#no nintendo‚ I do not want more online multiplayer in every game if it comes at the cost of NO LOCAL MULTIPLAYER

[calista-222]

I was so excited to play Pikmin 4 until I realized that the local co-op is just like in Mario Galaxy where the second player can throw stuff and just sits around watching the first player play 90% of the time… I thought it would be like Pikmin 3 Deluxe with a 2 characters split-screen!! I wanted to play with my sibling!! And yeah, I could just get Pikmin 3 Deluxe instead but I can't because I don't have infinite space on my Switch!!! (And I'd much rather have a physical copy anyway)

[honey-milk-depresso]

Batboys x reader who is a game/singer streamer

So I'm assuming that s/o is a singer + game streamer from what I can see soooo yeah! I think I went to focus on the gamer part than singer though. Also I could only do this for Dick, Jason and Tim because 😭 sorry ;-;;;

TT o TT

Batboys with a game (mostly) + singer s/o

Dick Grayson

Don’t even get me started on how hype Dick’s gonna be. You game??? And stream?????? Epic-

Dick has played video games with Tim before it’s just that he sucks at playing the modern one sometimes-, so he probably wants to do co-ops with you and maybe join your streams and play with you.

He sucks ASS though in Among Us because he’s bad at lying when he’s imposter and too trusting when he’s just a crew mate. He’s so funny though when you record him while playing with you and your other streamer friends.

“Awww, look at me and s/o walking together and building snowmen! We are so—”

*Kills him* “…” “s/O WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK UP WITH MEEEEEEE????”*loud sobbing*

Obviously, no, it’s just what you had to do as an imposter and you have to apologise to your sulky boyfriend.

Fun fact: bought your two of those matching cat ears headphones and he’s so sappy, dear god- he loves those earphones.

Also your voice?? IT’S SO GOOD??? You made your own songs and that’s so cool!! No wonder your fanbase is so big, damn-

And he’s obviously your biggest fan! <

Jason Todd

He’s trying, he really is. Because the last thing he played before he died were Game Boys and then he awoken to Wii Games, Nintendo Switches and whatever the fuck those online games are.

Those sus game ads he clicked randomly made him question what happened when he was still dead-

Jason thinks it’s pretty cool you stream gaming content and all, although don’t ask him to play any RPG with you because he’ll rage quit. He will go insane.

Jason keeps insisting on wanting to join your streams in Among Us but like come on- WE ALL KNOW HE’S GONNA START RAGING MORE-

When he gets killed, he calls the imposter a “Joker” 💀 Sometimes you have to calm him down and tell him it’s their role as imposter to do this. Also, when he gets imposter, he’ll kill everyone except you. Like he’s your bodyguard or something and everyone’s out to get you. You don’t even need to be imposter. If you did kill him before, he’ll kill you back though-

He’s okay if you let him play Minecraft together though, he finds it peaceful (on creative mode).

Listens to your songs on repeat while he’s repairing vehicles or hear it live on your stream when he’s reading. Wholesome supportive boyfriend stuff. <3

Tim Drake

Immediately follows all forms of social media you have, and give subs to every time you go live and stream. No hesitation.

He thinks it’s cool you stream games and all, something he wished to do but just doesn’t have much time to do so, and that he has no idea how to start up a fanbase anyways so-

Tim would join your streams every once in a while to play with you and he doesn’t mind any sort of games, he’s pretty good with the controller… well, maybe RPG. Because if he’s doing a multiplayer game like with Genshin needing to join servers and all, most of the time, people wouldn’t listen to his plans and end up dying and then he goes berserk. Only you listen s/o… wHY?? WHY DOES NOBODY LISTEN TO HIS STRATS????

Also, cat ears headphones?? He has one and he looks so cute in it and would ask if you want one too- he only wears those headphones in private though, or in front of you.

Anyways, Tim loves your singing too! Would listen it live or hear it on Spotify if it’s available. If you sing covers, it’s gonna ruin him. He can’t listen to the original track anymore because it’s just not the same-

Overall, gamer boyfriend you got here. <3

[zaptap]

prior to e3 2021 i made a bingo sheet for splatoon 3 stuff. at this point the only things we knew were what they showed in the reveal trailer in february 2021. now that the game's done i think it's time i go back and see how well it did

wowww that's a lot. 2 bingos. i get why people were disappointed with this game and i agree with those points to an extent but generally im pretty satisfied (this is far from acnh where i think like nothing on the bingo i made was there) (maybe that's because half of it was "bat villagers" repeated and they didnt give us that. well they shouldve given us bat villagers. and splatoon items. why the fuck didnt they give us splatoon items when they did in new leaf and pocket camp)

explanations under the cut (im factoring in my intent for this, so some are marked if they get the spirit of it even if they don't match exactly. yes that includes the apartment one)

✔️ ride or fry sounds ENOUGH like a daft punk song that im going to just assume that the surving member got absorbed into octoplush

✔️ returning stages! wasn't sure they'd do it since it doesnt take place in inkopolis but i guess they just have an actual public transportation system in splatoon world. and the first one revealed was museum d'alfonsino, the image i used for this (because it was my favorite s1 stage). unfortunately they ruined all the s1 ones they brought back though… sad that urchin underpass and saltspray rig are gone from official online play now that nintendo network is dead, but at least they were spared that fate (i did also say at one point that i wanted saltspray to get reworked into a salmon run stage, but they didnt do that either. wouldve been cool)

❌ no hide and seek mode :( i did that with my friends in splat1 in 2015 and nintendo still hasnt caught up. they did at least do group recon i think? and that's something i came up with (when flounder heights dropped i suggested we all get into a private lobby and just explore it together instead of fighting, that was SUPER fun ^_^) (unfortunately now that private lobbies have recon i dont play with a group of people anymore lmao)

✔️ yeah there's chaos. they did a lot for salmon run which is a pretty chaotic mode (though they really should do more). and anarchy battle is uh. anarchist? and having 3 teams in splatfest is chaotic. do you think if order had won we wouldve had totalitarian battle and 1-team splatfests? monocolor turf war peace?

❌ NO MC CRAIG RAP…. :'( i wanted him to rap in octo expansion and we didnt get it and then we didnt get it again. could they just not get mahito yokota to do it? he did rap a bit in maritime memory, why cant he do it again. oh well, pearl's probably a much better rapper anyway

✔️ splatnet 3! and it's even better than 2. especially after they added all the boss/king salmonid numbers. not knowing and having to guess or keep track of it myself was agonizing

✔️ NEW NOGAMI POSE!!! do you think for splatoon 4 he's gonna do the type of 4 that makes a triangle (like on this text) or the type thats more squarish (where the lines at the top don't meet)

✔️ NEW ABXY MUSIC!!!!!!!! abxy fans keep winning, it's the only multiplayer music band to come back for every game and now paruko herself is there too. shiho fujii came back to do these again (only other thing she did--for both 2 and 3 incidentally--was the squid sisters credits theme)

✔️ there IS a co-op mode, and it's called… salmon run! when they showed us hanging out with a salmonid i was like ok so i guess salmon run isn't coming back because that wouldnt make sense, like how can we be friends with a smallfry and then go kill all of its friends and family? well i guess we can! ok. 2 years later and i still think thats a little fucked up. good thing splatoon isnt real so i can play salmon run with a clear conscience

✔️ we got amiibo!! we got a LOT of amiibo! 10 of them! that's 2 more than what splat1 and splat2 each got! i expected to get something for side order, i did NOT expect to get new squid sisters AND off the hook amiibo

✔️ yeah i'm counting this one. squid sisters are back, off the hook's back, agent 3 is back, agent 8 is back… sure agent 4 isn't fully there, but between the palette and parallel canon i'm going to say that it's close enough to count (though maybe i wouldn't if they weren't the only one missing)

✔️ NO REGION LOCKED GEAR!!!!!!!! in this case it was because they didn't do any promotional gear whatsoever though. which is a bit of a disappointment in its own way. unlike splat1 and splat2, splat3 actually only has one version (instead of different ones for each region) so if they had given out gear intended for japan, if it worked the same way as the splat2 stuff then anyone who got a code would be able to use it (getting a code may have been difficult, but in splat2 even if you got one you could only use it if you had the jp version of the game). they also probably couldve added the splat2 japan-exclusive gear to splat3, but they didnt do that. well, at least there aren't any more locked to japan than there were before

❌ no destroying france mode. squid sisters must have done that all on their own after the concert

✔️ i use squid beatz as a music player so i'm counting this (even though the fact you have to pay to make the songs play means i dont actually use the music player we got… why did they do that…) sorry for anyone who wanted to do the rhythm game on hard mode for frothy waters or whatever though

❌ squid girl did not come back unfortunately. maybe someday (that reminds me, i should finish watching the anime… i started it in 2015 when they added her outfit to splat1)

❌ no triplies. how can you call it splatoon 3 if there's no triplies. is it because they thought you wouldnt be able to booyah if youve got the third one in your mouth like zoro from one piece? maybe in splatoon 4 theyll do quadries and the other 2 will be on our feet (like bayonetta? idk i havent played it)

❌ 2 things for splatfest tees i have wanted since like the start of splatoon 2: 1. when splatfest ends and the tee gets turned in, prompt us with the option to pay to have it scrubbed so we don't miss out on any cheap chunks if we forgot to do it before it ends (not particularly upset about this in s3 since salmon run has given me 1 billiam chunks). 2. dont put it on a brand that favors a certain ability!! why the fuck do they have a whole mechanic for getting chunks faster and cheaper and then just have it weighted towards ink resistance up. splatfest should be its own brand!!!! (again though… salmon run has made getting them so trivial it doesnt matter)

❌ lmao

✔️ technically speaking we did not get "splatoon 3 global testfire" like we did for the other games but my desire here was to get a prerelease demo and the splatfest world premiere fulfilled that. clearly only splatoon 2 was cool enough to get 2 of those (wait shouldnt splatoon 3 have gotten 3 then? maybe 4 will get 4)

✔️ SAVE DATA CLOUD!!! im so glad they figured out a way to tie your multiplayer save data to the server so they wouldnt end up excluding the whole game in the name of preventing cheating (that, as i recall, wasn't even prevented anyway). the whole cloud save system seemed useless to me for a long time since the games i play the most are splatoon and pokemon and those are the ones that you can't back up

✔️ GRIZZ IS DEAD!!!!!!!! like i said before, i knew something had to happen when i saw we were friends with a salmon. i was wrong about salmon run going away, but i was right about grizz. i even called him being the villain of rotm in the middle of the reveal trailer. unfortunately even killing grizz didnt do anything to stop the evil corporate system he put in place. i guess the theories that it was an ai talking to us on the radio were right (i thought that was a weird conclusion for people to come to but i was wrong about that)

✔️ we CAN change lobby music again!! one of the biggest flaws of splat2 was you could only listen to dubble bath (in splat1, provided you got the squid amiibo and did the challenge to unlock it, you could go into squid beatz in the lobby to play whatever song you wanted). i'm annoyed you have to pay to change it manually, but the lobby does at least rotate between a lot of music--i actually would've counted this before the jukebox was added, because my real concern behind this was "stop making us listen to just one lobby theme all the time" and even in the base game there were like 9 of them and there are a ton of really good ones in there

✔️ ok. yes i'm counting this. there is no actual apartment room, yeah. but considering we had nothing even close to it in the first 2 games, i feel like having a locker we can decorate is enough of a step towards that for it to count. could it be better? yes. but it fills the role of being a decoratable space, which is really what my desire was. if i put this exact thing on a splatoon 4 bingo and they gave us lockers again, i wouldn't count it, but going from nothing to having lockers i feel is enough to count (since there was nothing to indicate they would do something like that)

✔️ they probably couldve done more for octavio, but we did team up with him to fight the final boss (though after being completely absent for most of the story) and then he was there at grand fest with everyone, so he did get some redemption. they shouldve credited him on 3mix and had him perform it with the idols at the concert though. maybe in splatoon 4 he can be the one who recruits the player character

[nintensonyreviewguy]

My Top 5 Nintendo Switch Games

Took a while longer for this to come out than I expected because of some other stuff in the way but here it is! My first video game review on Tumblr for all to see! Can’t believe it has been 6 years with the Switch as of quite recently on Friday, March 3rd. The system is still going quite strong and I have had so many wonderful adventures and enjoyed my time with each and every game that I currently own for it very much, especially the major single player games and multiplayer games with my friends over the years. I still remember the hassle it was to get one of these back in April 2017. I had to end up waiting a month more than most. It was all worth it in the very end and here’s to hoping for more good times in the future as the console continues to chug along. Looking forward to Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLC as well as more for Nintendo Switch Online! I figured I would take the time to review my Top 5 Favorite Games for the system thus far. All the entries are based off of my personal experiences and are scored with a 1 to 10 star system. 1 star being the worst and 10 stars being the best. Rating System:

1. ★ - Completely Unplayable

2. ★★ - Terrible

3. ★★★ - Mediocre

4. ★★★★ - OK

5. ★★★★★ - Bittersweet

6. ★★★★★★ - Alright

7. ★★★★★★★ - Decent

8. ★★★★★★★★ - Great

9. ★★★★★★★★★ - Excellent

10. ★★★★★★★★★★ - Amazing

Reviews:

1. Pokemon Legends: Arceus 9/10 ★★★★★★★★★ 

A true contender for one of my top favorite game of all time thus far on the Switch. I know it's not very original to say, but I really feel like this is an extremely good take for Pokemon's stab at their version of Breath of the Wild. I feel like Game Freak honestly went all out for this and were given complete creative freedom and took their time with everything. The game is truly a masterpiece in my eyes that is a nothing short of a love letter to veterans of the series! The story, atmosphere, graphics, music, and characters all bundle up for a nice package of what Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl should of been with this prequel visit to the past version of Sinnoh from the fan favorite games of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum called Hisui. I remember not being that fond of Legends: Arceus at first and being intimidated by the game's style and tone. I didn't complete the game until May of last year, which is unusual as I normally find myself completing most Pokemon games within a week or less. The story is really good. The tone is something that I want to praise from the start. It was truly something when I was being told that Pokemon are vicious creatures out in the wild and that they can kill you! The characters are really fleshed out with personality as well, including actual emotions for your player character, something that wasn't present in X and Y, Sun and Moon, and Sword and Shield or that wasn't simply able to be conveyed with sprite artwork before it. I love how much of the cast is implied to be ancestors of some of the present day humans in Pokemon such as Komado being related to Professor Rowan. It is really up to the imagination of you for some of the other less obvious character parallels. Even the small handful of new Pokemon that are introduced such as Enamorus being a fourth member of the former Forces of Nature trio of Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus. It makes the whole world of Pokemon feel more connected. All of this is something I wish Game Freak would do more often. The plot feels like it is something that comes out of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games with Komado banishing you from Jubilife Village toward the climax of the game and being shunned. I also didn't expect Volo (Cynthia's ancestor) to be the final boss, especially given his kind nature throughout the game. Had I not looked at accidental thumbnails on YouTube spoiling his role, I wouldn't of known the whole time until my completion of the game. There are also several references in the games that are callbacks to the games of old and even get to use for the first time such as the Red Chain, which is what Cyrus originally had woven to shackle Dialga and Palkia atop the Sinnoh's Mt. Coronet in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum. My one gripe with the game is the controls aren't exactly ideal. It's the only thing that is holding it back from a perfect 10/10. I did find myself occasionally pressing the wrong button and having a hard time with shuffling through the menus quickly. But please do not let my experiences with this be a deciding factor if you are reading this and possibly looking to purchase the game. I've seen people do a lot better than myself with it all. Legends is honestly something that I believe truly caters to everyone from the casual player to a hardcore gamer (I myself find myself being a blend of both leaning toward casual). The side quests are very fun and can range from anything to a collectathon of Spiritomb Wisps to completing a Dex entry for a certain Pokemon. I found myself ending with over 60 hours in total and that's with not even completing all that the game has to offer, including getting the coveted Shiny Charm for 100% completing the Dex. The final fights of Volo, Giratina, and Arceus are all something that offer a great challenge alone. All in all, it is a game that I can highly recommend to many people, even those that want to get into Pokemon games for the first time (although I may want to lean those new and uneducated toward Let's Go, Pikachu! and Eevee!). Thank you for sticking with me!

2. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: 10/10 ★★★★★★★★★★

There's a lot about Breath of the Wild that I can say that hasn't been said elsewhere, so I'll make this review a little bit shorter than the others for sure. The latest installment in the Legend of Zelda series, at least as of this writing with Tears of the Kingdom on the way in later May, is something truly of wonder! I remember getting this as my first ever Switch game back in April of 2017, a month later than most for sure because of the console being so hard to find. The fact that they throw you out in the world after the Great Plateau and that you are able to go in any direction is something pratically unheard of back in the day for games like these. A huge props to the Director of the game, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Producer Eiji Aonuma as well as the rest of the developers for making it all into one nice giant open world. The game's objective itself is very clear. You are tasked to stop Calamity Ganon from rising once again after being held dormant inside Hyrule Castle for 100 years. You have to free the Divine Beasts from the malice that Ganon has invested them with. While not the greatest story ever written by any means, it all comes together super nicely and gets the message across! The music, while absent for most of the game in the field and only around at certain parts of the game, is there and when it happens, hits like a truck with emotional feelings you get toward all the characters in the story including Link and Zelda themselves, those that passed in the previous Calamity such as the pilots of the Divine Beasts as well as those still living. My only one criticism of the game is the lack thereof of enemy diversity. You mostly will find yourself fighting the same types of foes over and over again such as Moblins and Bokobolins. In short, I feel they nailed everything else about the game pretty much to a tee! I spent nearly 200 hours exploring all the nook and crannies with great fun and doing every single sidequest (with some help from a guide). This is coming from a Zelda fan nowadays who actually just got into the games with Breath of the Wild and only had minimal experience with Ocarina of Time for the 3DS all the way back in 2012. Something to totally pick up if you like Action-Adventure games and are new to the series or are even a returning veteran that is tired of the same old things from Zelda. The theme is all about breaking conventions and redefining the gameplay of a longstanding video game franchise, something the team over at Nintendo EPD did very well and right!

3. Pokemon Sword and Shield: 6/10 ★★★★★★★

I'm going to say something rather bold here in being that Sword and Shield are not as bad as everyone thinks. I feel that the games are constantly being berated for introducing a much hated mechanic of "Dexit", a term commonly used to associate the game with not having a National Dex. The first time that a controversal move has been done since back in the day when Ruby and Sapphire prevented trading of Pokemon from older games to the then current hardware. That being said, I feel like in order to fully enjoy the games, one has to purchase the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra Expansion Passes which add 210 older Pokemon in both of the two parts of the game for a total of 664 monsters in the games. I feel like looking back at it all, the base content has a couple of merits going for it. The Max Raid Battles introduced as a Raid Battle-like mechanic from Pokemon GO are very engaging. I found myself doing them on my own and with my younger cousin sometimes every single time that the Pokemon Company International promoted Shiny Pokemon to seldomly be featured in Raid Battles. I gathered up nearly 200 hours in Sword by the time right before Scarlet and Violet came out. Though the fact you can't see the Shiny Pokemon in the overworld like you could in Let's Go, Pikachu! and Eevee! is very upsetting. While Max Raids are much slower and more mindless compared to their sequel Tera Raid Battles in Scarlet and Violet, I feel like the simplicity is something that has it's charms. The Dynamax mechanic is pretty neat and I really like how some of the Pokemon change appearance in their giant state in a special version called Gigantamax, much like Mega Evolution from before. The designs for many of them are great such as the Kanto Starter's Final Evolutions. There are many little things about the game that I find very nice that carried over from the Generation VII games or were introduced as new altogether. The Exp. Candies, the Exp. Share always being on and not being an item, and Pokemon Box Link are part of the many things that make everything streamlined and have me feel spoiled compared to what we had back in the older days. It is truly something that once you start realizing the pleasures, you never want to go back to ways of old. The story isn't anything special. I feel Team Yell is less antagonistic and don't have as much depth. Piers, their Leader, may have been able to be executed better as a character and Rose, the main villain at the climax, was something that wasn't too surprising or exciting. Basically a beloved and highly respected authority figure that is corrupt in the end. Something I feel like I've seen before and not just with Pokemon... The player characters not having much expression to them in the few cutscenes was also a little bit of a let down. The DLC I feel adds a tiny bit more such as Regieleki and Regidrago, which I'm truly fond of for them adding to the existing Regi trio, a practice I hope is more common. Tying back to my Legends of Arceus review a couple sections above, it makes the world feel more intertwined. The amount of Regional Variants was a very solid number, unlike Scarlet and Violet's measly 4, as much as I hate to draw parallels again to a future game, especially one that has yet to release it's DLC at the time of writing. I didn't find the games as challenging as some of the other older entries. The fact there is no Elite Four and it is instead foregoed for the Champion Cup, is quite disappointing. You get your Pokemon healed between every match. The music itself is always a thing that they nail. I found myself really enjoying many of the battle themes and ambient tracks within the games. I still find myself listening to the songs on repeat to this day. Graphics themselves could of been a little bit stronger than the Sun and Moon HD version that we were given. In closing, I feel while the games are somewhat bland and don't stand out as much, they're still something that can't be ignored. For that, I give "Alright" 6 out of 10.

4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons: 7/10 ★★★★★★★

Animal Crossing: New Horizons will always hold that dark place in the hearts and minds of everyone as the one game that came out right in the peak of the COVID-19 Pandemic in March of 2020. It got popular very quickly. For me, it was a big bright spot and huge time sink of over 280 hours of fun in my life as everything I had going on in life was canceled due to the obvious elephant in the room. As unoriginal as it may sound, it really helped me through a very difficult time and I'm not just talking about COVID-19 either. I had a couple of life issues that were rearing their ugly head in when this was all going on. So, therefore, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this cute title. Now for the game itself. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game where you are a human in a sea of anthropomorphic animals and try to adapt to life on a formerly deserted island as part of a getaway package. It is a perfect escape for many people at the time! You get complete and total creative freedom on what you get to do with the island after the first 7 days of tutorials with the game somewhat holding your hand and teaching you the ropes of everything such as the brand new and essential crafting system. The biggest thing of the game is being able to transform the island by destroying and creating cliffs and rivers using a terraforming feature. This is the stuff that dreams are made of, especially for veterans! You can do just about anything you want. No Isabelle telling you that the item is too close to another thing. Other mechanics such as the bug catching, diving, fossil collecting, and fishing all remain pretty much the same, which isn't a bad thing by any means. You don't have to fix what isn't broken. It is the parts I just mentioned along with terraforming that I found the most addicting. It felt so gratifying to fill in the museum and give Blathers all of the stuff that you've collected from your various times booting up the game and doing the morning routine (or whatever time you play). Coming from someone who has never 100% the Museum and used Action Replay to fill it in for Wild World all the way back, I will have a fond memory of earning bragging rights by finishing the fossil section on my Birthday in October 2020. This is about where the positives end though. The lack of some of the special characters that series veterans have come to known and love (or hate) such as Gracie, Mr. Resetti, and even some of the villagers themselves is rather unacceptable. I mean, I totally understand Mr. Resetti, but still, Gracie and some of the other villagers as well as even the special themed items such as the Zelda and fortune cookie prizes from New Leaf, felt like a huge slap in the face and what is holding the game down from being the best that it can be and for what the series is formerly known for. The game itself fell on hard times after 2021 when things in the world slowly started to get better. Nintendo very quickly dropped support for the game by stopping with the big updates. The Happy Home Paradise DLC that released in November 2021 marks the very beginning of the end. While my Grandmother who also enjoyed the video game as much as I did and got endless amounts of hours (I'm talking over 1,000 or more) from the game, I played for a little while after the update. Being able to play with my Grandmother, Mom, and Sister will always be a special time that I will treasure. My Grandma hadn't played a video game ever before and seeing the joy on her face and getting just as engaged as I was for a time was truly something special. But perhaps, attributing to my getting of a job in February 2022 and with things getting better with COVID-19, I had stopped playing the game as quickly as I started. It's still so sad to see that Nintendo is not supporting it to this day with bigger updates. It would of been very nice. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. For all of these various reasons, I rate the game a "Decent" 7 out of 10. It is still worth picking up if you like Sims but want the game to be full of bipedal talking animals.

5. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: 8/10 ★★★★★★★★

There's a lot that I can say really good and also really bad about Scarlet and Violet. The games are really great if they are not bogged down by the various performance issues such as the framerate, the constant crashing, and other bugs and glitches that are abound in the game. Thankfully, many of these issues and gripes have been fixed in Version 1.2.0 and other patches and updates going forward. I however, will forever remember not enjoying the games as much as their predecessors of Sword and Shield. I found myself playing more in Handheld Mode than with the TV mode I am used to because of the framerate being slightly better. The game has it's high highs but it also has it low lows. I feel that what it tries to do, it does really well. Such as the story. Seriously, first Legends of Arceus then this! The Professor(s) being an AI controlled copy turning evil and corrupt is something that I didn't foresee. When exploring Area Zero for the first time with the Arven, the son of the Professor(s), Penny, and Neoma, I literally had my heart skip a beat when I heard the Professor have a glitch in her voice (I was playing Scarlet, so it was Professor Sada). I played the entire game blind for the most part. This is probably why the review is as high as it is at a 7 out of 10 (and I also would like to rate it a little bit higher than the 6/10 I was to give upon replaying the game a little bit after Version 1.2.0's release). I feel like the entire story was well executed even with Team Stars not being "evil" per say. They are pretty much like a Team Yell 2.0, and that's not too much of an improvement but still better than what we got in the previous games for sure! The music is something else that I really like! Toby Fox and the many other composers who worked on the soundtrack really hit it out of the park! I find myself playing lots of the themes on YouTube on repeat such as the battle themes and the Area Zero theme. The Professor's final battle theme with the tone it sets is truly something I will never forget! My other issues include not being able to battle the Trainers on sight like we are normally used to and not being able to rematch the Elite Four at the League. I found myself missing a lot of Trainers and having to go back. The other more major thing though was the Gym Leaders not being scaled with your progress in the game like how the Wild Area was in Sword and Shield. I made a plan of the order in which I wanted to defeat the Gym Leaders in the game only to realize that it was actually set in the end with Katy being the lowest and Grusha being the highest. The Gym challenges themselves aren't that special. I found Katy's Gym being the most frustrating and annoying with rolling the olive ball through the course. Finally, the new Pokemon themselves are truly a blend of both good designs and some, not so great. Upon looking at some of them for the first time, I thought many didn't change much when they evolved such as Tandemaus line only getting two more little mice in the second evolution and Brambleghast only becoming a bigger cactus upon evolving. Some of the designs however, are very original and stuff based off of creatures we've never seen in the Pokemon world before such as Flamigo being based on a flamingo! The new Evolutions for Girafarig, Primeape, Dunsparce, and Bisharp are particularly nice! Kingambit is my personal favorite of the select few Evolutions of some of our beloved species. I found myself getting one for the team right away. Overall, I feel Scarlet and Violet are a lot of good but missed potential. Had the game not been put down by the issues before Version 1.2.0, it would of been a strong launch. The Gym Leaders being scaled with the progression of the Badges you collect, would of made it nearly perfect. I hope to revise this score upward with upcoming Expansion Pass. Thanks for reading!

Upon revisiting the land of Paldea and later the new land of Kitakami followed eventually by a return to Unova (albeit at the Blueberry Academy located faraway from the mainland) in the DLC Expansion Pass, I would like to revise my overall score for Scarlet and Violet to an 8/10 "Great". I found myself very happy with being able to visit both Kitakami and the Blueberry Academy along both the fresh new takes and nostalgia it had to offer. While I feel that Kitakami was lackluster after the plot was finished there and left me desiring more. The Blueberry Academy on the other hand hit the nail on the head with many features that I wanted with customization of odds and ends of the game such as your Poke Ball throwing style, redecorating the League Room, and being able to glide with Koraidon or Moraidon (depending on your version of choice)! I also found myself enjoying the various throwbacks to the Generation V Pokemon Black and White (and their sequels) games set in the mainland of Unova. While the story was excuted well in both Part 1 and Part 2 (including the Epilogue) of the DLC, I feel it wasn't as strong as the main campaign itself. But that's not to say that it was terrible. The teacher Briar not being a villain as everyone would of expected and being driven by the awe of Terapagos's power like a child was the real beauty. Lore itself overall was not as strong as Legends of Arceus or games prior. In closing, I feel like Scarlet and Violet, while being a mixed bag in the community, are a step in the right direction. I look forward to seeing what the future of the Pokemon series holds and the adventures that we will all have in the years to come!

[bellmo15-blog]

Michael the Squid Man!

Well ladies and gentlemen, I’ve done it! After four years since the Inkling Mikaela pic I’ve finally gotten another one of my cast as an Inkling, my sona Michael… Holy crap, it’s really been four years since I got that pic? Sweet mother of Palutena!

So what made me want to get another Splatoon pic again after four years? Well I can tell you this, it WASN’T because of the recent news of the Splatoon 3 DLC that was shown in the recent Nintendo Direct! I have actually contemplated getting this for quite some time now. The Direct just made me want to commission this now more than ever! Does that count as trend surfing? Ehh, a little. There’s actually a few factors that contribute to me wanting to get this.

1: Splatoon 3 was one of my favourite games that I personally played in 2022. But not for the multiplayer because Splatoon 3’s multiplayer still has most of what stopped me from really getting into it all those years ago. But rather it was the single player that made me love Splatoon 3 as much as I did. The fact that it used Octo Expansion as a base to work of which was already one of the better campaigns in Splatoon, the way Small Fry was used, the lore of Alterna, some of the best boss fights in the series and that final hour of the game!

2: A friend on a Discord server offered to do people’s OC’s as Inklings in Gmod and I offered my sona. I did so at first thinking it could be fun to see as a what if. But then I actually saw what Inkling Michael looked like and I thought to myself “Okay yeah, THIS looks really dam good! I actually kinda want to do some stuff with them now!” And now I have! Them dressed in Agent 8’s outfit from Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion since my self insert is into latex no matter what universe they may be! Gotta have some consistency right?

Do I have any lore for this version of my sona? A little though I haven’t really given it a whole lot of thought. They are an Inkling who comes a far-off land known an Splatstralia (yeah that’s really the best I could come up with), lives in Splatsvile for now, is a Deep Cut fan, sometime does Salmon Run but prefers doing other odd jobs, his fav weapon to use is the N-Zap as that is my main in Splatoon when I DO play it online and has way to much time on his hands for a 26 year old Squid. Yes people, he’s the same age as my main sona! I have to say this because people genuinely seem to believe adult characters can’t exist in Splatoon for some reason! Yes there’s the whole “You’re a kid now, you’re a squid now” thing but not every character, Cannon or OC, is a child! Mine’s not! He is man! Though like me he’s not the manliest man in the world lol. “Is he with Shantae in this universe!?” I don’t know, maybe. If I ever do use this version more I’ll think about it.

Artist is Shennanigma

[omamervt]

It's kind of wild to me. I know Nintendo is aware they're making a kids' game with Splatoon and even with their mobile apps apps, while they're not above predatory behavior, they keep it to a minimum and will add parental warnings about in-app purchases etc... but Splatoon 3 is kind of a glimpse into what old online multiplayer experiences used to be like. It's not perfect, with the rank-based matchmaking, lack of voice chat (no complaints on that one tbh), no offline play with bots for the main gamemode, it has a battle pass in the form of the catalog (luckily not split into, like, free vs premium) etc, but... yeah. It's designed to thrive more on its own merits than it is coercing you to play. I'm a fan of online experiences for the most part, but I haven't found one I've felt like sticking with since, like, 2014 because past that point, mechanics that were designed to encourage you to play at least once a day started to be geared more towards making you (me, at least) feel like you were gonna miss out on something important if you missed even one day. What would inevitably happen is my autistic ass would feel too pressured to play and then, just one day, not be able to get past my anxiety about opening the game, skip playing it that day, and then literally never open it again. This has been an ongoing cycle with basically every online game I've tried since Overwatch (yes I know that was 2016, that was the first AAA game I remember trying that didn't even have a server select screen). And I'm not talking all games with toxic communities, or that are barely even fun if you ignore the social/competitive aspect. I'm talking things like Dauntless, which was FUN, especially with friends, and even still with strangers. And I mean yeah, of course it was, it was a free to play monster hunter clone. But I missed 2 days one time which meant I'd never earn enough points for a certain pirate outfit and then gave up trying and, yep, never looked back.

Meanwhile Splatoon 3 is over here, not having a premium currency (which even $60-90 games are having for some reason these days), lets you buy nearly any outfit in the game, even if it's not currently available at the store, so long as you see another player wearing it, with the exception of things like amiibo outfits or certain splatoon 2 transfers.

Like... It makes me think of games like Halo on Xbox 360 where yeah there were things unlocked through gitting gud at online play but there was plenty of ways to customize if you exclusively played offline in your living room with the neighbors and your older brother who always somehow got to the spartan laser first and you ignored the deathmatch rules because someone figured out how to play soccer with the tanks. AND LIKE, EVEN THAT! You can't do it on one device in Splatoon, but it supports play for 8 people through local wireless. You can easily have "matches" with your friends irl where nobody can make you take the game's rules seriously. It's not quite the same but it's not... gone. It's refreshing to see a game like this where I don't feel pressured to keep playing just because that's the only way to "keep up" with some arbitrary internal standard, I keep playing because I just... want to. Because the game is fun and the world's interesting and dynamic and the characters we get to interact with are delightful and that's enough to make it worth coming back to.

[aforestlife]

i feel the same way about acnh! i don't really think it's lacking content. i've played most of ac games and i've learned that every once in a while i need to step away from it, just to pick it up again a few weeks later. new horizons is for sure different to all the previous games, but not in a worse way – it's just how animal crossing works. you play, you get bored, you stop playing for some time, then feel the urge to play like crazy again. it happens to me with new horizons and it happened to me with new leaf as well. and that's okay! it's still my favorite game ever. at least that's my opinion

I'm glad you agree and see what I mean! I feel like the "there's nothing to do when you've ____" (fill in the blank with paid off your loan, finish your town/museum, or even just played through a year) is one the most common things said about any Animal Crossing game, not just New Horizons.

I've gathered from people that New Leaf just had a massive impact and everyone loved the heck out of it and everything it added, the Main Street, the cafe and police station you could build, the island... So I think that's where the criticism comes from. I think the reason we didn't get these things is because of the desert island concept. You could tell Nintendo was really hyping that up, like every promo vid was a tent with the campsite cookware. I bet Nintendo has heard this criticism and that the next gen AC game if there is one, will go back to having a full-fledged AC cast and shopping district.

I enjoy the AC NPCs and all the things NL added, don't get me wrong... but it's also not really 100% why I play. I'm the sort of player who won't go in Kicks anymore when I have all the shoes, won't go in Harriets if I have my haircut down pat, won't go do minigames usually unless I'm playing with friends. But walking around my town and vibing out and enjoying what I've created? Seeing my villagers, and so on? That's what I focus on when I visit NL actually, and that's the maim appeal for me in any AC game. When I play WW I'm not lamenting all those things, I'm just enjoying the vibe of the town and making it my own and all that. I never even built the coffee shop in NL 👀

You can criticize that NH is only for decorators, but I feel like super long-term AC play is usually geared towards decorating anyways, even in old games. I remember in NL here in the tumblr community, it was the dream address feature that kept so many playing years after the game came out. People saw decorating and releasing themed/aesthetic towns as one of the long-term appeals back then as well, after exhausting the beginning game content.

I think NH would benefit from more of the quirky add-on content, NPCs, updates in general, and so on. Like I think multiplayer isn't nearly as fun as it should be without the minigames (we shouldn't have to create our own with the precedent NL set with the island and the fact that we pay to use the online service now), and I think we could use more furniture patches and more traveling NPCs at the plaza at the very least. But I'm not really mad at NH for not being NL because I can tell they were going for a new feel, and I'm not as mad about the other things as some because I guess it's not really why I play the game long-term anyways. But heck, as far as island decorating and patterms, I can do things I never could have dreamed of in NL or past games. In NL putting a few well-placed public works and foliage was about the extent of it, but it's just wild what you can do in NH now. The happiness I feel walking around my perfect Shire town or excitement at building an illusion castle or something more than makes up for not having those NPCs, shops, or gyroids. I'm not a NH dialog hater either really, I've found it fun and cute at times ans most of the time when I play NL and WW I see stuff I've already seen as well. It's finite in every game. They've actually added dialog in some of the updates, people say.

Anyway sorry for the long reply, I guess I have a lot of thoughts on this. And we're all valid in how we feel about the game, and I think it's human nature to want to share opinions and seek likeminded people. People who think NH is unfinished have a right to feel that way and to find others who feel the same, as do us.

[elbiotipo]

We Live In A Society where young people don’t know how to pirate anymore, so here’s a short guide by El Piratetipo:

First things first; security measures: Get a good antivirus; 360 Total Security and Malwarebytes are good options, avoid anything by McAfee. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but get uBlock to block ALL ads, Decentraleyes and PrivacyBadger, and use Firefox instead of Chrome (Firefox doesn’t track you and doesn’t sell your info to Google, seriously Chrome is Google’s browser, and firefox is a lot better anyways).

You should do all this this EVEN if you aren’t going to pirate anything. uBlock on itself prevents 90% of viruses because most of them hide in clickbait ads and shady applications instead of downloads. In all my years of pirating I’ve been bothered by viruses two times, and those were in computers without uBlock.

Use your common sense, don’t click in shady links, and if ANYTHING anywhere asks you for a registration or email, close that tab and get the fuck out of there. But I don’t know who are the nerds who say “bwhaaaaa all the pirate sites are dead uwu”... they are ALL a google search away... or rather, search them DuckDuckGo

I’ve never bothered myself with VPNs since anti-piracy measures here aren’t very strict (they don’t exist) but there’s Hoxx VPN for Firefox, and most torrent clients are safe. If you really, really want to be safe, use TOR Browser. If anyone can contribute on VPNs feel free to since I don’t use it.

Torrenting is the safest and most practical way to pirate stuff. You need a good torrent client, Qbitorrent is the most used. It’s extremely easy to use; you just go to any website that hosts torrents, click on them (with an adblocker you’ll know what to click), and your download starts.

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS EVER SAY AGAIN THAT THE PIRATE BAY IS DEAD WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG W ahem, the pirate bay is not dead, it’s never dead. You just have to google “Pirate Bay Proxy List” and you’ll have a list of... Pirate Bay proxies... that are literally the same site, it’s that easy. From there you just search whatever you want and torrent away. The Pirate Bay has literally every game and program you can think of.

Same deal with RARBG. It’s just a google search away. If you can’t access it, search for a proxy. RARBG usually has all the newest movies and series, it’s very complete, safe, and they often come with subtitles.

Wanna watch anime? Nyaa.si has you covered. There’s torrents for EVERY SINGLE ANIME EVER. The only problem is that they’re a bit on the heavy side. If you don’t want to download 25 gigs of Lucky Star, AniMixPlay is the one I currently use, but ever since kissanime got killed (F) there are a lot of sites.

(which reminds me, streaming sites, unlike torrent ones, often dissapear. Check out “where to stream x” reddit threads to keep up)

Wanna watch cartoons? Kimcartoon has, literally, every single cartoon in existence, only in English though, but it has everything from Adventure Time to old Soviet cartoons. As long as you have the common sense procedures I told you, it’s all perfectly safe. Have fun.

Are you a broke college student who needs to cite a science paper and it’s blocked by a paywall? Want to read about third century theology for fun but can’t access it? sci-hub has got you covered. The glorious website of comrade Elbakayan for the liberation of science is as easy to use as copypasting the url of your required paper (it works with some books too) and it gets you the pdf inmediatly. Of all the sites in this list, this one is no doubt the most useful of them all. sci-hub is always moving urls but it’s usually findable by google or duckduckgo.

For streaming series, movies, etc., unfortunately, it’s a maze. There are too many websites and not all of them trustworthy. Usually you can find almost all stuff by simply searching “watch x online” or “stream x online”, as long as you NEVER, NEVER, stay in any website that asks you to subscribe anything.

For music, I just use a youtube mp3 downloader. I’m not a very fancy guy like that and youtube has all my favorite catalog anyways. There are options to crack Spotify but I don’t use them.

READ. THE. INSTRUCTIONS. WHEN. INSTALLING. ANYTHING. They’re always in a little txt file in your torrent. Usually with games is as easy as just clicking the autoinstaller or opening the iso file (windows does it with a single click) and installing it like if it was from a CD. But you often have to things like cracking (just replacing a few files after installation). Pay attention, and don’t open your game until you have finished. Often pirated games have problems with multiplayer, internet connection and such, I don’t ever play multiplayer but keep that in mind.

Fan of retro games? Archive.org has all DOS games and quite a few programs playable in virtual computers online. Emulators are easy to find (just look for “x emulator”), the problem is roms. There are rom collections in the Pirate Bay, and romhustler has worked well for too. Retro games like NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, etc. are very light. I have the entire catalog of the SNES in my cellphone and it’s only 1 gig. If you have a cellphone and gigs to spare, install the retroarch app, and download those collections to the retroarch folder inside your cellphone. You now have a portable retro console, playable through the touchscreen! Suck it, 80s! 8-bits and 16-bits, and a bit of the old generation of 3d consoles, play masterfully in any device. Anything up from the Playstation 2 usually needs a little more effort and won’t play as good as in the original device, but that still means you have a catalog of thosands of Nintendo, Sega, and Playstation games. Most of them aren’t released anymore, so emulation is the best, and sometimes only, way to enjoy them.

There are more tips I could give you, and it’s different for me in the third world than for places in the first world where anti-piracy measures are more strict. But in general, USE COMMON SENSE. Be sure where you click, what you search, and what you download, and you’ll never have a problem or have to pay to the Mouse or Gaben again. Fair winds, matey!

[mediabasedlife]

A Look Back At...The Last Generation (2013-2020)

I’d like to start this off by thanking those who encouraged me to write this article, my friends and family who encouraged me to rekindle this project despite my own trepidation. I hope its quality lives up to those lofty expectations.

     Say what you will about the hobby, gaming is in many ways the gift that keeps on giving. Every year there are hundreds, if not thousands of new offerings for every brand of player out there. And wouldn't you know it, there's a fairly significant portion of that library that are actually pretty good. Now, people will argue ad infinitum about what games are the best, or what consoles, or even which generation trumps the rest. This diversity of opinion is what has allowed gaming discussion to thrive just as potently as the medium which it encapsulates. Like any opinion, all of this is especially subjective; great games have been coming out pretty much every year since gaming began, a trend that seems like it will continue as long as gaming itself continues to thrive. While some may argue, I would say the latest generation thrived especially well. Ignoring the Wii-U, since I never owned one, and skirting around handhelds, the latest generation spanned the life of the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, and technically, the Nintendo Switch. And through their seven-year life [switch notwithstanding], we saw the release of some truly excellent games - from top budget AAA titles to humble indie offerings. Now, in 2020, while we as a community are taking our first steps into the new generation of gaming, I think it fair to take pause, gaze back, and remember some of the games that made the latest generation so memorable for so many.

2013

    2013 marked the start of the last-gen, with the release of both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. Both consoles were built to shepherd out their predecessors, marking leaps in visual fidelity and infrastructure that would empower them to become the monoliths of gaming that they hoped to be. I won't say that both consoles had an equally vibrant launch, but they both tried to put their best foot forward. While the Xbox was busy desperately trying to become the multimedia center for your living room, Sony kicked off the next generation in style, releasing a whole seven days earlier than its competitor. With the Xbox not far behind, both consoles brought a suite of new, shiny games to play. Well, in theory, anyway. I'm not here to speak of the quality of the launch lineups of either console, but what I can do is list off the game that stood out, and why it made it onto my list.

-Assassin's Creed Black Flag      Black Flag actually saw its initial release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 almost a month prior to the soon to be current generation, but with both new consoles came a second release, one that came equipped with all the bells and whistles you'd expect from what was then a next-gen game. It doesn't look good for my list to start things off on a technicality, but this game is worth it. Black Flag remains one of my top three Assassin's Creed Games, which is saying a lot considering the sheer scale of the franchise. Fresh off the love it or hate it Assassin's Creed III, Black Flag looked to take a revitalized approach to the franchise formula, playing off of fan feedback, expanding upon what fans loved from AC3, and adding in new activities and a broader, fresher open world to explore. In it, you play as Edward Kenway, a charming rogue of a pirate who kicks the game off by stealing the identity of a defected Assassin. Expecting nothing more than riches and glory, his masquerade instead goes quickly sour, thrusting Edward into the conspiracy filled, secretive world of the Assassin and Templar conflict. What makes this story stand out is how different Edward was as a protagonist, seeing him acting largely indifferent to the traditional formula the assassin's creed games had followed thus far. The game's setting also helped it immensely; the game plays more like a pirate simulator, seeing players sail the Caribbean searching out treasures and fame, gathering a sturdy ship and a hearty crew, engaging in thrilling naval battles, and basking in the warm glow of the sun-drenched sands that define the game's many islands. Along the way, you interact with a bevy of historical or mythical figures, such as Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Calico Jack, and many more. All of this came together to create an immensely satisfying game, a standout amidst its peers and predecessors, and an experience that still stands the test of time despite the numerous sequels it has received.

2014

    2014 was the year the new generation really started to pick up. The consoles had begun to get their footing, truly ushering in the next wave of quality games and proving their value to the players. Several critically acclaimed games got their start here or saw revitalized releases on the current generation of consoles. However, there were a few strays, games that elected to release on the prior consoles first and foremost, games that wouldn't see new-gen ports for some time, and others that never did, but still merited recognition and praise. But how many will make it onto my list? Well, you'll just have to read on.

-Titanfall     Titanfall was, for me, the first game on the Xbox One that truly cemented it as a worthy purchase. It was a melting pot of ideas and innovation that I immediately fell in love with. Built with an always-online principle, Titanfall sees players engaging in a pseudo-campaign of multiple, looping competitive matches. On the surface, you could easily glance Titanfall's way and see nothing remarkable. Another first-person shooter in a sea of competitors, all of whom had far more clout at the time. But what set Titanfall apart from the start was its dedication to movement, satisfying and fast-paced gunplay, and especially, robots. See, Titanfall's whole gimmick is this; players take on the role of Pilots, better than average soldiers of the far future who are deployed in times of conflict as superior ground troops, but more importantly, heavy artillery. As pilots perform well on the battlefield, they can call in the titular Titanfall, summoning their respective Titan to the fray. Titans are large, deadly mechs that can be piloted by the player to give them a distinct advantage in battle. What this translates to in gameplay is simple; as players make their way through matches, they build up a meter which when filled allows them to call down a massive robot to wreak havoc. Every player can do this, usually multiple times a match if they're good enough. Titans are fast, tough, and lethal, and fun as hell to control. But what kept the game balanced was the fact that titans weren't invincible. All players came equipped with anti-titan weaponry, alongside their usual loadout of rifles or handguns. This meant that anyone could take a titan down if they were savvy. The titans, coupled with the frantic movement and satisfying shooting, made Titanfall a one of a kind game. It's fitting, then, that the inevitable sequel would go on to improve on it in virtually every way, but that'll have to wait for later.

-Diablo 3     I will admit to not having played this in its initial release window, in fact, some years would pass before I finally picked it up on console during a sale. And though my time with it was quite belated, I would still consider it to be a genuinely fun game, one worthy of being on this list. In Diablo 3, players choose between seven classes; Wizard, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, Barbarian, or Crusader. From there, they are thrust into the demon-plagued land of Sanctuary, beginning their adventure in the town of New Tristram. Each class has a different backstory and a slightly different narrative throughout, but the core throughline is thus; you are sent to the village to investigate reports of a falling star, only to be swept up in a fight against hell and heaven itself for the fate of the world. In terms of game difficulty, the game sports an impressive twenty difficulty tiers; easy, normal, hard, master, and then sixteen levels of torment. Should players want an even greater challenge, there's also hardcore mode, which starts you off with permadeath: you get one life, no exceptions. Die, and the character is gone for good. Overall, I would say that Diablo's biggest strength is in its gameplay loop; Diablo plays like a top-down, hack and slash role-playing game, with players exploring the various levels in search of loot all the while battling hordes of enemies and leveling up, earning new abilities and skills that players can swap out to create their ideal builds. The core gameplay loop, while simple, is wildly addictive, with a massive loot pool to chase in an effort to grow ever stronger. Each class plays differently, but all of them are easy to learn. Diablo also supports local and online multiplayer, making it a great game to play with friends or family.

-Sunset Overdrive     Sunset Overdrive is a game I've previously covered on this blog before. In fact, I'd say I did such a good job that if you want to read about it, go read that article. But if you'd rather not click away, let me give you the TL;DR. Sunset overdrive is a satirical open world game made by Insomniac in which you play as a cocky and comedic hero out to save their city from a bogus energy drink that caused a pseudo-zombie outbreak. It's built around movement, with the player grinding on rails and running on walls and doing everything they can to stay mobile while gunning down the mutated enemies and exploring the environment. It's funny and feels great to play while being hampered by an underwhelming character creator and suite of customization options, but still manages to come out on top as an immensely satisfying game.

-Destiny     Destiny is the brainchild of one Bungie studios, the original creators of Halo, the next game on this list. Fresh off their amicable split from Microsoft, Bungie did what they did best; develop a truly great FPS. But this time, they added a twist; Destiny is equal parts Shooter, Looter, and MMO. It took these three core ingredients and mixed them together with gusto, delivering an immensely entertaining game that felt incredible to play both alone or with your friends. The story of destiny is a long one, but can be summarized simply; Some years in the future, Humanity met and allied with an alien being known as the Traveller, an alliance that heralded massive technological and social leaps, ushering in the new Golden Age of humanity. Unfortunately, the Traveller's natural enemies, The Darkness, attacked the solar system, destroying much, and whittling down the last survivors to a single safe city. In response, the Traveller created Guardians, reanimated protectors infused with the Traveller's power, tasked with defending the earth and all its colonies from the encroaching forces of evil that threaten this dwindling peace. Resurrected by a ghost, an emissary of the Traveller, you play as one of these Guardians; taking on the role of either the agile Hunter, the cosmically magical Warlock, or the strong and stalwart Titan. From there, you could either progress alone or join up with friends to take on the challenges of the solar system, pushing back the forces of darkness. Although lacking in longevity in its first outing, destiny was quickly expanded and iterated upon, turning it from an already impressive game to a true powerhouse and pillar of its genre.

-Halo: The Master Chief Collection     I won't pretend this started off as a flawless, perfect compilation of prior Halo games. But I love Halo, and I loved playing these games again, so it makes the list. Especially after all of the improvements and subsequent additions 343 made to the collection post-launch. On release, it featured Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4, but has since gone on to include Halo 3: ODST and Halo Reach as well. If you're unfamiliar, Halo is a staple franchise in the Xbox lineup, and the master chief collection sought to unify all of the prior releases under one umbrella for the newest console. Halo is a sci-fi FPS franchise, largely following the saga of the titular Master Chief Petty Officer, John-117. John, or Master Chief as he is more commonly called, is a Spartan; a supersoldier of the future, who fights to protect humanity from an alien collective dubbed The Covenant. In the first game, Master Chief crash lands on an alien ringworld known as Halo, which later turns out to be an ancient superweapon created to exterminate all sentient life in the galaxy. Subsequent games only build the stakes from there, seeing John stave off one intergalactic threat after another in a franchise that continues to satisfy time and again. What the Master Chief Collection does is bundle everything up in one convenient package, while simultaneously offering tweaks and improvements to complement the technological advancements of the new consoles. It offers local and online multiplayer, both for its story and its competitive modes. Overall, even with the flawed beginnings, I would consider The master chief collection a must-have for Xbox players.

-Grand Theft Auto V     Ah yes, GTAV, the game that refuses to die. Technically, this game released on the Xbox 360 and ps3, but it's been put on the PS4/XBO and now even the PS5 and the latest Xboxes too. I won't be surprised if this game gets ported to the consoles that come after that, too, in seven or so years. This game just won't quit. But that's also a testament to the dedication of its player base and the overall quality of the game itself. GTAV is an irreverent, biting joy of a game, replete with humor and charisma. It was, and remains, the latest in Rockstar's open-world crime franchise, in which players take on the role of not one, but three separate characters trying to make their way through life in Los Santos California; Michael, a retired crook stuck in the witness protection system, Michael's former, quite deranged partner Trevor, and rounding out the cast is Franklin, a street-savvy up and comer. Together they go about committing numerous heists, shady deals, and more than a few moments of mayhem in their quest for glory. Its secondary selling point was a robust and open-ended online mode, where players could create their own character and participate in myriad activities with and against their friends and strangers for fame, money, and clout. This is the mode that has kept GTA going in the years since its release, and it is the mode that has seen the most improvements and updates as well. I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time in it myself, but it was always the story of Michael, Trevor, and Franklin that drew me in overall.

-Tales from the Borderlands     Tales from the Borderlands is the only Telltale game I'm putting in this whole list. Not for lack of quality on the other games' parts, but simply because this one has to be my favorite. For those unfamiliar, Borderlands is a series of FPS games that take place far in the future on the fringes of space; the titular Borderlands. It follows a revolving door of ragtag Vault Hunters, people who go in search of mythical, alien "vaults" that are rumored to contain vast amounts of treasure. They are incredibly popular, addicting looter shooters that match satisfying gunplay with beautiful cell-shaded graphics, topped off with charming and funny characters and not too shabby storytelling. Telltale games, on the other hand, are traditional point and click adventure games, released in episodic formats and usually broken down into seasons. They focus on storytelling first and foremost, showcasing incredibly compelling narratives influenced by player choice. You'd think, then, that these two dichotomous formats wouldn't pair well together at all, but Tales from the Borderlands proves that sentiment is wildly false. Tales from the borderlands took what was great about previous telltale games, and matched it perfectly to an original tale set in the Borderlands universe. It weaves an incredibly compelling narrative, filled with equal parts humor and feeling, and manages to tell one of the best Borderlands stories to date.

2015

    I don't have a lot to say about 2015. The new generation was still going strong and saw some truly excellent games grace its shelves, many of whom are going to appear below.

-Bloodborne    2015 kicked off incredibly strong with Bloodborne, the latest instant classic from the studio behind the equally popular Dark Souls franchise. Bloodborne melds the skill-oriented, punishing combat and exploration heavy maps of the Souls games with an eldritch, psychological atmosphere, a match so perfect it went together like peanut butter and chocolate. To espouse the story of Bloodborne would be an effort in itself, but  I shall do my best to summarize it; Shirking the more medieval settings of the Souls games before it, Bloodborne sees players navigating the victorian gothic town of Yarnham, a city plagued by beasts and monsters. It is these monsters you are tasked with dispatching, taking on the role of a Hunter of Beasts, sent to cleanse the town of that which ails it. But not is all as it seems, and the beasts may not be the only monsters Yarnham has to offer. Outside of its interpretive yet incredibly strong narrative, Bloodborne offered equally polished gameplay, iterating on the previously mentioned combat from prior dark souls games to create a punishing yet wildly satisfying gameplay loop that was easy to learn yet hard to master. Bloodborne forced players to always be on their guard but gave them no shield or barrier with which to do so, believing that offense was the greatest defense, making success hinge on your willingness to fight and your skill in surviving the nightmares that Yarnham had to offer. A melding of horror, action, and exploration, Bloodborne was a true success, cementing itself for years to come as a top tier action-RPG, and saw countless fans that remain dedicated to it to this day.

-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt     I'm going to be blunt; This is one of my favorite games of the last generation. It is a top tier RPG, made up of an incredibly charming cast of characters, a beautiful open world, and a thrilling, fantastical narrative that all come together to make one of the best games to release in the last seven years. Though a sequel to not only two prior games, but also a long line of books, The Witcher 3 was surprisingly friendly to newcomers, of which I was one at the time. Despite its pedigree, I felt right at home in the world of the Witcher, quickly picking up on what I had missed in its long and storied life. The Witcher 3 puts players in the role of Geralt of Rivia, the titular Witcher, a magically enhanced human tasked with routing out monsters that threaten the world of man. This time around, Geralt is searching for his ward, Ciri, as he navigates a world fraught with monsters and men in equal measure. what starts as a simple search for a missing friend quickly blossoms into an adventure for the fate of the world itself. Though a fantasy RPG at its heart, the witcher manages to tell some particularly grounded and human stories, and this game is no exception. One moment will see you stalking a beast out in the wild, the next will see you navigating political intrigue in the courts of royalty. But it all flows together to create one of the best RPGs I've ever played, and one that earned a not inconsiderable amount of well-deserved praise when it first debuted back in 2015.

-Assassin's Creed Syndicate     Hot off the heels of the muddied AC Unity, Syndicate was the last proper Assassin's Creed game before the franchise would experience a massive genre and gameplay shift in its next entry. Where Unity saw too much focus on graphics and not enough care anywhere else, Syndicate finely balances all of its parts to create an impressive experience overall. This time around, players get to visit London, at the tail end of its industrial revolution. Out goes flintlocks and swords, in came steam and steel. This entry sees players in the role of both Evie and Jacob Frye, siblings fresh off their induction into the Assassin Brotherhood, tasked with dispatching justice on their Templar foes across London. The setting isn't the only big change for this game, as Syndicate saw an overhaul in both visual quality, scale, and gameplay. London feels lived large and lived in, with plenty of ground to explore and streets filled with people going about their day-to-day. Missions are split between Jacob and Evie both, with some allowing you to pick and choose and others forcing you into the shoes of one or the other as they work together to clean up the city. It innovated on the traditional gameplay loop, with this game having you going from borough to borough, toppling its templar leaders and expanding your sphere of influence with the aid of historical figures like Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Nikola Tesla. These famous faces are not the only people lending the Fryes their helping hand, as Syndicate also put the Fryes in charge of their own street gang, a ragtag group of brawlers and scouts that would come to their aid at the press of a button. Most times, conquering a borough involved you and your gang scrapping it out with those of the templar order, dusting knuckles to see who got the final say in the control of the area. This may seem at odds with the traditionally stealth-oriented approach prior games focused on, but that side of the game was not neglected either. Assassination missions saw fine-tuning and innovation as well, with players able to plan out and partake in uniquely tailored kills that matched the locale and personality of their target, from disguising yourself as a scientific cadaver to kill a corrupt doctor to allying with a guard and feigning capture to infiltrate and kill a target in the Tower of London. The game saw improvements out of combat as well, with Syndicate receiving a large overhaul in its parkour movement and general navigation. The Frye twins come equipped with a grappling hook that allows for speedy travel across London's many rooftops, while ground travel was made all the more expedient with the inclusion of horse-drawn carriages. The general parkour itself was also tuned, allowing for freer player movement and tighter directional control. All of this to say, Syndicate saw some truly welcomed improvements, iterating on the legacy and creating a lasting impression that stands up as one of the better games of the franchise.

-Star Wars Battlefront     While I've spoken of a Battlefront on this blog before, this is not that same game. Rather, this is Battlefront 2015, a soft reboot to the previous Battlefront line of games for the new generation of consoles. This Star Wars Battlefront was helmed and developed by Dice, famed for the Battlefield franchise, a line of competent and entertaining military-focused first-person shooters. They were known for solid campaigns, but more importantly, massive scale competitive multiplayer modes. This pedigree is shown heavily in Battlefront, with the game sporting 64 players competitive multiplayer, with teams taking on the roles of either the empire or the rebellion as they fight their way through maps taken straight from the star wars universe, from the snowy plains of Hoth to the immense forests of Endor and everywhere in between. The game was replete with game modes and had the ability to be played in either first or third person. Players were given access to a modest selection of in-universe weaponry, and could even take the role of recognizable star wars heroes on occasion. Visually, the game was stunning, with incredibly faithful and detailed recreations from everything to weapons to the maps themselves. It felt like a genuine passion project, built from the ground up by competent developers and made for fans and first-timers alike. Battlefront, much like many games on this list, has since been usurped by a sequel but remains an incredibly competent shooter and a genuinely fun game to play.

2016

    While 2015 saw the release of some truly impressive games, 2016 was a genuine powerhouse of a year. It saw the rise to prominence of Virtual Reality, through the oculus rift and the PlayStation VR. 2016 also saw the first re-released console of the current generation, in the form of the Playstation 4 Pro, a trend that Xbox would follow as well, seeing the release of 2016's Xbox One S, and in 2017, the Xbox One X. These were touted as faster, better performing, better-looking consoles than their base model predecessors, offering several enhancements to graphical fidelity and console performance, running games even better than they already did. And with these new consoles came an all-star suite of excellent games, a multitude of instant classics from big-name studios and fresh indie developers alike. Many of the games that released this year are ones I've individually covered before, but they still deserve their spot in this article. So without further ado, here are some of the most noteworthy games of 2016.

-Oxenfree     Where Bloodborne was the standout hit that kicked off 2015, Oxenfree did the exact same thing for 2016. Developed by the California based indie team at Night School Studios, Oxenfree is a supernaturally infused, slice of life adventure game that follows Alex, a witty, rebellious, soon to be high school graduate as she makes her way to the fictional Edwards Island, accompanied by her best friend Ren and new stepbrother Jonah. This small group of friends is meeting up with what they assume will be a large group to have a weekend bash, But what was supposed to be a boisterous weekend party turns out to just be two extra guests; Clarissa, a fellow student who has ties to Alex, and Nona, a mild-mannered girl who just so happens to be Ren's current crush. Their modest get together quickly goes south when Alex uses a small handheld radio to tune into a weird signal emanating from the island, unleashing the spirits of a sunken military submarine, long since lost at sea. These wayward souls possess one of the kids and scatter the rest across the island, forcing Alex to uncover the mystery of their death and find a way to save her friends and escape the island. The game wears its inspirations on its sleeve, taking queues from classic ghost stories as much as it does retro coming of age stories, but it adapts these ideas masterfully. As for how it plays, Oxenfree is a side scrolling point and click adventure game, built around exploration and dialogue rather than complex game mechanics. It explores the interpersonal relationships between all the characters as much as it explores the haunted nature of the island itself. It easily shifts between these disparate tones, with a story filled with as many supernatural spooks as sarcastic teenage banter, seamlessly integrating player choice into the mix to create a truly excellent narrative. Oxenfree also features a high amount of replayability, with player choice going on to influence which of the game's many endings, as well as touting a new game plus mode that adds an extra smattering of content for your subsequent playthroughs. Oxenfree was a gift that kept on giving, more than earning its spot on this list.

-Firewatch     Firewatch is the first of several 2016 games I've previously written about, and while my opinion of it may have not been the highest initially, ruminating on it since has led me to a new appreciation of the time I spent with it. I would recommend reading my original review, but the short summary is thus; you play as Henry, a man on the run from his troubles who takes a job in the Shoshone national forest, keeping an eye on the wildlife and ensuring nothing is amiss. Your companion through the game is Delilah, a voice through your walkie talkie, somebody else who has taken the same job as you over in one of the adjacent watchtowers. Throughout the game you explore the forest, keeping the area safe while exploring the mysteries of the area you now inhabit, all the while developing a friendly relationship with Delilah as you go. It's a simple, but satisfying first-person adventure game, with an emotionally charged but comedic narrative about one man's journey to get lost and find himself.

-Stardew Valley     Stardew Valley is a retro-inspired simulator game about a down and out office worker who inherits their grandfather's farm in the titular Stardew Valley. They leave their mundane life behind and embark on a new journey in rural life, building up the farm from a rundown, untamed field into a bustling agricultural powerhouse, all the while making friends and forming bonds with the locals that you meet along the way. Stardew plays like a dream and features a stunning pixellated art style that complements its easygoing nature. Stardew is a game you can get lost in with ease, featuring an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop; It's a charmingly simple sim, one that encourages players to make their own way and their own choices, with a multitude of different ways to spend each in-game day. You're encouraged to play the game at your own pace, experiencing its range of content as it comes, rather than being railroaded into any one path for progression. It's a game that encourages exploration, diversity, and freedom, one that never really ends. Stardew made waves when it first came out for being such an open-ended, friendly experience, and it has since gone on to be heavily expanded upon by its developer, seeing releases on even more platforms and accruing even more fans along the way. It's a game that's easy to love and hard to put down, a comfort food game that makes you want to revisit it time and again.

-Titanfall 2     Where the original Titanfall was an excellent Xbox exclusive, Titanfall 2 bloomed the franchise into a multiplatform powerhouse. While it kept the excellent multiplayer modes, Titanfall 2's biggest change was the inclusion of a proper single-player story, and it's this inclusion that sees Titanfall 2 earn a place on my list. Titanfall 2's campaign is short, but sweet, seeing players take on the role of Jack Cooper, a pilot in training under the mentorship of an experienced soldier named Lastimosa. Unfortunately, on their first field mission, Lastimosa is killed, forcing Jack to embrace his future role as Pilot in an effort to survive and keep Lastimosa's experimental Titan out of enemy hands. This Titan, given the codename BT, is unique among Titans in that it can freely equip the various titan weapons and abilities, while simultaneously having an expanded AI that allows it to perform better in combat than its contemporaries. Together, Jack and BT make their way through the Frontier, coming into conflict with the varied enemy forces that they were originally sent in to stop. The campaign is brief, but what it lacks in lengths it makes up for in entertainment; the banter between Jack and BT makes for some great dialogue, and the campaign is perfectly built around the shooting and movement tech that made the first Titanfall so distinct, creating a series of levels that are just as built around gunfights as they are around precise first-person platforming. The game's environments are also beautiful to look at, varying from gritty industrial complexes to lush jungle environments that are as nice to look at as they are to maneuver through. Accompanying the stellar story mode is the recurring suite of multiplayer offerings, all of which have been upgraded and improved upon to complement the innovations of the sequel. Where Titanfall was good, Titanfall 2 is great, and it's a continual shame the series hasn't been given more time to shine.

-The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition     This is another game that I've previously covered on my blog, and it's also another technicality. See, Skyrim technically released back in 2011 but saw so many re-releases in the years afterward that at this point the only device that doesn't natively play it are phones. With this particular re-release, Bethesda sought to give console players the same quality of life changes that PC players had been seeing for years, namely graphical improvements, stability patches, and most importantly, player-created content. Skyrim had developed a bustling and dedicated community of creators in its years since release, all of whom had made countless mods for the game that ranged anywhere from simple tweaks to full-on expansion sized stories, and the special edition release marked the first time Xbox and Playstation fans could get their hands on this library of unique content. It created a situation where the already hefty game could be made all the more robust with fan contributions. Don't like the music? Download one of the unique music packs somebody put together. Want any number of pop culture-inspired items? Looking for some new quests to spice up this five-year-old game? It's all there and more.

-Watch Dogs 2     You might be wondering why I've put Watch Dogs 2 on this list while its predecessor is nowhere to be found. While the first Watch Dogs was a middling revenge story that happened to incorporate some neat hacking based features, Watch Dogs 2 is where the franchise really found itself. It follows the story of one Marcus Holloway, a bright and witty young man who's been framed for a crime he didn't commit by a faulty surveillance network that monitors the city of Los Angeles in a pseudo-dystopic future not so removed from our own. So Marcus does what he does best, hacks into the network and removes himself from it entirely, embarking on a campaign to take the whole system down with the help of white hat hacker collective Deadsec. What sets this game apart from its predecessor is the charisma of its cast and the far more varied ways in which you can use the game's technology to your advantage. Hijack cameras, remote control vehicles, manipulate streetlights, the world of Watch Dogs 2 is yours to manipulate all at the press of a button. And if hacking doesn't get you where you need to be, Marcus has some skills of his own; he's particularly skilled at parkour and quite handy at non-lethally dispatching foes with a weapon of his own design, a billiard ball attached to a bungee cord. And if playing non-lethally isn't your thing, you can also accumulate quite the arsenal of homemade weaponry, all 3D printed from the base of your hacker collective. Watch Dogs 2 is a game about a group of people trying to take down a corrupt system using whatever means they can. It's a witty, satirical, but surprisingly grounded story told across a beautiful open-world recreation of Los Angeles, one that drew me in far more than its predecessor ever managed to do.

2017

    2017 might not have had the same pedigree of games as its predecessor, but it did see the belated release of the latest current-gen console; The Nintendo Switch. A revolutionary step up from the Wii and Wii U, The Switch took the gaming world by storm thanks to its ability to seamlessly transition from a home console playing on your TV to a handheld console able to go with you anywhere. The Switch remains a staple of the console market to this day, easily standing tall next to the Playstation and Xbox consoles both new and old. Aside from the Switch, there was still a healthy collection of games for people to enjoy, some of which will be highlighted below.

-Night in the Woods     Night in the Woods marks yet another game I've personally reviewed, and also stands proud as one of my absolute favorites of this generation. A humble offering from indie studio Infinite Fall, it was a gorgeously animated sidescroller of an adventure game that followed college dropout Mae Borowski as she returns to her small home town of Possum Springs to rekindle old friendships and reconnect with her family. Despite its anthropomorphic cast, it tells a genuinely human story, one that perfectly reflected what it feels like to revisit old haunts; how things can be so familiar yet change so much, seamlessly blending an emotionally charged narrative with a dark, suspenseful hometown mystery. Night in the Woods remains an absolutely incredible game to experience, showcasing themes like mental illness, sexuality, and identity through the lens of youthful wit and clever, dry sarcasm. I haven't played many truly perfect games, but Night in the Woods came damned close to being one.

-Kingdom Hearts 1.5/2.5     Ah yes, another collection of re-releases. Kingdom Hearts technically started back on the PS2, with the release of Kingdom Hearts 1. From there it blossomed into an incredibly diverse and lengthy franchise that saw releases on consoles and handhelds alike, from the PS2 to the Gameboy Advance. What these re-releases did was bundle all of the Kingdom Hearts games into one complete package, and tossed them all onto the PlayStation 4. It created a cohesive collection for this storied saga and presented it all in an easy to follow order that anyone could pick up and work through. Both games also offered the previously exclusive Final Mix content to the west for the first time, expanding on the already hefty games with more difficulty options, more enemies, more story content, and more challenges to keep the fun going and going. But what is Kingdom Hearts, I hear some people ask. Kingdom hearts is a series of action RPGs that follow the adventures of heroes known as Keyblade Wielders as they fight against the forces of darkness that threaten the worlds beyond. They play great, feature an especially enjoyable cast of characters, and tells a heartwarming story of good and evil. A joint project between Square Enix and Disney, Kingdom Hearts features an abundance of Disney characters and worlds, crossing over with various Square Enix properties in this epic struggle against light and dark. That's the easiest summary of the story by far, as delving any deeper would almost certainly confuse the casual reader, but let me say this; The Kingdom Hearts games are fantastic, well worth the time, and with these remastered collections, more approachable than ever.

-Nier Automata     Nier Automata is a tough game to talk about in-depth, on account of just how easy it is to spoil for people who haven't experienced it. But it was also one of my favorite games of 2017, so I'll do my best to give it its due. Nier Automata is somewhat of a hybrid game; it blends so many genres together but somehow manages to do each one of them justice. Equal parts open world, action RPG, Bullet Hell, and more, Nier Automata takes place in the far, far future, in the ruins of earth. Humanity has long since abandoned the planet and sought shelter on the moon, entrusting a group of humanoid androids to defend the planet from an encroaching alien threat. The story follows several of these androids; 2B, 9S, and A2, as they wander the ruins of humanity and fight back against the robot foes that the aliens use as soldiers. It tells an amazing story that all but demands subsequent replays to get the full breadth of its narrative weight across, with each subsequent playthrough seen through the eyes of one of the other characters. Equal parts sci-fi story and humanist breakdown, Nier Automata is a deconstructive, philosophical pondering wrapped in the guise of an anime action game. That's not to say it doesn't wear the disguise well; Nier Automata plays like a dream, with stylish combat and an accompanying score that makes for easy listening both in and out of the game. It's another must-play, especially with the remake/remaster of its predecessor soon to release in 2021.

-Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal     Persona 5 is an absolute joy of an RPG. It's slick, stylish, has a superb soundtrack, and tells a top tier story to boot. You take the role of a down-and-out high school kid who's been forced to transfer from his hometown in the countryside to Tokyo, thanks to a bogus police incident. Labeled a criminal and looked down on by the adults of his new school, the protagonist goes about bettering himself, raising his grades, and making the most of his new life in a new city. He forms bonds and relationships with the people around him, making fast friends with many of his classmates and even some chill adults along the way. Oh, he can also use a supernatural phone app to dive into the corrupted hearts of society, utilizing a special power to battle the evils that lie within and force them to change their ways and confess their deeds. Herein lies the dichotomy of the Persona 5; Much like the other Persona games that preceded it, the story it tells is a hybrid of supernatural mystery and coming of age drama, blending mundane highschool life with a fantasy adventure. It is equal parts life simulator and stylish role-playing game, as you and your friends do their best to repair a broken system using the fantastical powers they've been imbued with. These powers are the titular Persona, powerful creatures that embody the sides of ourselves we keep hidden behind the masks of society. These personas allow one to do battle with the shadows that lurk within these corrupted hearts, creatures that take on myriad forms inspired by religion and myth. Wielding this power, they embark on a journey of social reform, fighting a revolving door of less than scrupulous individuals that all culminating in a battle to change society itself. In spite of its overtly fantastical elements, the story it tells is decidedly grounded and surprisingly relatable; at its core, Persona 5 is about a collective of disenfranchised individuals trying their best to make it through life and change things for the better, a story that was and remains especially poignant and a welcomed escapist fantasy to fall into time and again.

-Slime Rancher     Slime Rancher is an adorable simulator game and one I've praised before on my blog. It blends first-person shooter elements with the farming simulator genre, tasking players to manage and explore a planet on the fringes of space that's almost entirely populated by a race of creatures known as Slime. Slimes come in a varied selection of types and sizes, but all of them have one universal similarity; they all produce a resource known as a Plort that you can trade to an intergalactic trade center for currency, which in turn allows you to upgrade your slime farm and expand into new territories. The gameplay loop is nothing but fun, with each new expansion bringing in new species of slime that you can wrangle and combine to make hybrids that in turn create more valuable plorts. As you make your way through the planet, you start uncovering logs left behind by your farm's prior owner, that weave a narrative of love and loss, a story that drives you forward in your quest if only to see how it concludes. You're not alone in this quest, though, as you have your slimes for company as well as several long-distance conversations via the computer in your home between friends and fellow farmers alike. Subsequent game updates have only expanded upon the experience, seeing new opportunities for trade, daily activities, and more, making an already invigorating and enjoyable game all the more so.

-Destiny 2     It's no secret that Destiny 2 had a complicated launch window. Many fans felt that Destiny 2 left too much of what made its predecessor great on the cutting room floor, electing instead to reset the player base back to zero and tell a brand new story. While I missed some of what Destiny 2 left behind, I was still somebody who found a lot of joy in Destiny 2, as evidenced by the thousand-plus hour count it tells me I've poured into it since its 2017 release. The game has also seen countless improvements and additions in the years since its release, adopting a new seasonal model and even going free to play after a point. Most recently, Destiny 2 saw the release of Beyond Light, the first in a new trilogy of expansions that hopes to continue the game forward over the next few years. So, while it might have had a rough start, it still remains destiny at its core, making it one of the best shooters on the market, coupled with a satisfying loot hunt and a rewarding structure that continues to keep its fans coming back for more. That alone lands it in my list of games for 2017, and the generation as a whole.

-The Sims 4    Though this game technically saw the light of day back in 2014, I didn't end up playing it until its console release here in 2017. Thus, I place it here. There isn't a lot of complication with Sims 4. If you're at all familiar with its predecessors, you know exactly what to expect. An engaging simulator game, in which you craft an individual or family and set them on the path of life, influencing them as they go or leaving them to their own fates so as to see what happens. You tailor their looks, personality, aesthetic...it's a premier example of micromanagement as entertainment. This installment shirked some of the advancements made by its predecessor but still manages to be a robust and enjoyable game all on its own, made all the better by continued additional content releases in the years since its premiere. It's a game that keeps on giving and seems primed to continue doing so for some time yet.

2018

    2018 saw the release of some genuinely top-shelf games, with the Switch continuing to establish itself against its contemporaries, while the Playstation continued to add excellent exclusives to its lineup.

-Far Cry 5     The Far Cry games have always been known for being competent shooters with large open worlds, and this one is no exception. Shirking the usual foreign locales, Far Cry 5 takes place a lot closer to home, seeing players cleaning up the rural backwoods of Montana, taking place in the fictional Hope County. In it, you play as a rookie cop sent in to apprehend an evangelical doomsday cultist; John Seed, The Father. This arrest quickly goes south, leaving you as the last lawman willing to stand up to the Seed family and free Hope County from their grasp. To do so, you systematically break the hold of his lieutenants, dismantling their bases of operations and taking down his associates in a slow climb to face him once more. Along the way you make friends and allies out of the locals, people with a similar drive to rise up and clean up their county. As far as the gameplay, Far Cry 5 is a mix of FPS and RPG elements, with a rudimentary character customization system and plenty of powerful guns to acquire. You level up and earn skills that augment your preferred style of play, be it stealthy or over the top, all in your pursuit of justice. Augmenting this quest is the world it takes place in, with players exploring lush forests, vibrant fields, and the general detritus of rural America. Hope county feels real, with looks to match, despite its farcical tone and over the top gameplay. All of this came together to make a Far Cry that felt fresh and fun, a genuine step forward for the franchise.

-God of War     Prior games in the God of War series were not known for subtlety, nuance, or humanity. Rather, they were violent hack and slash games that featured the titular God of War, Kratos, seeking and exacting bloody revenge on the greek pantheon for their slights against him and his family. They were by no means bad games, but they weren't what I would consider masterpieces either. Then, we were given God of War (2017). This soft reboot/Sequel for the franchise saw Kratos embarking on a distinctly more grounded story than its predecessors, navigating the perils of fatherhood while on a journey to deliver his late wife's ashes in the world of the Norse Pantheon. He is joined by his son, Atreus, a bright but rebellious young boy who seeks only to prove his worth to the gruff and distant Kratos. This more human story is accompanied by a more grounded approach to combat and gameplay; while it retains the emphasis on action, it feels more deliberate than prior entries, shifting the combat style from the hack and slash nature to a more measured approach, with players needing to conserve stamina and plan their attacks lest they get easily overwhelmed. The game also incorporates a more open world structure than its predecessors, seeing Kratos and his son freely traversing their environment, unlocking shortcuts, and finding means to double back on past areas in a level progression that feels more like a Souls game than the God of Wars of old. All of this came together to make a game that felt genuinely innovative, a fresh new direction for a pre-established franchise that was as welcoming to newcomers as it was to prior fans.

-Donut County     Donut County is a silly, short indie puzzle game in which you play as a mischievous raccoon delivering "donuts" to the unsuspecting populous around him. These donuts are, in fact, large sinkholes that expand as they eat different objects, eventually growing to swallow the entirety of the lot they were sent to. The core gameplay lies in this concept, with you controlling the various sinkholes from level to level, figuring out the order in which to consume the various objects on each map in order to grow in size. As the game progresses you unlock various upgrades to these sinkholes, like the ability to spit things out of them, adding new layers to the simple puzzles the game encapsulates. It isn't a terribly long game, as already said, only taking an hour or two to finish, but it cemented itself as a charming indie game amidst a sea of big-name titles.

-Marvel's Spider-Man     Developed by Insomniac, previously mentioned in the Sunset Overdrive excerpt, Marvel's Spider-Man is a rare example of a genuinely amazing superhero game. In it, players take on the role of Peter Parker, a Spider-Man who has already established himself as the hero we know and love, but one that still has room to grow and learn. What starts off as a triumphant takedown of one Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, soon blossoms into a complicated web that involves a shady group known as the Demons that Spider-Man must stop from wreaking havoc on the city. But the game isn't just about the Heroics of Spider-Man; The Game showcases the best aspects of Peter's character, splitting the game equally between his time as Spider-Man and his normal life as Peter Parker, a scientist working under the apprenticeship of one Otto Octavius, while simultaneously working with his Aunt May at the local Homeless Shelter and trying to rekindle his forlorn relationship with Mary Jane. All of this unfurls simultaneously, weaving a web that melds incredible movement with fast and stylish combat, stellar characters, and a heartwarming tale, cementing itself not only as a great game but also as one of the best Spider-Man stories out there.

-The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories     The Missing is a heartfelt, down to earth story told through the lens of a grisly but goofy premise. In it, you play as the titular JJ Macfield, a young girl who goes on a trip with her close friend Emily to a remote island off the coast of Maine. What is supposed to be a fun excursion takes a turn for the worse, as Emily goes missing, leaving JJ to track her down. Unfortunately, this quest quickly leads JJ to her death...but not for long. Resurrected by a bolt of lightning, JJ gains the ability to remove various parts of her body, as the island quickly goes from an idyllic wonderland to a psychedelic nightmare. Undeterred, JJ uses her newfound ability to traverse the island, ever searching for her lost friend. The Missing might sound like a horror game on paper, but it uses these macabre themes to tell a distinctly grounded story about dealing with personal identity and navigating a hostile and unfamiliar world, culminating in a heartbreakingly bittersweet twist that I won't spoil here. This is all to say; the Missing is an excellent game. It's a joy to play, despite its harrowing content, and it manages to convey its themes in a way that feels genuine and meaningful, telling a story that's still relevant to this day.

-Super Smash Brothers Ultimate     Smash games have always been good, and Ultimate more than earns its moniker. This is the Ultimate Smash game; iterating on its predecessors without changing anything for the worst, Ultimate is an unabashed love letter to the series as a whole, incorporating every character and every map from every prior game all in one upgraded package. If you don't know what Smash is, let me explain; Nintendo is known for a lot of fantastic first-party titles, from Mario to Kirby to Metroid, and countless others. Smash takes all of these well-loved characters, throws them in an arena, and has them fight for supremacy. Debuting on the Nintendo 64, Smash has seen one major game release for every Nintendo console since, culminating in Smash Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch. As earlier stated, it features an absolutely enormous roster of playable characters, featuring every fighter from the previous games and several new additions for good measure. This roster was only further expanded with the release of the fighter passes, seeing an additional eleven fighters across the two that have thus far been released, ranging from surprise hits like Persona 5's Joker to fan favorites like Banjo and Kazooie. While not featuring a traditional story mode, Ultimate makes good use of its characters in a suite of different game modes that can be played both alone or with friends, online or locally. It's a fantastic party game and an equally praiseworthy fighter, rewarding skilled play but catering to casual players and newcomers alike.

2019

    2019 marked the slowdown for the current generation, shadowed by the whispers of a new age of consoles. This made for a simple year for games, but one no less stacked with noteworthy games and worthwhile experiences.

-Kingdom Hearts 3     After years of waiting, 2019 finally saw the release of Kingdom Hearts 3. The wait might have been long, but the game delivered on the hype, simultaneously closing out the narrative arc that had begun so long ago with Kingdom Hearts 1 and beginning a new chapter for fans to look forward to. In service of this goal, Kingdom Hearts 3 wrapped up the majority of dangling storylines from all the previous games, while still leaving a handful of mysteries to chase into the future of the franchise. It featured a new suite of Disney worlds to explore, and incorporated Pixar properties for the first time in franchise history. The new content accompanied refined and polished gameplay mechanics and a complete visual overhaul, while still retaining the heart and soul that defined the games thus far. It all came together well enough but was later expanded upon through the release of Re: Mind, the game's beefy expansion that rebalanced gameplay and added in hours of new story content to better cap off the story. All told, Kingdom Hearts 3 was another great game, building on a legacy that seems like it will continue well into the future.

-Devil May Cry 5     For those not in the know, Devil May Cry is a series of games that follow the life of Dante, a half-demon sword for hire as he does his best to kill monsters and eat pizza. It's a franchise known for skillful, precise, stylish combat mixed with goofy, over the top stories, usually involving Dante and his associates contending with the fallout of his family, the demon king Sparda and his brother Vergil. While not a flawless franchise, it saw several excellent releases over the years, but then went depressingly dormant. Devil May Cry 5 was the perpetual waiting game, but 2019 saw it finally come out, accompanied by mass acclaim and praise. it really seemed like all the years of waiting were well rewarded. DMCV features three playable characters; Nero, a fellow demon hunter first introduced in Devil May Cry 4, Dante, the series' staple protagonist, and lastly the mysterious V, a newly introduced character for this game. Together the three were tasked with working together to take down the demonic Qliphoth and its master, Urizen, an immensely powerful demon lord. The game looks gorgeous, marking the first time the games have looked truly next-gen. Accompanying this boost in visual fidelity is the franchise's staple; combat was finely tuned to be more stylish than ever, with each character having a variety of tricks at their disposal to dispatch the demon hoard that stood between them and Urizen. Devil May Cry was back, and it was better than ever.

-Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night     Bloodstained is the spiritual successor to the Castlevania series, helmed by its most prominent contributor Koji Igarashi. Starting its life as nothing more than a simple Kickstarter, it blew through its funding goal and a few years later saw its release on the current generation of consoles.  It's not a particularly complicated game, but it is particularly fun, with it adapting many of the staples that made Castlevania so great. As a spiritual successor to Castlevania, the games play very similarly; both are side scrolling hack and slash games that take place in fantastical gothic castles, and both see protagonists with varied combat and magical aptitude on their quest to take down the castle's owner. In the case of Castlevania, that owner is Dracula, but in the case of Bloodstained, players are tasked with defeating Gebel, an alchemically modified human known as a Shardbinder. You play as another one of these Shardbinders, Miriam. Miriam and Gebel are the lone survivors of an alchemical experiment that gave them the ability to wield a power called shards, crystalline embodiments of demonic essence. The narrative is simple, but the gameplay is where it shines; as players progress through Gebel's castle, you can accumulate more and more shards, all of which give Miriam access to new abilities, abilities that go on to aid her in her continued exploration. This creates a very satisfying loop; explore the castle, collect shards, unlock more of the castle to explore. Augmenting her shards are a suite of craftable and upgradeable weaponry, a selection of melee and firearms that allows players to diversify their preferred playstyle and experiment with what works best in any given situation. Subsequent content additions have added even more to the game, in the form of new modes, difficulties, and playable characters, adding to the replayability and longevity of what was already an excellent experience. Despite starting from simple roots, Bloodstained rose up and became something all on its own, paying homage to its inspirations while cementing a name for itself as a new staple of the genre.

-Catherine Full Body     While originally releasing in 2011, 2019 saw an expanded re-release complete with new characters, new stages, and hours of extra story content. At its core, Catherine and its Full Body re-release are unique gems in the gaming world. One part puzzle game, one part dating simulator, it blends the complicated world of relationships with macabre block puzzles, all the while weaving a beautiful tapestry about one man's quest for love. In it, you take the role of Vincent Brooks, an unambitious 30-something simply going through the motions of life. He has a steady relationship and a stable job, a group of colorful and enthusiastic friends, but it's clear from the start just how much he's stagnated. His current girlfriend, Katherine, is starting to ask the big questions; marriage, children, their future. Unable to parse these ideas, he loses himself in his time at the local bar with his pals, shooting the shit and getting sloshed. That is, until, a new flame suddenly appears; the seductive temptress Catherine. One thing leads to another, and it comes to pass that they spend the night together...maybe. This is where the game's narrative really kicks off, with Vincent having to navigate the day to day, attempting to reconcile his long-time love with his possible new fling. This story is juxtaposed against the game's core gameplay loop, which sees Vincent forced to climb the deadly tower of babel each night in his dreams. To do this, players must stack blocks and avoid the perils and traps that each stage presents, making a mad dash to the top of the tower before the bottom collapses in on itself and Vincent plummets to his doom. For you see, this isn't an ordinary dream; if you die on the tower, you die in real life, making this desperate ascent a race for his very life. Each stage of the tower represents the game's various core themes, and each gets more and more complicated as the game progresses. In the interim of these climbs, players are set about answering multiple-choice inquiries that influence the direction of Vincent's relationships, with each answer adjusting a conspicuous morality meter that eventually comes to determine which of the 8 endings you could attain. With Full Body, this number was increased to 13, to adjust for the inclusion of a new paramour; Rin, a mysterious piano player that sets up shop in Vincent's favorite bar. Both Catherine and its Full Body re-release are excellent games, but I was especially smitten with the layers of extra content and story that Full Body brought to the table, additions that made Full Body one of my favorite games of 2019.

-Untitled Goose Game     Untitled goose game is a simple premise on paper; players take on the role of an ornery, mischievous goose as it wreaks havoc through a small English town. Equal parts puzzle and stealth game, the goose has a laundry list of tasks it seeks to complete, from stealing hats off people's heads to infiltrating the local pub. It's not a long game by any means, but it has a ton of replayability in the form of additional tasks and challenges that only present themselves after your first playthrough. These range from time-based completions to additional bouts of mischief and all of them are incredibly satisfying to chase down. Untitled Goose Game has a quaint, painterly art style that compliments the charming simplicity of the game's premise, accompanied by a dynamic, classically-toned score that rises and falls in prominence as you go about your goosely business. All said Untitled Goose Game is a genuine treat, a brief but whimsical game that's just about having fun and goofing around.

2020

    It's no secret that 2020 has been a rough year for a lot of folks. Between a pandemic, political controversy, and general drudgery, it's a year that feels like it can't end soon enough. But in spite of it all, 2020 was also a fantastic year for games. Serving as the last hurrah for the Xbox One and Playstation 4, we saw the release of some truly excellent stories that kept players going through the long months of an otherwise mediocre year.

-Animal Crossing: New Horizons     Releasing right at the start of widespread quarantine, New Horizons supplied people with something they couldn't easily do in their own lives; escape. Animal Crossing New Horizons is the perfect escapist fantasy for the year it released in, seeing players partaking in an island getaway in the hopes of colonizing and forming an idyllic town on an untamed paradise.  At their core, the animal crossing games are simple simulators. You create your character by selecting a few presets; hair, eyes, skin color, and then you're let free to explore your new locale. With this latest release, that locale is the aforementioned island, a small paradise in the sea dotted by trees and rivers, accented by flowers and weeds. You start your life on this new Island with a handful of other residents; the Nook Family, the proprietors of this island venture, and two random villagers who are looking to make a life on this island the same as you. Things start small, with everyone working together to set up tents and create a bonfire and find some food for a welcome party. Afterward, the game synchronizes itself to your console's date and time and sets you off on your way. Unlike other simulators on this list, Animal Crossing is a unique breed, running concurrently to the real world, continuously progressing in real-time. Flowers grow, trees produce fruit, and each day is a new adventure. It follows the general turn of the seasons for your respective hemisphere, celebrating holidays and alternating available activities with each passing day. As for what you can do yourself, the opportunities are legion; you can catch bugs, go fishing, search for fossils, chat up your villagers, visit other islands, and much more. As you progress, more ventures open their doors to you; catch enough bugs and fish, and you can elect to have a museum built to showcase your finds. Collect enough resources, and you can build new furniture and create plots of land that encourage more villagers to come and move to your island. Everything you do is in service of continued growth, but also serves just as simple fun, a charming, easygoing distraction from the concerns of the day-to-day.

-Final Fantasy VII Remake     The Final Fantasy franchise is a long and storied one, replete with highs and lows. One such high was 1997's Final Fantasy 7, a game that quickly cemented itself as a fan favorite and an absolute classic. Now, in 2020, FF7 is back...sort of. See, FF7 Remake is the first in a line of games that will eventually go on to tell the entirety of the original FF7's story, which means that this release is only the first portion of a much larger narrative. Adapting what was originally the first few hours of the original game, FF7 Remake expands upon the opening section of its predecessor, simultaneously remaking the old content for modern audiences and adding in new aspects for old fans. FF7 Remake improves upon the original in practically every way, serving as a genuine remake that still manages to retain what made that original game so memorable and important to fans. The game might be new, but the heart is the same; FF7 Remake follows the story of Cloud Strife, an ex SOLDIER turned mercenary hired by an eclectic group known as Avalanche to dismantle a local power plant that's poisoning the planet. What starts as a well-intentioned but extreme case of eco-terrorism quickly explodes (pun intended) into a much larger story that sees Cloud and Avalanche bringing the fight straight to the corrupt Shinra Corporation and beyond, culminating in a battle against fate itself. Because this remake only covers a portion of what will go on to be a much larger narrative, it only scratches the surface of what makes the original FF7 so great, but it does so with gusto; the game plays and looks better than ever, bringing with it a heartfelt and compelling narrative that keeps you hooked the whole way through.

-Minecraft Dungeons     Minecraft Dungeons takes the charming, voxel visuals and world of Minecraft and melds them seamlessly with a charming, easygoing dungeon crawler that's approachable for casual and experienced gamers alike. Where Minecraft is an open-ended sandbox game about building and exploring a blocky world, Minecraft Dungeons sees a collective of heroes on a quest to defeat the evil Illager, a powerful sorcerer whose armies have been sweeping the land leaving destruction in their wake. It's not a very complicated story about good and evil, but it doesn't have to be; Minecraft Dungeons prioritizes it's simple and easy to master gameplay first and foremost. You collect loot, battle recognizable Minecraft enemies, and progress through a litany of stages on your way to fight the big bad. It's not very long but encourages you to play it time and again, collecting better gear and trying your hand at the many difficulty levels for additional challenges. It's not the best looking or the best playing game that released this year, but it had heart and made for a short and entertaining way to pass the time.

-Ghost of Tsushima    Ghost of Tsushima isn't a game to scoff at. One of the best looking games of the generation, this PS4 exclusive is one part historical timepiece, one part action-adventure, and one part stealth game. It follows the story of Jin Sakai, a samurai and one of the last survivors of the Mongol invasion of his home island of Tsushima, Japan. Left to die, he is found and nursed back to health by a wayward thief who teaches Jin the art of stealth and subterfuge, seeing him off on his quest for bloody revenge on the Mongol invaders that have encroached upon his homeland. To do this, he must first build up a fighting force of equal minded, skilled warriors, all while dismantling the various camps and operations the Mongols have set up in the absence of the defeated Samurai army. Jin can approach this in one of two ways; relying on his prowess as a formidable Samurai, Jin can challenge the many enemies in the game to flashy yet precise sword combat, or he can utilize the recently learned skills of stealth, infiltrating their encampments and silently picking the Mongols off one by one. There's no wrong answer to how you choose to play, although it takes some time for Jin to accept his new roles as both Samurai and assassin. Both methods of play feel equally as stellar, too; Combat in this game is incredibly polished, finely tuned swordplay that focuses on timing and well-planned strikes to dispatch your foes with ease, while the stealth feels tense and requires a distinctly tactical approach, planning your routes and cleverly dispatching foes so as to not raise suspicion. But the game isn't just about taking out your enemies. Ghost of Tsushima boasts one of the most beautiful open worlds I've ever experienced, a vibrant and gorgeous landscape dotted with myriad activities and side quests for you to explore and enjoy. One moment, you could be doing battle with a wayward group of Mongols or bandits, while the next could see you tracking a friendly fox to a shrine, composing a haiku in the shadow of a large tree, or recuperating your strength at a small hot spring while you ruminate on your adventures thus far. Ghost of Tsushima is an incredibly varied game, alternating between intense highs and calming lows, all coming together to become one of the best games of the last generation.

-Spiritfarer     While I have not finished this game, it more than deserves recognition on this list. In it, you play as Stella, a young girl who takes over as the ferryman for the River Styx once Charon retires to the afterlife, tasked with providing for the wayward souls who live on the river as you ferry them to their final rest. To do this, Stella must collect various resources and build up her ship, outfitting it with living spaces and various commodities tailored to her current passengers. These aforementioned passengers will, in turn, begin to open up to Stella, tasking her with making certain foods or visiting different locales, all in an effort to give these wayward souls a proper farewell on their trip to the afterlife. Spiritfarer is a simple simulator game about resource management and exploration that showcases a lovely, genuinely heartfelt story about love and loss, one that will put a smile on your face as easily as it brings a tear to your eye.

     And with that, I close out this hefty list, closing out the last generation. This compendium hardly scratches the surface of the last seven years' library, but hopefully, I did a good enough job remembering some of the games that made this last generation so great. There are a lot of games that I've still yet to play, resting in wait in my backlog for the time they get pulled out and given their due, but for now, this concludes my walk down memory lane. The last generation saw some excellent additions to the vast and ever-expanding library of video game history. Here's hoping the next several years can say the same. The start of the new consoles is off to a very promising start; in the last month or so alone we've seen excellent releases from both indie and big-name developers, fresh takes on old franchises, and new IPs alike. So, here's to the Last Generation, here's to the Next Generation, and here's to gaming overall; may it continue to thrive for years to come.

[radramblog]

I would like Pokémon Unite to fail.

This might be somewhat of an unexpected statement, considering it’s coming from as lifelong and dedicated a fan of the franchise as I am, but I don’t think Pokémon Unite is a good thing for gaming, let alone the franchise as a whole. How I arrive at this statement, we’ll get into.

For the unaware, Unite is a recently released free-to-play MOBA for the Switch and soon to release on iOS and Android devices. While the game is published by Nintendo/The Pokémon Company, it was developed entirely by another company, TiMi Studio Group (a subsidiary of Tencent), which to be clear isn’t really a rabbit hole I’m going to delve into in particular.

I will admit my reasons for writing this post are kinda petty. I don’t like the game in concept, and I’m sick of hearing about it, what with every single Pokémon content outlet dedicating their time to the new shiny thing. And I also have yet to play it, and I don’t plan on changing that. Despite this, I think my concerns should still ring as valid.

So why is Unite bad?

There’s a lot to talk about here, and I’d recommend this video by Curio (a fine purveyor and producer of video content) to get a better gist of it. Here is my version, effectively, of their explanation.

Free-to-play* games have had a long tradition of being scummier than their paid counterparts, with multitudes of content or options locked behind paywalls that are justified by the fact that they’re 1. Typically relatively small and 2. In a game that’s technically free. As largely fine as that sounds on paper, games like these are effectively designed to make you want to spend money on them, often with attractive bonuses or benefitting the spendier player numerically or all sorts of other underhanded tactics. It’s a tactic pioneered by the mobile games (and Facebook games) of a decade ago, and still frightfully common today in the form of Gacha games and the like.

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games are far from an exception to this, with games like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm (and Pokémon Unite) locking their playable characters behind a paywall, often one that’s grindable but inconvenient to do freely. As well, these games effectively encourage buying and playing many characters, what with balance adjustments often making popular characters no longer viable for serious play (or making an unpopular one much more viable), and the power creep of newer characters making it so you have to be playing newer stuff to be succeeding. It’s a lot like what you see in trading card games, frankly, except in those you can at least sometimes convert your cards back into money.

Unite has all these problems and more, including loot boxes, deliberately confusing currency systems, and that thing where you can only buy slightly more in-game currency then you need so there’s always a bit leftover that you can’t quite spend on anything relevant. This is not explicitly the problem, considering it’s no different to other games of the genre.

The problem is that it’s marketed towards children. Because it’s Pokémon, basically, and not a dark fantasy like LoL or DoTA or a compilation of more teen+ targeted characters like in HoTS and Smite. And targeting kids with something this scummy is just kind of completely fucked.

There’s another element to this I’d like to add in as a long-time Pokémon fan. For a very long time, the collection of corporate interests that make up The Pokémon Company (Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc) were extremely conservative with who could produce their spin-off games, with them almost entirely being restricted to Nintendo consoles. Genius Sorority (Colosseum, XD, Trozei and its sequels, Battle Revolution, Café Mix), Hudson Soft (the TCG Game Boy Games), Jupiter Corporation (Pinball and Pinball RS) Chunsoft (the Mystery Dungeon games), HAL Laboratory (Snap, Stadium 1/2/JP, Ranger), and Ambrella (the Rumble series, Hey You Pikachu, Channel, Dash, and Ranch, and they would later be acquired by Creatures Inc) are the big names in the list of developers I could find (not including crossovers like Conquest and Pokken), and all of them share a few things in common. They are all Japanese game developers, they all (save Hudson and Chunsoft) make games exclusively for Nintendo consoles, and they all have extremely solid track records or are new companies built by people with history in the industry. This was the only subset of developers TPC trusted in making games with their intellectual property, and with only a few exceptions, the games they were putting out were pretty good.

Except Hey You Pikachu, what the fuck were they thinking for that one, holy moly.

This changed about 5 years ago, when TPC realised they were basically sitting on one of the biggest and most beloved franchises on the entire planet, and that by branching out to people who weren’t interested in paying for a Nintendo console but still liked Pokémon, they could make a lot more money, and also increase interest in their main series games. This is where we got Pokémon Go from, and we all know how well that turned out for them. Very, very well is how.

Since PoGo’s release in 2016, many more Pokémon branded games have made their way out into the world beyond the 3DS and Switch. The Trozei and Rumble spinoff series got mobile games, the charming Magikarp Jump released in ’17, Game Freak’s own Pokémon mobile game, Pokémon Quest, released a year after that.

At the time of its release, I had thought Pokémon Masters, a deadass Pokémon Gacha, would be the height of this trend. There are few things to be more cynical about than a gacha, them being some of the worst of freemium mobile gaming, but also a trend that has been trending steadily upward ever since the surprising and explosive popularity of Fate: Grand Order and Fire Emblem Heroes. It felt somewhat like selling out, which in retrospect is kind of odd when you’re talking about as huge a franchise as Pokémon.

This brings us to the real culmination (so far) of this phenomenon in the form of Pokémon Unite. It’s a game that feels like a bandwagon jump, hurling itself onto a near-decade old trend and hoping to succeed because it’s Pokémon. And it probably will succeed, at least for now, considering the game’s popularity and continuous updates. And that really does worry me. I think people have a right to be concerned about the state of the franchise, considering how successful its side games, its freemium offerings, are tending to be, and how decidedly okay this generation of mainline games has been leaning so far. I am still cautiously optimistic about the future of said mainline entries, but to be frank, Unite scares me.

I brought up cynicism earlier, but ultimately Pokémon Unite is a cynical game. It is clinically precise in its handling of its IP and its monetization, to the point where if you’d asked somebody to describe the consumer-side issues with freemium and MOBAs, you’d probably get a laundry list of Unite’s intentional design. I am concerned that this cynicism is what’s going to define the franchise as a whole going forward.

What’s next, Pokémon Battle Royale? Pokémon FPS- wait that’s just Snap isn’t it.

[incompletionism]

Hands On with... Pokemon Unite

For the first time in the Pokemon franchises’ long merchandising history, Nintendo and Tencent have released a MOBA starring all your favourite pocket monsters for the Switch. And it’s free!

What is a MOBA, you ask? The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre, where teams of players fight against each other over the internet, has taken off in recent years, with some of the most notable ones being Riot Games’ League of Legends and DOTA 2.

Last year, Nintendo announced that they would be working with Tencent (the Chinese company that owns Riot Games) to release Pokemon Unite - a free-to-start 5v5 experience for the Switch and mobile (in September). Released this past week, I wasted no time in getting to grips with it.

Once you get through the now customary Terms & Conditions agreements, you’re greeted with a little skippable cutscene showing 10 of the game’s current 25 Pokemon taking part in a match. It shows off the basics of the game - scoring points in enemy goals - quite well, so I would suggest sitting through it if you’re as new to MOBAs as I am.

After this was the character customisation, where you mold your Trainer in your own image. It’s no Miitopia, with only six options in each category, but I was still able to craft an avatar that I only saw mirrored once in 20 matches. “Thankfully”, you do have the chance to change them up a little more later on, with costumes and eye colours and more being available to you once you’ve earnt some Aeos Coins and Tickets - Pokemon Unite’s main currencies.

With that out of the way, you’re introduced to Professor Phorus, the head researcher in the Aeos Region, and thrown into the two-part opening tutorial as a Charmander.

In matches, you move your Pokemon around the arena map, fighting Wild Pokemon and the opposing team as you go to collect points to score and EXP to level your Pokemon up. When your Pokemon reaches a certain level, they evolve (with the exception of the sole Legendary Zeraora) and develop new abilities to replace their old ones, much like in the main games.

Combat largely involves pushing ‘A’ or ‘B’ to do a basic attack. Pressing the right bumper uses a slightly stronger attack or ability (such as a dash or shield) that has a cool-down of about 7 seconds, while pressing the right trigger will use a more powerful attack with a longer cooldown time, still no more than 10 seconds.

When you evolve fully (about level 9 out of the maximum 15), you have access to your Unite Move - the Pokemon’s single most powerful attack accessed with the left trigger - which has a much longer cooldown, lest the game become unbalanced.

The standard map has two lanes and a central area, with Wild Pokemon dotted around. Before each match, players pick which of these areas to stick to for the majority of the 10 minute match, except when backing up your teammates or going to score.

And you will need to back up your team at times : at certain points throughout each match, a heavyweight Pokemon spawns in each lane for all players to smite (a Rotom, Zapdos and Drednaw in the top, central and bottom areas, respectively). They are quite powerful and can kill unstrategic players in a couple of hits if they’re foolish enough to take it on alone. In my time with Pokemon Unite, this was all too common an occurrence.

As they heal within seconds if you disengage to fight another day, it’s best to approach them as a team or swoop in to finish it off after the opposing team wears it down, though that is hardly sporting.

You will want your team to land the final hit, however, because that team gets 30 seconds to score in their opponents’ areas without danger. Once the required amount of points has been met (either 80 or 100), that goal is destroyed and the opposing team can no longer heal by standing in it and your team no longer slows down in it.

Throughout matches, the game will give hints like “We’re really struggling!” to your team meant to motivate players, but having the scores on-screen would be a much better way of getting this across.

Something MOBAs like League of Legends have been notorious for is a toxic community that reaches every part of the game, especially the chat. To get around this, Pokemon Unite simply restricts players to a couple of set phrases when in a match such as “I need backup!”. Simple and functional, if a bit bland.

After playing enough games with someone, you can message them privately, which does give the game a risk of cyber-bullying, but you have to add someone as a friend to reliably play matches with them and can remove them as a friend if this happens or report them for harassment.

Outside of matches, most of my time with Pokemon Unite was spent claiming and spending rewards that the game offers to players to encourage them to log in each day to earn more Aeos Coins.

Speaking of which, you’re probably wondering what the point of earning them is. When out of matches, players have access to the various shops, where they can spend Aeos Coins or Tickets on Unite Passes, which allow them to use that pass’ Pokemon in ranked matches, and purchase costumes for their trainer and favourite Pokemon.

Future updates will add in more Pokemon (with Gardevoir coming tomorrow), with Zeraora free to players who log in before September without having to do a quest, but for now, this covers everything Pokemon Unite has to offer.

Tune in some other time to find out what I think about Oddventure’s Demo - the Undertale of RPGs.

Footnotes

Why isn't this a review? Well I feel the the game in its current state is not quite representative of the final product (and I wanted to give the Next Big Thing a go, but MOBAs just aren't for me, so I doubt I could do this game justice)

I haven't really touched on Tencent's unethical practices and whatnot here, as I'm still finding my voice and want to do that story justice with proper research in due time. Do look into it yourselves, though, before you try out Pokemon Unite

To anyone here from my P&P summaries, I do apologise for the frequent disappearences. I'm currently working on a buffer of them so when I return, I'll be fully motivated and won't vanish again.

[penguinnewsnetwork]

A Waddle Down Memory Lane: My Earliest Memories with Club Penguin

This is something a bit different, as we at Penguin News Network are primarily an insider blog for Rewritten’s latest updates. However, with Club Penguin itself turning 15 years old in a few days, I wanted to look back at my earliest memories with the online game. When did it all start? How’d I discover Club Penguin? Why do I hold Club Penguin so closely? Those are all questions I plan on answering as I share my nostalgic moments. - Boopenguin. 

My earliest memories of Club Penguin take me way back to elementary school. It was 2008, and over a year since Disney had purchased Club Penguin. I can’t remember the exact date, but I remember it was the beginning of a new school year, and I would come home every afternoon and immediately turn on Disney Channel as I did homework or played on my Nintendo DS. There used to be a brief commercial segment on Disney Channel called ‘Get Connected’. Basically, ‘Get Connected’ took you on insider looks of upcoming and trending Disney video games. One of the commercials that would constantly air was that for Club Penguin. Me never hearing about it before, it really enticed me to join.

However I was still a child, and I had to get my mother’s permission to join. I do remember it taking a few weeks before I actually joined though. Above is the commercial I think I remember seeing, but it could’ve been a different one. Sorry for the terrible quality, it was the only one I could find. Looking back, neither of us knew that I’d get hooked on Club Penguin and spend hours on it every day. Fun fact, Boopenguin10 was my actual username and I carried it over to Rewritten for the nostalgia. It wasn’t my choice back then, but I grew with it.

The first party I ever attended was Club Penguin’s 3rd Anniversary, ironically enough. I don’t remember if I joined right as it happened or not, but I do remember obtaining the 3rd Anniversary Party Hat and Ice Cream Apron. This party was a big deal too, there was a gigantic Times Square event in New York commemorating the anniversary party.  Immediately after the 3rd Anniversary Party though, there was the Halloween Party 2008. 

Halloween Party 2008 was super nostalgic to me for many reasons. Not only was the annual candy hunt super fun to participate in, but it also introduced the Secret Laboratory, where you needed the Rad Scientist outfit to enter. During the party, I dressed up as the Rad Scientist too. Another awesome feature was a massive storm that hit the island. Halloween Party 2008 had the perfect atmosphere from its decorated rooms, soundtrack, and the storm effects. 

This all brings me to one final memory, Dig Out The Dojo. The storm that hit Club Penguin during the Halloween Party struck The Dojo and caused an avalanche of snow to cover its entirety. In November’s Penguin Style catalog, you could’ve bought a Snow Shovel to help dig out the Dojo, hence the name. Back then, everyone speculated who ‘??????’ was (Sensei), and as more and more snow cleared out, repairs were being made. And then, a few weeks later, we were treated with the best reveal ever: a new multiplayer game called Card Jitsu. 

I played for a total of 4 to 5 years. I wanna say around 2013 or 2012 was when I quit, because membership became a bit too expensive to maintain, and more required to play. The last party I participated in was probably the Marvel Takeover, I found that rather weird to be quite honest. As for Club Penguin as a whole, I collected the books, the plushes, the toys, video games, you name it. I had that igloo and air hockey playsets and those were awesome. 

Club Penguin holds a special place in my heart, as it heavily influenced my life on the internet. It was my first multiplayer experience before I got older and found Steam, it practically babysat me and kept me occupied for hours on end. Club Penguin in my eyes is a place to just have fun and chill out. I was able to see it grow and evolve, and it bring forth new members every year. I am happy that Club Penguin remains alive through community-led revivals such as Club Penguin Rewritten, and that I can run this blog for you all. Happy 15 years, Club Penguin! - Boopenguin.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Ice Climber Playthrough

Fighter: Ice Climbers, Popo & Nana.

Game: Ice Climber, Wii U virtual console (NES). First Released on January 15th 2007.

Fighter Bio.

Popo and Nana are climbers who over their careers have scaled many mountains. They each carry a mallet which they use as their weapon in order to fight off dangerous animals and break ice blocks from below so they can jump up to the next platform. Popo is the one in blue and Nana is the one in pink. During the events of Ice Climber, it seems a Condor has stolen their food so the two compete to climb the mountain, reclaim all the vegetables they can and if possible, jump and grab onto the condor who flies above the mountain’s summit.

Friends: The exact relationship between Popo and Nana is unknown, in Ice Climber they compete whilst climbing the mountains to see who can get the highest score, however they are well known in the Super Smash Bros series as a duo and as such seem to be closer than simply rivals. Whether they are siblings, lovers or just good friends has never been stated, and I believe neither has their age.

Enemies/Rivals: The main antagonist of the Ice Climbers is the Condor, who has stolen the food and scattered it over the summit of the mountains. The Ice Climbers don’t fight the Condor but simply jump and grab onto it by its feet in order to complete a stage. Of the enemies the pair fight, there are Topis, which in Japan appear as seals but elsewhere appear as little yeti sort of round creatures with beaks. These enemies will repair ice blocks the Ice Climbers have broken, which means they will have to be broken again in order to pass. When hit with a hammer Topis retreat back into the entrances in the mountain they originally came from. Nitpickers who are birds that swoop in are another type of enemy, these will fall out of the sky if hit with a hammer. Finally, if the Ice Climbers take too much time on a stage, a polar bear with sunglasses and pink shorts will walk into the stage, and when reaching the middle of it, stamp the ground causing the stage to scroll up one level. If the Ice Climbers are on the level that is scrolled past they will fall and fail the stage. The Polar bear similarly to the Topis will retreat when hit with a mallet. Finally, there is a somewhat harder to get version of the game, Vs. Ice Climber which had a few changes to it, and in this version later on the Condor is replaced with a giant Moth instead which similarly has to be grabbed at the top of the mountain. This version of the game also has bees as enemies.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: It would seem there are none. The Ice Climbers similar to other characters appear in things like Warioware Microgames and NES Remix, but have not had any direct crossovers or cameos in any other games.

Why this game?

Very simply, because it’s the only Ice Climbers game really. There is another version called Vs. Ice Climber but it’s not as easy to get ahold of and the differences are pretty negligable.

My past with this game.

So, I have no past with this game, similarly to most people, I only really first saw Popo and Nana in Super Smash Bros Melee, and I had no idea where they came from. Some time later, I either read in a magazine or saw on a website that went over various easter eggs and things in Smash Bros what the original game was and it did like most things in Melee make me curious about it. I remember when actually getting a chance to play it though, unlike a lot of cases, I pretty quickly lost interest in the whole thing. It was neat Super Smash Bros brought such unusual and obscure characters into the game, reinventing them really (the official art for the characters is practically non-existent) but that’s really all I have to say overall about them. Now however, there’s one final thing I have to say about the series, which is, if Nintendo wanted to take a pretty much blank slate IP and do something completely new with it, I actually feel of any of them, this game could be the most interesting one to see get a sequel. Taking the concept of climbing mountains and just going wild with it could really lead to something special in my mind, like when they took the concept of Captain Toad’s bonus stages and expanded it into a whole game, only this time there wouldn’t be a restriction of it being specifically a Mario game. The first mountain could be essentially a remake of the original game, with the Topis, Polar Bear, Nitpickers and Condor at the top, then the game could go wild, mountains going up into space, all sorts of physics and gravity bending structures, mountains with a variety of themes, and given just how expansive game worlds can be nowadays, the mountains could end up being absolutely huge locations you have to climb up. This isn’t really a thing I write to make up things I’d like to see, but really, there’s so little to talk about with Ice Climber overall, that the potential revisiting this concept might allow for is honestly all I can find interesting about it.

My Smash Playthrough.

So, this part will be somewhat short, although I wanted to have something memorable about this game so I did two ‘playthroughs’. My first playthrough years ago was on the Wii U Virtual Console, where I simply played through a few mountains. Being made a year before Super Mario Bros, this game is far more in the vein of classic Nintendo arcade games such as Donkey Kong and Mario Bros, so there’s no real end to the game, just trying to beat your high score. I could have tried to get the Condor on every single level, but the thing is, the game honestly isn’t that good, even compared to other old arcade style games that were on the NES like Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. The most irritating thing is building up momentum with the jumps, where unless you’re running before you jump, you’ll barely be able to move in any direction whilst in the air. You’re required to smash blocks from below to make a hole you can jump through, so having a small gap (that the Topis can fill in if you’re too slow) and trying to propel yourself perfectly through it can be really irritating. This is part of the challenge I realise, but I tend to dislike when part of the challenge in a game is getting around how awkwardly a character controls personally.

Many years later, I decided to test out the Switch’s NES online service, which allows you to play NES multiplayer games with friends online. Because of this and Nana only appearing in two player games, I got a friend of mine to help me play through some stages. The game wasn’t overly fun this time either, but at least having a friend join me made it a little more memorable. Still overall, this game isn’t one I’d really call a classic of Nintendo’s past, although I still like the Ice Climbers in Smash, so I’ll be thankful it could lead to that, but that’s really it when it comes to this game.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Ice Climbers in Smash.

Well, they have hammers. Honestly, the only thing I really did with my ‘playthrough’ was play the game in multiplayer in order to have Popo and Nana both in the game. If you were really dedicated, you might be able to set up the game so that one controller moves player 1 and 2 simultaneously to try and replicate the way they move in Smash, but even I think that might be going too far. Anyway, the only other thing really is grabbing the condor at the end of the level, seeing as it makes up part of the Ice Climber’s Final Smash and their entrance, but that’s really it.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to the Ice Climber Wiki. (Which yes does actually exist and had the info about the bees and moth in Vs)

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down and with the screenshot feature on Nintendo Switch.

[light-and-heartful]

Nick Arcade | The 90s Show That Put Kids Inside Video Games - Retro Gami...

I always had an idea for a reboot of my favorite Nickelodeon Game Show of all time, I call it “Nick Arcade Restarted”

the show would have Phil Moore returning to host (since he still has the energy and spunk to do it), Mikey and the Video Zone would have a more 16-bit look to it (while still working the same way and still having the enemy animations for Mikey), and the style of the set would kind of be the style of an old school retro arcade, with all neon and brick walls while still having the colors of the original 1992 show, and the music would consist of retro techno beat, think something out of "The Splat" on TeenNick

the game would play the same way as before (with Mikey, Video Challenges, Puzzles, and of coarse the Video Zone, which would all work the same) just with a few added stuff to it to make it more interesting:

including the face-off game that is played in the beginning of each round won't be games the studio made up, it would be multiplayer modes actual video games from the NES, Super NES, Genesis, Sega Saturn, Playstation, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Playstation 2, & Wii (I'm going with these systems because A: It fits the retro feel & B: they're more simple to play and manage) and they can include fighting or racing eachother to playing a co-op game to get the higher score in a time limit

and there would be more spaces

Commercial Rewind: where they play an actual old commercial from the 80s, 90s, & 2000s and the contestants would have to answer a question related to that, whenever it’s something on the commercial or what the commercial is supposed to represent

Video Head-to-Head multiplayer gameplay: where it's works just like the Face-Off where two players play against eachother in a video game where it’d have the team who's currently controlling Mikey choose one of the opponent’s team members to play against him in a video game that the player from the team who was in control of Mikey chooses, and that chosen player from the opponent’s team will also secretly draw a number to bet how many points the player would win after the Head-to-Head is over  

more Video Challenges: to test a player's gaming skill, including the new Virtual Reality Video Challenges, that would have the player play quick VR games with the Oculus Rift (to show off the new technology) in order to win points

and a new Power-Up Square: where there's one per board, & when Mikey lands on it, it starts a roulette wheel, that the team controlling Mikey would have to stop it by pressing the button on their joystick, and depending on what it lands on, something will happen [with the roulette wheel would consist of a 10 light up spaces with some items repeating on multiple in each of them (including dud's where nothing happens and they just move on with the game)],

and these would be the power-ups:

Roller Copter: an inspector gadget-esc helicopter hat with a roulette wheel on the front of it, that the team controlling Mikey would press the joystick button to make it stop on a number between 1 through 5, and depending on what number the roulette lands on, the Copter will lift Mikey up and automatically move him that number of spaces in random directions (however, the space wouldn't be triggered, he'd just get placed there)

Defender Blaster: a raygun that can act as a one-time safeguard for the team controlling Mikey so the next time when the team that's currently controlling Mikey lands on an enemy space, it’ll show an animation of Mikey zapping the enemy with the baster and then cut to a close up of Mikey's face blowing to the blaster smiling as the enemy sits there defeated and control of Mikey doesn't move to the other team

Spring Shoes: shoes with springs on them forces Mikey to automatically jump to another open space that hasn't been turned into a bomb yet, and that's determined by the team controlling Mikey pressing their joystick button at the right time as the marker moves to random spaces very fast (but again, the space wouldn't be triggered, he'd just get placed there)

Auto Bomb: a bomb that automatically triggers a Time Bomb puzzle for the team controlling Mikey

Slot Tokens: 3 golden tokens that automatically turns the screen into a slot machine, and the team controlling Mikey would get to roll said slot machine 3 times (by stopping the slots by pressing the Joystick button for each row) in order to get certain matching pairs to try to gain bonus points to their score

Pocketwatch Portal: an old fashioned pocketwatch that sucks Mikey right back to the starting square of board and refreshes the squares by turning all of the Time Bomb squares back into their original squares before they got landed on, they'd still be covered up, but still be in the same place they were

also, the video zone would have two new Wizards, a Blue Atlantian Water Knight named "Marineor" & a Yellow Steampunk Wind Harpie named "Starknie" also each different wizard would have different hazards in their Wizard Level (while still having creatures and throwing energy blasts) to zap their energy (and by the way, all of the Video Zone levels would have a Floating Turning Heart for restoring energy, a Floating Spinning Hourglass for stopping time, and a Floating Spinning Stick of Dynamite to get rid of all the enemies, to make it easier) with:

Scorcha's level having flame jets popping out of the floor randomly (and you’d be able to tell when the fire is about to fire when a little fire is lit for like three seconds that doesn't do any damage, but then it has a flame jet go on for five seconds)

Mongo's level having Earthquakes that come as little waves of earth from the ladder to the edge of the screen on each of the four walkways that the players has to jump over

Merlock's level having lighting clouds from the top of the screen moving around side to side, stopping for 5 seconds to charge, then rain down lighting in a straight line 8 seconds

Marineor's level having sudden tidal waves that every 8 seconds it would have an orange Triangular Traffic-esc sign with a black explanation point on it show up blinking on top of the screen for 5 seconds in one of 5 parts of the screen each time, (the far left of the screen, the far right of the screen, the middle of the screen where the latter is, an area that's in between the far left of the screen & the middle of the screen, and an area that's in between the middle of the screen & the far right of the screen), and after that five seconds, a huge wave of water will come up and splashes the bottom floor on that part of the screen

Starknie's level having large cyclones that would pop up at the the end of one side of screen on one of the levels on one of the two sides, and it’ll slowly go towards the center ladder before it evaporates and after it's gone evaporates for 8 seconds and a new one will appear on one of the four walkways  

& lastly, before the wizard level, the players would choose the difficulty of the video zone they are about to face, and depending on what difficulty the players choose, they get certain prizes from completing the video zone in that difficulty (and the consolation prizes would still be some new shoes & ether a large amount of Quik Milk Mix or NERDS Candy). and this would be the prize list:

Easy (with it being basic your basic Video Zone run)

For beating the first level: a collection of classic Nintendo Power and/or GamePro Magazines and/or player's guides*

for beating the second level: ether a Ping-Pong Table that comes with automatic ball receiving robot net, a folding basketball hoop, or a state-of-the-art Karaoke Machine

for beating the Wizard Level: a special Nick Arcade style Dave-and-Busters or Chuck-E-Cheese game card that has 3,000 game credits on it when you win it

Medium (the same as the easy, but with more enemies floating around)

for beating the first level: a classic Video Game Console with multiple controllers (and a multiplayer adapter if the system requires one to play with more than two players) and an assortment of hit games from the system*

for beating the second level: a Big Parasonic Old Fashioned TV that has a Built-in DVD & VHS Player, a Stereo Sound System, and an assortment of various DVD's & Videotapes of Famous Films*

for the beating the Wizard Level: a paid vacation trip to a big major hotel, complete with hotel commination's, airline travel, & rent-a-car

Hard (the same as medium, just with the enemies moving faster in the first two levels, and the Wizard Level having twice as many hazards at once)

for beating the first level: ether a New Laptop computer complete with a headset, PC game controller, or an Oculus Rift VR Headset System

for defeating the second level: a specially made game room consisting of two of these 4 things (a pool table, an air hockey table, a stick hockey table, or a foosball table), and three Arcade1Up Cabinets of the team’s choice

for a defeating the Wizard Level: a trip for four on a long paid expensed cruise ship getaway

* means that the announcer will tell how much the prize is worth in-case the team wants to sell it online

do you think that would be a good idea?

[casaquecasinos299]

Which power supply for gaming pc

Unforgettable Moments In Gaming Aspect Three

It really is time to recognize the very best gaming blogs of the year. EDIT:I applied to watch the Feedback video more than at G4 just about every week, but it's gone down hill the last couple of instances I watched it and now that Adam Sessler isn't on it and they have that girl from IGN that absolutely everyone hates in every single episode I just can't be bothered to watch it any more. Nonetheless worth going back and watching some of the older ones though. Klepic applied to be on that show and back then in the early days was when it was the very best. Back when they really talked about gaming news with some semblance of intellect alternatively of just gushing about what ever game they are told is cool this week.

You are quietly accepting and at peace with your decision to come to be a board gamer for life. Your family knows you enjoy board games and almost certainly play them with you. Your pals know really like board games, and you have terrific gaming groups. You have committed to assigning part of your property to be a board gaming area. For the initially time, you have began to eliminate games from your collection. Perhaps you have sold the games, or you simply do not have space to maintain virtually all of them. Mentally you accept that you never need to have to play just about every game, and you've in all probability narrowed down a handful of games that you want to play routinely.

I got into action games late but when I did it entirely changed how I viewed gaming forever. The game which brought me round was Viewtiful Joe. Here was a game with a deep and open-ended combat technique which seemed to be built as a implies for the player to express creativity. This program is then pitted against opponents and obstacles which were developed from the ground up to interact meaningfully with the core technique. The course was fixed, but the strategy for dealing with that course was fully down to the ingenuity, skill and inspiration of the player. You play like you have a enormous audience watching and the game frequently entices you to enhance the concentrate is not just on finding the player from A to B, the concentrate is on getting the player to play Viewtifully”.

No matter whether you want to create a tiny-scale group web page and spread info about your players or manage huge-scale organizations like Group liquid or Virtus Pro with different gaming divisions, PixieHuge is best for you. PixieHuge delivers you with sections with designated purposes such as player profiles,, sponsor promotions, different game departments, match history and achievements list.

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What You Should Have Asked Your Teachers On READY

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Future Star Fox Game Predictions

I could probably write an essay about what I’d like to see in a SF game but I ain’t got time for that, so here’s some predictions for what we might see because I like predictions/speculation.  A lot of this is built off of what we’ve already gotten and what feels like the natural progression from where we are at.  All of this is, of course, assuming Star Fox Grand Prix isn’t happening (I’m... very torn on how I feel about everything to do with that but that’s for another day):

I’m going to start this off with what feels semi obvious: Star Fox 2 will have its influence in this game. I definitely do not think it’s coincidence that they happened to release Star Fox 2 when they did.  Having recently replayed every route of the original Star Fox for the SNES, it’s become pretty obvious that while a lot of the game was a homage to Star Fox 64, arguably more of it was a homage to the original Star Fox.  I actually think that the reason Star Fox 2 came out is because they plan on making a game that would similarly follow Star Fox Zero in a way that Star Fox 2 was to follow the original Star Fox.  The only other reason I could see them releasing SF2 was to be like “Oh hey, this is where the Walker is from!” but... it feels a bit redundant because Zero had already been out for awhile.  

The game will have Miyu and Fay.  They’re fan favorites and with Star Fox 2 being formally released, I think this is just about as good of a time as any to reintroduce them to the modern games.

The Walker will stay in the game.  It would be kind of weird if it didn’t, tbh, as the function is built into the Arwings.

There will be different types of Arwings a la Command/Star Fox 2 style.  This seems to be the direction a lot of the older developers wanted to take with the series and I think it’s something that will come back because the concept is pretty neat and it adds gameplay diversity.  I don’t think these styles of Arwing will necessarily be tied to an individual character but you will have character stats and vehicle stats that interact together to make a variety of gameplay styles that can appeal to a broad spectrum of people.

Dash Bowman and/or Andross will be the main villain.  Many people will be annoyed but it’ll happen but will feature a different enough gameplay so there will be less complaining than when Zero got announced.  The primary scenario will be Venom vs Corneria.  Dash Bowman appeared in SSBU as a spirit that could be collected in World of Light-- which was very, very odd given that even Bill and Katt were not spirits and they’re much more well-known.  I think it was a subtle hint that they planned on using that character in the future.  Granted, in Star Fox Zero, you face off against a mechanized version of Andross and although the final chase in the tunnel afterwards is very similar to Star Fox 64′s final dash through the tunnel, I kind of question if Andross really died because it... didn’t really seem like it was actually Andross (my opinion, of course, I could be mistaken) that was chasing him so much as just a robot.  I think it’s possible we’ll see Andross again in this installation or possibly a vengeful Dash Bowman, since it feels somewhat likely that Nintendo was going to use him as a way to put the 64 timeline back on the course that they wanted, with Corneria fighting Venom.

Katt and Bill will be present.  They will function similar to how they did before but will be unlockable pilots in multiplayer.

Multiplayer will be a thing.  It will be similar to Assault’s with online functionality.  It will be fairly well-liked by fans but probably won’t have many resources built into it. (I’m not saying I want this, this is my predictions, remember.)

There will be a mix of corridor levels and all-ranged mode levels, mixed in with some vehicle hopping.  You will be able to choose various vehicles to fly on missions.  Sometimes you will have to progress through the main campaign and then go back after unlocking new vehicles.  Playing in different vehicles will award different types of medals and getting all the medals will unlock cosmetic stuff like sunglasses for Fox.  People will compare the game to a blend of Assault and SF64.  

Alternative to the one above: The gameplay will function very similarly to Star Fox 2. The only reason I’m thinking it might not is because of Starlink being so similar to that.  I think Nintendo would take one look at that and decide against it to avoid feeling repetitive.

There will be different characters to play as.  Another feature coming in from Star Fox 2 and Command.  You will have a select group of characters to pick from, with certain ones being available for certain missions (Fox will be playable at all times because he’s main character).  Choosing whatever character will give you dialogue alterations and different banter.

The game will feature the actual destruction of Andross and his Empire as well as Andrew and Pigma being booted from the Star Wolf team.  People really love to hate these two (for some reason, I don’t get it) and Nintendo is notorious for doing obvious bad things to their “obviously bad guy characters” so I see that happening probably at the end as some comic relief.  I actually think that they’ll bring Panther back at some point, but not in this game. This will set up for a similar scenario as Assault where Wolf and Leon are the only two remaining original members.  Panther will be brought back later on.  Andrew will probably be reduced back to meme status and made into a secondary villain, similar to Pigma.  I will be sad at the wasted character potential but will be happy because at least we got a new Star Fox game.  And I will probably make posts about it.

The game will have throwbacks galore, which will annoy some people and make others happy.  Said throwbacks will be mostly returning enemies.  I feel like Goras has a pretty high chance of coming back-- just a gut feeling.  I was pretty surprised when it didn’t make it into Zero and we got the Dune reference instead.

Krystal... will at least be referenced, if not make a minor appearance.  I’m actually kind of iffy on this and could see it going either way.  I could see her showing up as an easter egg or even as a side character for a level, just to get fans hyped because it’s pretty obvious she’s well known and well loved (even though she has all those haters, she has oodles and oodles of fans too).  I could also see them waiting to reintroduce her until later but I kind of question that at this point since it’s been ages since she’s been in an actual game (and she’s popular) and they don’t seem like they’re in a rush to make SF games.  

The game will take place fairly immediately after Star Fox Zero, with a gap to fill in where Starlink could’ve possibly happened.  I’m really torn if Nintendo will acknowledge Starlink as canon or not.  I’m leaning towards the idea that they will just “no comment” when asked about it and just wave it off as “if you want it to be, sure”.  There will then be another war about what even is canon anymore.  Nintendo will shrug and take our money because we’ll all buy the new SF game anyways.

We will see the standard planets along with some “new” planets.  I definitely see Corneria, Venom, Fichinia, Titania, and Fortuna making a return but I could also see them adding back in some SF64 planets like Aquas and Katina.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they threw in Eladard or even Papetoon, too, just to add a new location.  Sector X, Y, or Z also mysteriously comes back and we never talk about the random nebulae from Zero again and people get confused but it’s okay because what even is consistency lmao

Someone will inevitably change eye color again and my money is on Wolf.

That’s about all I have for predictions.  I got inspired to do this after listening to a few Youtubers try to predict Nintendo’s 2020 announcements.  I thought maybe a SF prediction list would be kind of fun?  If you have any predictions/theories, don’t hesitate to share!  I love hearing stuff like this.