In the 80s, Popeye, who had originally appeared in Elzie Segar's Thimble Theatre comics as a supporting character in 1929, was at the peak of his popularity, with a new wave of cartoons, a movie starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, his own line of canned and bagged spinach, and even a licensing deal with the otherwise unrelated Popeyes fried chicken chain. An awful lot of American, and Japanese, children had grown up with Popeye over the preceding few decades. With that in mind, Nintendo wanted to use the Popeye license to create a video game. At first, however, King Features Syndicate refused to license Popeye to a then-unknown Japanese toy and game company, and instead, Nintendo would be forced to develop its own characters, which would lead to the creation of Donkey Kong, and Mario. As Garth Brooks once said, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
It’s the end of the year so you know what that means? It’s time for my “Best Games of 2022 Awards Show!” 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!
“And now, the most anticipated epic adventure of the year will never come to a theater near you. Final Fantasy VII.” And so began my interest in RPGs. That commercial blew my 12-year-old mind back in 1997. Besides the impressive animations shown (which we would later learn were only cut-scenes), I was intrigued at seeing that we somehow jumped from Final Fantasy III on the Super NES to now VII on the PlayStation. “What manner of sorcery is this?”, I wondered.
These past few months have been shaping up towards being rather hard on my gaming budget. There are too many upcoming games that I really want, and me being me, I'll probably end up getting all of them even though I am currently working my way through the Xenoblade trilogy. Incidentally, unless Bayonetta 3 really, really knocks it out of the park in October, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is likely to be my GOTY.
As a late bloomer to RPGs, I was mostly ignorant of the Final Fantasy series until 1997, when that commercial for Final Fantasy VII caught my attention in all its epic CG glory. But it would be another two years before I finally saw a demo of the game in action, which sparked my love for RPGs. The point is that I missed out on Final Fantasy VI (originally titled Final Fantasy III in the US) when it was released in 1994. Fortunately, the Super NES Classic Edition's release several years back allowed the opportunity to play Square’s magnum opus of the 16-bit series. And boy, was it worth the wait.
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!
It's always a comfort knowing this website still runs and the community still supports it. There's nothing but shame and bad excuses from me. It's nonsensical, too: professing my enjoyment of a website even though I don't do enough as a member. I can always take comfort in the fact that it's super laid back (unless someone in the comments corrects me on that opinion ;) )
If there’s ever a time I dread writing a review, it’s when my subject is a highly favored game that has received so much praise over the years that it’s a bit hard not to sound like I’ve just hopped aboard the nostalgic hype train at this point. Check any top 10 list of the best Super Nintendo games, and you’ll be hard-pressed not to find The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past floating somewhere within the top five, if not the number one spot. It’s a testament to its staying power in the minds of the gaming community at large. When I sat down to play this game for myself, I only had one question- is the game really that good? Yes. Yes, it is.
I guess I celebrated Mario in a way by playing my randomly sampled game, Super Smash Bros. on Wii-U. I randomly rolled the Wii-U and the number 3. The game was number 3 on Metacritic's list of best Wii-U games.
Expansion Pass 2 Game #2/Blog a Day #26
Over the years, there have been many different types of cartridge software released. Where music and video media (eventually) became standardized, each game system had its own form of storage media. In addition to carrying interchangeable game software, companies tended to make the design and appearance of the cartridges themselves distinctive as a marketing gimmick. Most of us have memories of having game cartridges in boxes, not to mention blowing on the edge connectors when our games glitched out. So here's a brief overview of various game cartridges throughout history. This is not an exhaustive list.
It’s time to get rid of all that Halloween candy fat and get ready for the food onslaught of Thanksgiving and Christmas! So I’m here to get you in shape with these game reviews! Well, OK, not really, but 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!
Let’s have some mid-summer fun with more game reviews I’ve recently written at GamerDad.com! Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin!
It all began on this day 40 years ago, in 1981. Nintendo- a then-obscure arcade machine manufacturer- had a problem with their latest game, Radar Scope. The machines weren’t selling as well as hoped, so the company decided to refit the unsold units with a brand new game. Young staff artist Shigeru Miyamoto was tasked with creating an arcade game that would capture the attention of the American audience. The finished product starred a stressed-out gorilla with an infinite supply of barrels who wasn't afraid to use them. It's the stubborn monkey himself, Donkey Kong.
This generation of gaming has been all about reviving and re-releasing old classic games in the name of cashing in on nostalgia, errr, preserving the history of video games. Among the latest games to make a reappearance from the dead are a pair of 16-bit LucasArts classics, namely, Zombies Ate My Neighbors and its lesser-known sequel, Ghoul Patrol, in a downloadable double-pack on all the major consoles and PC.
There are many types of games, but what video games have still yet to rival tabletop games in is roleplaying itself. Western RPGS like Dragon Age and Divinity can tell grand stories, and offer players branching stories and conversation choices and a variety of ways to solve problems. But the essence of tabletop roleplaying – of creating and playacting a character of your own design, revealing their traits and desires though their actions, limited only by your imagination and the GameMaster’s leniency – is still very limited in video games. I’m not disparaging them; I’m just saying that playing a “role” is still in its infancy in interactive media, at least compared to tabletop games. I don’t know if that’s because it’s difficult to create video games that do this; or if games designers are just focused on other things – yes, it’s interesting to not be limited to binary choices and rigid solutions to problems and enemies; but what is less developed in games is the ability for the player to create and playact characters of almost limitless variety.
After playing Duck Hunt as a child in 1987, I became an instant fan of Nintendo's Zapper peripheral. There was something magical about pointing the orange & grey gun at the screen and seeing the game respond to my attempts at shooting the waterfowl flying about. As the years passed, I played other enjoyable Zapper games like Hogan's Alley, Wild Gunman, and Barker Bill's Trick Shooting. After such great experiences, I was convinced that all Nintendo-developed light gun games were as good as the previous ones I played. "They can do no wrong!" I said—famous last words of a naive fool.