#so having a remake in Gen 5 when the system was nearing its end seems unnecessary

[quibbs126]

You know honestly, I think after Gen 5 remakes at the latest, we really don’t need any more Pokémon remakes for a while

Gen 2 I think deserves a remake since that’s currently the region that we haven’t returned to for the longest time, being around 14/15 years now since its release. It may be considered still good, but it came out in Gen 4, and we’re moving to Gen 10 now, so an update makes sense for how long it’s been

And while I don’t entirely think Gen 5 needs an update, it was on the DS like Gen 4, which I think is considered a relatively old system now, at least in terms of its lifespan in the market. You’re only really going to find DS games at a retro store now, at least in my experience. Also, Gen 2 and 5 are currently the only ones to not incorporate the final typing, Fairy, and are the only ones to not be in 3D, so remaking them makes sense to add in those

But after that, I really don’t know

I mean I guess you could say by that point, Gen 6 at least could use a remake with it being the first 3D mainline game and they hadn’t fleshed out everything by that point. And the 3DS might also be considered old, but even if you stretch it to Gen 7 under that logic, I don’t think you can stretch it any farther than that. Considering by that point all the regions will be on the Switch or Switch 2

And even then, Gen 7 I think still holds up pretty fine, it’s gonna be a weak argument to try and remake it. And Gen 6 still holds up too. And again, the 3DS isn’t considered SUPER old, at least not to the point where remakes are super necessary, at least not right now. Ports/remasters from 3DS games are what people generally want, not full on remakes

As I recall, the original games were remade simply because the GameBoy couldn’t link with the GBA and they wanted to have older Pokémon still accessible so you could “catch ‘em all”. But as time goes on, the remakes become less and less necessary

I may have been a bit confusing in my wording, but I think Johto/Gen 2 is worthy of another remake, Unova/Gen 5 isn’t as necessary but they’re the last DS games and need the final typing added, so I can accept it, Gen 6 is stretching but maybe, but Gen 7 onwards is really not super necessary

[fuse2dx]

December ‘20

Bugsnax

Bugsnax is an odd little title, landing somewhere between Pokémon Snap and Ape Escape. There’s a bit less of a frantic pace though, instead telling a tale of a remote island where the titular part-animal, part-snack race roam about, with a series of characters each having their own relationship to them that... typically involves eating them. The disappearance of one key villager has been the catalyst to everything heading into a state of confusion though, and as the new person in town, it becomes your job to pull everything back together, all while trying to piece together a better understanding of just what Bugsnax are in the first place.

The game’s main cast are loud, colourful, and full of personality, with some decent queer representation going on too. It’s regularly quite charming, but the story runs parallel to a pretty simple gameplay loop of going out to a new area, meeting an estranged villager, getting a new tool that allows you to catch some new ‘snax in service of a given task for said villager, that inevitably fuels their return to the village. While catching a good chunk of the 100-strong Bugsnax portfolio follows a fairly repeatable mould of trap-setting and capture, some require some slightly more creative thinking, and final smattering lean more on good fortune as you try and juggle a few different elements in a way that sets up the perfect snaring. 

I’ve seen some talk of folks who found the last sections of the game a little out of character, but having gone through all of the side missions before heading for the finish line, nothing came as too much of a surprise for myself. As a PS5 launch game it might lack the flair and experimentation that one might expect, but in better handling one’s expectations and seeing ‘just’ a game with extraordinary timing, it’s a pleasant and sufficiently entertaining romp - just nothing particularly out of the ordinary.   

Demon’s Souls

I was in two minds coming into this. I’ve played the opening few hours of Demon’s Souls about 5 times now, with each attempt before this one stalling at different points for a variety of petty and frustrating reasons. So this, a fresh chance to try again, newly polished and smoothed out, with active servers, and a revitalised community? Excellent! Yet on the other hand, how much of the magic is Bluepoint likely to have been able to recreate? Even as a shot-for-shot remake, what if they had diluted the experience? 

While I can’t speak with any particular authority here, very little seems to have changed outside of the visual overhaul. Some areas might be a bit easier to navigate owing to their new lick of paint, but enemies still pose the same threat, and everything is still where it should be, as are the obtuse, woefully under-discussed karmic swings that underpin its tendency system. Let’s not pull punches; it’s most notably a mean platform to build a game upon that makes suffering players suffer more, and is likely not one that you’ll even be aware of it before near irreversible damage is already done. From have undoubtably done similar concepts much better since, and while I might bemoan it, there’s also something to be said for allowing it to still exist just as it did at the series’ outset. It’s likely a wise choice on Bluepoint’s part to have left it untouched, albeit a slightly cruel one.

While the lack of a single, interconnected world was not yet on the cards for this particular Souls outing, there’s still plenty of great level design, with each of the game’s archstones providing a theme that’s adhered to brilliantly. A few exceptions aside, boss battles are typically less about flexing combat chops too, proving more of a challenge in solving how to approach them in the first place. In doing so, it creates some truly memorable moments alongside those that are purely frantic and rewarding thereafter. The same can be said for the game at large too; while its punishment of new players might be its most infamous quality, it does do a remarkable job in having you learn its every inch, and how best to deal with everything it cares to throw at you. While the chase of 1:1 replication might mean some of its jankiness remains, its visual overhaul and silky smooth frame rate certainly do a good job in helping you overlook it all and in embracing the still best-in-class world building. One of the years’ best, and by far the most compelling reason to date for next-gen ownership. 

Grindstone

Grindstone was front and centre right as the doors opened on Apple Arcade, and it’s a pretty easy to see why it’d be pegged for such honours. It’s bright, colourful, charming, and very easy to pick up. Some of Capy’s other noteworthy titles might fall more into the realm of the arthouse, but this is them at full power, exhibiting that ultimate strength of knowing just how to capture any given audience. Most of the game is spent planning out your turn, and it looks great even in this calm stillness - but as you unleash the mighty Jorj on each of his rampages, there is a satisfying spring into action that gives the same kind of satisfactory twang you might get from an elastic band, or a coiled slinky about to bound down a flight of stairs.

Within a few short stages almost all of the base mechanics are laid bare, with each turn asking you to plot a course through colour-matched enemies, and landing you far enough away from any enraged enemies that’d seek to do you harm. Chain for long enough and you’ll spawn a grindstone that’ll let you switch colours mid-combo, and building up enough hits can then allow you to expend that strength on monsters with higher health pools. The range of enemy types grows as you progress, as does the array of new tools you can build that allow you new ways of dealing with them all, but ultimately the balance that needs addressing is knowing just when to walk away. There’s typically three goals to each level - opening the exit being just the first of these - and while in some cases you might have a handle on things when the exit does open up, it’s often not the case, and hanging around too long carries the risk of losing all of your progress on the stage if you lose a clear path to your escape.

Some of its later mechanics and the level arrangements can be quite taxing, and while never completely unfair, it can definitely... grind... on your patience. For something that could easily be taken as a casual little puzzle game, it’s quite lengthy too - the path unbroken leads you through a whopping 180 stages, but without extensive draining of resources from each of these, you’ll likely need to try some of the side dungeons to help make your way to the end too. Very likely more than your bargained for then, and yet still plenty compelling to boot.

Necrobarista

Some neatly constructed character models and a snappy trailer might attempt to tell you otherwise, but let us be clear with one another that Necrobarista is very much a visual novel. A shock to the system this may be, but anyone reading this likely knows by now this is far from a bad thing around these parts, so let us look a little closer.

It’s quite a melancholic thing, set in a less than conventional, somewhat Purgatorial coffee shop, where the newly departed stop in for a brief spell and a brew before taking the next step into the great unknown. While there’s a setup here for lots of stories to be told, it really draws in on a small cast of characters who look after the shop, and how a few key visitors change the world built up around them. Between each of the game’s chapters there’s the opportunity to unlock new side stories dependent on which of the phrases you chose to identify with from the chapter just gone, and although short, these do some good work fleshing out some characters and breaking up the main tale. As the title would suggest, the particulars of coffee do come up as a point of conversation, but there’s no drink-making side shows here - just a lot of talking, scheming about how to cheat death, and the more chin-scratching topic of a more accepting approach to this great inevitability.

It’s fairly short - comfortably under 10 hours - but crucially gets plenty of character development from each of its cast given the tight focus. Rather than the still portraits that you might come to expect of the genre, characters are given a real depth with 3D models that convey just as much as their words, which also helps this effort. Perhaps most crucially, and whether it’s in spite of all of the death, or instead because of it, there’s plenty of quite thoughtful and heartfelt sentiment hidden inside it. Comes recommended.

Tangle Tower

I picked this up for Switch based on a recommendation, not knowing that I’d unknowingly be closing out an Apple Arcade hat trick for the month. So yes, it’s another more story-driven game, not too heavy on the input requirements, but instead good for getting you thinking.

It’s immediately very easy on the eye, with each and every character drawn in large format and animated with buckets of quirk and charm that runneth over. Every single one is brilliantly voiced too, with varying degrees of charisma, bluster, dry wit, and numerous other characteristics that shine through in brilliant harmony with the art. It’s a murder mystery, see, and while you’re putting together what everyone says has happened, looking out for who’s fancying who and the like, you’re also doing so with the critical expectation that at least one person is likely spinning you some tall tales. Luckily you’ll find clues that help you get closer to the truth and help deconstruct some of these falsehoods, whether they’re in plain sight or hidden behind one of many puzzles. These are exemplary in just how well-pitched they come, each being self-contained and just tricky enough to have you pause to really think about them, but without ever being too irksome or troubling to stop you enjoying yourself. Once you do start to get to the point of unmasking some secrets, there’s also a neat little interface the game rolls out for you to drop in and then verify these revelations; pairing numerous characters, items and statements to help demonstrate to it that you’re keeping up with it all, and things are clear enough to move on. There’s subtle little prods in the right direction just when they seem to be needed, further cementing the game’s solid grasp of when it’s best to say something, and when it can let you just stumble about and get on with it.

It’s a fantastic little game. I lost a day or so to this, and had a wonderful time doing so. I hope that it’s not too far away that I forget all of the details, so that I might do it all over again.

[metalgearkong]

Final Fantasy VII Remake - Review (PS4)

4/30/20

Developed by Square-Enix, released April 2020

Final Fantasy VII was the very first 3D polygonal entry in the Final Fantasy series released back in 1997. To this day, Final Fantasy VII is arguably the most influential and beloved JRPG of all time. When I was growing up I wasn’t a big fan of JRPGs yet. However my best friend(s)s for many year(s) were, and I experienced a lot of Final Fantasy (and other JRPGs) via osmosis. I played and completed the original Final Fantasy VII about 5 years ago, finally seeing what all the hype was about. The Final Fantasy VII remake was one of those highly anticipated titles that we thought would be a miracle if it saw the light of day, let alone being as good as it turned out. Finally, 5 years after the world got a taste of the teaser trailer we finally have the “final” product.

The reason I say “final” is because this is only part 1 of what I’m guessing will be 3 parts, extending and fleshing out everything about the original game in full current-gen presentation. Part 1 only covers the events of Midgar, about 5-6 hours of the original game (out of at least 40) and I finished the remake at about 34 hours. The developers at Square-Enix did a fantastic job making this remake feel like it still had a beginning, middle, and end, despite it covering such little territory from the original. Almost everything that extends the time, including dungeons, character development, side quests, and extra bosses was mostly executed very well.  Only a handful of times did I feel like some of the mini-games and side quests were annoying or a waste of time (don’t even get me started on the giant robotic hand crane puzzle). 

I had a tumultuous relationship with this remake to say the least, and my largest contention with the remake is the combat. I seem to be almost alone on this opinion, but hear me out. The combat could best be compared to Kingdom Hearts, only here, you can switch to different party members, controlling them directly. Also when using the in-game mini menu during a fight, the game will pause the combat allowing you to decide what to do with barely any frames passing by. Despite this remake’s tactical nature, whenever I had to fight more than 3 or so enemies at a time, battles would often turn into a frustrating muddle of a brawl. For example, locking-on has to be done manually, and then done manually again once that enemy is destroyed. Sometimes opponents can remove the lock-on by going invisible, digging below the ground, etc, and having to find a new enemy and manually lock-on again was annoying. 

Tips I Wish I Knew...

Use Cloud’s “Punisher” mode whenever facing opponents with physical close-range attacks and counter often

Customize shortcuts for each party member in the Main Menu and make item usage, spell usage, and special ability usage uniform between all characters

Immediately click the right stick to lock-on to ANY enemy so at least you can start working on them

Take control of a healing or long-distance ally when facing multiple or difficult foes in order to see the battlefield better

Only attack a bit at a time so you have the best chance to stop, dodge, or block if an enemy begins their attack

Use the Multiply Materia (I forgot what it’s called) on a supportive spell such as shields or healing

The camera added to the frustration as well. Instead of phasing through physical objects allowing you to fully see the battle, the camera gets caught up on walls and objects. This leads the camera to “zooming in” and me losing sight of my character and the enemies. Any fight in an arena smaller than a gymnasium has this problem. By far the largest frustration I had with the combat was the cheapness of it. For example, if you begin a combo of normal attacks, there’s no way to interrupt your own animations in order to do something different, such as blocking or dodging. It seemed like the enemies were much quicker at attacking, and would smack you with a high damage attack with no way to avoid it. The game strives for a semi-hack ‘n' slash genre of combat, but the mechanics are far and away not responsive enough for the player to actually react to what they need to react to.

Casting a spell, using an item, or executing a special ability have long durations as well, meaning you can easily be cancelled by an enemy attack or at the very least take damage while an animation is playing out. I get that this is a strategic live-combat JRPG, but it lead me to so much frustration and rage I had to move the difficulty down to Easy because Normal just seemed to cheap. It’s a shame because the entire rest of the game is so damned good, I don’t know how the ball was dropped so hard on the combat system. Again, this seems to be my opinion alone because I haven’t heard this criticism anywhere else, which adds to the feeling of frustration for me because it makes me feel “not good enough” despite being a lifelong and daily gamer. 

Not enough can be said about the character development and everything having to do with the narrative. Cloud, Tifa, and Barret have been iconic leads for over two decades, but compared to the ramke, they may as well have been cardboard cutouts. Every single cinematic is filled with amazing animation and cinematography, the likes I never expected to see. Characters look fantastic, sure, but the way they work off each other’s personalities and motives breathes new life into what was already considered a terrific game in terms of story. I like how Tifa has her reasons to hate Shinra, but is the most apprehensive about Avalanche’s terrorist actions. Barret comes off as a big meat head, but over time you see that he believes in every word he says. The music is also astounding as we not only hear familiar tracks, but many of the songs get several different remixes. Aerith’s theme in particular gets the most use and its variations make the biggest impacts, transforming what is normally background music into well defined leitmotifs used at all the right moments during the story.

Final Fantasy VII remake (part 1) is a dazzling, emotional, hugely impressive product. This is the the remake fans have only been dreaming about for many many years and I think it mostly pays off well. Virtually every aspect of this adaptation, including characters, music, locations, tone, enemies, and certain mechanics have been painstakingly recreated and reinvigorated to a successful degree that makes it all worth the wait. However, I am not a fan of the combat system and its such a strange thing to get wrong compared to how much of the game is so masterfully created. The additions to the story and lore (few that there are) also lead to unnecessary sections of the game, especially near the end, and has rightfully gotten a mixed reaction from fans of the original. I am desperately curious how the developers will sparse out the rest of the story in these remakes, beings there’s so much left to see and tell, but hope the combat system receives some polish and alterations before the end.

7/10

[daleisgreat]

Dale’s Top 31 Gaming Experiences of 2020

Welcome to the 2021 installment for my ranking top gaming moments and experiences of the previous year, regardless of what year the game was released in! Besides ranking my the games themselves, This encompasses all videogame-adjacent experiences aside such as movies, board games, accessories and hardware related items and possibly more! This will be a lengthy read so I suggest right now inputting ‘Ctrl + D’ to bookmark this page, and/or make use of a handy ‘read later’ app like Pocket. This year’s recommended background reading music is a soundtrack I recently got clued into from the MojoMenace community in the form of the score for Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst you can check out by click or pressing here. If you somehow manage to want more of these behemoth reads, than I will point you to my previous year-end recaps here: 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016 To assist with this read, here are some in-article page anchors to instantly jump around to bookmarks on the rankings! CHAPTERS Part 1 – Rankings 31 through 25 Part 2 – Rankings 24 through 18 Part 3 – Rankings 17 through 12 Part 4 – Rankings 11 through 7 Part 5 – Rankings 6 through 4 Part 6 – Rankings 3 through 1 PART 1 – Rankings 31 through 25 31) The Worst Wrestling Game of all Time! For a project I will detail later on I had to relive the abyss of wrestling games that is WCW Nitro on the N64. It is a port of the PSone version, and it was as awful as I remembered first experiencing it two decades prior. If you want to experience broken controls, insufferable slowdown, and a flatout painful experience of a game, then Nitro is where it is at. Instead of playing the games, I will instead opt to link you to this clip of the PSone version because it has these so-bad-it’s-good FMVs of the wrestlers trash talking on the character select screen.

30) The Remake Frothingly Demanded for Years….Delivered!

I was ecstatic to see the Final Fantasy VII fanbase finally get the modern-gen remake they have been craving for years. I only consider myself a mild fan because I started that game several times, and only progressed shortly past Midgar in my farthest attempt. Through Midgar is what the Remake covers though, and going by all the coverage I have seen, it looks like Square shocked the doubters and nailed it by expanding on that section of the original game with a ton of new content and storylines to flesh out that iconic setting and cast. I played the demo and loved the stunningly overhauled visuals and combat. One day I will play the full game, but for the time being I will be sufficed with my former podcast co-hosts’ cutouts of the cinematics for most of the game. 29) FMV-Camp Returns! A couple years back on a Game Informer stream they jokingly started playing a modern day Sega CD FMV-style choose your own adventure game, Late Shift. It was a throwback to those camply FMV games that dominated the SegaCD. However, this one actually had solid production values and all around acting for an indie release, and the Game Informer crew slowly got into it as it went along. Seeing them navigate through the first chunk of the game inspired me purchase it, and I finally got around to throwing it in this year and is it a breezy game to get through in under three hours. The storyline branches off in all kinds of directions based on your choices, so I played through it twice and got pretty different endings both times in this game that sees an overnight car park clerk getting forced into a heist job against his own will. The developers at Wales Interactive went on to make a couple more games in this FMV style like The Complex, The Shapeshifting Detective and The Bunker, and I feel they are on the right path with how much I got into Late Shift so I wound up putting all three of those other games on my radar!

28) Hey, Watch me Ollie!

The emotional nostalgia burst that poured down upon me within minutes of firing up Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 was insane. Almost instantly within loading up my first two minute run I could tell the game just felt like how I remembered the awesome PSone game I played to death. Having almost all the memorable songs from the soundtracks of the first two games also incredibly helps. I believe it was intentional on the developers to have the very first song to boot up when playing being “Superman.” This near perfect HD remake/update of the first two games erases the poor attempt done on the 360 and PS3 several years prior. This would have ranked much higher if I had a chance to put more time into this. 27) Unexpected Carnage Following up on last year’s entry where I made the retro purchase of the Jaguar, I had one more session with Atari’s “64-bit” feline with my friend Derek. One Jaguar game I was eager to get some two-player co-op in was with its version of Total Carnage. It was the “bigger and better” sequel to Smash TV, another arcade classic I cherished. Never playing the sequel though I was eager to start it up with Derek, but only upon a few minutes in we realized this was a grave mistake due to the Jaguar port being rough around the edges and only limited continues allowed which resulted in us making very little progress. Before Derek left I remembered I owned Midway Arcade Treasures on the 360, which had Total Carnage in its line-up. We popped that in, and mercifully that fun-yet-brutal version of the game allowed infinite continues and we absolutely capitalized on that option and proceeded to knock out a huge chunk of the game. It mixes up the room-style gameplay of Smash TV and opens it up into levels that scroll up like Ikari Warriors and Mercs, but with that same style of over-the-top action. 26) Unleashing Destruction in the Streets and Rings

At the beginning of the year longtime friend Steve and I had a fun night planned catching a minor league hockey game an hour out of town, but of course a blizzard spoiled that for us by closing the highways. Luckily we had a back-up plan of meeting up for a game night that included marching through the entire tag team championship mode of WWF WrestleFest and all of the arcade version of Final Fight. Steve also had the arcade follow-up to Saturday Night Slam Masters that never received a home release in North America in Ring of Destruction that we tore each other apart in. Finally, I demonstrated FirePro Wrestling World to Steve, and we busted out our vintage favorite football game, ESPN NFL 2K5. It was a hell of a game night, and thank goodness for back-up plans! 25) And the Keighley goes to….

The last few years I have been looking forward more and more to the end-of-the-year videogame award show Geoff Keighley puts on. His annual award showcase keeps improving each year, and has a far lower amount of compromises that the decade’s worth of VGAs on Spike had to endure. Each year Geoff keeps getting closer to that sweet balance of acceptance award speeches, game trailers/reviews and special live performances. He stepped up bigtime this year for not having a crowd in attendance, and I was dreading throughout the show for any one of this virtual award nominees to have an audio or video snafu at any moment, but luckily everything worked out. There were some impressive game reveals too with an intriguing teaser for a new Mass Effect game focusing on the original trilogy characters stealing the show. I have seen a notable contingent criticize Geoff for lack of focus on awards, but it seems almost right where it should be. He tried going all awards the first year he had control, but it was overkill and an insanely long show. Sure, there are spots that can use some tweaking, but for the most part The Game Awards I feel are a worthy end-of-year award show for the industry I have been enjoying for the past several years now. PART 2 – Rankings 24 through 18 24) Online Gaming Therapy The pandemic undeniably made 2020 a rut of a year for everyone. I miss meeting up indoors and hanging out with friends and family as much as the next person. I was able to do some alternate social distancing outdoor meet-ups with friends and family during the summer and fall, but North Dakota’s winter put a halt to that. What has significantly helped has been doing more online gaming than I usually do this year in general. I will cite a few more examples as you read on below, but I want to highlight this so I can be thankful to have a perfectly viable way to still game with friends and family during the pandemic. I have played a lot of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! online with my dad and brother this year. I love my game show videogame adaptations, but one quirk I want to point out in the Xbox One version of Jeopardy is that it does not have the option to traditionally input responses, and instead offers three multiple choice responses instead. I would call blasphemy on this, but there has been so many releases of Jeopardy! over the years that it was actually kind of a neat alternative way to play the classic game show……this time! 23) Love for Videogame Coffee Table Books This past year has seen a surge in videogame hardcover tomes that have been an indulgence of mine the past few years. It started with Pat Contri’s “Ultimate Nintendo” line dedicated to reviewing all the games on the NES & SNES. I have Kickstarted two similar anthology books this past year focused on the Dreamcast and Vita. The Dreamcast book is still in production, but I already received the Vita book in the mail, and a quick flip through of it already indicates it is an exhaustive look at the Vita’s library.

There have been a couple other books that are less all-encompassing and focus more on showcasing artwork based on the system with supplemental interviews with developers who worked on it. The two I have on those are based on Sega’s Genesis and Master System consoles. These are perfect coffee table books for friends and family to flip through, and a nice refresher on history to see how others have perceived and rated the games I grew up with. I also took advantage of the recent Humble Bundle charity offering that collected nearly 100 videogame-themed eBooks for around the suggested $35 donation. I need to one day get a viable tablet or eBook reader for all these. Any suggestions? When Pat Contri sent out a tweet last summer seeking additional writers to help with the upcoming N64 book of his Ultimate Nintendo line, I sent in a resume with my credentials and shortly after trading a few emails was welcomed onto the team! It has been a trip and a half revisiting N64 games I have not played in decades or had yet to discover until this project. As of this writing I have at least a couple hundred hours into the N64 games I am covering! That blurb for WCW Nitro to kick this year’s rankings off is just a teaser of what to expect to see in my full review of it in the book. So yeah, this project has been keeping me busy playing a lot of N64 this year, and I cannot wait to see the book in physical form! Be on the lookout on Pat Contri’s online storefront to order the forthcoming N64 book, and to also order the past NES & SNES books! 22) BOOK-SHAKA-LAKA! Reyan Ali’s book I had on pre-order for well over a year about NBA Jam and the creators from Midway did not disappoint. Here is my quick take on it from my Goodreads.com profile review….

NBA Jam by Reyan Ali My rating: 5 of 5 stars I had this book per-ordered for a while. Based on the amount of interviews conducted going into it and combined with it taking four years to compile I had high expectations going in. Ali did not disappoint with a quick, but thorough history on everything that lead up to NBA Jam, its breakthrough success in the arcades, at home and with the NBA players on the road and the many ups and downs with the franchise and publishers at Midway and Acclaim in the years that followed. Interviews from developers and NBA players are featured throughout the book that help paint a picture on every vital aspect of NBA Jam and why it became a hit in arcades and has a lasting impact to this day. The back third of the book touches on the other various iterations of NBA Jam and eventually the downfall of the original creators at Midway. Even being a fan of the game since it first debuted, I came out of this book learning plenty of new facts and insight from the creators and its many fans that I cannot help but give Ali's NBA Jam my highest recommendation. View all my reviews 21) Bite-Sized Gaming

I chose this spot to recognize the smaller indie Xbox One games I would warm up with for about 20-30 minutes before diving into a longer game with. Most, but not all of them were featured on Game Pass. Hyperdot was an intense little puzzler that I was really into until my reflexes were not fast enough for the later stages to keep the dot alive by avoiding all kind of spherical traffic before time expired. Ping Redux tested my billiards/geometry skills in order to get a pixel from one end of the level to the end. Clustertruck I once again put way too much time into this year, but THIS year I felt like I made legitimate progress on my truck platforming skills and have made it into final world of stages and cleared all the bonus winter and Halloween stages! It is addicting and frustrating in all the right ways! Definitely do not skip past this one on Game Pass!

Top Run is the first runner I invested serious time into since Jetpack Joyride. I would say it is still a few notches below that classic runner though because the grind for unlocks here is a bit much, but the neon pixel graphics and head-bopping 80s-synth score keeps me coming back! Finally, Night Call is a fascinating narrative mystery game where you are a taxi driver forced into undercover work to track down suspects for the police by using casual passenger chit-chat as a cover for interrogation. Very cool art style, and diverse range of quirky, deep, mysterious and alarming passengers had me revisiting more for the engaging dialogue and narration choices more than the mystery at large. 20) Hadoken 2020 Welcome to the fighting game section of the rankings, well save for but one other game I shall touch on later. As usual, I played a ton of online fighting games with my longtime online fighting buddy, Chris. We revisited a couple classics in 2020 that we ignored for far too long since our last go around in Tekken 7 and Soul Calibur VI, and it was a lot of fun trying out the season DLC passes for those games I completely forgot I purchased. Both Namco joints are a blast, and I regret not playing more of them during this generation. I got a chance to briefly dabble with a few SNK vintage re-releases in the King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown franchises courtesy of many physical releases from Limited Run Games. I need to make more time to come back to these gems!!! Retro Fighters is an online game accessory company I associate with their specialty retro fight pads, and I got a handful of them this past year-ish for Genesis, Dreamcast and Nintendo 64. I found myself a big fan of all three pads, especially the N64 pad now having a more traditional two-grip feel instead of its….unique…three grip setup from Nintendo. If you are unfamiliar with these guys, definitely give their website a perusal for some excellent retro controllers!

Finally, I want to shout out Street Fighter V receiving its last major update in 2020, the “Champion Edition” that launched its final season of DLC, and saved me a lot of time grinding for in-game currency to unlock all past and future DLC characters and stages! Only had a chance to go to SFV a handful of times in 2020, but they were memorable sessions, and caught on video too! I keep neglecting PS4’s share video and editing software and finally took advantage of it by uploading one of my battles with Chris on my YouTube channel you can check out by click or pressing here. Another night I got together with a bunch of the fine folks from the MojoMenace/SupertheHardest podcast community for an epic SFV night and even though there were a couple of well-tuned SFV vets on there that dominated, we all still had a blast that evening! 19) Driving Games 2020

2020 was a weaker year for variety of racing games played compared to previous years. There were a couple smaller indie games that were part of my rotation with the nearly graphically blinding Music Racer that turns driving into a musical rhythm game and I miraculously did not endure a seizure with. The awesome Outrun-homage, Horizon Chase Turbo, received continued scattered play from me throughout the year. Super Night Riders is a fun little tribute to Hang-On which I nearly 100% its small slate of courses with the exception of a final endurance track which combines all the tracks in one continuous run and if a few collisions are made it is thus impossible to recover from. I revisited that last race far too frequently before ultimately taking a break from it. Rock ‘n Racing DX was a game I repeatedly saw for sale nearly every week on digital stores, but I was weary with it looking like a watered down version of Super Off Road. After finally chancing it off a $2 sale I can now confirm it is a bad controlling version of Super Off Road everyone should avoid and its muted beats definitely do not rock. V-Rally 4 was a free Xbox Games for Gold in 2020 that I had a blast tearing up the virtual dirt tracks with in this rally-sim! Monster Truck racing games continued with the latest Monster Jam game, Steel Titans. Still not a five star driving game by any means, but nowhere near as buggy and a big step-up from Crush It, which I will give credit to experienced driving game developer, Rainbow Studios now being behind the series.

Retrowave on Steam hit all the guilty pleasure 80s neon visuals and synth-wave musical vibes I am a fan of, but its slot/timing based gameplay did not gel with me. I put a little time into Sega Ages branded update of Virtua Racing on Switch. This is easily the best Virtua Racing has ever played and looked, and M2 implemented a slew of quality-of-life features to make this the definitive version of the game. Hot Shots Racing I played a few times off Xbox Game Pass and it tries to capture the early polygonal look and feel of Virtua Racing. Very nice homage that all Virtua Racing fans should seek out! I also played many hours of six N64 racing games for the forthcoming Ultimate Nintendo book so be on the lookout for that with my reviews for both Top Gear Rally games, Top Gear Overdrive, Re-Volt, Rally Challenge 2000 and Big Mountain 2000.

Finally, the racing game I put the most time into in 2020 once again is Wreckfest. I continue to be impresses with developer Bugbear’s support for this title. In 2020 they launched a second season pass that they are still releasing new vehicle add-ons for as of this writing. They also introduced a new Tournament mode that has constantly updated Daily, Weekly and Monthly challenges that earn its own exclusive currency to be used for unlockable cars available across all modes with that accrued currency. The challenges have been fun and have a variety of wacky themes like winter season races going on right now, and options that have lawnmower vehicles launching killer snowballs. My brother and I have been regularly playing it online once or twice a month for the better part of 2020. A feature I find myself taking advantage more for racing games on Xbox One is using the Spotify app for custom soundtracks. I briefly dabbled with it before, but upon discovering the NFSsoundtracks website I have been using it a whole lot more. That website scours YouTube to recreate a plethora of past driving game soundtracks going back to the 8 and 16-bit eras. If a game has a licensed soundtrack, they will comprise a Spotify playlist of all the licensed songs that are available from that soundtrack on Spotify. So far I would say about 75% of each soundtrack is represented on Spotify, and it has helped exponentially reliving favorite scores from Road Rash, Demolition Racer and Burnout Revenge in modern racing games. 18) Retro Game Writing Frenzy

I doubled down on the amount of “Flashback Specials” I produced in 2020 where I celebrate systems on their milestone anniversaries by recapping my favorite games and memories of certain consoles. Some of them were mini-specials where I only had a limited experience with certain systems like the Saturn, PSP and Neo-Geo, while others were for systems I had well over a decade of hands-on experience with and thus many tales to recount which resulted in exhaustive pieces for the NES, PSone, PS2 and Xbox 360. That 360 piece especially did a number on me and went way longer than I anticipated…but I had a lot to say :D 2021 will see a lot of platforms having milestone anniversaries of their American launch, and I doubt I will have time to get to them all, at least with how I have been covering most of them in detail anyways. Part of the fun I have with these specials is busting out each retro system and hooking up and replaying several of my favorites to see if they stand the test of time like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and The Punisher on NES, or to spend some time on lost treasures I picked up and barely put anytime into like CastleVania: Rondo of Blood on PSP and both Rad Racer games on NES. Regardless, if you have been sticking with me through these endless pieces, than please accept my many thanks for indulging my memories and stories of my gaming past! PART 3 – Rankings 17 through 12 17) Shmuppreciation 2020

I was honored to curate the selection again for the annual “Shmuppreciation” celebration for the mojomenace.com community! Previous years saw me pick a different shmup each week to scorechase on for the NES and SNES, and for 2020 I thought I lined up things perfectly by picking five shmups (AKA shooters/space shooters) that were all going to be available on the TurboGrafX-Mini that was set to release in mid-March. Well, on March 11th the pandemic was officially declared, and it was already in full effect in Asia by that point where production of the TG16-Mini was scheduled so it was no surprise to see the announcement of a delay for a few months on the mini console. That did not deter the MojoMenace community however and we plugged away with our scheduled lineup. Some of the 2020 lineup I own and have an alright amount of experience with like Blazing Lazers. Others I had little to no experience with like Lords of Thunder, Super Star Solider and Soldier Blade. The surprise hit of the 2020 selections for me was Galaga ‘88/’90. I played my fair share of traditional Galaga over the years and always heard of the TG16 version, but never played it, and it amped up the traditional Galaga gameplay and graphics just enough to make it stand side-by-side with its equals of the day! It was gratifying to see it be a hit with the community and receive the most entries of all the 2020 lineup. 16) A Long Awaited Fourth Rage in the Streets

I have so much nostalgia of the original Streets of Rage trilogy. It was an unexpected surprise to find it available on Game Pass on its day one release. I put about four hours into that game over its first two days, and absolutely treasure those two days with it as I felt my skills organically improving as I picked up on combos and enemy hit patterns. The new graphic style felt like it capture the essence of its past while successfully evolving it to modern day 2D tech standards, and the same can be said for the all-new original soundtrack that lived up to the high pedigree established in the first two games, and then some! I wound up picking up the vinyl for it, and the soundtrack has been in heavy rotation in my playlists ever since. The only downside is after those first two days of playing it, I took a week off before revisiting and almost instantly found myself losing a few steps from where I last left off. It was then I realized if I desire to beat this game, I have to essentially dedicate a couple of days solely to it to where I can “get good” at it and plow through it in a sitting or two. I guess I can tone it down to easy, and if it was not a Streets of Rage game I probably would, but the thing is with how I am playing so far, yeah the game can get tough on the normal default difficulty, but it is a fair challenge, one that nails that delicate balance where I know dedicated practice will pay off in the long run. In the end, that is how I want my Streets of Rage 4 experience to be! 15) Ryo’s Rally Cry

Last year Shenmue III fulfilled my 18-year long anticipation for the latest adventures featuring Ryo Hazuki. In 2020, a series of three DLC packs were unleashed in the early months of the year. I was not expecting anything too extravagant because all three packs were bundled together for $9.99, and compared to season pass story based content in other games that typically go for double-to-triple that, I had a feeling it was going to be more mini-games than anything, and that is essentially what we got. The first DLC focused on Bailu Village with several treasure hunt mini-games hunting down tiny Bailu Chan collectibles, which was no fun at all, and after the first treasure hunt zone I referenced a YouTube video to blitz through the rest. They were worth going through because they unlocked stat boosts for Ryo to use in the several Battle Rally races that gave a final score based on time completed and number of enemies beaten throughout it. Those stat boosts made Ryo faster and stronger, so it was worthwhile to knockout more foes before the finish line, and that part of the DLC proved to be a fun type of challenge. The second DLC was a cruise ship full of casino-themed mini-games and a couple small story quests. To activate it was tricky because you needed to make about 15 minutes of progress in the second half of the game. Luckily, a new game can be started from the back half. The casino games are decent little distractions, and the only highlight of the ship was earning raffle tickets to use on a prize wheel used to unlock several extra slick costumes for Ryo.

The final DLC was a story DLC that is sprinkled throughout the back half of the game. It is a bit of a chore though, and nothing extraordinary. If you remember the Chan signs that use four tea cups arranged in certain patterns, then be prepared for a series of those quests that are only available after completing a few main story missions. It is mostly a lot of backtracking to find a rogue agent, and only leads to a couple simple fights, and the only interesting thing I got out of it was for one part of the several-part series of quests you go undercover on a dinner date with Shenhua with some intentionally campy lines. I would only recommend playing it if you were playing through Shenmue III for the first time and that way the quests seem like an organic series of side quests you stumbled across, because by the time the last part of this DLC was available, I already replayed my way through about 75% of the second half of the main quest that transpires in Niaowu. If you are wondering why Shenmue III is ranking a fair way into my rankings with my middling time with the DLC, well that is because of the astounding Shenmue III-themed releases I picked up from Limited Run Games in 2020. A few months back Limited Run had what felt like a Shenmue appreciation day and released a special edition of the game with all the lackluster DLC on the disc, in addition to bonus collectibles that I usually do not go for, but in this rare exception did. They also put out some absurdly priced vinyl options of the soundtrack. Shenmue III has a mammoth soundtrack, so big it took seven CDs and eight vinyls to cram it in. To get the complete vinyl set, it was for around $200-250, so I opted for the CD set for $50 and a special “best of” two record set for $40. Yeah….did not anticipate blowing nearly the price for a Switch on Shenmue merchandise in one day, but I managed to cut myself off before going too nuts. 14) Vinyl Love 2020 Speaking of that Shenmue III vinyl, this will be a good way to pivot to rank the videogame OST vinyls I procured over 2020. Data Disc released their curated Shenmue II record. It is like the one Data Disc put out for the first game in the series which is a hand-picked selection of songs on one LP. I recently listened to it, and at least Data Disc ensured to maximize their minutes with their selections. Data Disc also did a second printing of another Yu Suzuki classic with the OST for Outrun. Other highlights include a complete set of five records of the Tetris Effect OST from Limited Run Games. Many kudos to Limited Run for including an MP3 download code with their records, and it was much appreciated for that set, and as well for their Streets of Rage 4 score. I have heard mixed reception for the SoR4 OST living up to the lofty bar established from the first two games, but after listening to it many times on my record player and in my car, I can attest for it being a win in the series and is right up there with the first two games. I will give a couple last quick shout outs for the OSTs for The King of Fighters ‘98, Street Fighter III, Quake, Celeste B-Sides and Kentucky Route Zero comprising the remaining LPs I picked up throughout 2020. To this day I continue working out to DDP Yoga 3-4 times a week, and having one of the game vinyls on in the background is the ideal background jams for me while I stretch myself to pieces! 13) Pinball 2020 Longtime readers are familiar with ritual weekly habit of competing in the four table weekly high score challenges in Pinball FX3, and yes I am still continuing that tradition every Saturday morning where I will practice and rank up abilities on one of the four tables that is up in the weekly challenges, and then attempt to best the high score for each of the four tables. It never gets old, and it helps feed my pinball addictions. Props to Zen for their output of Williams tables, and I am about 50/50 for using their “remastered” versions with animated toys and additional graphics on the table, and appreciate the option to press a button to flip to the original design. I still popped in Pinball Arcade on PS4 several times throughout 2020 because I feel those are more accurate-feeling real life physics of those pinball tables, but Zen’s versions are a solid alternative. Plus they added one of my favorite tables, Champion Pub, to the PFX3 roster in 2020, now just give me No Good Gophers and I will rest happy!

In other pinball news, I also continue to throw in the rotation Demon’s Tilt, the awesome homage to Devil’s Crush/Dragon’s Revenge. I cannot get enough of those scintillating TG16 throwback visuals and its metal soundtrack! I only threw in the neon-infused visuals of Hyperspace Pinball off Steam a few times in 2020, and I just wish that game took off more and received some home console conversions. Love the bumpin’ soundtrack, trippy graphics and distinctive boss battles that keep me coming back to it. I need to one day dive into recent pinball/platformer hybrids Yoku’s Island Express and Creature in the Well. I briefly tried out the former, and yet to put time into the latter. Finally, in sad pinball news, the private pinball club I started going to I wrote about in last year’s recap, Fargo Pinball shut its doors last year after failing to sustain business a few months into the pandemic. The owners will still operate about a dozen machines they have on constant rotation at a local brewery however, so there is still somewhat of a local pinball presence to take in. For the two or three times I made it out to Fargo Pinball however, I was in pinball heaven. 12) Handheld Gaming 2020

Last year I wrote about in this section how I made serious headway into Mother 3 on the GBA by the end of 2019. So the first few months I spent wrapping up Mother 3 on my backlit-modded GBA. So that meant I beat it legit with no save states, and a lot of trial and error on boss battles. The only part I did not care for was an underwater maze to navigate through while keeping an eye on oxygen levels, but otherwise I very much enjoyed my time with Mother 3, and mad props to Fangamer’s companion guide for being the quintessential supplemental material to guide me through it. After finishing that, I put a couple hours into the Metroid-esque Scurge: Hive on GBA before throwing in another throwback in the form of GameBoy Color’s Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. A year or two back here I wrote how the first Turok on GameBoy was an old-school style action-platformer that won me over, and the sequel is more of the same, but with slightly more fleshed out levels, now color graphics, and a couple interesting shmup stages for variety! It had some old-school difficulty, so the Retron 5’s save states and cheats and I had to take advantage of in order to power through it!

Currently, I am ever-so-slowly working my way through a fan translated copy of Ace Attorney Investigations 2 on DS. I loved the first game in the series and how they mixed up the gameplay by taking it out of the courtroom and having visual avatars to control and visually maneuver around locations. I am currently on the third case of AAI2, and the translation successfully maintains the whimsical spirit of the Ace Attorney series and has an interesting twist where Miles is now having to side with defense attorneys against his will. I picked up two unique re-released retro handhelds this past year. Firstly, I picked up the Mario Game & Watch that was released to celebrate Super Mario Bros.’s 35th anniversary. Super Mario Bros. is the first game I ever played, and first game I ever finished so it goes without saying that game is quite special to me and having it in this unique handheld form is a saccharine treat! The second old school handheld I had to import from Japan in the form of the Game Gear Micro. For those unaware of this Japan-exclusive, it is a working Game Gear about 10% the proportion of the original model. Sega only made several versions of it in Japan, with each one having only a handful of exclusive games. I went with the one containing the Aleste collection that contains five Game Gear/Master System games in the acclaimed space shooter series, one of which is an all-new game designed with the Game Gear’s limitations in mind in GG Aleste 3. My cramped fingers were somewhat able to play the games on the Micro (make sure to get the magnifier accessory in order marginally make out the visuals), and it is a nice discussion piece, but I think I will put more time into these games in the future with the PS4 copy of Aleste Collection that came with the bundle I ordered from Play Asia. PART 4 – Rankings 11 through 7 11) Podcast Guest Hosting 2020 I guest hosted on three podcasts in 2020. I had what ended up being my final recurring guest slot on the penultimate episode of Your Parents Basement podcast. It was my 13th guest host appearance there, but I made sure to make it a clayyyysic one with our analysis for the dubious action-sports SNES title, Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball. I remember going into that episode initially tepid to start off our discussion for the game by admitting I could not figure out how to shoot the damn ball and had to look up a guide online how to figure it out, but was quickly relieved to hear all three YPB hosts had to do exactly the same! Also, there were some regular segments of the show where we all rate the game on a themed where entertaining shenanigans ensued. YPB has since posted one surprise end of year special since having their main series finale, and here is hoping to see them pop in again for more surprise episodes. I will be forever grateful to them for taking my suggestions at covering games I have been meaning to get out of my backlog for ages like Shadowrun, Metal Gear Solid, Crystalis and Earthbound. Click or press here to check out that YPB episode I guested on in 2020.

I was thrilled to guest host twice on the PSnation Podcast in 2020. While it is a Playstation themed podcast, host Glenn always specializes with healthy doses of retro gaming talk in each episode. In March I joined him in covering the FFVII Remake demo that just hit, and we of course had to inject a ton of retro gaming topics in the agenda too (click or press here to download). In November I came on again to anticipate the future by previewing the imminent launch of the PS5 and celebrate the past by dissecting 20 forgotten facts of the PS2 for its 20th anniversary (click or press here to download). While both podcasts were marathon recording sessions, I do not regret a minute of it as I always have a phenomenal time podcasting with Glenn! He recently announced they will be rebranding PSnation with news to come in the near future after a hell of a 14-year run, and I wish nothing but the best for him and his staff to see what they have in store! On a final note in podcasts, I have been continuing my occasional un-vaulting of select episodes from my long-deceased videogame podcast, On Tap. Throughout 2020, I uploaded about an episode a month to my YouTube channel, often having them coincide with a relevant anniversary or one of my flashback special articles. Some of the ones I uploaded this past year are all several parts of our history of comic book videogames episodes and most of our history of RPG videogames episodes. Also a couple of our movie review episodes where we analyze cult classics like The Wizard, FFVII: Advent Children Complete, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and both Tron films. I made a playlist of the 28 episodes I have un-vaulted as of this writing you can navigate to by click or pressing here. 10) Switching It Up

In early April of 2020, I had penned in a pretty epic vacation I was anticipating for quite some time, but as we all know, by April of 2020 we were a few weeks into the pandemic and those plans quickly went up in smoke along with everything else in the world. It may have been a good thing those plans got cancelled because that same weekend a water pipe burst at my home and that whole weekend was spent cleaning up the aftermath of it. It was a couple days after the fact of that ordeal and I was simply a mess, and needed some form of a pick-me-up. I was holding off on a Switch for three years by this point, and three years was about what I held off on purchasing a Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One, and so I convinced myself to get out of my slump by going out and buying a Switch. It helped big time! The first games I played on it were a couple of different SNES games I played online with my nephew Carter. We first played the original Super Mario Kart, and within seconds of starting a race he blurted out, “Dale this looks old!” He was not a happy camper, but we did manage to have a modicum of fun playing two player co-op in Brawl Brothers and Joe & Mac. Other notable Switch games I put some time into this year are Golf Story, Sega Ages Virtua Racing, Tetris 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35. I love battle royal Tetris and Super Mario Bros.! Golf Story is the ultimate spiritual successor to the beloved Mario Golf games on GBC and GBA. Also, I highly recommend playing with a pro controller in docked mode, and with Hori’s Split Pad Pro in undocked mode. Despite its bulk, I vaster prefer them more than the painfully tiny JoyCons. In 2021 I hope to invest significantly more time into my Switch! I have picked up many retro re-releases recently with their frequent sales that I must try out! 9) Wrestling Games 2020

2020 was a year like no other for me when it came to wrestling games. The first half of the year started off with me only playing FirePro Wrestling World, the first new wrestling game I put serious time into since WWE All-Stars. I played quite a bit of the PS2 and GBA FirePro games, but the thing that hooked me on the PS4 version was downloading hundreds of created wrestlers to replicate my all-era dream roster, and clearing all 50 scenario trials. I got up to the final trial where the goal is to win a match with a 100% fan approval rating. Thing is, in order to replicate, the opponent has to get in just as much offense and back-and-forth near-falls to make it as exciting as a televised match, and by doing that I put myself at great risk to lose…which happened every time. I vow to complete that final trial in 2021! Speaking of WWE All-Stars, I volunteered to review its spiritual successor follow-up, WWE 2K Battlegrounds for my friends over at PSnation. While it has some notable flaws holding it back from matching the fun arcade action of WWE All-Stars, 2K Battlegrounds still has a lot going for it and is at least worth checking out. Click or press here for my full review to get my complete breakdown of WWE 2K Battlegrounds. Finally, as I have mentioned earlier I have been covering a number of wrestling titles for the upcoming N64 book project. As you read above, it was a whole new definition of pain experiencing WCW Nitro all over again, but at least other games held up better than I thought they would. I finally was able to put major time into the four import N64 wrestling games and came out of those with a whole new appreciation of this era of wrestling games. Seriously, AKI’s six wrestling games on the N64 are arguably the best spread of wrestling games in videogame history, and I wish I can expand on it more, but you’ll have to check out the book once it is available for my final word! I promise if you bookmark this page I will edit this page with a link to its online store listing once it is available! 8) Breath of the Wild Progress 2020 Another year gone, and another year where I have yet to finish The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I have good reasons though! I was making headway steady play a couple times a month until about July. I finally conquered the fourth divine beast, and more importantly I finally reached all the towers and unlocked the complete map. I also moseyed around most areas of the map, even the barren Gerudo Desert, I spent a good chunk of this year in to ensure I did not skimp over any cool hidden areas, or Korok seeds…although I am sure I missed quite a few. A major nagging sidequest I put to bed in 2020 was completing the founding of Tarrey Town for Hudson after running countless fetch quests for Link’s former colleague.

The only major thing in the core storyline I need to do is finally make my way through Hyrule Castle to vanquish Ganon….but I have so many other side quests and DLC quests I desire to finish before properly completing the main quest! I made one attempt at completing the Master Sword Trials that have the beneficial reward of doubling the power and durability of the Master Sword, and while it was a brutal endeavor, the challenge felt fair and encouraging of me to put forth the effort to practice and become better like on Eventide Island! I would also like to unlock the Master Cycle Zero for Link, but that set of DLC missions is mammoth, and if I do get around to them, it would likely be after I finish the main quest. Anyways, I was making that routine headway and finishing BotW in 2020 seemed possible, but then I had to step back and put most of my spare game time onto my N64 assignments. I should wrap up my N64 work within the next few months, and plan on diving head-first to pick up where I left off in Breath of the Wild! That motorcycle shall be mine!!! 7) Year of the Mini Consoles I thought I was done buying the “mini” line of classic consoles with pre-programmed games by the end of 2019 after acquiring the Genesis Mini that went along with my NES and SNES Minis! That was not the case though as 2020 saw me add three more to my collection. The Neo-Geo Mini has been out for some time now, but Amazon had huge markdowns on them in 2020 with bundled controllers. For those unfamiliar with it, the unit is designed as a mini-arcade cabinet, but also has ability to plug into a TV via HDMI cable to play the pre-programmed 40 games that way too. It has all the many expected fighting games on there, plus a variety of other genre hits from SNK. I also picked up the Game Gear Micro, but you can see my thoughts on that a few rankings above where I go over my handheld gaming moments of the year.

Finally, I picked up the TurboGrafX Mini, which had to endure a last minute shipping delay by a few months since it was originally scheduled to ship in March right after the pandemic was declared. It is a hell of a collection, with a killer line up of American and Japanese games. Part of me was wishing there was an easter egg to unlock the English translated Sega CD version of Snatcher, but no luck! There is still an unbelievable lineup on here with two Bonk games, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, several classic shmups like Blazing Lazers and Galaga ‘88/’90, one of the Crush pinball games, and so many more! There was a couple I wish would have made the cut like World Court Tennis and Final Lap Twin because of their charming RPG story modes, and at least one of the FirePro Wrestling games, but what is included is still a hell of a package, complete with probably the best UI of any of the mini-consoles that is overflowing with TurboGrafX/PCengine fan service! So many people in America missed out on the small-yet-mighty TG16 library in America, and this is the best way to be introduced to it to the public! CGQ did an awesome launch stream that has footage of most of the included games if you want to know more about the platform!

PART 5 – Rankings 6 through 4 6) The Year of Videogame Documentaries! If there was any upside to all the time spent locked down at home in 2020, it was that it helped everyone catch up on a lot of past and current shows on various streaming services or old school physical media. 2020 saw several videogame themed documentaries release, and not a single one disappointed which is why I am ranking this experience so high. Netflix released a six episode docu-series on pivotal moments in the early decades of videogames, titled High Score. It does not shed much new insights if you are up-to-speed on your videogame history, but if you only have a passing familiarity with the roots of videogames, or have younger members of the family who are curious than this is a good place to start because they have high production values, and fun animated sequences to keep your attention throughout. It does not cover the entire history of games in six episodes, but each episode serves as a nice refresher course on key moments like the rise and fall of Atari, Nintendo revitalizing videogames in America with the NES, the 16-bit Wars, popularity of fighting games in the early 90s, and id Software shaking up the gaming landscape with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Next up is videogame YouTuber (and heading up the N64 book I am contributing to) Pat Contri teaming up with Kevin J. James for the documentary, Not for Resale. It has an interesting theme about life as an independent videogame store owner and retro game collecting. It thoroughly covers a wide range of topics from this perspective of videogame retail, and I encourage you to check out my review of the documentary by click or pressing here. Another documentary I reviewed in 2020 for my blog actually first released in 2015, but I somehow never heard of it until 2020. I am talking about Nintendo Quest, and it is all about one man’s journey to collect the entire officially licensed American NES library in one month with only his own funds, and only by visiting stores and collectors in person with no online buying at all. It was quite the ambitious goal, and was a fun journey to watch to see if he could or could not pull it off. Click or press here for my full review.

Next up is Console Wars. I devoured Blake Harris’s novelization of the 16-bit SNES/Genesis rivalry, and was stoked to hear it was going to receive the big budget feature documentary treatment. It took a few years, but it finally released in 2020 as a CBS All Access streaming exclusive. There is no shortage of vintage photos, ads, clips and commercials inserted throughout the interviews and narration that transported me directly back to the early-to-mid 90s! They could not squeeze in everything from the book into 90 minutes, but they still managed to hit a lot of major and minor moments from the 16-bit wars. Despite this being well-documented territory, this was a terrific refresher, and recommended viewing considering the surplus of major and minor players from that era they tracked down to interview. Insert Coin is an exclusive on Alamo’s streaming service, and is the ultimate supplementary piece to Reyan Ali’s book on NBA Jam I mentioned earlier in this list. If you do not have time for the book, make sure to watch this because they track down most of the major players at Midway/Bally/Williams to chronicle the rise and fall of the company, and touch on so many of its arcade hits. Yes, even Revolution X gets an entertaining scene with previously unseen production footage of band members’ voiceover recording sessions. I loved Cruis ‘n USA, and was a little bummed to see the ho-hum treatment of it in the doc, but if you have killer memories of the NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Defender, NFL Blitz, Smash TV and so many other Midway arcade classics, then you definitely want to check out Insert Coin! Pretending I’m a Superman: The Tony Hawk Videogame Story is available to buy or rent off YouTube. I have heard many good things about this doc, but I have sadly been neglecting it for many months, which is not right since I was an avid fan of the Tony Hawk games from their heyday, but want to give it props here because I have good faith that it will not disappoint!

That is it for the traditional documentary features I have seen in 2020. For the past couple years I have provided a long list of YouTube links of my favorite gaming-related videos throughout the year. In place of that is a few documentaries I want to highlight here that hit in 2020 from a few YouTube creators. Norm Caruso, AKA The Videogame Historian did not disappoint in 2020 with several new docs/mini-docs, with the two that stood out the most to me being his exhaustive deep dive into Mario Paint and tracking down the original developer to interview for his look on the infamous MS-DOS versions of the early Mega Man games. I also am constantly amazed at the steady stream of shorter and lengthier documentaries No Clip releases on their YouTube channel, and the crapshoot that was 2020 did not slowdown their consistent output. I highly recommend their well-researched videos on the history of two prolific developers – Creative Assembly and Arkane Studios. EA received well earned high marks on their incredible remaster of Command & Conquer early in 2020, and No Clip released a coinciding video with many of the original and remaster developers on un-vaulting original material and digging deep to cram in as much unreleased or barely seen content in as possible.

If you were a child from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, then you undoubtedly remember spending countless hours in school trying to master the original “souls-like” game, Oregon Trail. MinnMax released a comprehensive look at this classroom favorite filled with interview clips from the original programmers on how it came to be, and even tracking down Steve Wozniak for his reflections on this iconic title. Finally, I want to shout out this awesome DIY-spirited documentary celebrating NHL ‘94 that came out in 2020 and went to great lengths to pay homage to that classic hockey game by tracking down the primary head programmer, going to great pains for a very brief interaction with Jaromir Jagr and chronicling the current eSports scene of NHL ‘94.

Sorry for the deluge of recommendations, but that should provide many hours of entertainment and videogame history to last you throughout 2021, and then some! 5) Acquiring my First Console Near Launch Since the Vita! The headline does not lie, the Xbox Series X marked the first console I purchased within the first couple months of a console launch since the Vita! After getting burned on launch window consoles malfunctioning on me with the PS2, 360 and PS3 I instilled a “wait three years after a console launch to buy it so the hardware is likely less faulty” self-imposed policy. I did exactly that with the WiiU, PS4, Xbox One and Switch. I was originally going to do that with the XSX/PS5 also, and I guess the thing that nudged me out of that edict was hearing multiple podcasts, website hardware reviews and YouTube content creators’ analysis of the system’s hardware, UI and overall performance in the opening weeks. The more I heard in the first couple weeks, the more the Xbox Series X sounded right for me. This is primarily because the UI/dashboard is nearly identical compared to the Xbox One, and that I can plug in my external hard drive I have been using for the Xbox One directly into the XSX after I complete my initial setup. After doing that it would be like I was playing on my Xbox One again, but with vastly superior hardware and faster loading times. I got a Samsung 55” Black Friday 4KTV special to finally upgrade into the 4K era and be properly ready for the 4K optimized games. My backlog was so huge that I did not mind the XSX did not have any major first or third party exclusives until two and half months later with the release of The Medium. Enjoying faster load times on games like Wreckfest and Borderlands 3 is more impressive than I thought it would be. I am also by this point well invested into the Xbox Game Pass ecosystem as I have elaborated on in previous year-end articles, and having all first party exclusives coming to Game Pass day one is another deciding factor on why I went with the Xbox Series X first. Now here is hoping this system does not brick on me or I am returning back to my self-enforced waiting policy! 4) Conquering the Lands that Border a Third Time!

Speaking of Borderlands 3, that was a terrific alternate method for me to hang out with my buddy Derek through these quarantine times. Several years back we gradually worked our way through Borderlands 2 over the course of a year, and we started up the third game around Halloween of 2019. It took a little over a year of playing only once or twice a month, but we finally finished the core campaign of Borderlands 3! Most of the gaming press bags on the Borderlands games for its style of humor, but to me it kind of rings familiar to Family Guy. Both franchises throw a lot of gags and jokes at you from all angles, and some of them hit, and some of them miss, and that is fine! Humor is subjective with about half of the jokes jiving with me, and that is A-OK because they all do not need to be LMAO zingers! The addicting co-op gameplay of Borderlands is what keeps me coming back, well that and the perpetual quest of finding all types of fun weaponry and loot I had equipped for far too long (rainbow-explosion grenades being my prime example here). I like the angle of Borderlands 3’s central hub being on a spaceship…even if its design is of the labyrinth nature that I frequently became lost in. The biofuel truck mission was an early favorite of mine and remained a running gag with Derek throughout 2020. The pair of primary antagonists here may not usurp the unforgettable villain that was Handsome Jack, but it was still a fun journey pursuing them and meeting their dad to detail their nature. Right now Derek and I are a good ways through one of the DLC packs for the game, Guns, Love, and Tentacles that is themed around saving the wedding of Wainwright & Hammerlock with the assistance of the mysterious bartender, Mancubus Bloodtooth! It features a refreshing twist on gameplay with longer levels, different vibe of scenery and a more challenging-but-fair difficulty. Needless to say, I am greatly looking forward to marching through the rest of the DLC packs throughout 2021! PART 6 – Rankings 3 through 1 3) Spooky Gaming 2020

You will see soon why my yearly installment for Spooky Gaming ranked so high this year. First off, I kept up my yearly tradition of playing the 360 launch game, Condemned: Criminal Origins on Halloween! I think that is at least three, maybe four Halloweens in a row now! Only made a little over an hour of progress though on a couple sessions due to not as much free time as I hoped and it took a bit more than I presumed to navigate through a couple tricky levels, but I pushed through a couple more chapters and one day promise to finish this! Two new spooky games released right around this past Halloween that were both must-buys for me, but regrettably have yet to start. Pumpkin Jack looked like a fun simple action-platformer with graphics and gameplay quality intentionally designed from the early PS2 days which looked like a fun early 2000s throwback from a couple streams I saw. The second game is the next installment in the “Dark Pictures” anthology, following 2019’s Man of Medan that received a rave recounting from my 2019 rankings! That game is called Little Hope and it has a similar structure to Man of Medan, where it follows a group of travelers stranded after a bus crash who stumble into a nearby mysterious/haunted small town that is full of secrets. I watched one stream of its opening scenes, and was delighted to see the narrative choice-based gameplay returns and will determine how many of the group members will remain alive by the end of the playthrough. I want to play this like I did Man of Medan in one sitting in an evening with Derek & Brooke in the midst of a thunderstorm! That will happen in 2021!!

Finally, the highlight of spooky gaming season was surprisingly returning to Xbox One’s Blair Witch Project. I wrote here last year that I loved its atmospheric setting of looking through the same haunted woods from the movies for a lost child, but I unfortunately got stuck about an hour or two in while searching through the woods for my next objective. The woods were too dark!!! So this past Halloween season I booted up Blair Witch Project with the mindset of not even looking to make any progress and to simply put on the gaming headphones and take in that appropriately dark atmosphere of exploring the spooky woods for about 10 minutes before moving onto Condemned.

Well, something unexpected happened during those 10 minutes and I accidentally stumbled onto my next objective and quickly got absorbed into the narrative and could not put the game down! I loved how the character Ellis gradually starts to get wrapped up into the eventual supernatural surroundings that gradually get implemented and do not ruin that awesome initial eerie setting. The way the camcorder was used for gameplay to solve some puzzles was creative, and using the late-90s Nokia-esque cell phone for storyline bits was an unexpected nostalgia trip. Yeah, some of the use of flashbacks/supernatural enemies can be a little hokey at points, but for the most part it keeps up the suspense and thrills, and it caught me jumping on several occasions while playing with the volume blasting on those headphones. The last level pulls out all the scary, mind-bending stops, and was a ride that I had no idea when it was going to end, and even though the ending was a little middling, the ride on the way to that final destination was awesome and had me gripped in throughout. Blair Witch Project is currently on Xbox Game Pass, and is some ideal late night/Halloween season gaming that I highly recommend to all! 2) FINISH HIM!! Usually I would lump this in with my yearly fighting games recap, but my time with Mortal Kombat 11 rose well above the rest of my time with other fighting games that it climbed out of that group and rose to my #2 gaming moment of the year! For the first half of 2021, I had semi-frequent online sessions with my aforementioned fighting game buddy, Chris! Whenever a new DLC character from the DLC pass released every several weeks, we would usually meet up one of the following weekends and experiment away with the new member of the roster. If I really dug a character, I would then do repeated playthroughs of that character in the Towers of Time in order to unlock more costumes and other gear for that character. That wound up happening with both Joker and Robocop, as I had a ton of fun with both of those characters’ moves and fighting styles.

The announcement of the Aftermath DLC halfway into 2020 totally caught me off guard. It was a new storyline expansion DLC that lasted only a few hours, but continues the same best-in-class production values of fighting game cutscenes that seamlessly transition between fights. Best of all, it brings the DLC characters into the narrative to freshen it up, and is highlighted by Shang Tsung being your uneasy ally/rival throughout which resulted in yet-another killer MK storyline to take in, even if it was a little shorter. Oh yeah, NetherRealm Studios inserted the likeness and voice of the same actor who perfectly portrayed Tsung in the first Mortal Kombat film, Cary Tagawa. My nostalgia for that 1995 movie knows no bounds, so it was a thrill to have Tagawa return to MK11 for the Aftermath storyline. Another movie related surprise was new costume DLC for Sonya, Raiden and Johnny Cage that use the likenesses and voiceovers from their 1995 movie cast counterparts with Bridgette Wilson, Christopher Lambert and Linden Ashby all returning. I am so thrilled to see the games fully embrace the fandom for the 1995 movie, and doubly thrilling is that the new Mortal Kombat film set to release later this year that legit looks kind of promising based on the trailer and general buzz in the movie/gaming press. Another surprise update to MK11 was the inclusion of cross-network play. So that meant I could finally play against my brother on Xbox One! I was skeptical trying it out when my brother and I lined up a day to play that it would be a laggy mess playing on different systems against each other, but we played for about an hour with no problems, and all my costume and gear unlocks carried forward too! Countless thanks for the developers adding this support, and also many props to Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo for making it so to see it start to become a little more common to other online games in general throughout 2020! So yeah, this all added up to me revisiting MK11 more frequently than I thought I would with the nonstop support from NetherRealm Studios in 2020, and thus it more than earned its #2 ranking on my list, and technically my #1 video-game ranking because…. 1) Global Board Game Domination!!

Once or twice a year, dating back nearly 15 years I have met with mostly the same group of friends for marathon sessions of my favorite board game, Risk. That game is notorious for taking anywhere from two-to-five hours to finish in order to take over the world via smart strategy and lucky dice rolls! Every time we play, we bust out pretzels, beers, Chuck Norris shots and end the night playing PS3 Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘12 until we get sleepy! I always look forward to these nights, and they are kind of like a second Christmas to me because it only happens once or twice a year. As awesome as these are, my technical prowess in Risk strategy and luck in dice rolls leave a lot to be desired over the years, and I am almost always the first or second person eliminated. Regardless of that, I want to give props to Mike, Jim and Paul for the decade plus of priceless Risk memories and moments. A couple years ago Mike moved and my brother Joe has been filling that fourth chair! We have played a couple five player games over the years, but our 2020 night (which luckily emanated about a month before the pandemic hit), saw Jim’s nephew Matt join us for our first five player game in some time. This was Matt’s first game of Risk and thus a learning experience and I had to be the spoiler to ruin his first game and wound up eliminating him first from the game. From there though it was still relatively early as far as the army bonuses goes within an average game of Risk, but a domino effect happened and I was able to capitalize on eliminating Matt and gaining his territories and within about an hour eliminated everyone else on my own!!!! I was in disbelief, and as much as I hate to admit it had somewhat of a brief emotional moment upon winning that game because in our 15-ish years playing, I have only won once before early on and it had to of been at least 10 years since that and I was not use to things going my way, and in that fashion to boot.

The way that game played out resulted in an oddly short-ish two hour game, so we decided to get another round in that night. Now that Matt had his warm-up round in, he had a better grasp of the game and this was a more traditionally close, longer game of Risk where the excitement was in the mobilization of armies and territories in those early rounds and to see who would make the first big attack move in attempts of expanding their territory. Hell yeah, I was all-in on this five hour game of Risk!!! Now as this round unfolded this will be very hard to believe, but I swear I am telling the whole truth that against all odds the same exact thing happened and I eliminated everybody and won the second game as well!!! I am still dismayed thinking about how well that night went for me in Risk, and highly doubt it will happen again! So for me, predominant loser and usually first one out in a game, to full on run the board and eliminate everyone in two consecutive games happens you damn well bet that night is going to be my best gaming related moment of the year!! THANK YOU!!!! I somehow achieved a degree of brevity this year, as last year’s insane best-of list went around 18,000 words, but I was able to….kinda….tighten my word count this year by clocking it at roughly 12,000 words!! My endless thanks for sticking with me all the way through as I recap my favorite (and worst) gaming moments/experiences of the year. Now, to keep up with tradition, after all that perusing and me rambling on for way too long…are you ready for a chuckle or two? Well, then, let none other than John Cena take care of that for you with the following embedded video to close off another best-of list. See you all next year!!!

Previous Year’s Best of Recaps - 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016

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Remaking the Las Vegas Strip?

This post originally appeared on Vegas CRE Team | Commercial Connection Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to syndicate your content with theBrokerList.





7 Projects contributing to the $14 billion of development underway in Las Vegas

Las Vegas has always been a place averse to signs of aging, having new developments is never a surprise. This time we have more than $14 billion under construction, which is nothing short of amazing. The extraordinary impact of all the cranes is already being felt across the whole valley. Is the city remaking one of the worlds most recognizable roads in the world?

With that in mind, we created a list with some of the most impressive and interesting developments that are in construction right now and which might be finished either in 2019 or 2020 and beyond. One thing is certain, Las Vegas always tends to have something in development, and at this time you will find some amazing, massive projects that are under construction. It’s interesting to see how much the landscape has changed even in the past decade.

This is great for Las Vegas as a city, because it brings in great, new features for tourists. After all, Vegas is known for being a prime destination for people all over the world. Some of the projects listed below are related to tourism, but some of them are created specifically for locals. Either way, they are all amazing and you will be quite impressed to learn that there are more than $14 billion in development right now throughout Las Vegas!

1. $400 million UnCommons Development

This new development is coming in the SW part of Las Vegas and it’s created with the idea of a one-stop shop. The idea behind UnCommons is that once a company moves in, the employees will be able to work, shop and live in the same place. This approach is unique, and while the developers looked at Austin and Nashville as potential candidates, they settled with Las Vegas because this city brings them more opportunities and there’s a large demand for new jobs.

The first phase will start with office spaces that cover 150k square feet, this also includes retail, parking garages, restaurants and 875 apartment units. People nearby are excited about this development. The idea is that this establishment is something innovative and also quite expensive. The groundbreaking part is set for early next year, phase one is estimated to be completed towards the middle of 2021. UnCommons is certainly one of the developments you need to keep an eye on.

2. Las Vegas Raiders Stadium

By far one of the most exciting developments in Las Vegas at this time is the Las Vegas Raiders stadium. This one has 65k seats and it’s an indoor football stadium. The overall cost is around $1.8 billion. This is a very interesting development that continues to impress everyone with the huge scale of this entire project. There’s no specific completion date, but that might be around mid-2020. Its construction started in September 2017, and there weren’t that many problems that would push the development. A lot of people suggest that the Las Vegas Raiders stadium will most likely be ready just in time for the 2020 NFL season. One thing is certain, this stadium is nothing short of extraordinary, having a domed stadium in Vegas does stand out quite a bit and the stadium is also set to bring in all the latest technologies and features as you might imagine.

3. Las Vegas Convention Center Expansion

The Las Vegas Convention Center expansion is also a very expensive development that’s already in construction. This is more of an expansion rather than a new construction, but, it’s already visually impressive and the Las Vegas Convention Center is set to become one of the main attractions in the city. That being said, this expansion will cost around $935.1 million, so it’s very expensive, but it might be quite a great addition for people that are coming to the city for the first time. The economy of South Nevada is driven by tourism, so expanding the Las Vegas Convention Center will help bring in a much better way to serve tourists that visit this magnificent city. Since the tourism industry generates around $60 billion in total for Southern Nevada, it’s easy to see why expanding the current Las Vegas Convention Center and offering even more assistance and support to customers can pay off very well. ​

4. MSG Sphere

The MSG Sphere is a music and entertainment venue built in Paradise, Nevada and it’s set to be complete in 2021. It will have a capacity of around 18000 people and it will also include 19000 by 13500 resolution LED screens that will be spread within the venue’s interior. All seats have high-speed internet access, which will help make this venue even more impressive and interesting than it is at this particular time. On top of that, the MSG Sphere is set to have a powerful sound system that will deliver sound through the floorboards. And to top it all off, the exterior of the venue will include a 360-degree IMAX display that will make it easy for people on the outside to see what’s happening inside the venue. This is a next-gen entertainment venue that’s set to impress everyone with its complexity and resounding features.

5. Resorts World Casino

Having yet another resort in Las Vegas might not seem like huge news. But Resorts World Casino wants to make things a bit different here. This development is built on an 87-acre site on the Las Vegas Strip and despite the construction starting in 2018, this project is set to be completed at some point in 2020. There are many great features related to the Resorts World Casino. The primary thing here is that Paul Curtis Steelman and the Steelman Partners managed the architectural design. As a result, the entire project looks downright amazing, and it will bring in lots of people excited by gambling to the city. That being said, the Resorts World Casino project is also located very close to the Sky Condominium Las Vegas. That alone makes it a very good investment and the condos also have quite a bit to earn from having a stellar, impressive resort located right near them.

6. Marriott’s 4000+ Mega Hotel Resort AKA The Drew

Marriott is known for the fact that they always try to push the boundaries with new developments. They have a new resort under construction in Las Vegas. The project is set to be named The Drew and it will feature more than 4000 luxury rooms. Including in this resort project there will be more than 500000 square feet of meeting and convention space for the business visitors as well. Another interesting thing about this project is that the Drew Las Vegas will feature more than 90000 square feet of gaming space. Obviously this will be more than enough to host thousands of players as they enjoy a great gambling experience. The story of this project is quite intriguing because it has been in development for quite some time. It was started back in 2005, and the project name was Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Then it entered bankruptcy in 2009, so it was put on hold for quite some time. Years later Marriot International decided to give this a shot, and now they are working hard to complete one of the most interesting and promising resorts in Las Vegas.

7. Las Vegas Ballpark

The Las Vegas Ballpark is a $150 million construction created specifically for baseball lovers. The project has an opening date of April 9 2019. The Howard Hughes Corporation owns this Las Vegas Ballpark and the entire project is set to bring in some astounding visual and feature upgrades when compared to many stadiums out there. However, the construction process and more particularly the initial steps were a bit hard to complete mostly because the stadium’s sewage system backed up and that did end up being the reason why they invested in these new features. It’s certainly something unique and powerful, which might end up bringing in some rather interesting and powerful features to the table for the most part.

How can these projects help Las Vegas?It’s very important to note that most of these projects are commercial, so they are bound to bring in a lot of visitors to the city. Unlike anything you can find in the world, with the UnCommons development being a prime example in this regard.

Another important thing to note about Las Vegas is that it’s the perfect place for this type of developments. They are very creative, unique and distinctive, and they are changing the economic and touristic landscape quite a bit.

Having more than $14 billion in active developments clearly shows that Las Vegas is a prime destination for tourists and the economic landscape is very favorable for new developments. Which is why more and more developers are constantly trying to acquire new pieces of land as they invest in visually impressive, massive projects.

unsplash-logoPhotography courtesy of: Nicola Tolin

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Remaking the Las Vegas Strip?

This post originally appeared on Vegas CRE Team | Commercial Connection Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to syndicate your content with theBrokerList.





7 Projects contributing to the $14 billion of development underway in Las Vegas

Las Vegas has always been a place averse to signs of aging, having new developments is never a surprise. This time we have more than $14 billion under construction, which is nothing short of amazing. The extraordinary impact of all the cranes is already being felt across the whole valley. Is the city remaking one of the worlds most recognizable roads in the world?

With that in mind, we created a list with some of the most impressive and interesting developments that are in construction right now and which might be finished either in 2019 or 2020 and beyond. One thing is certain, Las Vegas always tends to have something in development, and at this time you will find some amazing, massive projects that are under construction. It’s interesting to see how much the landscape has changed even in the past decade.

This is great for Las Vegas as a city, because it brings in great, new features for tourists. After all, Vegas is known for being a prime destination for people all over the world. Some of the projects listed below are related to tourism, but some of them are created specifically for locals. Either way, they are all amazing and you will be quite impressed to learn that there are more than $14 billion in development right now throughout Las Vegas!

1. $400 million UnCommons Development

This new development is coming in the SW part of Las Vegas and it’s created with the idea of a one-stop shop. The idea behind UnCommons is that once a company moves in, the employees will be able to work, shop and live in the same place. This approach is unique, and while the developers looked at Austin and Nashville as potential candidates, they settled with Las Vegas because this city brings them more opportunities and there’s a large demand for new jobs.

The first phase will start with office spaces that cover 150k square feet, this also includes retail, parking garages, restaurants and 875 apartment units. People nearby are excited about this development. The idea is that this establishment is something innovative and also quite expensive. The groundbreaking part is set for early next year, phase one is estimated to be completed towards the middle of 2021. UnCommons is certainly one of the developments you need to keep an eye on.

2. Las Vegas Raiders Stadium

By far one of the most exciting developments in Las Vegas at this time is the Las Vegas Raiders stadium. This one has 65k seats and it’s an indoor football stadium. The overall cost is around $1.8 billion. This is a very interesting development that continues to impress everyone with the huge scale of this entire project. There’s no specific completion date, but that might be around mid-2020. Its construction started in September 2017, and there weren’t that many problems that would push the development. A lot of people suggest that the Las Vegas Raiders stadium will most likely be ready just in time for the 2020 NFL season. One thing is certain, this stadium is nothing short of extraordinary, having a domed stadium in Vegas does stand out quite a bit and the stadium is also set to bring in all the latest technologies and features as you might imagine.

3. Las Vegas Convention Center Expansion

The Las Vegas Convention Center expansion is also a very expensive development that’s already in construction. This is more of an expansion rather than a new construction, but, it’s already visually impressive and the Las Vegas Convention Center is set to become one of the main attractions in the city. That being said, this expansion will cost around $935.1 million, so it’s very expensive, but it might be quite a great addition for people that are coming to the city for the first time. The economy of South Nevada is driven by tourism, so expanding the Las Vegas Convention Center will help bring in a much better way to serve tourists that visit this magnificent city. Since the tourism industry generates around $60 billion in total for Southern Nevada, it’s easy to see why expanding the current Las Vegas Convention Center and offering even more assistance and support to customers can pay off very well. ​

4. MSG Sphere

The MSG Sphere is a music and entertainment venue built in Paradise, Nevada and it’s set to be complete in 2021. It will have a capacity of around 18000 people and it will also include 19000 by 13500 resolution LED screens that will be spread within the venue’s interior. All seats have high-speed internet access, which will help make this venue even more impressive and interesting than it is at this particular time. On top of that, the MSG Sphere is set to have a powerful sound system that will deliver sound through the floorboards. And to top it all off, the exterior of the venue will include a 360-degree IMAX display that will make it easy for people on the outside to see what’s happening inside the venue. This is a next-gen entertainment venue that’s set to impress everyone with its complexity and resounding features.

5. Resorts World Casino

Having yet another resort in Las Vegas might not seem like huge news. But Resorts World Casino wants to make things a bit different here. This development is built on an 87-acre site on the Las Vegas Strip and despite the construction starting in 2018, this project is set to be completed at some point in 2020. There are many great features related to the Resorts World Casino. The primary thing here is that Paul Curtis Steelman and the Steelman Partners managed the architectural design. As a result, the entire project looks downright amazing, and it will bring in lots of people excited by gambling to the city. That being said, the Resorts World Casino project is also located very close to the Sky Condominium Las Vegas. That alone makes it a very good investment and the condos also have quite a bit to earn from having a stellar, impressive resort located right near them.

6. Marriott’s 4000+ Mega Hotel Resort AKA The Drew

Marriott is known for the fact that they always try to push the boundaries with new developments. They have a new resort under construction in Las Vegas. The project is set to be named The Drew and it will feature more than 4000 luxury rooms. Including in this resort project there will be more than 500000 square feet of meeting and convention space for the business visitors as well. Another interesting thing about this project is that the Drew Las Vegas will feature more than 90000 square feet of gaming space. Obviously this will be more than enough to host thousands of players as they enjoy a great gambling experience. The story of this project is quite intriguing because it has been in development for quite some time. It was started back in 2005, and the project name was Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Then it entered bankruptcy in 2009, so it was put on hold for quite some time. Years later Marriot International decided to give this a shot, and now they are working hard to complete one of the most interesting and promising resorts in Las Vegas.

7. Las Vegas Ballpark

The Las Vegas Ballpark is a $150 million construction created specifically for baseball lovers. The project has an opening date of April 9 2019. The Howard Hughes Corporation owns this Las Vegas Ballpark and the entire project is set to bring in some astounding visual and feature upgrades when compared to many stadiums out there. However, the construction process and more particularly the initial steps were a bit hard to complete mostly because the stadium’s sewage system backed up and that did end up being the reason why they invested in these new features. It’s certainly something unique and powerful, which might end up bringing in some rather interesting and powerful features to the table for the most part.

How can these projects help Las Vegas?It’s very important to note that most of these projects are commercial, so they are bound to bring in a lot of visitors to the city. Unlike anything you can find in the world, with the UnCommons development being a prime example in this regard.

Another important thing to note about Las Vegas is that it’s the perfect place for this type of developments. They are very creative, unique and distinctive, and they are changing the economic and touristic landscape quite a bit.

Having more than $14 billion in active developments clearly shows that Las Vegas is a prime destination for tourists and the economic landscape is very favorable for new developments. Which is why more and more developers are constantly trying to acquire new pieces of land as they invest in visually impressive, massive projects.

unsplash-logoPhotography courtesy of: Nicola Tolin

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Remaking the Las Vegas Strip?

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7 Projects contributing to the $14 billion of development underway in Las Vegas

Las Vegas has always been a place averse to signs of aging, having new developments is never a surprise. This time we have more than $14 billion under construction, which is nothing short of amazing. The extraordinary impact of all the cranes is already being felt across the whole valley. Is the city remaking one of the worlds most recognizable roads in the world?

With that in mind, we created a list with some of the most impressive and interesting developments that are in construction right now and which might be finished either in 2019 or 2020 and beyond. One thing is certain, Las Vegas always tends to have something in development, and at this time you will find some amazing, massive projects that are under construction. It’s interesting to see how much the landscape has changed even in the past decade.

This is great for Las Vegas as a city, because it brings in great, new features for tourists. After all, Vegas is known for being a prime destination for people all over the world. Some of the projects listed below are related to tourism, but some of them are created specifically for locals. Either way, they are all amazing and you will be quite impressed to learn that there are more than $14 billion in development right now throughout Las Vegas!

1. $400 million UnCommons Development

This new development is coming in the SW part of Las Vegas and it’s created with the idea of a one-stop shop. The idea behind UnCommons is that once a company moves in, the employees will be able to work, shop and live in the same place. This approach is unique, and while the developers looked at Austin and Nashville as potential candidates, they settled with Las Vegas because this city brings them more opportunities and there’s a large demand for new jobs.

The first phase will start with office spaces that cover 150k square feet, this also includes retail, parking garages, restaurants and 875 apartment units. People nearby are excited about this development. The idea is that this establishment is something innovative and also quite expensive. The groundbreaking part is set for early next year, phase one is estimated to be completed towards the middle of 2021. UnCommons is certainly one of the developments you need to keep an eye on.

2. Las Vegas Raiders Stadium

By far one of the most exciting developments in Las Vegas at this time is the Las Vegas Raiders stadium. This one has 65k seats and it’s an indoor football stadium. The overall cost is around $1.8 billion. This is a very interesting development that continues to impress everyone with the huge scale of this entire project. There’s no specific completion date, but that might be around mid-2020. Its construction started in September 2017, and there weren’t that many problems that would push the development. A lot of people suggest that the Las Vegas Raiders stadium will most likely be ready just in time for the 2020 NFL season. One thing is certain, this stadium is nothing short of extraordinary, having a domed stadium in Vegas does stand out quite a bit and the stadium is also set to bring in all the latest technologies and features as you might imagine.

3. Las Vegas Convention Center Expansion

The Las Vegas Convention Center expansion is also a very expensive development that’s already in construction. This is more of an expansion rather than a new construction, but, it’s already visually impressive and the Las Vegas Convention Center is set to become one of the main attractions in the city. That being said, this expansion will cost around $935.1 million, so it’s very expensive, but it might be quite a great addition for people that are coming to the city for the first time. The economy of South Nevada is driven by tourism, so expanding the Las Vegas Convention Center will help bring in a much better way to serve tourists that visit this magnificent city. Since the tourism industry generates around $60 billion in total for Southern Nevada, it’s easy to see why expanding the current Las Vegas Convention Center and offering even more assistance and support to customers can pay off very well. ​

4. MSG Sphere

The MSG Sphere is a music and entertainment venue built in Paradise, Nevada and it’s set to be complete in 2021. It will have a capacity of around 18000 people and it will also include 19000 by 13500 resolution LED screens that will be spread within the venue’s interior. All seats have high-speed internet access, which will help make this venue even more impressive and interesting than it is at this particular time. On top of that, the MSG Sphere is set to have a powerful sound system that will deliver sound through the floorboards. And to top it all off, the exterior of the venue will include a 360-degree IMAX display that will make it easy for people on the outside to see what’s happening inside the venue. This is a next-gen entertainment venue that’s set to impress everyone with its complexity and resounding features.

5. Resorts World Casino

Having yet another resort in Las Vegas might not seem like huge news. But Resorts World Casino wants to make things a bit different here. This development is built on an 87-acre site on the Las Vegas Strip and despite the construction starting in 2018, this project is set to be completed at some point in 2020. There are many great features related to the Resorts World Casino. The primary thing here is that Paul Curtis Steelman and the Steelman Partners managed the architectural design. As a result, the entire project looks downright amazing, and it will bring in lots of people excited by gambling to the city. That being said, the Resorts World Casino project is also located very close to the Sky Condominium Las Vegas. That alone makes it a very good investment and the condos also have quite a bit to earn from having a stellar, impressive resort located right near them.

6. Marriott’s 4000+ Mega Hotel Resort AKA The Drew

Marriott is known for the fact that they always try to push the boundaries with new developments. They have a new resort under construction in Las Vegas. The project is set to be named The Drew and it will feature more than 4000 luxury rooms. Including in this resort project there will be more than 500000 square feet of meeting and convention space for the business visitors as well. Another interesting thing about this project is that the Drew Las Vegas will feature more than 90000 square feet of gaming space. Obviously this will be more than enough to host thousands of players as they enjoy a great gambling experience. The story of this project is quite intriguing because it has been in development for quite some time. It was started back in 2005, and the project name was Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Then it entered bankruptcy in 2009, so it was put on hold for quite some time. Years later Marriot International decided to give this a shot, and now they are working hard to complete one of the most interesting and promising resorts in Las Vegas.

7. Las Vegas Ballpark

The Las Vegas Ballpark is a $150 million construction created specifically for baseball lovers. The project has an opening date of April 9 2019. The Howard Hughes Corporation owns this Las Vegas Ballpark and the entire project is set to bring in some astounding visual and feature upgrades when compared to many stadiums out there. However, the construction process and more particularly the initial steps were a bit hard to complete mostly because the stadium’s sewage system backed up and that did end up being the reason why they invested in these new features. It’s certainly something unique and powerful, which might end up bringing in some rather interesting and powerful features to the table for the most part.

How can these projects help Las Vegas?It’s very important to note that most of these projects are commercial, so they are bound to bring in a lot of visitors to the city. Unlike anything you can find in the world, with the UnCommons development being a prime example in this regard.

Another important thing to note about Las Vegas is that it’s the perfect place for this type of developments. They are very creative, unique and distinctive, and they are changing the economic and touristic landscape quite a bit.

Having more than $14 billion in active developments clearly shows that Las Vegas is a prime destination for tourists and the economic landscape is very favorable for new developments. Which is why more and more developers are constantly trying to acquire new pieces of land as they invest in visually impressive, massive projects.

unsplash-logoPhotography courtesy of: Nicola Tolin

RSS Feed provided by theBrokerList Blog - theBrokerList for commercial real estate brokers (cre) and Remaking the Las Vegas Strip? was written by Vegas CRE Team.

Remaking the Las Vegas Strip? published first on https://greatlivinghomespage.tumblr.com/