#I still hope we get to see saga again in this dlc <3

[velvetjune]

Alan Wake 2 Lake House DLC spoilers!!

Source: PlayStation video description

[dr-spectre]

I’ve been seeing a lot of people in the Splatoon community say that Splatoon 3 ROTM will be the last time we will see the New Squidbeak Splatoon which includes Callie and Marie, but like… no?! Nintendo hasn’t outright said “hey y'all, you like the Squid Sisters and wanna see them continue to grow and develop? TOO BAD BITCH!! THEY AIN'T COMING BACK AFTER THIS GAME HA HA! IT'S JUST OFF THE PEAK AND DEEP PEAK NOW BUDDY! ENJOY!!”

When that person said in the Splatoon 3 direct “witness the finale of the Splatoon Saga” she meant the finale of the trilogy set up from Splatoon 1, the story of the New Squidbeak Splatoon vs the Octarians. The Splatoon games up until this point have always had a consistent throughline of developing the Octarians and giving more insight into the conflict between them and the Inklings. Octo Expansion was about diving deeper into the Octolings, them reaching the surface and living with the Inklings. In Splatoon 3, it seems like the Inklings have accepted the Octolings and are living peacefully alongside them. (Or they are just really dumb and still don't realize that Octolings aren't just Inklings with weird hairstyles.) 

Splatoon 3 ROTM marks the finale of the New Squidbeak Splatoon vs Octarians storyline as DJ Octavio’s entire army literally got turned into mindless furries and he became allies with the New Squidbeak Splatoon at the end of the game. Whether he’ll stay as a good guy remains to be seen but by judging Smollusk’s dialogue in Side Order where he says that Octavio is just flying around in his new machine nowadays, he’s probably gonna stay at the very least neutral to the Squidbeak Splatoon. His mission to save his race is basically over now, Octolings are living on the surface and his army is a bunch of furries. We will most likely never see the Octarians as enemies ever again in the series and the developers will move on to different threats never seen before and start a new storyline, or maybe they’ll focus on the Salmonids for Splatoon 4 but we’ll have to wait and see. 

Now I wanna roll back to the Squid Sisters, listen, aside from the Inklings, Callie and Marie are the most iconic characters in the entire franchise. If you tell a random person “do you know Splatoon?” They are probably gonna think of the Inklings, the unique gameplay and then the Squid Sisters. The only other characters that rivals their popularity are arguably Off the Hook, Deep Cut are still recognizable but they aren’t on the same level of popularity as those two groups in my opinion. 

It would genuinely be a bad financial and story mistake to never ever bring back Callie and Marie for Splatoon 4 and onwards, they are extremely iconic and profitable characters that people LOVE and wanna see more and continue having brand new adventures. Now, do I think they are gonna have the same role as before? No, I think they may take a break or step back from the Squidbeak Splatoon and let Captain 3 take control over Agent 4, Neo Agent 3, etc.

For Splatoon 4, I am guessing they are still gonna perform as the Squid Sisters, but in the main story mode or dlc I'm hoping that the developers take an Octo Expansion/Side Order route with the Squid Sisters where you get to hang out with them and learn more about them. How are they doing currently? What was it like for them at the start of their careers? Some more info about how they were as kids? How do Callie and Marie look back on the events of Splatoon 2? How do they feel about the other Idols and characters? 

There’s still so much left for these girls and just never seeing them again after Splatoon 3 would be a massive mistake and destroy all that interesting potential and lore. 

Also, the way that the Splatoon world works is that it’s an ever evolving world that follows our time, meaning that the characters age and go on new journeys as the years go by in our world. We see updates on past characters and are shown where they are at, the only times when that doesn't happen is when a character is fucking dead (Commander Tartar and the Octoweapons except for Octostomp) or they are in a location that isn’t the focus of what the writers wanna tell (C.Q. Cumber), heck even a character like Iso Padre who was a small side character in Octo Expansion managed to make an appearance in Splatoon 3 and show that he actually made it to the surface! 

Callie and Marie are not going anywhere, you can rest easy. The credits song "Wave Goodbye" is not called that in Japanese, it's called "Star of the Sea Breeze" and we all know that the localization team can make some pretty bad mistakes....

[duhragonball]

The Future of Dragon Ball

I was going to play Mega Man X5 tonight, but it's acting kind of buggy and I'm not in a mood to try to troubleshoot my copy of Legacy Collection 2, so I'll write about Dragon Ball instead. Specifically, what happens next?

Let me make this clear up front: I don't actually know the answer to this. I'm not an "insider" claiming to have "leaked" information. All I want to do is discuss the possibilities, and the culture of speculation that seems to persist in the fandom.

I tend to call this "modern" era of the Dragon Ball franchise a "renaissance", because very little official material came out between 1998 and 2012, and then after Battle of Gods ushered in this new wave of Dragon Ball movies, TV episodes, web series, and comics. I've been covering this all year in the #2023dbapocryphaliveblog, in case you're new to this blog, and while much of it hasn't been very good, there were a lot of bright spots. Battle of Gods, Broly, and Super Hero were classics, the Tournament of Power basically saved and otherwise lackluster Dragon Ball Super anime, and the Granolah Saga in the DBS manga is a fun read with a great cliffhanger.

However, things have slowed down a lot this year. The Granolah Saga ended and the manga began a long, long adaptation of the Super Hero film. There was some hype about a new Tenkaichi Budokai video game, but there's been no word on when it'll come out what we can expect to see. I get the sense that the fans are champing at the bit for some big announcement, like a new movie or anime series, but it hasn't happened.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but back in my day you just had to wait and see, and accept the possibility that you may never get what you were hoping for. The vibe I get from DBTwitter is that people think they can somehow manifest a new animation through sheer force of will. News will spread of some Toei panel and fans will cling to the hope that there must be some big Dragon Ball announcement, and it must be nothing less than a teaser trailer for Xenoverse 3, a DBZ remake, and release dates for the next five movies. Then the panel will come and go, and it just ends up being a fluff PR thing where a spokesperson says "Dragon Ball is very fun and Goku is cool." and that's it. And all the fans get upset until the next panel, where they put their clown makeup on all over again.

"No, this can't be happening. Dragon Ball 2uper is real..."

When I was still new to the fandom, I always wondered how Dragon Ball AF could be such a potent fantasy for so long. But now I've lived through the Dragon Ball Super era, and seen fans chasing similar dreams. People have been waiting for Xenoverse 3 for over six years. They've been expecting "Dragon Ball Super II" ever since Dragon Ball Super I ended five years ago. And I'd say it's a pipe dream, except fans held out hope for Tenkaichi 4 since 2010, and it looks like we're actually going to get that one? You never can tell with this franchise. My kneejerk reaction to Dragon Ball Magic is to dismiss it as fake, but I can't be completely sure.

The weird thing is that 2uper, Magic, and XV3 have been hyped up during a boom period for the franchise. Dragon Ball Super had a 131 episode run, followed by two feature films. It's still going, but people want 2uper to animate the Moro Saga. People want a new web anime, but there's already a web anime. Super Dragon Ball Heroes has been running since 2018 and it's still going. Xenoverse 2 is still releasing DLC packs. I recognize that some of this content isn't what everyone wanted, but it's weird how fans are demanding new projects before the old ones have run their course. At least when AF became a legend, there weren't any official works to compete for its attention.

It occurs to me that maybe this is just part of the fan culture, and every so often fans will collectively agree on some imaginary premise and Goncharov their own series. Maybe that's what AF was then, and what Magic is today. They're not hoaxes, but rather some sort of mutually-agreed-upon daydream. I'm not sure I get it, but it is what it is.

Anyway, my position has always been that Dragon Ball has ended before and can end again, so there's no reason to assume that there will be some new anime or movie or video game to look forward to. I watched Super Hero fully believing that this could be the last one, even though the box office numbers suggest that a sequel is probably inevitable. But nothing is guaranteed. Dragon Ball GT started strong in the ratings, only to get canceled about a year later.

And yet, there seems to be some kind of guarantee, because of this guy:

I think there are a lot of fans who believe that Dragon Ball Super has a lot of loose ends to tidy up, and the series can't end until Goku and Vegeta surpass Jiren, Beerus, Whis, and Orange Piccolo. And maybe this is true, but I'm not so sure. But Black Frieza isn't just a loose end. This seems like a pretty big honkin' deal, and it would be pretty weak if they wrapped things up without some kind of reckoning here. Frieza's the main villain of Dragon Ball Super now, and in his most recent appearance he revealed he can defeat Goku and Vegeta with frightening ease. And yet, he spared them. Why?

So that seems like the obvious direction going into 2024. This is why fans are so burned out on the manga this year, because they know a Black Frieza arc is coming, but they have to wait for Toyotaro to retell Super Hero before we can even find out when it's happening.

My guess is that Toei/Shueisha decides to tease this out even longer. We get to chapter 100 of the manga and it starts some bullshit arc about Goten and Trunks playing superhero park rangers on 17's island. Or... that dumb android from the Moro Saga comes back and they jerk around with that guy for 18 chapters. They'll get to Black Frieza eventually, but I suspect that they're holding off until they can set up a Black Frieza movie. Then the manga can just adapt that movie and everything gets paid off around the same time.

Either way, I'm a little skeptical about it just being Goku and Vegeta training to beat Black Frieza. I keep coming back to how he let them live at the end of the Granolah arc. Ostensibly, he just wanted to frighten them, and make it clear that he no longer sees them as a threat. But maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe Frieza needs them alive for some reason. Like he plans to use them to achieve some goal, or he needs their help to stop some even greater menace that we haven't seen yet.

Maybe that's what Frieza was talking about at the end of the Broly movie when he said he wanted "one other". I kind of thought he meant to use Broly as an ally against Goku and Vegeta, but maybe he's planning a campaign against some other guy, and he sees Broly as a potential resource. And maybe that's why he spared Goku and Vegeta on Planet Cereal. If he kills them, he might not be able to find Broly when the time comes. Or maybe he just needs all three Saiyans, so he has to pull his punches.

Or maybe I'm overthinking this, and it just turns out that Black Frieza ends with a manga arc where Goku turns "Ultra Instinct (Defined) (Remastered)" and wins a paint-by-numbers battle. Or Roshi beats Black Frieza, because that sounds like something Toyotaro would do.

So what would happen after Black Frieza? See, that's where I wonder about the future of the franchise, because so much work has gone into mining past arcs. The first DBS movie was about bringing back Broly, Bardock, and Gogeta. The second movie brought back the Red Ribbon Army, the androids, and Cell. Frieza will almost certainly get another turn, and then what? What's left?

I mean, let's break this down by the major antagonists we've had so far.

Pilaf Saga. The Pilaf gang are still living in Bulma's house, apparently, so that comic relief bit from Battle of Gods shows no signs of ending.

Red Ribbon Army. DBS Super Hero brought them back and opened some interesting doors for future Red Ribbon stories. It's hard to imagine the Army making another comeback since Cell Max destroyed their secret base and all their top leaders were killed. But the Red Pharmaceutical Company still exists and someone must have taken over after Magenta's death.

Tien Shinhan. Tien never left, and while I'd be down for a Tien-centric saga, it seems pretty unlikely after all these years. At best, he gets a prominent role in a story featuring some more important player.

King Piccolo/Piccolo Junior. Piccolo never left either, and now he's got his own movie in Super Hero.

Saiyans Saga. Vegeta never left, and DBS: Broly pretty much covered the idea of "here are some new Saiyans we didn't know about before."

Frieza Saga. Resurrection F, Tournament of Power, DBS: Broly, this upcoming Black Frieza thing, I think this has been covered.

Androids/Cell Saga. 17 and 18 never left, and the idea of more androids and a new Cell was already covered in Super Hero.

Majin Buu. It's been 27 years and no one seems to want to do anything with this guy. Maybe 2025 is the year when Akira Toriyama finally does some big Buu story to justify keeping him around this whole time.

Zamasu. I mean, the dude got erased, so it'd be pretty bullshit to bring him back. Then again, it was pretty bullshit of Toriyama to create this idea in the first place, so I can't rule it out. "Whoops, more Zamasu" might be the storyline that would force me to quit the Dragon Ball fandom for good.

Tournament of Power. I mean, they could do another Tournament of Power for funsies, but it probably wouldn't live up to the spectacle or the novelty of the original. More likely, I could see some adventures featuring prominent characters from the event, like Jiren, Hit, the U6 Saiyans, etc.

Moro. I did not enjoy the Moro arc much at all, so it kind of bums me out when people suggest that Toei should do an anime adaptation of it. To me, that would be just as big a waste of time as the DBS manga doing the Super Hero adaptation that's going on right now, but it would be even worse because Moro kind of sucks. In the same vein, doing stories that follow up on the Moro arc would be difficult because you'd have to refer back to the Moro arc, which only appeared in the manga, which not everyone read. So it's this difficult spot where you'd have to animate the Moro arc first, just to do a new arc about Merus and Jaco or whatever. It's probably not worth it.

Other Z Movies and GT: The success of DBS: Broly sort of opens the door for similar reboots of guys like Cooler, Turles, Janemba, Baby, etc. But honestly, this seems pretty far-fetched to me. Broly was a much, much bigger star than any of those other characters, so what worked for Broly isn't necessarily a road map for a guy like Bojack or Omega Shenron.

Looking over all of this, I kind of wonder what's left to do. Maybe something with Majin Buu, or the big shots from the Tournament of Power, and after that, I think they'll have used up all the viable nostalgia. After that, Dragon Ball will probably have to come up with something brand new, which is kind of a dicey proposition, because they've been hit-or-miss with that. Granolah and Tournament of Power were good, Moro and Zamasu were bad, so when I hear they're doing something all-new, I get kind of nervous.

But in the end, I don't know what will happen, which brings us back around to where I started. We'll just have to see what shakes out.

[christhehoff]

E3 2017: A Nintendo Fan's Perspective

As a Nintendo enthusiast, it was hard for me to not walk out of E3 2017 with a huge smile on my face. Which of the big three first-party publishers came out of the show the winner is largely a matter of preference, but there's no question that Nintendo stood out from the crowd and delivered its own brand of unique, colorful fun at a show where many triple-A games were cut from the same cloth. And I think a lot of players would agree, judging by the number of people I heard singing, humming, or whistling the ridiculous yet infectious "1-up Girl" song from Super Mario Odyssey as they left the hall on the final day of the show.

Unlike last year's E3, where Nintendo put all its virtual eggs in one basket with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, this time Nintendo was firing on all cylinders with big franchises, expected sequels, and shocking surprises. Most third parties aren't yet embracing the Switch despite its success, but there should still be enough first-party games to keep players satisfied for the foreseeable future. For both Switch and 3DS, this is a clear case of quality over quantity. Still, between what was on the show floor, shown on video, or announced in conjunction with E3, there was a lot to get excited about, but to narrow the focus a bit, I present to you my personal top 10 favorite Nintendo-related things I encountered at this year's show.

10. Splatoon 2 (Switch)

Splatoon 2 doesn't stray too far from the formula established by the original, but that's not a bad thing. I'm not the biggest fan of competitive shooters, but the cooperative Salmon Run mode looks like just what I've asked for, and the single-player mode grabbed me as soon as soon as I saw the ability to zip around using ride rails.

9. Shantae: Half-Genie Hero - Pirate Queen's Quest (Switch)

I absolutely loved WayForward's Shantae: Half-Genie Hero on both Wii U and Switch, and it looks like I'm going to fall in love all over again with the upcoming Pirate Queen's Quest DLC that lets you play as the villainess, Risky Boots. It features the same type of gorgeous, fluid action, but with modified levels, new attacks and abilities (like a grappling hook), new enemies, and a new upgrade system. Though this mode is paid DLC, Kickstarter backers will get it for free, plus it will apparently be included in the upcoming physical Switch release from XSEED Games.

8. Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology (3DS)

The original Radiant Historia on DS is a hidden gem of an RPG, and I'm thrilled to see that this enhanced version is making its way to North America. The time-defying story and gameplay - which sees you jumping between alternate timelines - separates this from other JRPGs, and new art and scenario elements make this edition even more enticing.

7. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions (3DS)

The original Mario & Luigi game is arguably still the best in the series, and now it's back with a fresh coat of paint. The fantastic writing and excellent timing-based gameplay have made their way from the GBA version virtually unchanged, but the graphics are far more detailed this time (although whether that's a good or bad is a matter of opinion). Also included is a brand-new mode where you play as the bad guys - led by Captain Goomba - and try to track down your boss, Bowser.

6. Fire Emblem Warriors (Switch)

I've long thought that Fire Emblem was a perfect fit for a Warriors title, and after going hands-on with Fire Emblem Warriors, I'm further convinced it was a good idea. The gameplay is exactly what you'd expect - you slice through hundreds of enemy soldiers while controlling a variety of heroes from past Fire Emblem games - and like in the 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors, you can quickly jump from hero to hero for advantageous positioning on the battlefield.

5. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)

Though not playable on the show floor, the videos and presentation shown on Xenoblade Chronicles 2 make it one of my most-anticipated Switch titles. The world is vast, the combat system is suitably deep, and the anime inspiration runs high. I'm very intrigued by protagonists Rex and Pyra and they're quest to reach the land of Elysium, as well as the strange, beautiful world set atop continent-sized loving creatures called Titans.

4. New Amiibo

Between Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem, 13 of Nintendo's biggest characters are being beautifully rendered in new plastic figurine form. All of them look great in my opinion, but I'm probably most excited about the Metroid, the four champions from Breath of the Wild (Mipha, Revali, Daruk, and Urbosa) and Bowser in a tuxedo, because it's BOWSER IN A TUXEDO.

3. Metroid Prime 4 (Switch) & Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)

There's not much I wanted more out of this year's E3 than a new Metroid announcement, and we got not one but two of 'em. Metroid Prime 4 was little more than a logo and a promise for sometime in the future, but Metroid: Samus Returns is an extensive stereoscopic 3D remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, and it's only a few months away. As excited as I am, I remain cautious about both titles: Prime 4 is being handled by a new dev team rather than Retro Studios, and Samus Returns is being developed by Mercury Steam, the team known for disappointing many fans with its take on Castlevania. Still, things are looking quite promising so far.

2. Sonic Mania (Switch)

The more I play of Sonic Mania on Switch, the more I like it. The developer's love of the franchise is clearly evident, as the game highlights both platforming and all-out speed like the series was known for in its glory days. Visually, the game is neon-drenched sensory overload in the best way possible, and the ability to play as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles lets you discover alternate routes with the characters' individual abilities. This doesn't simply play like classic Sonic; this is the realization of old-school Sonic that only exists in our rose-tinted memories.

1. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

This was the game I most wanted to experience at this year's E3, and it did not disappoint. Odyssey seems to have it all: dinosaurs with mustaches, the ability to wear a sombrero, evil bunny rabbits, seamless shifts between 2D and 3D action, and, yes, Bowser in a tux. And that's on top of the traditional Mario platforming and collecting, and his newfound ability to possess NPCs, enemies, and objects. There's so much to see and do in each level, the 10-minute demos at the show flew by like they were nothing, and I can't wait to play more. I only hope there's a non-motion-controlled option for Mario's spin attack!

[theclarkystuff-blog]

E3 opinions ( Nintendo)

Not the last show of E3 but possibly the last big one of the event, Nintendo strut into E3 with their usual pre recorded segment although I have seen people either dead excited for what a future Switch line up or seem to have no faith in Nintendo at all with only a half hour slot, so let’s review and see how it fares.

Opening the show is what appears to new a new advertising campaign maybe for the Switch but indie sensation Rocket League appears to take the opening slot and even showing off Fifa, neither games necessarily interest me but it seems to show a change in Nintendo, where they would usually promote one of their own works first usually it is nice to see them throw a bone to third parties. While Nintendo may not be able to boast having the kinds of support Sony and Microsoft receive at least Nintendo looks like they are trying to garner support now. 

Xenoblade 2 gets a re-introduction with a new trailer in English which showcased some story elements including game-play which shows that it will play similar to the last two entries in the series and also include some incredible looking worlds to explore once again, although it looks like someone turned up the anime inspiration to the max, mind you. The biggest surprise for me being that Nintendo are still aiming to release this Fall, despite earlier rumors stating that it had slipped into early 2018 so that is cool. 

Kirby comes crashing back with his Switch debut looking like follow up on his 2D adventures in the style of the ever classic Kirby’s Dreamland. While I don’t expect this to be a blockbuster seller, Kirby plat-formers are usually a solid experience and with Switch’s multiplayer possibilities which could allow you to play co-op on a single Switch or maybe even over multiple Switch’s via wireless

Yoshi also makes a Switch debut in a new game which appears to be continuing with the Wooly World theme with worlds that appear to be made of cardboard and moving away from the 2D plat-former mold by allowing Yoshi to move in the back and foreground. One of the biggest surprises about this game is that it will be built on the Unreal engine as confirmed by Epic Games spokesperson, Dana Cowley.

Fire Emblem Warriors while looking nice i felt a little disappointed in as the trailer appeared to mostly show cut-scenes over game-play as I would have liked to have seen how the game preformed in action , with the Switch specs in mind and being able to handle hundreds of enemies and big maps and also wondering how the N3DS port will handle, I expect similar results as seen in Hyrule Warriors on Wii U and N3DS respectively but with the game aiming to release this year I get the feeling we may see a dedicated Direct for this later in the year. 

Breath Of The Wild’s DLC was revealed showing some visual for the previously talked about and upcoming content, the first of which is dubbed The Master Trials will add a hard mode and new quest which will enable players to power up the Master Sword to deal out double damage, this DLC will also include some new costumes based on previous entries into the The Legend Of Zelda series such as Tingle’s costume and the infamous Majora’s Mask. This first expansion reminds me a little bit of Dark Souls in some respects but I guess we will get to find out in a matter of weeks The second DLC being dubbed The Champions’ Ballad focuses on the Champions in BOTW which makes me wonder if they have unfinished business after the game concluded or if this is set 1000 years before Calamity Ganon’s appearance or something? 

The big close out of the show was given to Super Mario Odyssey, opening with perhaps the oddest trailer involving a dinosaur but in this short trailer we get to see many of the game-play elements which displayed massive worlds to explore, going into walls playing as an 8 bit Mario in a similar style to The Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds and what appears to be Mario’s gimmick in this game, being able to take control of enemies and NPC like citizens found in New Donk City or a tyrannosaurus-rex by throwing Mario’s hat at them. This game sent me over the top and into hype mode, this game looks fantastic, looks to be amazing fun, looks like it runs at a solid 60fps and oozes a confidence that it isn’t afraid to embrace with its big band styled title song delivered with some beautiful vocals. Super Mario Odyssey looks like it will be the successor that Super Mario Galaxy 2 deserved, having everything you could hope for packed into a Mario game alongside a October release, coming sooner than I expected, this may well be my game of E3.

The other big talking points and announcements I feel I have to address for most part seem to come about after the presentation into the Tree-house broadcasts so let’s address them, Nintendo listened to the uproar over Metroid in recent years and not only talked about giving us one new Metroid game, but 2 of them. Nintendo confirmed that Metroid Prime 4 is in development but having nothing to show for it, not even any concept art or a teaser trailer. While this is a little disappointing I am sure the announcement of the game will bring many tears of joy to fans of Retro Studios trilogy it appears that Retro Studios themselves will not be returning to the series, that ponders the question of who is making it? and what the hell has Retro been working on then for the past 3 years? The other reveal being Metroid : Samus Returns for 3DS, a modern remake of the Game Boy sequel to Metroid being made by Mercury Studios, famous for Castlevania : Lord of Shadow. This reveal looked cool in concept although I felt like it was missing polish despite its launching within months, hopefully the next time we see this game it will be looking better.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle which had its official unveiling at Ubisoft’s event on Monday already looks like one of the strangest concepts with these 2 big franchises coming together for a game which plays like X-Com. The game looks like it could be some massive fun although I may hold out until I see some reviews to help decide if and when i will buy into this.

Mario and Luigi - Super Star Saga DX was another remade gem for the 3DS which looks to be running on the modern M&L engine as seen in Dream Team and Paper Jam, this remake will include a new mode based around a trio of Bowsers Minions which I guess will add a humorous alternative view of the story that many maybe familiar with. Being a big fan of the original Game Boy Advance version I look forward to trying this remake out soon.

I guess I should address Skyrim coming to Switch as well despite it only having a small segment in the presentation but it is cool to see Nintendo willing to allow Bethesda to include BOTW costumes, shields and armors. Despite Skyrim feeling like it is getting ported to anything and everything, including a VR version, the idea of being able to play a grand expansive adventure like Skyrim in a portable form without hopefully getting an entry as bad in performance as the infamous PS3 port, the motion controls looks like they could add some fun interesting ways to play this game but I imagine many will probably default to the regular controls.

I was overall impressed with Nintendo’s presentation despite the short presentation, although they did not waste much time promoting games releasing within the next few months like Arms or Splatoon 2 but they are being given special competition events at E3 to act as promotion there, it is nice to see we wasn’t bogged down with more info about it at the presentation. While I am confident Yoshi and Kirby will be good games they hardly seemed like big announcements I was expecting for the Switch at its first E3 but with Metroid Pime 4 and a new RPG Pokemon being confirmed in development I would only wish Nintendo had more to show really, many have been hoping for ports of Mario Maker, Super Smash Bros 4 or Bayonetta 2 to Switch or even talk of the Virtual Console service coming to Switch but it feels like we are getting small servings for this year. While Nintendo has it’s Directs to spread awareness of upcoming titles which they can use any time of the year I can see why Nintendo maybe holding back some announcements for a later date, similar to how I feel Sony may have been holding back on announcing new stuff for its PSX expo later this year but overall I was happy with what I saw Nintendo seem to employ an unusual method of unveiling games as a few were presented through the Tree-house segments instead of the presentation which strikes me as weird as some of these would have been more than welcome during this brief conference.

This years E3 I felt was only mediocre for most part this year, while we got some interesting updates to games announced in previous years I felt like there was a lack of anything really new or fresh at least for most part throughout the whole show. I feel Microsoft while having an impressive new console had a serious lack of impressive software to make it stand out like BOTW did for Switch or Uncharted 4 did for the PS4, Forza 7 could well be that game for all I know, but I get the feeling it won’t be. Sony and Nintendo had good presentations but neither really felt like they ignited a fuse, while not every E3 can be an amazing one, this one certainly wasn’t a bad one, until next year I guess, have fun.

[madmyrtle86]

An Essay on Lootboxes

When mobile games came on the scene they quickly realized that they could not price there games the same as consoles or PCs. No one wanted to pay $30 for a game they were playing on their cell phone. So mobile games lowered their prices (usually $0.99 - $6.99[a]) or became free to play. But they had a new strategy to make money called micro transactions. Micro transactions are using real money to buy an in game item such as more health, a weapon, or even hints in a puzzle game. They are most often sold as packs of in game currency (often referred to as premium currency) and can range in price from $0.99 to $99.99[b].

Mobile games began to pulling in large amounts of revenue a year from micro transaction. For example in 2013 the mobile game Candy Crush made a whopping $1.54 billion in sales revenue[1]. Console and PC game companies took note of this and began rolling out micro transactions of their own. While this came as paid DLC (downloadable extra content), and cosmetics (like the hats you can buy in Team Fortress 2), the most controversial of these has been loot boxes.

A loot box is essentially a box that may contain the item you want. The player pays real world money at a chance of getting the in game item they want. A lot of people equate this to gambling. I for one agree with this. But while gambling is spending money on a game of chance in the hopes of winning more money, loot boxes are about spending real money for a chance to win a digital in game item.

Personally, I am okay with micro transactions. I feel like if I have put in over 100 hours playing Medic in Team Fortress 2 and I spent $25 on hats that’s not bad. I’ve paid less than the cost of a new game, but still supported the game and got a lot of enjoyment for my money. But on the issue of loot boxes, I think they are just the worst. They are designed to get the player to spend a lot of money.

To give an example of this, I’ll talk about a mobile game that I play called Shop Heroes by Cloudcade. In the game you need blue prints to make the best armor & weapons for your heroes. The best blue prints are in chest (the games version of loot boxes) and each chest has a chance of giving you a blue print. The best chest in the game is called the Primal Chest and there are two ways to open them. The first is using a key (that you can buy from other players or win in the PvP [player versus player] arena), but the key only gives you a 15% chance of getting a blue print. You can also use 750 gems (the games premium currency) to open the chest and it gives you a 25% chance. So the game gives you better odds if you spend gems. But to get enough gems you have to buy the $9.99 pack of 1,150 gems or spend weeks/months grinding for them. Again, this is just for the chance of getting a blue print and even if you manage to get a blue print, it may not even be the one you want.

People began to look at this set up for loot boxes and started drawing the conclusion that it was design to not only exploit addictive personality traits, but create addiction in gamers. Heather Alexandra wrote an article for Kotaku that compares loot boxes to the reward behavioral experiments that B.F. Skinner performed on rats[2]. The game developers are intentionally making the loot boxes desirable as explained in this quote from an Overwatch developer:

“When you start opening a loot box, we want to build anticipation,” an Overwatch developer said. “We do this in a lot of ways—animations, camera work, spinning plates, and sounds. We even build a little anticipation with the glow that emits from a loot box’s cracks before you open it.”[3]

The ethical concerns about the addiction of loot boxes are a real hot button issue among players, parents, and even some lawmakers. Personally, I struggle with addictive personality issues as part of my impulse control issue due to my Bipolar Disorder. When I go to a Casino, I leave my debit and credit cards at home, bring a set amount of money with me to spend, and only go with a trusted friend(s) or family member(s). To hinder myself with micro transaction, I first try to avoid buying them as much as possible. I have also set monthly entertainment budget. But my best deterrent is that I have set it so I have to enter a password anytime I want to buy an in game item. This gives me a moment to consider my actions before I spend my money and have buyer’s remorse. This all sounds like a bit much, but I had friend who could not pay her bills one month as she had spent over $1,000 on loot boxes in Overwatch.

The ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) does not view loot boxes as gambling as outline in this statement:

“While there’s an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they don’t want). We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes you’ll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card you’ve had your eye on for a while. But other times you’ll end up with a pack of cards you already have.”[4]

While UK Gambling Commission and the New Zealand Gambling Regulators share the same sentiment as the ESRB.[5] Other governments don’t and have begun investigating loot boxes. Just this year Belgium’s Gaming Commission ruled that some loot boxes violated the country’s gambling regulations. The investigation was brought on in November of 2017 by Minister of Justice Koen Geens, after hearing complaints about Star Wars Battlefront II’s loot boxes.[6] The Commission looked at four popular games: Overwatch, Star Wars Battlefront II, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and FIFA 18.[7]

And in April of this year they can to their ruling that the games were in violation. In a statement release by Minister of Justice Koen Geens:

“Minister of Justice Koen Geens therefore wishes to enter into a dialogue soon, both with the developers, operators and the Gaming Commission. Together we can see who should take responsibility where. "Mixing games and gambling, especially at a young age, is dangerous for mental health. We have already taken numerous measures to protect both minors and adults against the influence of, among other things, gambling advertising. That is why we must also ensure that children and adults are not confronted with games of chance when they are looking for fun in a video game."[8][c]

Developers such as Blizzard, Valve, and 2K Games have already disable loot boxes for the Belgium versions of their games.[9] The biggest name that has not complied with the ruling is EA, the makers of FIFA 18. Their randomized card packs that violated the gambling laws are still in the game and will be in FIFA 19 which releases at the end of September.[10] In May EA CEO Andrew Wilson released a statement saying that the company does not believe their Ultimate Team card packs or loot boxes in general are a form of gambling.[11]  

Unfortunately for EA, the Belgium Gambling Commission does not agree. They have contacted the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who has opened a criminal investigation into EA.[12] There is a strong chance that this will go to court, unless EA backs down which at the moment seems unlikely. The whole world will be watching this case closely, especially if it goes to court. As loot boxes are still an item of contention even in countries that have said loot boxes are not gambling such as here in the United States. As loot boxes have become a staple of gaming and this could begin to set a legal precedent regarding them.

[a] These numbers came from me looking at the prices of popular titles on the Google Play Store.

[b] This came from looking at packs offered in several popular title games such as Candy Crush & by looking at the games on my phone as well.

[c] I translated the text using Google Translate from the source to verify that it matched what was quoted in other cited articles and opted to site the source instead.

References:

1 Brad Reed “Candy Crush Saga generated an insane 1.5 billion in revenue last year”. February 18, 2014. BGR. https://bgr.com/2014/02/18/how-much-money-does-candy-crush-make/

2, 3 Heather Alexandra “Loot Boxes Are Designed To Exploit Us”. October 13, 2017. Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/loot-boxes-are-designed-to-exploit-us-1819457592

4 Jason Schreier “ESRB Says It Doesn’t See ‘Loot Boxes’ As Gambling”. October 11, 2017. Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/esrb-says-it-doesnt-see-loot-boxes-as-gambling-1819363091

5 Shabana Arif “Belgium Joins The Netherlands In Ruling That Declares Some Loot Boxes Illegal”. April 25, 2018. IGN. http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/04/25/belgium-joins-the-netherlands-in-ruling-that-declares-some-loot-boxes-illegal

6, 7 Andy Chalk “Belgium’s Gambling Commission rules against loot boxes in Overwatch, FIFA 18, and CS:GO”. April 25, 2018. PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/belgiums-gambling-commission-rules-against-loot-boxes-in-overwatch-fifa-18-and-csgo/

8 Minister of Justice Koen Geens. April 25, 2018 https://www.koengeens.be/news/2018/04/25/loot-boxen-in-drie-videogames-in-strijd-met-kansspelwetgeving

9, 10, 11, 12 Rob Thubron “EA faces criminal investigation in Belgium because it won’t remove loot boxes from FIFA”. September 11, 2018. TECHSPOT. https://www.techspot.com/news/76374-ea-faces-criminal-investigation-belgium-because-wont-remove.html

[crimeamarches]

Hal’s hopeful but also realistic Emblem Warriors roster

I want to believe in Koei Tecmo and Emblem Warriors.  After all, Hyrule Warriors included some awfully obscure characters!  I don’t hate 3DS FE, but as a fan of the series as a whole I will be disappointed if that’s all we see. Hence the “hopeful but also realistic” part.

Now, the trailer more or less confirmed a few characters, so I’m going to start from there and list the characters I think will most likely be in at some point or another, using Hyrule Warriors 45-character (including DLC) roster as a framework.

FATES (FE 14)

Trailer basically confirmed:

1.      Corrin

2.      Ryoma

3.      Xander

Because the 3DS FEs are bound to make up the brunt of the characters, here are my other predicted Fates reps:

4.       Azura (basically a shoe-in)

5.       Takumi (has both possessed and non-possessed forms)

6.       Leo (less likely than Takumi but still likely imo)

7.       Elise and/or Sakura (more likely than the older sisters, but I’m not confident)

8.       Jakob and/or Felicia

9.       Kaze

Something in me doubts that they’ll include all eight siblings in favor of a more diverse roster.  I could see Camilla or Rinkah getting in as well; we’ll give them Honorable Mentions.  Sadly, i think Hinoka is least likely.

AWAKENING (FE 13)

Trailer basically confirmed:

10.   Chrom

And with Chrom along, there’s no way the game won’t also feature:

11.   Robin

12.   Lucina

Other likely candidates:

13.   Tharja (please don’t koei I’m literally on my knees and begging)(but let’s face reality here)

14.   Owain and/or Gaius

15.   Severa and/or Cordelia

16.   Inigo (These three slots are because if it’s driven by popularity polls again they’re the likely winners)(plus tharja but…she’s a bit more of a guarantee…*weeps*)

17.   Gangrel or Grima

18.   Sumia

19.   Anna (not solely an Awakening character, but Awakening is what brought her to the fore)

20.   Basilio (wildcard suggestion)

21.   Emmeryn (maybe?)

Priam, just to fucks with me personally

ARCHANEA SAGA (Marth Game/FE 1, 3, 11, and 12)

Trailer basically confirmed this as well.  I think it’ll have less reps than 3DS FE, but it’ll be there.

22.   Marth

23.   Caeda

24.   Gharnef/Medeus

25.   Minerva

26.   Merric (maybe)

27.   Tiki

Honorable Mentions:  Linde, Gotoh, Navarre, Lena, and Julien.  There’s a lot to choose from with Marthgame and i didn’t even put any fe 3/12 important guys because i’m not familiar with them.      

ELIBE (FE 6 and 7)

This is where we get into the realm of those banished to DLC.  I think there’s a good chance some will be featured in the main game:

28.   Eliwood and/or Roy (I’m not sure they’d bother doing both)

29.   Hector

30.   Lyn

And maybe a few more reps might happen if it is DLC:

31.   Lilina

32.   Merlinus

33.   Nergal

Honorable Mentions:  Matthew, Marcus, Nino, Nils, Idunn

TELLIUS (Ike game/FE 9 and 10)

Please, Koei.  Please treat my children well.  

Ok, even if it’s just Amiibo support, we’re bound to get

34.   Ike

Then, much like with Elibe, other reps are DLC-bound and increasingly unlikely.

35.   Micaiah

36.   Black Knight

37.   Soren

38.   Ranulf

39.   Ashnard and/or Ashera

40.   Elincia

Honorable Mentions:  Lethe, Sothe, Sanaki, A Bird Laguz, Oliver

JUGDRAL (FE 4 and 5)

Slim little chance we get some Jugdral DLC.  Hey, Awakening SpotPass included them, at least!

41.   Sigurd and/or Seliph

42.   Leif

And maaaaaaaybe

43.   Arvis and/or Julius

Honorable Mentions:  Finn, Julia, Lewyn

SACRED STONES (FE 8)

Lmao @ someone remembering Magvel exists *sob*

44.   Eirika (a Real Eirika in all her glory  not awakening’s Bride shit please koei im begging you--)

45.   Ephraim

46.   Lyon (maybe)

Honorable Mentions (me getting my hopes up Really Really High):  Saleh, Joshua, Myrrh, L’arachel, Innes

GAIDEN (FE 2)

BIGGER LMFAO

47.   Alm

48.   Celica

(even that much is a bit of a stretch)

Anyway!  This is just my projection.  I went a little over the 45-character limit but some of these are conditional picks.  I can see it going either way, honestly—either I’m pretty right, or I’m totally wrong and it’s going to be nothing but 3DS and my heart will shatter into teeny tiny pieces. I could also see them going in a different direction entirely but hey! it’s two AM at the time of writing this and im just trying to contain my excitement

Feel free to drop me a line to talk about your own predictions or to talk about fire emblem in general!

[teamwynn]

The Night Voice Retrospective, Pt. 5

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 11.5 | Part 12]

Enough of the antagonists (for now), let’s move on to how the book handled characterization for the protagonists.

Everyone is out of character the whole damn book, I don’t even have anything clever to say

I know I’m being a bit unfair with that header, because there actually was a portion of the book where some of the characters were in character (see next point), but generally speaking, this was a huge problem throughout the book. Leesil was unrelentingly snappy and bitter; Wynn was mopey and despondent for no apparent reason (at least Leesil had an external motivation for his bad attitude, as uncharacteristic as it was); Shade was a pushover; Wayfarer had a bunch of growth off-page but the nature of that growth was never made clear, leaving her just kind of ambiguously different than how she had been; any possible growth that Osha might or should have had was ignored in favor of locking him into Jaded Nice Guy ™ mode for the rest of his time in the series, which I suppose is in-character until you consider that even Osha seems like the sort to maybe learn from his mistakes every once in a while; and Magiere and Brot’an were as good as not there for how little either of them did or said anything in the plot. For the most part, the only character whose attitude and actions consistently made sense in the book was il’Sanke’s, despite him literally not being himself, and the whole “being trapped inside his own head” thing rather severely limited the scope of aforementioned attitude and actions.

And, look, I get it. It’s the final leg of their quest, everyone’s sick of being trapped in il’Sanke’s apartment, no one is in a good mood. Leesil and Wynn’s uncharacteristic attitudes made sense in the first chapter, given the ongoing stress and irritation of their situation. That doesn’t explain why Wayfarer was pushing so hard to have Osha train with the She’ith given that she straight-up stopped talking to him once they got there. That doesn’t explain why Shade didn’t push back against Wynn sending her away beyond a brief moment of the dog equivalent of foot-stomping (twice). Why Magiere went along with “il’Sanke’s” obviously terrible idea for the orbs with, like Shade, only a brief token effort of reluctance. Why Brot’an suddenly no longer cared about the elven rebellion but still, for some reason, continued working alongside Magiere and co. despite no longer having a motivation to do so. See again the point about no one calling il’Sanke out for being aggressively and tellingly shadier than usual.

And as a result, since no one is acting like themselves, all the character dynamics were completely shot. Almost every conversation in the book is wooden and soulless, even when it’s supposed to be some kind of huge emotional turning point. It’s like every character had their heads so far up their own asses that they forgot how to interact with each other. Why their heads are so far up their asses is never explained, either. Again, the stress of the Neverending Sleepover at il’Sanke’s explains it for the first chapter or so. But, in all honesty, the vampire apocalypse as it ended up playing out isn’t that big of a direct threat to any of them. So far, they’re just hearing rumors (which were fabricated by the specter, anyway) that vampires are attacking stray villagers way out in the desert. So, even when you take into account that the specter’s lie ended up being true by sheer coincidence (wow, what a fucking plot twist), the stakes are still exactly as high as they were in Dhampir, which is “some country bumpkins we don’t know might be eaten.” Which, yeah, that sucks for the country bumpkins, but doesn’t exactly explain why everyone is so distraught that they keep getting into arguments with each other over nothing and emotionally withdrawing completely at the slightest upset. It’s a shitty situation, but not “everyone forgot how to be a person”-level of shitty.

I want to get into more specifics here, but honestly, it was such a widespread issue that it’s hard to pinpoint specific examples that really encapture the scope of the problem. Ultimately, for the majority of the book, I felt like I was reading about characters I had never met before who just coincidentally all shared names with the characters who I had been hoping to read about.

The Wacky Hijinx of Chap and Chane (would be great, if they were happening in a different book)

I have something good to say! I liked this part! Did you notice a few characters that I didn’t call out in the last point? That’s because Chap and Chane were actually in-character for this part of the book, it explored an interesting character dynamic that had been largely untouched so far, and Ore-Locks was there! Ore-Locks makes everything better. So, clearly I have no complaints with this part of the book, right?

You fools, I always have something to complain about.

While the rip-roaring adventures of Chap, Chane, and Ore-Locks were delightful and as in-tune with the saga’s overall tone of humor from earlier in the series, the problem is that this is neither the place nor time. The entire series is over in 200 pages and Most Aged Father is still alive, and we’re using precious, precious word count assing around with Chap and Chane in the Mines of Moria? Get out of my face with that! There are loose threads to tie; we don’t have time for fun!

This whole part would have been fine in the second-to-last book or some supplementary short story type of content--a book DLC, if you will--but oh my god, there is so much plot that needs to happen before the end and it’s not happening in favor of these clowns?

That said, these scenes were the most enjoyable in the book and reminded me that I was, in fact, reading an actual Noble Dead book. Chap and Chane’s petty exchanges were actually pretty funny, and Chane and Ore-Locks’ exchanges were extremely gay, which I am always in favor of. (And in how many other works of fiction can you reasonably ship a vampire with a dwarf? It’s amazing.) This is also where most of the follow-up on the Seven Leaves of Life subplot comes up, which, holy shit! An ongoing series plotline that actually got resolved! Wowzers. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Tomorrow’s post will continue with the theme of characterization, focusing primarily on Osha’s character arc and how that was handled. (I hope you guys like profanity.)

[entergamingxp]

DualShockers’ Favorite Games of 2019 — Scott’s Top 10

December 27, 2019 2:00 PM EST

2019 for me was filled with tons of games from different genres, and even though it was hard to pick 10, here are my favorites from 2019.

As 2019 comes to a close, DualShockers and our staff are reflecting on this year’s batch of games and what were their personal highlights within the last year. Unlike the official Game of the Year 2019 awards for DualShockers, there are little-to-no-rules on our individual Top 10 posts. For instance, any game — not just 2019 releases — can be considered.

Greetings and glad tidings, Shockerians? DualShockese? Sorry, I’m new, but yes it is the time of the year once again to share with the internet the video games that left a particularly large imprint on us throughout the past 365 days. My name is Scott White, and let my list be my humble debut on this fantastic site and introduction to you fine readers.

2019 treated audiences to titles that have been long desired, from Kingdom Hearts 3, Death Stranding, and of course, the Resident Evil 2 remake. The time between these behemoths was filled with other stellar titles from indie studios to large developers, rounding out the year and making it one with far too many games and myself with far too little free time for them all. However: I did play a bunch, so let me tell you about some of them!

As a brief note for readers: the first nine games I will list are in no particular order, but the final entry on this list will be my favorite of the year and noted as such.

Forager

What was a random suggestion on my Steam page turned into my go-to chill game of the year. With a bright and vivid cartoon pixel art style, Forager crafted its way into my heart. I found something incredibly peaceful and rewarding as I bought up the various islands faster than a land baron who struck oil, and worked to create my autonomous empire. With my army of drones collecting precious ore and gems, while my furnaces burned non-stop crafting new items, I could sit back and admire my work.

With the inclusion of many other indie darlings that you can dress your character up as (Shovel Knight, baby!) and flow of constant updates and additions from the single-man development team, Forager is a game that I keep coming back to, being charmed all the while.

Katana Zero

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting a dark narrative dealing with such heavy topics as PTSD, drug addiction, or child soldiers when I started playing Katana Zero. My sight zeroed *wink wink nudge* in on this game after watching the trailers with the neon visuals, the samurai who deflects bullets and mows down enemies, and the time-warping mechanic. What I ended up getting was so much more, and made me fall in love with this game.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Katana Zero.

Dragon Ball FighterZ

Yes, it’s an older game, but FighterZ has still been one of the games I’ve had the most fun with in 2019. With the drops of some of my friends and I’s favorite characters, my usual crew of friends were hopping into the lobbies and hurling beams at one another more than ever. With the recent release of the final Season 2 character with Dragon Ball Super’s Broly, there’s still no word on a Season 3 of new characters. You can count on it though, that if we do get another round of characters, there is a good chance you will see Dragon Ball FighterZ on my list next year, too.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of An Elusive Age — Definitive Edition

Fact: Dragon Quest XI was one of my favorite games of 2018. Also fact, Dragon Quest XI S easily adds enough content and goodies to warrant being included on my list for 2019 too. With the addition of the orchestral track, new outfits, and a new game with the 2D version of XI included with all of its unique content, I gladly jumped back into the role of The Luminary. Any fans of RPGs and that own a Switch need to get this game.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of An Elusive Age — Definitive Edition.

Daemon X Machina

As a longtime fan of From Software’s non-Soulsborne franchise, Armored Core, the lack of complex mech customization action titles as of late left me rabid for this game when it got announced. Fast-forward a couple of demos and a release later, Daemon X Machina fills the void left by AC’s disappearance this generation. The tense combat mixed with a visual style that separates it from the pack is just *chef’s kiss* muah. The added fact that I can now run around as Geralt of Rivia in a giant robot is just icing on the cake.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Daemon X Machina.

Resident Evil 2

Growing up, the Resident Evil series was always one that I wanted to play, as the lore and concept behind it was so intriguing to me. Alas though, it contained a foe scarier than Mr. X and more crushing than Nemesis: the dreaded “tank controls.” The releases of the remasters had solved this dilemma of mine with Resident Evil 0 and the first game, and with the RE2 remake release, I got to finally experience Leon and Claire’s origin.

This game should be placed on a pedestal with a beacon shining on it that never gets extinguished as an example of how remakes should be done. By everyone. Forever. It is simply a suburb horror title that nailed this vibe. The first time I was being chased by Mr. X remains the most nerve-wracking horror experience of 2019 for me. Bravo Capcom, bravo.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Resident Evil 2.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

With magical whip in hand, I ventured forward into the night, vanquishing all manner of demonkind, skewering myself in the chest along the way to absorb the abilities of my foes. In a similar vein as Daemon X Machina scratched my mech itch, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night gloriously scratched my Symphony of the Night itch. Plus, David Hayter is a demon-slaying samurai, so that instantly gives it +120 bonus points.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

Kingdom Hearts 3

In the convening years between the releases of Kingdom Hearts 2 in 2006 and Kingdom Hearts 3 this year, I evolved from a senior in high school who had no idea what he was doing, to a full-fledged adult…who has no idea what he is doing AND paying rent! What a decade it’s been.

I may have grown out of the raging hormones and living with my parents, but it turns out I have not grown out of the wide-eyed reaction to seeing Keyblades, Heartless, and Sora+Donald+Goofy Co. teaming up and vanquishing evil with the power of friendship and deus ex machina. It’s far from a perfect game, or even a perfect Kingdom Hearts game, but when a game makes me tear up from the title screen, there’s no way I couldn’t include it on my list. I love this game, this series, and all the craziness that comes with them. I can’t wait to see what lore-f***ery comes with the upcoming Re:Mind DLC in January.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Kingdom Hearts 3.

Randomizers

Not relegated to a single game, but more a family of fan mods, this year saw me really dive into retro game randomizers. These nifty mods mix all sorts of stuff up inside a game–chest contents in Zelda as an example–to create new experiences in each playthrough. Whether it was having Kent in Fire Emblem rocking as Bard or Yoshi being King of Figaro with his twin brother Master Chief in Final Fantasy 6, these mods stole a lot of my time this year.

My Favorite Game(s) of the Year: Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 1-3

Spending more than 250 hours with a cast of characters, experiencing their world, their struggles and triumphs this year, I’ve found myself completely enraptured by this series of RPGs. Imagine the materia system from Final Fantasy VII, the social bonding and links from the later Persona titles, and blend them together with a constantly expanding narrative, and you have Trails of Cold Steel.

I felt I had to include these games as a single entity on my list. So many moments of these games left me aghast; they lifted my spirits with hope and pained my heart with loss. This is a series that needs to be experienced by more people. I can only hope that 2020 will see the localization of the end of this saga with Cold Steel 4.

Check out the rest of the DualShockers staff Top 10 lists and our official Game of the Year Awards:

December 23: DualShockers Game of the Year Awards 2019 December 25: Lou Contaldi, Editor-in-Chief // Logan Moore, Managing Editor December 26: Tomas Franzese, News Editor // Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor  December 27: Mike Long, Community Manager // Scott White, Staff Writer December 28: Chris Compendio, Contributor // Mario Rivera, Video Manager December 29: Scott Meaney, Community Director // Allisa James, Senior Staff Writer // Ben Bayliss, Senior Staff Writer December 30: Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer // David Gill, Senior Staff Writer // Portia Lightfoot, Contributor December 31: Iyane Agossah, Senior Staff Writer // Michael Ruiz, Senior Staff Writer // Rachael Fiddis, Contributor January 1: Ricky Frech, Senior Staff Writer // Tanner Pierce, Staff Writer

December 27, 2019 2:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-scotts-top-10/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-scotts-top-10

[daleisgreat]

Dale’s Top 36 Gaming Experiences of 2018

Greetings dear readers and welcome to my annual top gaming experiences/moments/favorite games I played in 2018 that may or may not have released in 2018 round-up!!! Consider this my personal greatest hits compilation of my year in videogames that was 2018! Buckle up buck-a-roos because I am going to take you on a several thousand word journey as I count you down my handpicked top 33 gaming ‘experiences’ of the year! This is not going to be any other ordinary quick scroll through of listed top games of the year because almost anything I did gaming related qualifies for a ‘experience’ in 2018. That experience could be my overall time I invested into a certain game or series of games I decided to lump into one list item, or it could be a certain other piece of gaming memorabilia, news item that really struck me or a memorable gaming session with friends and family that makes it perfectly eligible for the list! So if you have not by now then use your favorite bookmark app (I recommend Pocket) or ‘control + d’ to manually bookmark this page to revisit this feast of words because it is going to take some time to consume! For optimal experience I highly recommend a big cup of coffee and blaring one of those 10-hour YouTube videos of ambient rain because that is exactly what I did to craft this beast! Speaking of YouTube videos I linked to a whole boatload of them throughout the rankings from trailers for most games I discuss and moments that really popped for me if you so desire to click them for a reference to the corresponding footage. If you managed to finish this monster and dare to seek out my similar takes on previous years of gaming experiences then I triple-dog-dare you to check out my write-ups for my best of 2017 and best of 2016 gaming spectaculars. Enough with this intro, to the list we go! ---Recommended – This is Bonkers Long So Please Read This in the Suggested Installments--- Part 1 - Rankings 36 through 31 Part 2 - Rankings 30 through 24 Part 3 - Rankings 23 through 18 Part 4 - Rankings 17 through 14 Part 5 - Rankings 13 through 10 Part 6 - Rankings 9 through 4 Part 7 - Rankings 3 through 1 PART 1 - RANKINGS 36 THROUGH 31 36) Telltale & Prima RIP I hate to kickoff this list with a downer, but that is why this is at the bottom of the list. The saga of Telltale announcing its closing in 2018 was quite the affair with all the misguided reactionary hoopla. It initially leaned towards fan outcry of Telltale now being unable to finish the final season of its acclaimed Walking Dead line of episodic games it was in the middle of releasing getting more attention over the developers who lost their jobs and benefit plans. Things were getting heated in the wrong ways real quick, but there was a modicum of redemption with fellow videogame developers reaching out and picking up many of the laid off and publisher Skybound Studios picking up the rights for the remaining episodes of the final season of The Walking Dead and following up that announcement with good news of Skybound being able to re-hire most of the original developers who did not already land jobs elsewhere.

I feel I wronged Telltale this year by having 2018 be the first year in several years where I did not complete a season of a Telltale game. Tales of the Borderlands and both seasons of Batman are in my massive ‘want to play’ stack, and now with The Walking Dead being on its way to being concluded I now feel obligated to pick up where I left off after finishing season two a few years ago. Prima closing up surprisingly resonated with me. They have been the constant major publisher of videogame strategy guides for what seems like an eternity. Part of me is surprised Prima hung around this long with how easy it is to reference GameFAQs and other online guides, wikis and YouTube playthroughs for free in an instant. I prefer to go that route too, but I would occasionally pick up a Prima guide and would prefer their more detailed layouts and maps when playing Fallout 3 and Skyrim than compared to what an average text GameFAQs guide can offer. I will also give a shoutout to their supplementary NES & SNES Now You’re Playing Power/Super Power guides/nostalgia books that launched alongside the NES & SNES Classic. Both feature lots of vintage scans from Nintendo Power alongside new interviews with developers, pro speedrunners and creators of fan art, music and website communities. When I heard of their closure I went out and ordered Prima guides for other Bethesda games like Fallout 4 and New Vegas. When I went to file them away I hung my head in shame to see I already procured the Fallout 4 guide awhile back, so now I have two copies of that one. Backup copy! There will still be other specialty strategy guide publishers (major props to FanGamer’s guides!), but none with the presence or outreach of Prima established. 35) Non Virtual Boy VR Last year in the round-up I stated how I have too many reservations about getting on board with the VR craze that has swept up a segment of the gaming world and that I will stick with my Virtual Boy for my VR needs. My Extra Life friends Chris and Lyzz have a Playstation VR headset and had me try it out at their place in 2018 and after trying out a couple games in PSVR…..I was impressed, but still not sold on it overall. I played one or two of the mini-games on the PSVR Worlds mini-game collection that came with the peripheral. I then played about a half hour of London Heist. That experience was a memorable one as I got to admit it was cool looking around the gangster hideouts while being tied up and taking in the unique 360 camera of my surroundings that is only possible in a VR experience. The gameplay was on the money too in some shooting gallery segments and eventually a car chase portion that was the highlight of my time with London Heist.

I was relieved I did not suffer from any of the motion sickness I heard wide varieties of minor and severe reports of from VR players. Then again I only played PSVR for only an hour. I have kept up with the games hitting PSVR since its launch and in its first couple years it has built a library of several games that appear to hold their own as premiere VG single player experiences with bonafide hits such as Moss, Astrobot and Farpoint. After some legit hands-on time with PSVR I will maintain my reservations on VR in general. The price entry point is way too high and I would rather spend the money needed for starting off a proper PSVR experience in upgrading my PC instead. It requires a lot of cumbersome setup, it is a safety hazard by completely blocking off your surroundings and finally after playing for a mere hour my face felt like it was sat on for many more hours after removing the headset. I may try out VR down the line at friend’s places or wherever I run into it at and will likely enjoy my time with it, but as far as owning VR goes I will continue to be happy with my Virtual Boy and reliving the complete Virtual Boy experience in 2019 with Jeremy Parish’s Vitual Boy Works line of videos. 34) Hadoken 2018

If you do not have it already on last-gen systems, I still would recommend Ultra Street Fighter IV as it collects nearly all the DLC characters and costumes and goes on sale digitally frequently. It was a hit revisiting with Chris, but the surprise SF hit among us online was Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. Aside from collecting 12 of the earliest SF games, it made four of them online and Capcom had a slick online lobby system to make it quick and seamless to jump from playing one version of SF to another. Chris and I got lots of fights in throughout the year and I also did about 20 fights in online ranked lobbies against random opponents in hopes of getting just one win to get a trophy. That proved to be a brutal endeavor as my assumptions of my meek hadoken skills hoping to get lucky once were foolish as I lost every time (thought a couple of times I won once out of three…yay?). The worst was when higher skilled opponents would sit there and wait for me to come at them before schooling me with counter attacks. That happened even worse in Mortal Kombat X online against randoms, but as they say, practice makes perfect. 33)Mass Effect Andromeda Novels I have seen nobody talking about these…probably because of how lackluster Mass Effect Andromeda was received. I was a huge fan of all four novels published concurrently alongside the original Mass Effect Trilogy and they helped fleshed out the story between games and gave a ton of back story to characters I was thrilled to see finally appear in the third game. I had no idea publisher Titan Books were releasing novels set in the Andromeda universe until about a year after the first one hit. Just a few months ago they released the third of the planned four books set in the Andromeda timeline.

I finished the first two books and enjoyed both of them. I gave more thorough reviews on my GoodReads account and will link to them here. For the quick breakdown though Nexus Uprising deals with a crisis of the Nexus mothership arriving at Andromeda attacked by a mysterious ‘scourge’ and the hysteria that results with its limited crew in charge of a ship barely hanging onto survival. Nexus Uprising leads right into the start of the Andromeda game. Initiation has a new Andromeda recruit fresh off her seven years of Asari training traveling for one last mission before journeying to Andromeda where the new recruit encounters a hostile VI/AI in a facility she must now survive and rescue as many survivors along with her. The latest book, Annihilation, I am only halfway through and I regret to report that I am just not feeling this one. Annihilation explains why about a third of the original Mass Effect races are not in the Andromeda game as it goes into detail why they all took a separate ship there that wound up having a disastrous journey. I enjoyed the peripheral races in the original games in nice little spurts, but having a book focusing entirely on the volus, elcor, drell and a couple other races so far has been a slog to get through. I will keep my fingers crossed it picks up in the second half. 32) HDMI Cables for Retro Consoles The past couple of years have seen an emerging trend of either having deluxe HDMI conversion kits for older systems to display at their proper resolutions on newer TVs or having third parties re-release older systems like the NES and SNES with new HD capabilities. Those are great options to have if you want a pristine picture on your HDTV for retro gaming goodness, but they cost a premium and 2018 saw manufacturer Pound release their HDMI cables for SNES, Dreamcast, Xbox and PS2 all for around $30 each. I picked up the Dreamcast and PS2 cables, but have only had time to test out the DC cables so far. I dug out the Dreamcast and tested out several games with regular cables and then the Pound cables and noticed a definite improvement in the graphics! They no longer have that washed out ‘muddiness’ look when I would ordinarily run a SD system on a HDTV with composite/RCA cables. There was a minor caveat where I noticed a minor background graphical effect in menus and only when I took the time to squint and stare during gameplay, but other than that this was a much affordable alternative. I found out about these from YouTuber, MetalJesus and you can see his coverage of it by clicking here with plenty of before and after comparisons to see if they may be what you are looking for. 31) Father’s Day Gaming I have nostalgic memories of the many long gaming sessions I had with my dad and siblings while spending weekend visitations with him. We went all the way back to the original Pong and Atari 2600 in my childhood years through the NES, SNES and finally N64 during my high school years. While I have wonderful moments of many games with the family in each era the N64 years were the ones I cherished the most because of the ease of four player multiplayer with its four controller ports which was perfect for my dad, my brother Joe and either my sister Ann or another friend that would be over to helm the fourth player spot. Almost a couple hours of every visitation during that time we played countless hours of competitive N64 multiplayer.

That was many years ago though since we regularly played, and while thinking of ideas for what to do for Father’s Day this past year instead of going out for dinner and catching a movie like we would usually do I threw out the idea of staying in and having pizza and doing an N64 gaming day. I was delighted to hear my dad and brother were both up for it and thank goodness the games still held up and were just as much fun to play as they were around 20 years ago. My dad loved New Tetris and was a total pro and would be in a trance when he used to play it all the time so I was mighty curious to see how well he remembered it all these years later. We were all a little rusty, but we all got back into the rhythm of things after a few minutes and it was like we did not miss a beat. I am always disheartened to hear New Tetris get overlooked when I was hearing multiple discussions of past great Tetris games when Tetris Effect took the gaming community by storm in 2018. New Tetris was the first 3-4 player console Tetris game and also the first home console game to debut the incredibly handy ‘hold piece’ which is why New Tetris ranked right up there with Tengen Tetris, OG GameBoy Tetris and Tetris DS for my favorite versions of the legendary puzzle game. We also played a hefty amount of Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye 007. I have heard the countless debates over the years, and I will forever contest the N64 Mario Kart as the pinnacle of the series. I have also heard the many people proclaim that GoldenEye is an outdated mess all these years later. Every two or three years I bust out GoldenEye and the same thing happened here as before, after a few minutes of adjusting to the graphics and controls the game had its hooks in us again and we were having intense rounds of deathmatch with muscle memories suddenly kicking in of our favorite map and weapon presets. The three of us went on to have many rounds of fun blowing the crap out of each other! I have been watching Giant Bomb’s line of recent Die Another Friday videos where they try and run through the campaign in Perfect Agent difficulty. Instead of the expected jokes about how dated the graphics were I was relieved to see that most of the GB crew eventually were legit surprised at how fun GoldenEye still is. ---YouTube Break From This Already Way Too Long List--- A semi-decent laugh should be had at this point for a breather. Behold, the greatest Family Feud moment of all time! Now witness Always Sunny’s blatant ripoff tribute to that legendary game show when the cast competes on the exact same style of show they call Family Fight! PART 2 - RANKINGS 30 THROUGH 24 30) Videogames in Theatrical Form Longtime followers of my work may recall my podcasting days where my co-hosts and I would go out of our way to track down and cover almost every major and obscure videogame licensed film that hit theaters or direct-to-video. Minus a few exceptions, they were usually painful experiences. Even though my podcasting days are behind me I still like to keep up the tradition of catching any new film that hits the theater or video that is based on or around videogames. 2018 I managed to catch four new films that fit the criteria. The new Tomb Raider featuring Alicia Vikander as the one and only Lara Croft was solid, but nothing spectacular. It had a handful of memorable stunts and captured a few of the moments I recall from the acclaimed self-titled reboot game in 2013 so on the videogame film curve I would categorize that as a ‘win.’ Rampage featuring The Rock totally surprised me how they were able to get a fun movie out of a straightforward arcade smash-em-up from the 80s. Within a half hour I was feeling for the monsters and Rock’s connection for them was surprisingly powerful. Really good stuff that you should not dismiss!

Looking back on Ready Player One several months after its release I can safely recommend it. I loved the book when I read it shortly after its release several years ago and I was somewhat conflicted coming out of the film. This is because of how far it strayed from the book yet essentially maintained a similar over-arching plot on how a world full of gamers playing the same VR game are tracking down the creator’s hidden ‘easter egg’ in order to inherit his riches and become his heir. Avid game player I am I could not help but keep my eyes peeled for as many as ‘blink-and-you-will-miss-it’ cameos from the beloved mascots of videogames and pop culture from over the years. After hearing how the author wrote the screenplay and gave his seal of approval for the changes I eventually was won over by them especially since the changes were entertaining and since the film came out only four or five years after the book it could have been a slog to see the movie play out 100% the same. To close off 2018 a few weeks ago I took two of my many nieces and nephews to see Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet. That was a unique experience because my middle-school aged niece and nephew were ecstatic to point out a couple of YouTubers they follow that have cameos in the film. The sequel had a similar structure to the first where the first 20-ish minutes circle around Ralph and Vanellope loving life in their arcade they reside and visiting other arcade classics of gaming lore. I love how Tapper got a lot of love in the film with Ralph and Vanellope making that game setting their late-night watering hole of choice! Eventually though their arcade gets hooked up to WiFi and it was fun seeing Ralph and Vanellope take a journey in Disney’s CG version of the Internet with lots of real-life companies like Google, Amazon, etc. having their own fun representations in the film. This sequel was a big hit with me and once I got past the welcomed videogame references in the first 20 minutes I enjoyed Wreck-It Ralph 2’s overall plot exponentially more than the first film. 29) Yippee-Kay-Yay-Mutha….. For readers of this blog who may or may not also keep up with my film reviews here, I recently reviewed Die Hard in honor of it being a Christmas film classic (yes, I am one of those people). It should go without saying that Die Hard is one the all-time greatest action films, and after watching it again a few weeks ago I recalled how there were a few PSone and GameCube games I had vague memories of fairly decent receptions at the time and after discovering how low they were priced on eBay I decided to take a chance on them. I loved the arcade game, but do not own a Saturn so I did not hunt down that version, but got the two PSone Die Hard Trilogy games and Die Hard: Vendetta on GameCube. I have not had a chance to play them yet, but I have since watched a few entertaining Game Informer Replay videos on them revisiting these ‘gems’ to varying degrees of quality all these years later that will suffice for now until I get around to them. Here are a few links so you can check them out and do the same! 28) ….And Raging Justice….For All

I referenced in these round-ups before how every few years my friend Matt and I would marathon several random beat-em-up classics usually consisting of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-Men variety. The last time we did that was around 2015, and the current gen systems have been flooded with a quality amount of re-releases of classics and obscure releases and all-new installments in the genre that we have been neglecting for far too long. Just a couple weeks ago Matt and I finally got around to playing through one of them on the PS4 called Raging Justice. It had a similar look and feel to Final Fight, but with a slightly pastel-esque touch to the graphics that made the late ‘80s punk ooze right out of the game! The story had all kinds of goofy street punk gang warfare that we both ate up and we were really gelling in our playthrough and we were surprisingly not eating up that many lives. As a matter of fact we only went through one continue between both of us! After plowing through it within two hours we made a list of other similar new beat-em-ups that hit PS4/XB1 over the years so hopefully we will do better at sticking with this genre in 2019. 27) Now You’re Playing With a Power……ed Up NES/SNES Classic

If you do not want to go down the route listed above by hunting down HDMI cables for a system you do not own or a pricey HD-capable 3rd party version of a NES/SNES than there are a couple of grey-area alternatives. I talked about the RetroPie in last year’s round-up, so this year I want to focus on what people are calling ‘modding’ your NES/SNES Classic. I am not going to give you a step-by-step breakdown, but a quick Google/YouTube search will point you in the right direction. Once it is done you can add up to as many games that will fit in the Classic’s internal memory. If you stick with just NES games you can fit a majority of the NES’s library on the internal memory, SNES game sizes are noticeably bigger and if only going that route with ROMs you can fit roughly 200 of them on there…..that is if you in good faith own the original copies. There is a nice benefit to the NES/SNES Classic compared to the RetroPie and that is a friendlier user interface complete with upbeat background music and the ability to upload your own box art which ostensibly delivers the nostalgic sensation of browsing the shelves at a videogame rental store and thus is more appealing than scrolling through a large text box of games on a RetroPie. Since the NES/SNES Classic is HDMI it provides an excellent HD picture for these classic 8 and 16-bit games. This resulted in busting out both the NES & SNES Classic several times throughout 2018 for some free spirited gaming nights. 26) Tabletop/Pen and Paper Madness

I referenced last year how I started to get into semi-routinely board game nights with my friends Derek, Ryan and Brooke and we managed to keep the board game nights churning throughout 2018. Derek & Brooke have amassed a hearty collection of board games and we were able to rotate a fair amount of games from last year and new ones to try out this year. One of the board games we revisited often was Betrayal at House on Haunted Hill, and they release a spin-off called Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate we were all eager to try throughout the year. We finally busted it out on a day where my brother was able to join us and it was a great medieval themed take on the original game that did not disappoint. Another new board game we tried out was Elder Signs. Thank goodness Derek, Ryan and Brooke are awesome tutors because the game had an elaborate setup with many pieces and by about halfway through our session I was familiar enough with the play style that yielded a fantastic end to that round when all of us were able to mount an insurmountable comeback that resulted in an unlikely, thrilling win for us all! Shifting from tabletop gaming to pen and paper gaming, I have always been a fan of the SNES/GEN versions of Shadowrun. I always knew a group of friends that have been roleplaying the pen and paper RPG it is based on for quite a few years now and they reached out before to get me to play, but with my gonzo work/sleep schedule I knew it would be impossible to routinely play with them every week. I still had that itch to want to at least give it a honest try all these years later so I reached out to them and asked if I was able to commit to playing at least once a month with them and if they would they find a way to squeeze me in? Thank goodness they found a way to create random characters and place me into their campaign for the three times I made it out there to play with them. Mike is an awesome storyteller and ran a fun campaign, and I will also give props to Justine, Ron & Robb for being very welcoming and tolerant of my noob-ness and by being quite gracious sharing their infinite Shadowrun wisdom unto me. Unfortunately I fell out of the routine of playing with them after a few times, but I am glad to finally tried it out after all these years and would be down to make random cameos in their future sessions. 25) Kicking that Early Access Bug

I am going to cheat a smidge on this one because in December of 2017 through 2018 several games I invested lots of time into and/or have been majorly anticipating finally left Steam Early Access (SEA) and got official releases. Some went onto have official releases on console of well. Gang Beasts has always been silly goofy wrestling/brawling fun with creatures made of a silly puddy-esque substance and it was fascinating watching that game evolve over the several years Gang Beasts was in SEA until its official December 2017 release. I had fun times with friends in that game, and especially witnessing countless Giant Bomb sessions of its madness. FirePro World was another wrestling game that came out of SEA in December of 2017, but it was only in SEA for several months…not years. I have loved previous FirePro games for their faithful representation of a wrestling match and endless customization options, and was thrilled to see it get a physical PS4 release which wound up being the first physical wrestling game I picked up since…..wow…WWE 2K14. Road Redemption was another game that spent a few years in SEA and I was stoked that it finally got an official release in 2018, with later digital versions that hit PS4 and XB1 in the following months. I raved about it before in previous year-end round-ups, and it is long overdue to finally have a motorcycle combat racer that is finally worthy of being deemed a successor to the heralded Road Rash series. There is a lot more to Road Redemption than being a Road Rash clone, so stick with it as its bizarre rogue-lite nature of its career mode and bonkers weather and weaponry will unleash mayhem you likely did not anticipate coming in. Distance is another driving game that was in SEA for far too long, but after four years Distance emerged a fleshed out release. It is a driving game like nothing else, and the best way I can sum it up is a ‘trippy neon platforming Trials-esque’ driving experience. Its standout feature is a platforming ‘adventure’ mode which was rebuilt for the official release and went on to add so much other tracks and customization features since I last played Distance in SEA that I hope my meek PC can still handle it when I eventually revisit it!

Not done yet because two more driving games trapped for years in SEA also fully released in 2018. Jalopy is another adventure-esque driving game where you take your uncle on a trek across Eastern Europe in the family’s run-down lemon of a vehicle that needs constant attention and repairs and not to mention other tomfoolery the duo stumbles into amidst their travels. I have had my eye on Jalopy for awhile and was relieved to hear when its long SEA cycle also concluded. Finally, Bugbear’s project formerly known as Next Car Game released in 2018 as Wreckfest. It is the spiritual successor to Bugbear’s FlatOut line of demolition derby racing games that I have so many fond memories of. Wreckfest looks and feels like a current-gen FlatOut and I was glad to see it retain its excellent physics engine the series was known for. I was bummed to see the console release get a delay into the second half of 2019, but for those with capable PCs, Wreckfest is fully out now to consume in all its destructive glory! I do have two quick honorable mentions for this category. Super Indie Karts is an adorable Mario Kart-clone featuring mascots from many hit indie games as drivers that has also been in SEA forever. The developer keeps regularly adding content though and it just released a fresh batch of tracks and drivers (featuring the not-so-indie ToeJam & Earl) to the build a few days ago. I have nothing but super-fun memories of my time with Super Indie Karts so I hope it gets its long-awaited official release in 2019! Finally, while Shaq-Fu 2: A Legend Reborn never was officially in SEA when Shaq accidentally leaked it out in an offhanded interview four years ago shortly before its Kickstarter campaign premiere, it feels like it never left there once the game released to worst game of the year-caliber reception. I own two copies of the 1994 original Shaq-Fu, so I felt obligated to purchase the sequel when I recently stumbled upon it in the clearance bins for $6 just a few months after its release. 24) Good ‘ol Fashioned Videogame Couch Multiplayer

I will also give a quick mention to the videogame nights I was glad to be a part of with Derek, Brooke and Ryan! While 2018 saw us hit up more board game nights we managed to sneak in a few couch videogame multiplayer nights of some old favorites like Sony’s take on the JackBox Party Pack that is called That’s You where the four of us chuckled away the night at its irreverent trivia and doodling nonsense on each other’s faces. We also mixed in a couple other games into the rotation throughout the year. I heard great things about Towerfall before, but finally playing it was a rush and a half with its fast intense bouts of bow-and-arrow deathmatches with sudden death animations that left us in stitches! Derek introduced us to the bonkers four player game called Ultimate Chicken Horse where users play several quick rounds trying to reach a goal but insert random objects of torture between each round that makes getting to the goal near impossible by the end of the game. It was a big hit with our group. Finally it will behoove me to include the crazy night we had with the 360 game, Cloudberry Kingdom. It is an absurd runner game filled with all kinds of deathtraps just waiting to obliterate our adorable avatars. Cloudberry Kingdom has literally hundreds of levels, and as expected each one got procedurally more nuts but was still a blast to attempt to complete! After a couple hours of the madness and many attempts on one particularly troublesome stage we all had this priceless defeated look on our faces after we finally finished it and we all knew in that instant that we were DONE with it for the night! What a fantastic runner I hope we get to revisit again one day! ---YouTube Break #2--- Time for another breather! You do not have to be a fan of wrestling to enjoy these! ‘Bawdy Bawdy, We Like to Party’ legendary ECW tag team Public Enemy elucidates to rookie Mikey Whipwreck how championship wrestlers train in the mid-1990s. While we are here reminiscing about the Public Enemy, click here for their EPIC WCW theme song that was unavoidably catchy to sing-a-long with! PART 3 - RANKINGS 23 THROUGH 18 23) Wanting More Time to Dedicate to 2018’s Top Indie Games

There are a few websites and podcasts I follow that have tons of game of the year coverage, and it is a great place to get a reminder of those indie games that slipped through the cracks and I completely forgot about or neglected throughout the year. I heard enough praise about three of them that seemed up my alley and before the end of the year I was able to put in a 20-30 minute session with each of these. I wish I had more time for each, but my initial impressions were high for all three and I know I will put more time into them throughout 2019. Yoku’s Island Express is a hybrid of a pinball game and a MetroidVania that somehow delivered on both fronts as I unlocked more paths through an island by flipping my character and ball through a variety of colorful environments. My love for both genres makes me want to return to it ASAP. Minit is a roguelite RPG with an dastardly hook where each session has a one minute timer, but you retain all the items collected on each session that unlocks other paths on the map. I did about 20 sessions and as I got familiar with the game world I already was starting to plan my next steps ahead for my next minute run. Many jovial curses to the developers who intentionally programmed the NPC W-H-O-T-A-L-K-S-T-H-I-S-S-L-O-W to keep me in a nail-biter of a moment to hit the next checkpoint with literally a single second to spare! The last indie game I snuck in some time with was the Super Meat Boy-esque platformer, Celeste. This comes from the same developers who made Towerfall that I just got done shedding some love for above. The instant restarts and checkpoints make its fair-yet-punishing platforming worth the challenge to get through and I can already see its addicting ‘just-one-more-try’ instant respawns reminding me of the longer-than-intended sessions I had with the Trials games and I look forward to them in Celeste! I am only about a half hour in, but have heard nothing but the best of acclaim for its narrative about overcoming personal struggles to make it to the top of a mountain! 22) Fans of Gamers Who Crave Limited Runs

I imagine you have heard of them before, but if not then both Limited Run Games and FanGamer have both been great sites I have been persistently coming back to for primarily physical copies of smaller indie games and top-tier quality gaming memorabilia. I am happy to see Limited Run expanding in 2018 by finally starting to publish games on Switch and landing their more anticipated games in a limited window preorder program so everyone has a shot at getting a copy. It was also encouraging to hear that some of their games will be shipping in smaller quantities to Best Buys across the country so people who do not order their games online have a shot at getting some of their titles the traditional way. Some of the titles I ordered this year from them that I was stoked to get physical copies of include Late Shift, Read Only Memories and Golf Story. That is right, I do not own a Switch yet but ordered Golf Story because I loved the GBC/GBA RPG takes on Mario Golf that Golf Story is the spiritual successor of and I kept hearing how it hits all the right notes for fans of those handheld classics. I anticipate I will get a Switch within the next year pending the inevitable smaller redesign of the system. My only qualm with Limited Run now is with their growth their shipping times have significantly increased. I recall my first few Limited Run games I ordered taking 2-4 weeks to ship, now the last several I got all took 3-5 MONTHS each. Step it up guys! I will also tip my hat to FanGamer for their plethora of must-have merchandise. I loved their meticulously detailed strategy/companion guides for Earthbound and Mother 3. It is awesome they are collaborating with Jeremy Perish to publish deluxe hardcover books of his transcripts for his excellent Works line of anthology retro gaming videos. FanGamer has a ton of artistic shirts, posters and other memorabilia for many top-rated indie games. I ordered my first shirt from them recently with this design that perfectly captures the spirit of WindJammers. I am also perplexed with their sudden infatuation to the classic run-and-gunner, Sunset Riders, FanGamer recently obtained the merchandising rights for. They celebrated the occasion with a unique cosplay promotional video that almost convinced me to order their Sunset Riders branded wallet….almost! 21) 25 Years of the Real-est Interactive Multiplayer in the Room!

Guys, the 3DO is a pretty neat system! Seriously! Of course I did not spend the obscene $700 when it first launched 25 years ago, but I got it for a bargain in 2007 and went on to hunt down many games that I always wanted to try for the platform. Not all of them were winners, but there were several that wound up as worthy inclusions in my library. My recommended games for the 3DO include the awesome party game Twisted, its mascot platformer Gex and the original Need for Speed. 3DO also has excellent versions of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Family Feud, Madden and arguably the best version of the classic motorcycle racer, Road Rash! Nearing its 25th anniversary and just in time for Halloween, the good people at Your Parents Basement Podcast invited me on to guest host and commemorate one of the 3DO’s spooooop-iest games, the Tia Carrere FMV thriller, The Daedalus Encounter! I busted out my 3DO from the closet and booted up my old save and came pretty darn close to finishing it before the puzzles got to be too much of a brainbuster for me! Riveting times were had breaking down and dissecting the game with the YPB crew which you can check out and download here. 20) Shmuppreciation 2018

One of my favorite podcasts I have been a listener to for over 13 years now is Super-the-Hardest. They use to be primarily videogame-centric, but have since evolved over the years to focus on whatever topics pique their interest such as craft brews, board games and jamming out to vinyl records! One of their longest traditions has always been dedicating March to shmup/space shooter games. I am not a pro shump player by any means, but always am down to pump in a few credits and blast away for as long as I can survive. They have a small, but tight-knit forum community I have always been a part of and when March hit the hosts were asking there if anyone was playing any shmups yet. A couple days went by with little response, and knowing how big shmup-month was for that community in previous years I was suddenly inspired to start up weekly high score chases on the forums there with the focus this year being on three random NES shmups each week. I tried to have a consistent rotation of the three games being one common/popular shmup such as Gradius & 1943, another lesser known domestic release like Alpha Mission & Zombie Nation and finally a imported Famicom game that never saw a stateside release with picks this year including Parodius Da & Gradius II. At least a few us participated each week posting our scores and exchanging tips and breaking down how good/awful that week’s selections were. It was a heck of a month and somehow I managed to keep up posting selections each week and got in time with every game! No idea if I will do it again for 2019, but if I do I think it may be time to upgrade to 16-bits! 19) The 3DS Soul Still Burns!!

I somehow managed to sneak in an hour of time into my 3DS each week. I was ecstatic to track down an English translation for Ace Attorney Investigation 2 that never saw an American release. I loved the first game and always wanted to play the follow-up and got most of the way through the first case. I finally played my first Fire Emblem game by putting in several hours into Fire Emblem Echoes. Hearing that Echoes was a good entry point for the series having played Advance Wars many years ago the gameplay was not that difficult to pick up. It has that same addicting strategy gameplay as Advance Wars, but with a medieval theme and a far richer narrative than what I recalled from my Advance Wars days. Just the couple of sessions I had with Echoes I was already starting to get attached to the cast. Hotel Dusk and its sequel, Last Window are my favorite DS games. They are mystery visual novels, and when I found out earlier in 2018 that some of the developers at Cing who worked on those games went on to make a bite-sized spiritual successor to it on the 3DS eShop called Chase: Cold Case Investigations - Distant Memories I knew I had to get it. I bought this around when it released in 2016 and neglected it until John from the Super the Hardest podcast recapped it earlier in 2018 and inspired me to pick it up. It is essentially a more stripped down version of Cing’s earlier games as it revolves around two detectives interviewing suspects for a hospital blast. Graphics and style remind me of Hotel Dusk and the lead detective in Distant Memories looks quite similar to one Kyle Hyde. It was a decent little visual novel that can be finished in less than three hours, and I hope it gets a follow-up, but it appears this one came and went because I have heard nothing since. I finally started up Theatrhythm 2: Curtain Call. In case you missed out on it before it assembles the protagonists from past Final Fantasy games and makes a fun battle system/rhythm game of over 100 songs from the rich history of Final Fantasy soundtracks while somehow fitting in a intricate narrative too. Wish I had more time to get into it and I think I will have to restart it I manage to deep dive into it because I spent the bulk of my 3DS time once again this year with Dragon Quest VIII. My save file is currently approaching 110 hours in DQVIII. However, the last 15-ish hours have been spent grinding from levels 40-65 for most of my party members for the final boss. To say the boss is a pain is an understatement. I failed multiple times at vanquishing him, thus the hours at grinding away. I will never forget my time with DQVIII, but am looking forward to finishing it on one of my next sessions so I can finally put more time into other games. The 3DS still had a strong 2018 from Nintendo published games and I wound up picking up Captain Toad, Detective Pikachu and WarioWare Gold which I desperately want to dive into! 18) ‘Get Ready for a Cruise Missile!’

I use to play a ton of sports games until several years ago. I took a long hiatus from them to focus on more narrative-driven games. Madden NFL ‘18 premiering its story mode dubbed ‘Longshot’ got me curious at giving the acclaimed football series another go for the first time in five years. I surprisingly dug Madden’s take on a story mode and loved playing as the fictional Devin Wade working his way through the reality show challenges and playing in flashback high school games with lighthearted local announcers providing the unintentional best sports commentary out there. Longshot also had a well-rounded cast filled with some surprising moments I never thought I would get invested in such as getting them sports feels flowing for the Longshot acoustic sing-a-long! The story mode only took a few hours to play through and even if you are not a fan of football games I would recommend giving it a shot as the football parts are few and far between and the story mode is primarily QTE/mini-game focused. Story mode aside, I managed to play a few rounds online against my friend Steve I use to play countless sports games with over the years and it felt good to reignite that rivalry. Madden still plays as good as I remember, and one thing I want to point out from the core game is the new NFL commentators they brought in for ’18 & ’19 with Brandon Gaudin & Charles Davis easily being the best announce team in Madden history that added a ton to the presentation unlike any Madden announce team before them! I did pick up Madden NFL ‘19 recently because it has ‘Longshot Part 2’ which promises to conclude the storyline for Devin Wade and his buddy Colt Cruise, but other than a couple rounds online with Steve again I have yet to dive into it. After catching a couple scenes online I am psyched to see how Longshot concludes and plan on blitzing through it around Super Bowl time like I did with part one in 2018.

If you are not a fan of sim-football and prefer arcade style action in the vein of NFL Blitz than I will instead point you towards Mutant Football League which I played nearly a full season of off-and-on throughout 2018. It is the spiritual successor to EA’s awesome Mutant League Football on the Genesis, and part of me is still surprised how the team did not get a cease-and-desist from EA with a slightly altered name change and bring over so much of the look and feel of the original game. It modernized all the things I loved from the first game with a game engine that plays like a amped up version of Blitz, and retains classic elements of the Genesis game like being able to kill your adversaries in all types of gruesome ways and introducing awesome powered up attacks that can be used once per half to up the brutality. And yes, you can still bribe and kill refs! I was a little bummed Mutant Football League did not get that much of a buzz when it finally released because it had a successful Kickstarter campaign and a follow-up to the Genesis game has been long demanded in the sports gaming circles I follow. A physical copy released later in the year with a new Franchise mode included so hopefully that will bring some new eyes onto the game. If you want more over-the-top arcade-like gameplay out of your football games then by all means give Mutant Football League a try! I also got really into my first basketball-sim in many years. I dabbled with a couple arcade-hoops games over past couple years and really dug the Neo-Geo Arcade Archives re-release of Street Hoop on Xbox One, while the free-to-play Xbox One hoops game, 3-on-3 Freestyle…..not so much. I always stuck with NBA 2K games as my NBA sim of choice since their debut on Dreamcast and picked one up every couple years and played them regularly through 2K11. Early in 2018 however a super cheap digital sale on NBA Live ‘18 convinced me to give it a shot. I have solely been playing its create-a-player story/career mode ‘The One.’ I have been digging it and loved the first several games I played in ‘The One’ proving my worth in street games of 21. Every few games there would be these hilarious FMV updates from a First Take set with Stephen A Smith and Max Kellerman being over-the-top versions of their already over-the-top personalities which convinced me that my created player was going to dominate the street leagues and become the #1 draftee in the NBA….it did not turn out that way, but I am having a blast so far proudly representing the Timberwolves while dishing out far too many three-point attempts than I should be. ---YouTube Break #3--- Re-watching that NBA Live ’18 clip of Stephen A. Smith got me to dig up this compilation of clips of Mr. Smith at his zaniest. Here is the final version of the full Longshot song of which I have no shame having it in my running playlist! PART 4 - RANKINGS 17 THROUGH 14 17) The End Day is a Lie!

I was going to say a couple entries earlier when covering all those NES shmups that I have not played that much NES in years, but that statement would have been false because mere weeks before that I played through the entirety of the post-apocalyptic, action-RPG Crystalis on NES! It was the featured game on the first of two Your Parents Basement podcast episodes I guest hosted on for 2018. I picked up both the NES and GBC versions a couple years ago after hearing countless years of love from the staff at GameCola about it. I managed to play through most of it by the time we recorded that YPB episode and finished it off a few days after that. All these years after its original release, Crystalis is still a fun action-RPG to plow through. I loved the accessibility of the combat, and while the options to choose from to level up seem quaint now, I can imagine how they were top of their league at the time. After beating the NES version I put an hour into the GBC port to see how it held up. I heard the GBC version get a fair amount of slack over the years, but from my initial time with the handheld port it seemed noticeably cleaner and had some useful tips at the opening town that would have benefitted my first time through. I had a great time sharing my experience with the YPB crew and if you are interested in hearing our takes on SNK’s 8-bit RPG then click here to check out that episode. It seemed only fitting that the NES original got its first retro re-release later on in 2018 on the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection on Switch. 16) Pinball Quest 2018

Welcome to my yearly blurb all about feeding my addiction to videogame pinball. In case you skipped around this year-end round-up (I do not blame you!) I will refer you to entry #23 for some quick thoughts on Yoku’s Island Express. I only got a few rounds of my favorite PC-exclusive pinball game, Hyperspace Pinball in 2018, and the last time I played it a couple weeks ago I had a great run and was briefly ecstatic until the leaderboard indicated I missed my personal high-score by a smidge! I also gave a couple runs to what appears to be a mobile pinball game ported to Xbox One in Quantic Pinball. It is a fine little pinball game, but its mobile roots are too apparent and not many upgrades are present to make the console release feel warranted. 2018 was a strange year for Pinball Arcade. I wanted to make the switch to primarily playing it on PS4 in 2017, but that proved difficult upon discovery of my dozens of tables I purchased on PS3/Vita not being import-able to the PS4 version like I was able to for the dozens of tables I acquired for Zen Pinball 2 to work on Pinball FX3. So that meant I would have to buy the tables all over again. I held off for a long time, but I wound up spending roughly $200 on all of the DLC for it upon hearing midway in 2018 all of Pinball Arcade’s collection of tables under license from Williams/Bally would no longer be supported for purchase with only a few weeks notice to be able to buy them and add them to your Pinball Arcade library. Plopping down around $200 all at once for that DLC was a punch in the gut, but ultimately I do not regret it because there are some minor, but noticeable enhancements to the visuals on the PS4 version of Pinball Arcade and it has a slightly cleaner feel to the gameplay too. Additionally the developers at Farsight now have a separate game called Stern Pinball Arcade so the newer Stern tables have a flashier place to reside. I perfectly understand the idea to make the Stern tables pop more on their own platform. The Stern tables purchased theoretically work in both Pinball Arcade and Stern Pinball Arcade, but doing so requires reactivating the purchased license in the clunky Playstation Store interface and it once lead to me to inadvertently purchasing the same table twice.

A couple months later I was stunned to find out that Zen Studios gained the license for the Williams tables and by the end of the year would have their first seven tables from the Williams/Bally collection available for download to Pinball FX3 (PFX3). I have mixed feelings about this. I do like Zen’s optional upgraded graphical enhancements to the tables, but the overall physics for the ball movement does not feel like the authentic movement that Pinball Arcade faithfully represented. There is an option in Pinball Arcade for ‘classic mode’ which kind of slows down the speed of play and leans the gameplay to marginally feel like an authentic pinball experience, but it simply does not cut it overall. Hopefully Zen can take the feedback and continue to improve in future DLC tables. Gripes on the Williams tables aside, I enjoyed the rest of my time in 2018 with PFX3. I have heard the criticism for Zen Studios’ unrealistic style of pinball, but I have always been a fan of theirs and feel there is room for both authentic digital pinball from Pinball Arcade and faster physics with the more fantastical tables from Zen. I finally started to grasp PFX3’s initially intimidating ‘mastery’ system of each table. The mastery system is topping off essentially an experience meter for each table by achieving score goals in each gameplay option available and maxing out several stat meters. I did this for The Infinity Gauntlet, Back to the Future and almost all the way for Medieval Madness. I also got into the weekly online scoring ‘matchup’ league play where PFX3 randomly picks four tables and scores posted by three random players in three skill levels for three minutes of play each week. By toying around with trying to master tables and online score chasing in matchup play it lead to a lot more time invested in Pinball FX3 compared to 2017. 15) Sega Channel 2018

In the summer of 1996 I spent about five or six afternoons a week at my friend’s place playing Sega Channel. No memories of it? Here is some vintage archival footage of its menus of the Sega Channel experience. It was Sega’s sweet-at-the-time service where in coordination with cable companies from 1994-98 you would pay $15/month to have a rotating monthly selection of 40 games playable from a special cartridge that hooked up to the household cable line. Games would download to a temporary internal memory on the cartridge from the cable line over a minute or two and save states were also available. It was the current Netflix streaming of gaming and was way ahead of its time. It was also how I discovered countless Genesis favorites I hunted down at local shops and online after I got my first job a few years later. It took 20 years after Sega Channel shutdown to get a faithful reincarnation of it, but only far better in every way. GameTap sort of brought it back to the PC for the few years it was around in the 2000s. However, Xbox brought it back in full force with its excellent Game Pass service for Xbox One it introduced in 2018. Instead of 40 games available to play each month there are 100+ rotating games for Xbox. Add on Microsoft’s bold move of making all their first party games available on Game Pass on day one of their release and it would be insane not to recommend it, especially for new Xbox One owners. I actually am that insane though and do not have it because of my massive backlog and lack of time to commit. However for new Xbox One owners and/or game players on a budget like students or parents looking to save lots of money getting games for their kids they would be in an ideal position going with Game Pass and a Games for Gold subscription which additionally nets ownership of four games each month to their Xbox games library. 14) Ride or Die

Like pinball games, I also have a yearly blurb on my experiences with racing/driving games for the year. I felt my year in driving titles slightly nudged out my pinball times, thus it being a couple notches higher ranked. If you dear reader are randomly bouncing around this list then I will refer you to entry #25 where I touch on driving games coming out of Steam Early Access such as Road Redemption, Wreckfest, Distance, Jalopy & Super Indie Kart. There were a few driving titles I dabbled this year in that I wish I had more time to plug away at. As you will see later in this round-up, I am a nut for the Sega 80s arcade driving titles like Hang-On & OutRun, and the PS4/Switch release of Horizon Chase Turbo is the best spiritual successor to that type of racer I have seen over the years. They brought on the same composer from those games and the visuals have a nice modern HD look to them that capture the spirit of those 80s greats. It has been a great while since I played a snowmobile racing game and Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge was a limited, but fun budget title racer on PS3 that reminded me of a fond time when all I wanted was a no-thrills career mode with a few dozen races and simple stat upgrades to deal with in a career mode. Drive!Drive!Drive! was the final racer I put some minor time into, and that was an extraordinary title where I would have to bounce around multiple cameras to control simultaneous races. At the beginning of the year I was wrapping up the last dozen or so races/events in the 360 version of Forza Horizon 2. I had another good time with it like its open-world predecessor and took advantage of that rewind button to avoid retrying the same track over and over, but looking back I preferred the experience of the first FH more as the sequel seemed more of the same, but in a less spectacular backdrop. Friends are telling me to skip three and jump to the new fourth game in the series getting a lot of buzz online now, but the third game has that tempting Australian outback setting I froth to explore and on top of that the unique Hot Wheels DLC pack I heard nothing but superb things about. So I will continue to be extremely behind on that series and plan to jump into FH3 later this year.

I went on an odd Monster Truck binge in 2018. The Xbox One digital store had Monster Jam: Crush-It available for dirt cheap one week, and having a modicum of nostalgic memories of past entries in the long running budget title series I wound up taking a chance on it. After spending far more time than I should have with it, ‘budget’ is a generous description for Crush-It, because this racer is full of absurd physics, bizarre collision detection and endless other bugs. After a ton of bugs causing too many rage-inducing moments I beat enough tracks and finished all the challenges to make Crush-It of all games to have the dubious honor of being the first Xbox One game I unlocked the full 1000 gamerscore in. After wrapping up my time with Crush-It I stumbled into picking up a copy of Monster Truck Madness 64. Microsoft was developing the series at that point on PC for awhile, but ported it to N64 and had a pre-GTA Rockstar Games publish it for them. Unfortunately the Rockstar branding could not have saved MM64 as it too was also rough around the edges with terribly loose steering that had me dreading every corner. It did feature the nWo muscle trucks at the time though that brought back memories of the old WCW Motorsports advertising. The racing game I put the most time into in 2018 was The Crew. Not the sequel that came out later in the year, but the original game. I got around halfway in it via staggered play over the previous year or two, but with the release of the sequel approaching I grinded away in the couple of months leading up to its release to finish the avenge your brother’s death storyline which I actually kind of dug. There was a surprisingly gripping cinema building up to campaign’s final race where I was legit getting behind protagonist Alex Taylor. I had fun just messing around and cruising around UbiSoft’s condensed open-world of the continental United States and tracking down their take on iconic landmarks. I messed around a little here and there with their instantaneous online coop/versus multiplayer reminiscent of Test Drive Unlimited, and had a few fun online moments but I enjoyed most of my time in the single player. Gameplay wise it is not five stars by any means, and I would prefer Forza Horizon any day, but there was something about the gritty underground nature of The Crew and its car-culture-gang-warfare story that kept me sticking with it. I eventually picked up the sequel recently on a bargain bin digital sale for the ultimate season pass edition being 60% off so who knows, I likely see myself in 2019 playing The Crew 2 and Forza Horizon 3 concurrently at my regular on-and-off pace. ---YouTube Break #4--- I am always a sucker for when a racing game injects a storyline to its single player campaign, especially if it is completely ridiculous! Hey, you know what other racing game had super-cheesy-yet-awesome cutscenes? The original Need for Speed: Most Wanted in 2005. Here is a link to its entire half hour of cutscenes. Eat your heart out Tokyo Drift! They came a long way from EA’s DIY live-action cinemas from the original 3DO game that you can see right here. EA tried to recapture the glory days of their cornball cutscenes with 2015’s Need for Speed. It has some moments like first person fist-bumping and energy drink chugging that you see in their entire bro-ness right here, but 2005’s Most Wanted will always reign supreme in my book! PART 5 - RANKINGS 13 THROUGH 10 13) Spoooooky Gaming For Halloween I brought up to my board game/videogame night friends Derek, Brooke & Ryan about doing a spooky gaming marathon. They did me one better and recommend I bring over my copy of Hidden Agenda on PS4 to binge through that I have been occasionally throwing out for an option over the previous months. Hidden Agenda kind of snuck under-the-radar towards the end of 2017 as it came from the same team that made the critically acclaimed teenage spooky thriller, Until Dawn. This is another spooky-thriller, but designed to be played with your friends and finished in one session within three hours. It is a game that requires a smartphone app to play, and luckily it came close, but did not deplete our entire charge by the time the credits rolled. The app had some clever functionality that kept tabs on case notes and presented us with options to vote on which way to take the story next like having to choose which part of the case to investigate, or which path to split off into. While the story was a little all over the place it managed to get us riled up and jumpy a few times, and was still a blast to play through in its entirety in a single night on Halloween weekend. Now I need to replay it on my own to have complete control over the story so on my calendar this October I am going to write a big reminder to replay Hidden Agenda and finally bust open and plow through Until Dawn. 12) Back-to-Back!!!

I have been avoiding most co-op gaming that cannot be finished in a single session like Hidden Agenda for a few years now due to lack of time to finish lengthier co-op games. I made one exception this year where my same friend Matt and I met up twice to persevere through A Way Out. It is a coop game clocking in at around a whopping six hours. That is a lot for me nowadays. Matt and I absolutely loved our time with A Way Out. Spending the first couple of hours getting to know the prison system and plan our escape was a rush and it reminded me of the equally awesome first few hours of Xbox’s Chronicles of Riddick. Crawling up the air shaft with that back-to-back mini-game will go down as one of my favorite moments in co-op gameplay. The plot I found myself getting into where two would-be fugitives found themselves teaming up to escape prison and get back to their loved ones. It kind of disappointingly unravels in the final moments with some bold narrative choices the developers made that I am still processing in my mind on how I feel about the final hour of play. The ‘must talk to everyone’ extremist in me was addicted to talking to nearly all NPCs and have brief choice-based conversations with all of them. The developers at Hazelight Studios cram in diverse gameplay throughout with plenty of exploring, interrogating, QTE segments, platforming, gunfights, intense car chase sequences and a big highlight being a hospital chase sequence where A Way Out seamlessly bounces back and forth between the two characters as they get split up and must evade the police. If you are looking for something fresh and different than the infinite amount of co-op shooters available, then give A Way Out a chance. 11) ‘This is a No-Smoking Flight!’

If you do not recognize that quote it is from the adorable master of cooking eggs, Sunny, at the close of one of the numerous lengthy cutscenes that Metal Gear Solid 4 was known for. The ending cutscene is literally the length of a movie, and the cinemas between each of MGS4’s acts are right around an hour each and I would not want it any other way! MGS4 was the first MGS game I finished nearly 10 years ago and I decided it was only appropriate to revisit it after finishing the first three MGS games in the past couple of years. I got so much more out of MGS4 this way by actually getting the countless past references to the core trilogy of games this time around. I loved that MG4 also had memorable debuting characters like the aforementioned Sunny and the soda-chugging gun-runner, Drebin! Since I last played MGS4 Konami has also patched in trophies so it was worthwhile to hunt down those and look into some that swayed me to approach gameplay in a different fashion which yielded a refreshing second go-around. After finishing MGS4, I continued my ritual of view that installment’s complete gameplay commentary from Dan and Drew at GiantBomb to get essentially a third playthrough experience out of MGS4. I did not make major progress in the rest of my Metal Gear quest otherwise throughout the year. I did get a little ways into MGS5 at the beginning of the year, but then felt compelled to drop it and play through MGS4 before it instead. That was probably a wrong decision in hindsight, but at least it gives me an excuse to restart it and experience one of gaming’s grandest opening missions yet again. I did pick up the GBC version of Metal Gear Solid last year for a decent price at a local retro shop, so if I ever do finish MGS5 I would like to play the GBC title along with the MSX versions of the original two games. 10) Better Late than Never

I have no idea why I held off seven years on getting around to the highly-touted Saints Row the Third, especially after loving the first two games and finishing them in quick fashion right around their release. The third game in the open-world crime action series upped the zany factor the series debuted in the second game with some of its activities by introducing all kinds of over-the-top elements in the story missions and into the weapons, upgrades, you name it. Here are a few examples so you can see for yourself. Saints Row the Third gave the franchise its own satirical identity when before it was only a pretty solid GTA-clone. Waiting seven years to get to this classic made certain parts of the graphics seem a little long in the tooth, but for the most part the visuals and core gameplay held up nicely. Experimenting with the huge variety of weapons and vehicles available made cruising through the open world a lot of fun. Same goes for the series trademark offering of mini-game ‘activities.’ The developers at Volition pushed every button to get the most out of that M rating to make its missions standout like no other as they go in places you will not believe. I went on to play both pieces of the story-based DLC content which take the Saints in filming their own Gangstas in Space movie and chasing down an evil mutant clone of series mascot, Johnny Gat. If you missed out on this landmark achievement in open-world gameplay then consider this synopsis somewhat timely since THQ Nordic will be releasing Saints Row the Third later this year on switch. ---YouTube Break #5--- Grab a glass of water dear reader for still sticking with me through this unbelievable amount of words! If you stuck with last year’s round-up to the very end, then you will remember this video I will treat you to a little early. That is right it is time for the epic John Cena animated prank call of doom! Speaking of Mr. ‘You Can’t See Me’ here is a fun clip I recently ran into John promoting his recent BumbleBee film where he chats up Matt McConaughey about old school Texas wrestling. What is that? You want a non wrestling-related video, fine I get it, then enjoy this take from James Rolfe as he breaks down two childhood favorite video game themed game shows I grew up with in the early 90s, Video Power & Nick Arcade. PART 6 - RANKINGS 9 THROUGH 4 9)Discovering my Favorite Gaming Blog

Early in 2018 I was scouring the webs digging up info on the must-have import games for the Super Famicom/SNES. I came across this top 50 list ranking the most obscure SNES imports from a blog called RVGFanatic. It is a blog primarily dedicated to covering SNES/Super Famicom games, but also has the occasional feature covering a game on another system or a random personal life story. The site has been around for over a decade and RVGFanatic continues to publish a few new entries a month. His writing and coverage reminds me of the writing style dominant in gaming magazines from the 90s and RVGFanatic stated in various articles that was his intention with the design in the blog. I spent a good chunk of the year revisiting his site and perusing the archives there because there is an earnest quality to his writing that captures the sheer joy of growing up with those games. He manages to be both reflective and current with his writing recognizing pros and cons the games have been known for, while also recapturing the experience of playing that game for the first time. A prime example of this is his recent review of Clay Fighter. It perfectly encapsulated my memories of the much hyped fighter looking wicked cool with its revolutionary graphics which helped hide its haphazard gameplay. His occasional personal blogs were metaphorical page-turners too as I related with him perfectly to his excellent write-up of rental store memories as well with his piece on wrestling nostalgia of the Hulk-a-Mania years of the then-WWF. I can recommend so many more of his articles and reviews, but instead I recommend you dive in and get lost in RVGFanatic’s archives like I did! 8) My Handpicked Top Gaming Videos of 2018 I have been scouring the YouTubes and GiantBombs throughout the year and have some of my highest recommendations of my favorite videos to add to your watch later q! Without further ado, here are my top picks of 2018… GiantBomb - Die Another Friday| Winter Games 2018 | Gaiden the Ring & Get in the Ring| Mario Party Party 11 | Quiet Man Quick Look | Wreckfest Quick Look | Detective Pikachu Quick Look Jeremy Parish ‘Works’ Videos - Too hard to pick just one all of them are so informative and comprehensive. Pick a system of Works videos from the playlists indexed here MetalJesus - Game Pickups with Reggie | Vinyl Record Pickups | Wii and PSP Hidden Gems |PS2 Hidden Gems Gaming Historian – Story of Punchout | Story of Tetris Game Sack – Star Trek Games Up Up Down Down - E3 Live – Elite vs New Day Street Fighter V Challenge | Edge and Christian NHL 95 Faceoff No Clip – History of Bethesda AVGN - Earthbound | Home Alone games with MaCauly Caulkin Same Name, Different Game – FirePro Wrestling | Punisher | Street Fighter Alpha Classic Gaming Quarterly - Let’s Read TurboPlay | Nintendo Power | Game Pro | Official DreamCast Magazine Scott the Woz - Wii Ware Chronicles | Devils Third | Madden NFL 08 That list there is days full of quality videos to last you throughout 2019, I hope you dig them as much as I did! 7) Videogame Vinyl

How the hell did I go down this whole!? I recall first getting clued into the world of emerging videogame soundtracks on vinyl from this music primer episode of Retronauts. Later in 2017 a friend gifted me his old record player since he recently upgrade along with a couple records. Since I had the record player in my possession I figured I had to had to track down a just a few records for it and I heard good things about soundtrack vinyls from Mondo and I went and ordered several records from them. That was the first domino tumbling right there, and from that point it was inevitable to prevent the rest tumbling after them. Throughout 2018 other websites I follow like Limited Run, Data Disc and FanGamer started to offer videogame OSTs on vinyl and I made several more purchases throughout the year. I do not have hundreds of vinyls mind you, but I finished the year with around 15. I made sure to track down some iconic videogame soundtracks like a few from the Castlevania series, Earthbound and Snatcher. There were also a few oddballs that still boggle my mind why they got a vinyl release like Windjammers and Mortal Kombat I & II that I convinced myself I had to have. I am not buying these to sit on the shelf though as I have been getting some quality use out of my record player jamming out to soundtracks while cleaning the house and doing DDP Yoga three times a week. 6) Hey-a Fellers

It was practically impossible to avoid getting sucked up by the whirlwind of hype in the months leading up to Red Dead Redemption 2’s release. I also loved its predecessor so much that I knew I had to be there day one to be in on the conversation going around the gaming press zeitgeist about RDR2’s opening acts. South Park got in on the RDR2 hype train too with a couple episodes where the whole town is addicted to it. Rockstar does not disappoint with their narrative and audio/visual presentation. I will not bore you with the details you have likely read elsewhere by now, but rest assured the open-world, cast, narrative, visuals and especially the score and voice acting is aces all around! Not all is aces though as RDR2’s multi-faceted control scheme has been divisive among many in the gaming media. Bottom line, there are too many functions for every button on the controller, and at points I completely forgot certain controls and had to do a quick online search for a refresher on how to do specific abilities like dual wielding and changing coats. Those gripes quickly washed away after extended sessions with RDR2 where I cannot help but get immersed and lose myself in the world. I spent so much time looking forward to getting distracted by whatever quick instant side mission or event that popped up traversing to my next checkpoint. According to my progress I am 36% the way through RDR2 after what seems roughly that many hours in the game, however I am only in chapter two because I keep having so much fun clearing out whatever side missions get accumulated in my checklist. I easily see many more hours to come in RDR2 throughout 2019. 5) The Hidden Beauty of Shield Snow-Surfing!

2017’s #1 pick, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild took up so much of my playtime in 2018 that it managed to eeek its way into my top five of 2018! There is simply so much to explore, see and do and I am insane at refusing to take advantage of fast travel due to fear of missing out on seeing cool stuff. The photo I attached here showing my 133 hours of total play time was taken shortly before Halloween and I have put at least several more hours in since then. I will give a shoutout to my co-worker Mike who has been awesome to trade tips and stories with since Breath of the Wild’s launch. He gave me a ton of great pointers and his advice has made my experience with BotW a better one! Mike filled me in all about the wondrous technique that is shield surfing! I later discovered more about it when my random traversing lead me to a corner of the wintry mountainous region of the map where I was taught shield surfing and how that lead to the thrills surfing through the snow blanketed mountains of Hyrule. I have made so much progress this year! I am down to needing to unlock only two more parts of the map where my one last divine beast to conquer lies before finally taking on Hyrule Castle and Ganon! I loved my time in the Lost Woods and Lomei Labyrinth Island that was a hoot to find my way out of. I finally got the Master Sword. I took some stabs at the DLC trials for the Master Sword which is reminiscent of the extremely tough-but-fair challenge that is Eventide Island. I failed after several attempts, but would like to conquer them to increase the Master Sword’s power! Speaking of DLC I waded around with a handful of the DLC quests available and unlocked the Korok mask from the DLC quests which looks funky as hell, but it has helped me amass at least triple the amount of Korok Seeds I would have found on my own. I want to jump into the DLC quest that unlocks the ‘Master Cycle Zero’ (aka Hyrule Motorcycle) as footage I have seen so far looks straight-up rad cruising through Hyrule in their trippy looking hot-rod. Mark my words, Breath of the Wild, in 2019 I will finally finish the core quest and vanquish Ganon and unlock the Master Cycle Zero! 4) Eeeeeeelsss Oxenfree was my game of the year in 2016. I loved its art style, mysterious narrative and especially its script where the teenagers would one second be trying to solve this multi-layered mystery on an island and the next have a heart-to-heart chat about stereotypical teenage drama. Night in the Woods was receiving a lot of the same buzz over it also being a Narrative Exploration game with a relatable 2D art style and similar plot hooks to the point that among the gaming press it was generating buzz of being 2017’s top Narrative Exploration title. After looking into Night in the Woods I could not help but be reeled in by its plot where a failed college student drops out of college two years in and returns to her small podunk town of Possum Springs to try and recapture her days of chilling with her high school friends but only for them all to be later caught up in local town superstitions proving not to be so superstitious.

As attractive as the plot was I could not help but, I would not say be turned off, but rather mystified about the decision to go with humanoid-structured animals representing all the characters. First impressions watching initial gameplay of Night in the Woods made that choice in character style difficult to suspend my disbelief and maintain my focus on checking out the game. I am not saying that is a bad thing, I am simply stating that is what was perplexing my mind. There must have been others who felt similar to me because there was also a harsher vocal contingent who was upset with people avoiding the game due to the art style who wrote a few articles stating that if you were avoiding playing this because of animals as characters than to F off. That led to me not wanting to get caught up in all that hoopla so I decided it was best to avoid that controversy. It was only around game of the year time at the end of 2017 where I heard friendlier supporters of the game rally behind it with high praise that convinced me to give it a chance and start it up at the beginning of 2018. I am relieved I did because Night in the Woods is a kickass Narrative Exploration game! The writing is right up there with Oxenfree as all the characters captured that local post-high school angst and rebellion of trying to make it in the real world and things not quite working out. I settled into a convenient routine of daily life gameplay where the player character Mae would check in with her parents and of course with me being me, make sure to talk to every local I would come across because they had something different to say every day! The dialogue for every major and minor character was so spot on that it made going out of my way to talk to everyone worthwhile and random spots in town had special one-time moments going in with periphery characters that if I did not check out I would have completely missed out on such as a poetry reading contest, breaking light bulbs behind a corner store and checking out the stars with your old teacher.

There are a lot of singular moments that really stuck with me in Night in the Woods. Every day in the game you are presented with the option of going out on a side-adventure with one of Mae’s two best friends Gregg or Bae. I chose to do all mine with Bae so if I do get around to playing through this again I will do Gregg’s side stories on my replay to have at least a little bit of new content playable in each day of gameplay. Bae has some priceless moments with Mae where the two have serious chats about their most personal feelings that few other games I have seen dared, and they also have some priceless lighthearted moments where the two get mischievous in a dilapidated mall, complete with a mini-game on trying to steal from a Hot Topic-esque store. The most hard-hitting moment that I vividly recall was when Mae’s mom has a bad day and does a 180 heel turn on her daughter! It hurt so much! Mommmmm!!!! I was thinking once Night in the Woods was going to focus more on the supernatural mystery it would take away from Mae’s personal drama that was so irresistible to get caught up in. Thankfully, that was not the case as it was doubly entertaining to watch Mae’s crew come together and discover the truth behind the superstitions plaguing Possum Springs. As you can tell I got so into Night in the Woods’ page-turning narrative that within about a half hour of starting the thought of the characters being animals did not cross my mind, and looking back on it the designs of the animals corresponded appropriately to the personalities they were representing. Minus the handful of over-ambitious dream sequences that were a little bit of a chore to get through and I might have given this a nod over Oxenfree. That split hair aside, Night in the Woods is a spectacular Narrative Exploration game and hangs in the upper elite tier of them with Oxenfree, Firewatch and Gone Home so if these games are up your alley make sure you do not make the same mistake I did and hold off on Night in the Woods for this long. ---YouTube Break #6--- Holy hell, I did not intend to turn my listing for Night in the Woods into a full-on review, but I could not help myself! Good news though dear reader, we are finally at the last YouTube break as we approach the final three entries of my Top 36 Gaming Experiences of the Year!!! So let us cleanse our palates from games for a moment and grab a Yoo-Hoo from the fridge and mix it with a shot of Rumchata as we watch my last YouTube recommendations. Cinemassacre started a new line of videos on their channel in 2018 that I got into called Rental Reviews. Those reviews are four guys gathering around and breaking down a new or classic movie they watched earlier that week and it reminded me of going to films with a few friends and hanging outside the theater for awhile rambling on about how much we loved or hated that movie. The Cinemassacre crew has some fun with the episodes with mini sketches introducing the episodes and random mid-episode gags. My favorite episodes from their first year that I recommend the most are for Star Trek V, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Rental Store Memories, Street Fighter, Die Hard & Commando. Now that we got all that movie criticism out of the way, let us proceed with the final three entries for the year. Thank you all to have hung in with me so far on this one-of-a-kind game of the year journey! PART 7 - RANKINGS 3 THROUGH 1 3) Returning to the Midwest Gaming Classic

From 2007-2013 one of my favorite times of the year was attending a local retro game expo, The Midwest Gaming Classic. Many great times were had there hunting down retro games, hanging out with an awesome forum community I once frequented, classic sessions of late-night karaoke and checking out tons of arcade machines and game consoles set up on free play. Unfortunately the timing of it always fell in a rough time of the year for me and it grew increasingly difficult to make time for it each year until it came down to where I had to stop going for four years. I was not going to make it this year again until a couple of my online gaming friends who I hung out with at MGC before and still keep in touch with asked if I was making it and that convinced me to pull some strings at work and manage to split up some vacation days I had coming so I was able to make the 12-hour drive out to Milwaukee and back home with a couple hours to spare before my first shift back at work. Bear with me as I give yet another shoutout to Glenn and Jeff for reaching out and asking me about MGC because it resulted in an awesome weekend with some wicked weather to dance around to make it there and back. Wound up hanging out and touching base again with tons of great people I had not seen in four or five years. We had a blast hanging out late night after the show playing SNES games on a projector until we were zombies and watching the spiritual successor to King of Kong in Man vs. Snake. It also helped that MGC has moved to a bigger and nicer venue from the last time I went with room to grow. It was like MGC got revitalized by having adequate room for the mammoth vendor halls, game museum, free play arcade and conference rooms for speakers and panels. I caught a few panels on retro gaming and hung out with On the Stick’s Joe Drilling talking wrasslin’ and retro gaming after his panel. I succeeded in my game hunting quest in the vendor hall to hunt down the last couple of NES PowerPad games I did not own, and accidentally came across a homebrew bag toss game I never heard of before called Tailgate Party that I picked up to complete the collection. It proved to be a epic time that I was barely able to pull off at the last minute, but I do not regret it because it was yet another classic MGC weekend for the ages! 2) Forklift Races

It is kind of hard to place how much I love both Shenmue I & II. I got a theory from 1997-2000 for people who played either Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid or Shenmue fresh off their release. For those three games, people would be so blown away by their then-groundbreaking new standards set for their cinematic cutscenes and ambitious narratives that they would remain forever loyal to that particular game and swear by it forever no matter how credible the negative criticism is out there for those games. That is exactly what happened to me with Shenmue as it was the first of those three games I played, and I have seen people react in near-identical fashion to the other two games. I am aware of the criticism for Shenmue and I will not deny it, but there is so much else going for it that won me over that it made me overlook it and enabled me to have one of the best single player experiences in a game ever. These last few years I was getting the itch to replay the original Shenmue when the Kickstarter was announced and funded in record time for Shenmue III. I was pleasantly surprised Sega quietly announced they were releasing a HD remaster of the first two games for current platforms to cash in on the upcoming sequel. As soon as the remaster collection hit in the summer of 2018 I dropped all other gaming and cruised through the first Shenmue within a month. I was initially trepid that the unique controls would be so outdated that Shenmue would be near unplayable. It was indeed a clumsy control scheme to get reacquainted with for my first 10-15 minutes, but after that I was whisked away back to 2000 again when I first experienced Shenmue and I was reminded how much I loved the setting of Dobuita. There are plenty of cheesy characters filled with so-awful-its-great voice acting that it was a treat reliving it all over again.

Like Night in the Woods I developed a regular daily routine while in the process of hunting down clues to find out more on who killed Ryo’s father so he could avenge his death. I would start off the day going to the local corner vending machines and grabbing an iced coffee and capsule toy. Ryo has got to have his morning coffee with the absurdly drawn-out drinking animation every morning like any other ordinary person! I would talk to as many regular shopkeepers I would about finding the latest clue and occasionally would have to battle off some street thugs for information or chase them down in a QTE sequence that Shenmue helped institutionalize among games. A guilty pleasure was visiting You Arcade nearly every in-game day for a round of a perfectly emulated version of Hang-On that I kind of was starting to ‘get gud’ at the checkpoint-based racer by the end of Shenmue. Eventually I got Ryo his infamous job driving forklifts as the plot came to a boil with Ryo hot on the tail of his father’s killer! Every day at work started off with a forklift race that had a catchy theme song I made up lyrics to nod along with for momentum. There was an achievement for winning a race…..it was the only achievement I failed to achieve! The penultimate 70-man mega-battle leading up to the final boss fight was a rush and a half to experience all over. Again, there was some outdated controls and other quirkiness that was noticeable, but it did not get in the way from my unabashed love for the series resulting in my replay of the orginal Shenmue being my second best gaming experience of 2018! I cannot recommend it for everyone as I have seen the nature of that game rub some people the wrong way and my only answer for that is Shenmue is not for everybody. My spirits were riding high after finishing it that I started watching GiantBomb’s endurance run of it recently, and I went out and tracked down the vinyl OST for Shenmue and additionally the vinyl OST for Hang-On as well. Yup, I am kind of into Shenmue just a hair or two. I did not start up Shenmue II yet off the remaster set and plan to plow through it before Shenmue III’s currently planned August 2019 release. 1) Oh my God, You Killed Connor!

After 16,000 words we are finally here at #1! I know Detroit: Become Human has some hot-button controversies around it and if you decided to avoid the game I totally get it and respect that. Now that I got that out of the way let me start by saying I have been a huge fan of Quantic Dreams going back to Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain. I even dug Beyond: Two Souls regardless of that title getting messy at a few points. I know each game has their fair share of nitpicks, but the thing Quantic Dreams nails is how they branch out their stories with its multitude of choice-based gameplay having actual impactful results in the narrative. This is not like most Telltale games where the greater arc stays the same, but the journey is slightly altered. No, characters can abruptly die when presented with a sudden major decision or major paths can be altered to skip entire levels. That is what I loved about Quantic Dreams’ games is these major chances they take on their games and Detroit absolutely kills it in these departments. Quantic also lives up to their past precedents set by moving the bar for Detroit being a true technical marvel and one of the best looking games this generation of consoles. This is coming from a person playing on a slim PS4 and not a 4K Pro system so I can only imagine the improvements if I were to play on a 4K setup. Like Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy, Detroit follows the story arcs of several characters. All four are androids at different states of becoming ‘deviant’ and thinking for themselves. Each character path has major moments where I had to pause the game and think over the imperative decision I was presented with. Quantic Dreams is clever at masking some choices as right or wrong that created some moments that I will never forget. Android Detective Connor and his human partner Detective Anderson were my favorite characters to follow throughout the game. Connor can get killed off like other characters in the game, but unlike other characters he is always instantly replaceable from the agency. I did not know that when my Connor perished in a jaw-dropping way I did not see coming. I instantly debated on rewinding my last save to play it differently, but I sternly stuck to my decisions the whole game no matter how they played out. I was relieved to see Connor come back and continue his love/hate relationship with Anderson, and eventually became amused by the inadvertent ways my decision making kept getting my Connor killed.

The other characters all had nearly equal major moments to get behind with a few examples such as saving a daughter from her abusive father in one of the most intense escape sequences in Detroit, rescuing a bunch of experimented androids from a psychopath, leading a android-rights revolution to trying to stealthily escape from the madness to the Canadian border. Quantic Dreams always has had Quick Time Events (QTE) button prompts handle the majority of their gameplay, and they have evolved it with each of their games to have the best implementation of QTE in gaming. Minus a few key moments they almost never result in a instant game over if one QTE prompt is missed and there usually is a few chances to correct a mistake in order to recover and win the scene…or you can intentionally fail and flub through a fight or chase scene like a dummy to hilariously disastrous results. Depending on how you succeed through the prompts and the narrative based decisions made results in an ostensibly infinite amount of endings for each character. Quantic Dreams introduced a remarkable new feature at the end of each scene where a branching tree of decision options is displayed showing the choices made and blank boxes representing other options available and the percentage of the connected PS4 users that picked each option. From this same dialogue tree box checkpoints can be selected to pick up right from there in the gameplay scene to change a decision you were unsatisfied with. After finishing Detroit within two days I took advantage of this and hopped into one key part of the plot where Connor is presented with a choice that essentially gets the ball rolling for the final two-to-three hours of gameplay. I replayed that final chunk of scenes three more times within a week to see big differences in the endings for each character. Some did not survive, others endings all my characters made it to the end while others wound up skipping out on some of the most pivotal scenes in the entire game based on earlier decisions. I knew two other coworkers who were on the fence on picking up Detroit who were fans of Quantic’s previous games and I insisted on borrowing out my copy and we later went on to thoroughly breakdown how we handled key decisions and our various endings. It is insanely rare for a game to cause me to replay it multiple times that soon and that is saying something special about Detroit: Become Human and why it is my #1 gaming experience of 2018. ---The End?---

My word tally count is now tipping over 17,000 words so I think I better end this. It took me nearly 10 days to write this, and I do not blame you if it took that long to read it. That said I hope this proved to be a best of the year list/round-up like no other you experienced! Once again, if you liked what you read and want more of my end of the year ramblings then I will refer you to my best of 2017 and best of 2016 top gaming experiences features. So until next year…..oh wait I almost forgot it would be inappropriate of me to suddenly end this without rewarding you with a few more YouTube recommendations! I failed in unearthing my all-time favorite SNL sketch of Sports Center with Ray Ramono and Tim Meadows, so this sketch on the origins of the iconic NBA on NBC Theme will have to suffice. Need a refreshing beverage after getting through this list; Dusty Rhodes has the answer for you! These sparring kickboxers needed some beverages after getting bombarded in their training session by a acapella group. Mr. Worf wants to drain his sorrows in other beverages after witnessing this montage of his fails. Finally, here is a nice compilation of background music for your home with the top 100 ranked N64 songs of all time. Ok that is seriously it for 2018, thank you again everyone for riding this out with me! If you want to send any feedback my way I would love to hear it so reach out to me on my Twitter @Gruel or email dkulas @ hotmail.com.

[centurionrecords-blog]

Fandoms List

I suppose first off I should really make a list of what fandoms I’m in/series I’m actually into. I’m usually less in the fandom or more into the series itself because reasons. Now, this doesn’t mean I’ll write about everything on this list. But if you wanna know, just send an ask. The worst I’ll do is say no.

*Fire Emblem - Starting off big. This series has been my main point of interest due to a group a friends I’ve gathered because of it and I’m so glad tbe series os gonna continue. I’ve played and completed 7, 8, 13, 14 (Conquest), and 15, and there are things I love in all of them.

*Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus/etc. - Gotta be honest, I’m a bit of a slut for mythology and Rick Riordan’s books are just unf to me. I love em.

*Etrian Odyssey - Okay, I’m listing this one because I love a lot of concepts and classes in the series, but I’ll shamefully admit none of the games I’ve played have kept me interested. Which breaks my heart, so I hope V can change that because I wanna be into it.

*Ace Attorney - Ho boy, this has been a ride. This is the series to have most recently captured my interest due to my newest friend and I’m glad for it. I’m on the second game right now, but I’m enjoying myself.

*Soulsborne - Another huge one. This series tickles my fancy so hard. From the magic, weapons, and armor, to the incredible bosses and characters, to the lovely descriptions, I’m just in love with it.

*Type-Moon - I’ve honestly fallen out a bit with their series, though I do still like them. Now I haven’t had a computer to do the VNs, so let that serve as a word of warning. I’m an anime/manga/wikia secondary.

*For Honor - I love it. I’m not saying whether it’s good or bad, but For Honor pulls me in. I absolutely adore the Knights and some Samurai. They need to tone down those dlc classes though.

*Asura’s Wrath - LITERALLY A FAVORITE OF MINE, I CAN’T EVEN START ON HOW MUCH I LOVE IT. It just feels so good and fun, and the visuals are lovely and goodness I gush so much over it.

*Marvel - Not a big comic fan tbh, but the recent Avengers related movies are killing it. My top picks would have to be the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and Doctor Strange.

*Binding of Isaac - I really like Isaac but I’ve only got the 3ds version and it seems all the really fun stuff came after that.

*Enter the Gungeon - Tbh, I think I just like Roguelikes in general. Having random power ups and weapons spread out over different map designs and not knowing what might come next is a thrill.

*Metal Gear - This was just a really fun series for me, even though I started on MGS 2. It’s one of the few experiences where if I could erase my memories if a game and play it again, I would.

*Mortal Kombat - My first arcade fighter series. It’s one I’ve stuck with for a long time. Though I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite arcade fighter anymore.

*Tekken - I only got into Tekken fairly recently, but I thoroughly love it. It’s really fun and I enjoy a good handful of characters.

*Soul Calibur - I’m still sad V was a mess, but I still enjoy the series.

*Blazblue - More like blazblew my mind with how fun this game was. I was so used to the simple and consistent pace of Mortal Kombat and Blazblue murdered that immediately.

*UNIEL - Under-Night was another pretty fun game, though while I enjoyed it, I despised the permanent “stylish” combat.

*Guilty Gear - After my friend told me that BB was the soul successor to this series, I quickly got dragged into it as well and fell in love with it. I especially loved Accent Core, and while Gold Johnny can to to hell with his instakill bs, I liked the Gold Modes, and there are some characters I want to see playable again still. Like Order Sol.

*Megaman - Ho boy. A game series I started out with early on. I adore it still. I think I’ve actually played through every iteration to at least a degree.

*Drakengard/Nier - I almost forgot this one. And boy howdy. I started out with Drakengard 2. And i honestly only got the first ending because I didn’t know there were more. So when I picked up Drakengard expecting a similar “slightly fucked but ends up alright” story, my heart was torn up and tossed on the burn pile. And Nier made things worse. So of course, I love the series.

*Kingdom Hearts - A series I still enjoy, but maybe not to the degree I once did. I want to wrap the story up for good and I hope we get that with 3.

*Final Fantasy - Of course, I also enjoy this series as well. Though more like certain titles or concepts within it. I’ve played I, II, IV, X, XII, XIII, and XV and only completed I and XV for various reasons.

Persona/SMT - Another series I’ve had some fun with, though not exactly to the degree any of the subfandoms might like. I played a bit of Nocturne, Digital Devial Saga, Strange Journey, and Person 5, but I’ve only finished P3 and P4.

There’s probably more I’m forgetting at the moment. There’s a lot of works I like and I never made a list before, but I think this is a good start.