Gaming off the Beaten Path

  Video game consoles, like any product, fail for a number of reasons. Remember, things weren't always like they are now, where it's all but guaranteed you are going to get a new PlayStation, XBox or whatever random name Nintendo decides on every 8 to ten years. Gaming history has seen a lot of different players attempt to enter the console market, some successfully and others not so much. This wasn't just a long time ago either, I would say this kind of continued up until the 7th generation (and it still does occasionally happen even today). It was probably most prevalent in the really early days, there are tons and tons of pong consoles out there from manufacturers you would never imagine making video games. It was definitely still true in the 90's when a lot of players were still looking for a piece of the gaming pie. Nintendo and Sega were in the middle of a full-on console war, but they weren't alone. NEC and Hudson were still plugging away with the Turbografx,...

  It's amazing how many video games really are out there in the world. And the existence of this one certainly shocked me. We head back to the TurboGrafx-16 this week, a console that I'm quickly finding I really enjoy. I think a lot of it comes down to finding so many of these titles so new. I had heard of, and in some cases played, some of the more popular titles on the console before. Splatterhouse, the Bonk titles, even Alien and Devil's Crush were all titles that I at least had on my radar. I knew the TG16 was known for shoot 'em ups, so seeing the large number of quality games in that genre didn't surprise me. So many of us of a certain age learned a lot about obscure games from the Angry Video Game Nerd, who has discussed TG16 games like Darkwing Duck and Fighting Street (which is just a port of the original Street Fighter). Of course, if he's talking about a game, it's typically not going to be because it's good. I've never played Darkwing Duc...

  I'm not one for overly difficult games, but this one has been on my list for a long, long time. I think I've covered more Mega Man titles than any other series. What can I say, I've always loved these games. Despite being an iconic video game character, the blue bomber fits more into the whole "off the beaten path" theme than you would think. I forget where it was, I ended up looking at the series' sales figures and was shocked to find just how few units it has moved. I guess it makes some level of sense. Mega Man has had quite a few fits of starts and stops, often coming out with two, three, four titles in the span of a few years before going dark. A lot of this is due to spinoffs, I always considered the classic and X series to kind of be one and one A, but there is also Battle network, Legends and a host of other interesting outliers. A lot of folks consider these games to be incredibly difficult. Honestly, I just don't see it. Maybe it's because ...

  I always thought fan games were cool. I especially think it's cool when developers and publishers put their support behind those fan games. And I especially, especially when those fan games mix two of my favorite franchises in a way that makes sense. Anyone that has been following my content for any length of time knows I am a huge fan of both Mega Man and Street Fighter. You know, I didn't even realize how much I like Capcom games in general. When I first tried to start blogging back in my college days, I did a list of my top 100 video games of all time. That list would look much different if I did it today, but I don't think my top games would change too much. Of my top five, four of them were Capcom games and I didn't notice until I looked at it many years later when I started GOTBP. In fact,  both of these series  found their way into my top five. So yeah, a crossover between the two would be right up my alley. Apparently,  I wasn't the only one either, becaus...

  Hey, he said he'd be back. We are forging ahead with our licensed 80's movie games, but there's no way we were moving past Arnold Schwarzennegger without covering Terminator. This is the first time we are going to be covering the franchise, but it's most certainly not going to be the last. For one, there are tons of Terminator games out there across a variety of consoles and generations. But for all I talk about how much I dislike movies, Terminator and Terminator 2 are among the rare examples of films that I can watch over and over again. The second movie is particularly excellent, still one of my all time favorites to this day. I think most people are familiar with the plot by now. The year is 2029, and humanity is on its last legs, fighting off a horde of sentient machines led by a rogue AI, Chat G...err, uh, Skynet. Skynet decides the best way to finally end humanity is to send a highly advanced Terminator, the T-1000, back in time to kill resistance leader John C...

  Uuhhhhh....huh huh huh. Huh huh huh. Huh huh huh. Heh. Eh Heh Heh heh. Heh Heh.. Ummmm, so, like, this time we're going to be talking about the Beavis and Butt-Head game for Super Nintendo or something. I don't know if it's going to be good, but like... it looks pretty cool. Yeah! heh heh. This game is going to rule! There's going to be tons of action! And Music Videos! And FIRE! Uuuhhhh, yeah. Sounds pretty cool. But what if it like, sucks? Like it's just a bunch of Bon Jovi videos or something? Beavis and Butt-Head in a video game? I'm there dude! In all seriousness, I figured I would give Beavis and Butt-Head on the SNES a shot now that the not-so-dynamic duo is back. I have yet to see the new show or movie, but they have received what I feel is a surprising amount of critical acclaim. Remember, Beavis and Butt-Head was the show that represented the oncoming downfall of society, the animated effigies of disinterested, braindead youth into which video games ...

While I love retro games as much as the next person, I have mixed feelings about how the video game industry as a whole milks nostalgia for all it's worth. On one hand, it stifles creativity, as studios pump out never ending streams of remakes and remasters of the same games we played 20 years ago. It also prevents those games from standing on their own, almost as if they weren't worthwhile. On the other hand, it has led to some really, really great titles, like the Final Fantasy VII Remake. It has also brough us an almost-subgenre of games, games done in an old school style as homages to their classic counterparts. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night fits squarely into that almost-subgenre and it's easy to see why. The game was the brainchild of Koji Igarashi, a former producer for Konami who had a major role in the creation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. After leaving the company in 2014, Igarashi couldn't escape fan requests to create a game similar to SOTN. S...

Looks Like Bowser is at it again! Nintendo was the unquestioned king of the home console video game world in the 80's, but by the time the 90's rolled around they found their castle was under siege. This siege, led by a super-fast, super hip hedgehog and his edgy compatriots, was going quite well for the Big N's latest rival. Their biggest weapon in all of this was a new, sleek, 16-bit gaming machine that has the aging NES on the ropes. Between the marketing blitz and blast processing and top-of-the-line graphics, Nintendo had their hands full. The NES had some great games, like Super Mario Bros. 3, but it just couldn't compete with the Genesis from a technical standpoint. However, Nintendo wasn't about to hand over the crown just yet. They were ready with some brand-new firepower of their own, kicking off the 90's with the new Super NES. Now they had their own 16-bit machine, a new console to help them defend their figurative crown. But a console alone wasn...