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.
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.
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.
It’s time for my “Best Video Games of 2025 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!
Back in 2022, Pac-Man World: RePac was released. It was a remake of the original Pac-Man World game on PlayStation. I even wrote an article about it here. I encourage you to read that article I wrote because the original Pac-Man World game was a very special game to me as a game reviewer, and the remake was even my Game of the Year in 2022! I wondered if Pac-Man World 2 would get the RePac treatment someday, and this year it did! I didn’t like Pac-Man World 2 as much as the original, but it was still a special game to me and I thought I’d explain why in this article, and go over my thoughts on the RePac version of this game as well.
New game reviews I’ve recently written are blooming over at GamerDad.com, so here’s a bouquet of them for you. 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!
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.
Earlier this year, the ESA announced they would be cancelling E3 yet again and they wouldn’t have it anymore. So I wanted to say my final goodbyes and reminisce on my favorite E3 memories here. The reasons why I didn’t do this earlier when they first announced it I was pretty busy at the time, and I figured I’d do it when E3 usually occurred around now.
Early 80s video game technology had come a long way since Pong and Computer Space, but there were still limitations on how realistic graphics could be. Therefore; a lot of game designers drew on classic animation for inspiration, since the slapstick action and visuals were much more achievable with the technology that was available. Mario, for example, was inspired by Popeye.
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!
September 15 is my birthday, but the presents are for you! More recent game reviews I’ve written over at GamerDad.com for you to read and post ‘likes’ and comments on. And thanks for doing that. And since it’s my birthday, in the comments section here, please give me a pretend birthday present! It’s the thought that counts, literally! And it’s fun. OK let’s begin!
I've seen several of these "Comic Book Story of" books lately. I've read one on the history of pinball and now this one on video games. It's surprisingly good and enormously fun to read and see.
First up, a flyby of my very modest tiny Xmas train set, then a neat VG relate gift I saw at Barnes & Noble, and then a little personal gaming news.
Konami recently came out with a collection of their licensed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games they released back in the late 80s and early 90s, during the first round of the Turtles’ heyday. Since a lot of people grew up with and enjoyed these titles, this collection is a pretty big deal. Especially since for a long time, it would’ve been hard to get the rights to all these games again! But I guess since Nickelodeon has all the rights to TMNT stuff now, maybe that part was easier to do? Anyway, of course I got this collection so grab a slice of pizza and let’s take a look at the games on here as well as my personal history with each title.
I had to reorganize all my toys-2-life toys in preparation for a move in a few months. Darn, I have a lot of this stuff! I considered chucking it all but I just can't. I have a fascination for the toys-2-life technology and design of the figures.
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.
Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #1/Extra Blog a Day #30
You know what comfort food is, right? It's something that you love to eat that puts you in that perfect mood where "life is wonderful" in that moment. It could be ice cream, or pizza, or something that your mom makes that is your absolute favorite. Well, comfort food could describe other things too, like games. A comfort food game could be one that you are super nostalgic about, or simply that has all the right ingredients that makes you feel like you're playing something very familiar and fun. It's that new game that you took a chance on and said, "This game is perfect, I love this game!" Of course, comfort food games can be different for everyone, but here are some that I think make great comfort food games for many gamers right now. All of these games are available on current consoles. Christmastime is probably the BEST time to enjoy those comfort food games. (Quick note, I haven't actually played all of these games) PLEASE feel free to share what your comfort food game would be right now down in the comments!
The past couple of months I really haven’t been buying any games. You would think with the Stay At Home order I would have stocked up on some new titles but I didn’t, yet now right before Thanksgiving I am kind of on a run and there is another one I want that is going to be released in a couple of weeks. Anyways more on that stuff hopefully this Friday and for now let’s talk about the stuff I’ve actually played.
As I mentioned in previous TG-16 Mini blogs, the Mini has two different menus you can choose from. One has US releases on the TG-16 side, and one has Japanese games on the PC Engine side. Since we’ve gone over all the US releases, now we’ll look at the Japanese ones. I’ll split these into two blog parts. In the first one we’ll look at the Japanese games I’m not so familiar with, and then in the final blog we’ll look at the games I’m more familiar with. So let’s get started!
I'd like to build my own library of media favorites, so I'm starting this month. It begins with what I'm already looking back on, the early '90s. So here's what I got for 1990 in TV, film, games, music and books.
A few of the games I got on sale recently are three collections of Konami classic games. So today we’ll look at the collection with a bunch of Konami arcade titles. I’ll go over the other collections in the coming weeks, don’t worry. They should’ve called this the Shooter Collection, because with the exception of one game on here, they’re all shooters. So let’s take a look at what’s on here!