Gaming off the Beaten Path

Oh boy, now it's on. We are getting down to the nitty gritty. We are down to the best of the best; six games are left with four alive for the championship. We will do our semis first, since we need to drop two more games down into the consolation finals, then move on from there. So, let's get to it. Semifinal 1 (2) Suikoden II vs. (6) F-Zero GX This is going to be very, very tough for me. On one hand, you have a game that I feel the need to evangelize at every turn because the company that publishes it refuses to make a new one. The other is a favorite of the internet JRPG crowd that very much deserves the praise it gets. I think I've made it pretty clear how much I love F-Zero GX, going so far as to call it my favorite racing game of all time. But at the same time, I don't really care for the genre. Suikoden II might not even break my top 10 RPGs of all time, but it's such a hard list to break into because I love the genre so much. Both are absolutely incredible, s...

Last week saw a few fun, if uneventful, matchups in the prelims. There were no surprises, there usually aren't, so it's time to move on to the quarters, the elite 8, whatever you want to call it. Let's get right  into this. Quarterfinals Matchup 1 (4) Sonic Mania vs. (5) Sweet Home We will get started with the two games we haven't seen yet, my first and most recent GOTY winners. I reviewed Sonic Mania way back in 2019 and it ended up narrowly edging The Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for GOTY that year. Anyone that has any familiarity with Sonic the Hedgehog will know exactly what to expect from Sonic Mania. You run fast through big levels with multiple paths while dodging enemies and occasionally doing some platforming. There's tons of variety in each level, with the various paths each presenting a different challenge. To me, speed, variety and level design are what separates the good Sonic Games from the great ones,  and you know what? I think Sonic Mania might be...

  All the formalities are over and it's time to get down to business. Let's kick off the GOTBP Five Year Anniversary tournament with round one. We have three matchups this week, all between great games. But I am looking for the best of the best, my favorite game that I've played over the last five years. So, it's time to get this thing kicked off. Preliminary Round Matchup One (6) F-Zero GX vs. (11) Grim Fandango We start with the lowest seed in the bracket, a PC style adventure/point and click title that I reviewed earlier this year. I have to qualify something here, as it is the only game in the bracket with a 9.25 score and one of many titles with that score. I went backed and looked at all the games I had given that score and decided that GF was the best of them, even if only by a small margin. Mega Man X4 and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon were also in consideration. But honestly, I don't think any of them would have stood a chance in this round. Because F-Zer...

  Wait, already? Yeah we are doing the year-end  review early. I am going to call it a year on reviews  in the first week of December because I have something planned for the next few weeks. Why? Well, this is my five-year  anniversary and I want to do something to honor all of the great games I've reviewed since I started writing GOTBP as a New-Year's Resolution in 2019. What? Well, stick around to find out. In the meantime, there's the matter of handing out my awards for this year. Remember, we do best game, worst game, most surprising, most disappointing and most deserving of a modern update/remake. So, here's a reminder of the games we've looked at this year and their scores. As is customary, 10's games are not considered for these. Sweet Home - 9.25/10 Grim Fandango - 9.25/10 Street Fighter III: New Generation 9.25/10 Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 9/10 Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance - 9/10 Banjo-Kazooie - 9/10 Super Double Dragon - 9/10 Virtua Fighter 2 - 8.75/...

  It's always fun to come across new things on the internet, even when those new things are actually old. In my never-ending  quest to get more eyes on Gaming Off the Beaten Path, I find myself interacting on social media far more often than I ever thought. I don't really do personal social media, so this is all very new to me. I've started following quite a few streamers, both old school and new, and stopping by the occasional stream when I get the chance. Usually, these are games I've heard of before, the new school stuff is Call of Duty, Fortnite, etc. while the old school  stuff is typically games like Super Mario World or things of that ilk (though right now it seems both the old and new are hooked on the Super Mario RPG remake). So I was intrigued when I saw streamer Juyceman Gaming playing an NES baseball title I've never heard of, a game called Bad News Baseball. Not that a guy with over a thousand followers needs a recommendation  from someone like me, but ...