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.

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.

I can't seem to find my draft of this blog right now, so I'm rewriting it hastily and with much less content due to time limitations. In any case, this is 2012, the stuff I played during Console Generation 7 and mostly not later, because a lot on the Metacritic list I played years later or literally in 2026. Let's go.

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. 

It's fun to go down the Metacritic [MC] list, so I'm doing it again for the stuff I played in 2010. 

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

What it is: Stuff I played close to the year of release or at least during console generation 7, listed in order of Metacritic ranking for 2008. 

I'm getting closer to the end of my 360 games now, but it may be a few more weeks still before I move on to PS3 or Wii. I really can't wait to start those. 

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.

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). 

'cause it feels so good. Stuff I played a lot in the 7th generation of consoles, 2005-2013ish. 

My Twin-stick shooter fascination has branched into a genre that is similar but not exactly the same. What I played this week is more along the lines of isometric multidirectional shooters. Really, the only substantial difference is that you use a trigger to shoot instead of using the right stick to both aim and shoot. Overall, it kind of feels pretty similar but maybe with less of a bullet hell feeling. Anyway, here's what I got into this week. 

This would be January 2025 when I will be focusing on the first generation of consoles and games from the 70s in general, plus some digging into even older stuff if I run out of games to play. It will be the beginning of the year and the beginning of games, video or otherwise. Here's the first list I wrote up:

I made a list of what I played in 2010. Here they are in chronological order. 

It used to be my friend Mark and I would go on road trips almost every week. We'd hit a favorite flea market, pawn shop and game store; buy a bunch of cheap old games and consoles, and then have lunch at a Chinese buffet. Since the internet ruined flea market bargains, and Mark became more wheelchair bound, we haven't gone on a road trip in quite a while. Well, health improvements and my discovery of several excellent local independent game stores have led to yesterday's road trip of old. Here's the story. 

Yes they do. I know by experience because Halloween cereals have just arrived in stores. This one's based on Captain Crunch, which, by the way, is also my nickname at game time.