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.

Beat, Heart, Beat is an action-rhythm platformer that puts a unique spin on the auto-runner, incorporating a midwest emo soundtrack and a truly bizarre cast of characters and premise. Through fifteen unique levels/songs, you’ll avoid obstacles, attack in three directions, chain combos, and try to do it all to the beat to earn the highest scores. The short quest relies heavily on replayability and high score chasing and your enjoyment will likely hinge on your affinity for the distinctive midwest emo soundtrack.

Continuing the share, my games of the 80s, maybe a few others if I'm into it. This is 1981.

The stuff I played this week.

When Star Fox Adventures originally released back in 2002, I skipped out. If you read my review on Star Fox, this might surprise you, given how much I love the series. But Adventures wasn’t really a Star Fox game, it was the Rare N64 game, Dinosaur Planet. It got an awkward Star Fox coat of paint, some poorly executed Arwing sections, and was dumped into the Star Fox universe, thanks to Nintendo leadership.

That's right, folks, PixlBit has officially turned 17 years old. It's hard to believe that this little gaming site has been going for that long, but here we are. This year has been particularly special for the site, as it represents a full reboot of the site with new technology and a new direction.

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.

The Nintendo Direct has concluded and Ocarina of Time was demonstrated for us by Aonuma-san, showcasing all of the new features and the slick new graphics. While I detailed my hopes in yesterday's editorial, unsurprisingly, the remake essentially amounts to a nice new coat of paint and a variety of quality-of-life upgrades. Of course, each area, NPC, and more, have been fully rethought and brought up to modern standards, providing lots of visual flourishes to feast your eyes upon.

Started PS3 gaming this week. Booting up worked fine, faster than even X360. Got youtube running on it too, also with less issues than 360. The PSN store lost its search option but you can still buy things if you add funds to your account from another device (I'm using the phone app). Also Device Sign In just popped up yesterday and had me apply another password to my account. I guess it's Sony's way of forcing two factor identification and to ensure a robust password. Kind of annoying but I got it to work. There's some good stuff in the store I want, so I'll be testing digital downloads soon. Anyway, here's what I played this week:

I can’t believe I’m turning 50 later this month.  In a way I’m a little sad about it because my life is definitely not what I’d imagined it would be by now.  I’m still single and living in a one bedroom apartment barely making ends meet with a job I don’t like that much.  But at least there are some fun things we’ll be doing this month.  My dad’s birthday is a couple of weeks before mine so I’m taking him to see the Coyote vs. Acme movie.  And then for my birthday we’re going to see the Rifftrax Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie.  And then at the end of this month some of my other family and I are going to Austin, TX to see my old college campus after 30 years, and to also see my best friend who has lived in El Salvador for a long time, but recently moved back here.  At any rate, even though it’s my birthday, I’ve got some presents for you!  Reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.  Please read as many as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two!  I’d appreciate it.  And in the comments section, feel free to give me a pretend birthday present, too!  OK let’s begin!

I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the Network Test for The Duskbloods on the Switch 2 this past weekend. I was able to embark into the land of dusk over the course of all three days it ran and I walked away excited about what FromSoftware is cooking up here. Like every FromSoftware game, it feels built on the back of the last game, and the influence of Elden Ring: Nightreign is clearly apparent. But interestingly, it also evokes Bloodborne in equal measure, while offering something that feels familiar, but unique.

The digital only 360 titles I played this week.

Another mega-batch of games as I forge ahead and try to wrap up my 360 revisit. I'll stick with the physical games first.

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.

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'm diving back into Skylanders this week with the Giants game, the second in the series. There are 48 core figures (found on this list). I collected all of them back in 2015-6, but some are as variants like Legendary or LightCore. I got what I could from my area's GameStops when they were on sale at the end of the Toys-2-Life era, roughly 2011-2018.

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.

Hey folks!  Got a very special podcast for you today!  30 years ago this summer, I started writing game reviews for a major newspaper, and I’ve written game reviews for other newspapers and websites ever since!  When I did this for my 20 year anniversary, I just wrote a blog, so I figured I’d be different this time and do a podcast.  So come join me as I share my favorite memories and experiences writing game reviews for 30 years!

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.

For years Microsoft hoovered up more and more of the games industry. It was shocking when they purchased Bethesda - a huge third party publisher and development house. By the time they secured the deal to buy Activision-Blizzard, it was much less so, and it was clear that Microsoft believed they could buy all the properties they needed to make GamePass a success. It didn't take long to see that their strategy wasn't working.

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, 

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).