EPISODE 43.5

Hooray, a new video! ^_^

Enjoy!

Any memories of these games to share?

During the past couple of weeks I played another game which could only be described as "retro" now: Spyro The Dragon. It was on special for about 3 bucks on PSN, so I thought "why not?"

On its initial release I'd only played the first couple of levels, figured out that it wasn't anywhere near as good as Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie, and didn't bother with it after that. Now, all these years later, I can appreciate it on its own merits. It's such a calm, relaxed kind of game. There's no urgency, not really much challenge, just the pleasant experience of exploring the worlds and collecting treasures. I enjoyed it a whole lot more than I thought I would. I even played all the way through to the end! The last boss was a PIG, but I persevered and eventually beat the game.

Well done, Insomniac. I know I'm 15 years too late, but that was a good game... well, except for the HORRID camera system, but you know that that sucked, right?

STILL PLAYING...

Hi all. I haven't made the next video yet. (There will be 2 games in the next vid, and I'm halfway through playing the first one, so I'm afraid it won't be uploaded for a while...)

In the meanwhile, have you seen this guy yet? Dude is my HERO. (Love how tolerant his cat is too!) ^_^

I can legitimately walk through a video game store these days and say, "There's nothing here I want to buy." I still have, of course, the big pile-of-shame that needs to be systematically played through. There is a danger to all of this though... I pre-ordered something at EB yesterday... Something that threatens to suck away all available hours of my day...

I spent over 3 years as a citizen of FFXI's Vana'diel, and watching the trailers for the remake of FFXIV, I can't help but get really excited about it. I actually own the original P.C. version, but I honestly didn't get a chance to play it much. My computer is waaaay underpowered for modern-day graphics, even with all the bells and whistles switched off, so I only really tried it out of curiosity. What I played was okay, but not to the same level of enjoyment and immersion as FFXI.

From what I've been hearing, the last couple of years tweaking and redesigning have paid off and FFXIV is pretty darn cool to play now. Looking forward to the end of August! :-)

EPISODE 37.5

Episode 37-and-a-half-a-go-go, baby!

Any memories of these games to share? Here's what I thought of this week's games...

It's absolutely gob-smacking to see how much the Game Boy Mega Man games go for on eBay these days. Have a look at this, as of a-few-minutes-ago...

Don't you wish you had a time machine, so you could go back to the past and tell yourself how much these rare games would eventually become?

On a somewhat unrelated note, I've been playing another retro-ish Game Boy game over the past couple of weeks, Wario Land 2. The game is fantastic! I can't believe I never played it back-in-the-day. I love that there's no deaths, no Game Overs, Wario is actually invincible. That doesn't make the game easy though, some of the later levels are quite tricky. I love it when games developers think outside the box. I've got Wario Land 3 sitting there on my shelf waiting to be played as well. I might play a few more games before diving into that one.

I'm determined to finish up with these "catch-up" episodes in the next few months. I've got an idea for an entirely new blog in 2014, so I want to make sure this one is well-and-truly put to bed. But there's still more games to play! See you next time! :-D

EPISODE 33.5

Feels like it took forever, but here it is, folks!

While the vast majority of games that I've been playing catch-up on are "sitters" (which makes sense, since they were the games that just slipped under the radar first time around) occasionally there's a new gem that slips through, and this week it's Goof Troop. Sure, it's super-short and super-easy, but it's one that I'd be happy to play again, preferably with another player.

It's a shame, I had so much footage of the weird and wacky creatures I evolved into during E.V.O., but I just couldn't fit them all in the video. Oh well.

Even though I dissed Elizabeth and Luigi in the video, I have finished Bioshock Infinite and I'm about 3/4 through Luigi's Mansion 2. Both fantastic games in their own right. I found the over-reliance on shooting highly regrettable in Bioshock, in a very similar manner that I would get frustrated in the Uncharted games, when you're getting involved and immersed in the story and suddenly the game would say, "Stop the story. Now just shoot at people for a few minutes. Survived? Good. Back on with the story." I just feel it could have been so much bigger than it currently is, simply because they feel like they HAVE to make it a shooting game for it to sell well. Disappointing, but the experience of playing it is still worth it. Luigi's a lot of fun too, in a slow-paced, exploration kind of way.

So how about that counter, eh? Incredible!! Thanks for visiting. Feel free to leave a comment and say hi!

BEST DECADE??

Last night on the Good Game T.V. show they discussed three different decades of gaming: the 80s, the 90s and the 00s.

(Click here to view the episode)

Which decade would you give the prize to? While there were definitely classics in the 80s and 00s, my heart's with the 90s. (obviously) ;-p

New episode will hopefully be up in a number of days. Yay!

OH... EM... JEE...!!

This video... just makes me so happy! I haven't been so in love with Capcom than the time when they announced Mega Man 9. My most-wanted game for 2013? Yeah, I think so! :-D

STILL BREATHING!

Hello there faithful bloggles.

(I know you're out there because the counter keeps climbing up! Check it out, I'll be hitting 50k before too long... that's insane...)

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. I've got a rather large project on at work at the moment (I'm writing a play) and I promised myself that I wouldn't dedicate time to blogging until it's completed. I have given myself the deadline of Monday to finish it, so hopefully I'll be back on track before too long with some more retro gaming.

In the meantime, have a picture of my Final Fantasy collection!

Hooray for consistent box-art! (The GameBoy games are iffy, but I'm still living in hope that Square-Enix will re-release FF5 and FF6 on the 3DS. Hell, I'd even buy a Vita to play them, but... surely Square-Enix isn't THAT foolish...)

In other news, it's so darn HOT here at the moment. March is supposed to be AUTUMN, but the past couple of weeks have been hotter than January or March! Darn global warming! *grumblegrumble*

Ah well, if the end of the world's coming, at least I've been playing some good games. I'm approaching the end (I think) of Ni No Kuni. It's a really wonderful game. It's certainly not perfect (the story just kinda turns into a giant RPG cliche once Oliver reaches the "Another World" and I'm still a bit "meh" about the battle system) but it's certainly kept me interested the past month or so.

It sucks to be a WiiU owner right now, but to be honest, I probably wouldn't have time to play it anyway so I'm not that upset. The Google Maps app is super-awesome though!

Happy gaming folks!