Gaming off the Beaten Path

  "The American Prevailing" is a cliche that only happens in your Hollywood movies. Oh Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of cliches." Of all my 10s games, I think Resident Evil 4 may be the one I feel the weirdest about. I know, I know, how could I feel any level weird about Resident Evil 4, one of the most sacred of sacred cows of gaming history. This is one of those games that people will straight up rail you for disliking, as if it's some sort of personal attack. I guess that's starting to change a little bit, it's become a victim of being so popular that people start to hate it just for being so. That always seems to happen in the gaming industry, though that is a different discussion for a different day. Besides, it's not really why I've always had a sort of weird relationship with RE 4. I'm not the first person to say this and I'm certainly not going to last, but it just didn...

  Well, we haven't had one of these in a while. One of the phenomena I have always found interesting is how some series become major players during one gaming generation, only to be largely forgotten once new consoles are released. I found this to be especially prevalent in the 6th generation, especially with the PlayStation 2 and GameCube . I've already looked at titles like Onimusha: Warlords and Jak and Daxter, which were huge, heavily hyped 6th gen series that just disappeared after the 7th gen started. It's not like they haven't received HD remasters or ports or collection re-releases, but in terms of new games, there has been nothing. And no, mobile games don't count. Zone of the Enders fit perfectly into this category. It was a huge, huge deal when it came out and was extremely well received  critically. It came out in a time where game creators didn't get the director treatment they do now, but it was created by Hideo Kojima, one of the earliest people...

Welcome Claire! Consider the area you're in a...special playground I have prepared just for you. Please try and keep me amused, and do not disappoint me by dying too soon! Halloween is here, so that means it's time to get spooky once again. It's been a while, but we're finally getting back to Resident Evil. I am not a huge fan of horror in general, but Resident Evil is one of my all-time favorite gaming franchises. It has the third most games in my personal top 100, behind only Mega Man and Final Fantasy, and is tied with FF for the most games on my 10s list (three apiece, for the record). Last year, I reviewed the absolutely incredible Gamecube remake on Halloween. Maybe next year I'll review Resident Evil 4, another 10/10 that just recently received a big budget remake. Both of those are all time classics, they are not only personal favorites but also important touchstones in the gaming industry as a whole. But, as great as they are, as revolutionary as they were,...

  I always find it interesting to look back on how some of these game series ended up on my radar. It's true of any media really, hell, any "thing" at all. You hear about something through word of mouth or see it in a store or experience it because someone else is super into it and boom, all the sudden it's part of your universe. In a weird way, it's kind of a phenomena that doesn't really happen anymore. Nine times out of 10, you learn about something new from social media or via some targeted internet marketing blitz (or both). I grew up in a small town, in an era when the internet was still young and access to it was spotty at best. I did have a subscription to a handful of video game magazines. Almost all of these were console based and even when they did cover PC games, I usually ignored them. I had long since cancelled my subscription to PC gamer by the early 00's, so there was a brief period where that was a complete blind spot for me. And that was ...

It's been a long time coming, but it finally happened. I finished franchise mode. I had heard for years that it was possible but had never seen it happen. The mode ends after 30 years and I don't think I ever got past 15. I would usually get bored once the actual players all retired and you were just left with randomly generated guys. But this time I threw in a twist. I would also play NCAA football side by side and import my draft class in each year. I decided on doing this all on the '08 version of both games. The reason? It's the only year I had both games. Nice and simple.  Full disclosure, I am not going to finish my NCAA dynasty through to the end, that runs 60 years and it's just not going to happen. Honestly, I just don't like the NCAA games as much as I do Madden. For one, I, like any good Northeasterner, don't really care all that much about college football. Who am I going to root for, Rutgers? I used to live about 10 minutes from High Point Solut...

  It's always crazy to look at deep cuts and early efforts from some of the more celebrated developers and publishers in the industry. When we think of Nintendo, franchises like Mario, Zelda and Metroid come to mind almost immediately. But does anyone remember Excitebike? Not going to lie, those of us of a certain age probably do, but it's not really top of mind as a Nintendo franchise. At this point, isn't F-Zero considered a deep cut Nintendo Franchise? I mean, more than 20 years without a new game, right? Maybe it's time for a new one? Anyway, every gaming company had to start somewhere. It's not like Nintendo just popped up one day and started cranking out Mario games, they actually made Hanfuda playing cards for almost a century before they started cranking out light guns for Magnivox and creating consoles like the Color TV Game. But we won't be talking about the Big N today. We are going much further into the alphabet to the big R, everyone's favorite ...