Gaming off the Beaten Path

  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...

  I really like reviewing 3rd generation games, but sometimes it's hard to find much to talk about with them. It's understandable, technology was so limited at the time and a lot of developers were still figuring out what players wanted and how to iterate on formulas that had proven successful. Think of how many games were just the same side scroller or platformer with a new license slapped on. How many seemingly simple mechanics were considered revolutionary back then. Being able to pick your stage order in Mega Man? Walking to the left in Metroid? These things seem ridiculous to call out as special now, but at the time they were a major deal. It was also the frontier days for developers and publishers, with small studios growing, changing and evolving alongside established companies in other spaces looking for a piece of the video game pie. Digger T. Rock: Legend of the Lost City, kind of encapsulates all of those things. It was published by Milton Bradley, known more for bo...

  Here we are again. It's the dreaded NES movie adaptation. I have talked in the past about how certain genres have been prevalent throughout gaming history, from mascot platformers to tournament fighters to first person shooters. But as a subset of games, licensed movie titles for the NES were as popular as anything. If there was a major action movie between the years of 1982-1993, it got made into an NES game, usually a terrible one. One need not go deep into the bowels of the internet to see how derided these games, or the infamous developer responsible for most of them, have become in recent years. It didn't matter how good the movie was, how appropriate the subject matter or whether its plot made sense as a video game, as long as money could be made it was getting released. I was a bit young for the true mid-80's boom here, but these things were definitely still a thing when I started playing games in the early 90's. It may have been several years old at that point...

  I always felt like the 6th generation was where gaming really started to take off as a mainstream hobby. It's not that a there weren't a lot of people playing video games during the previous two generations, because there were. But it always felt like it was predominately a medium targeted at boys age seven to 17. I didn't realize it at the time, I fit right into that group after all, but games were almost exclusively made for that demographic. It was around the 6th gen where I feel like that began to change. My guess would be that some gaming execs realized there was money being left on the table. "Hey, maybe girls like video games too?" "Our user base is getting older, maybe we should make more titles aimed at adults?" "If we made educational or child friendly games that don't suck, maybe parents will buy them for their kids?" Anyone that's ever sat in a marketing meeting knows exactly what I'm talking about. In this case, it wa...

  I swore I would never, ever play any of these Lego games, but here I am about to review my second one. The things we do for our children. I have to say, the formula leads to a lot more fun than I ever thought it would. They aren't the most varied or challenging but considering the target audience that should kind of be expected. Big budget titles certainly have their downsides, but you know with something built by a huge team at a huge developer that you are going to get some level of polish on the technical side. But you can also kind of expect all of the umphteen titles that will inevitably come out in a series to sort of run together, even if they feature different IPs. A lot of different universes have received the Lego treatment over the years. Indiana Jones was the first one I played, but now it's time to leave the Temple of Doom Behind and travel to the mean streets of Gotham City. In terms of lore, I'm going in a little less blind than I was last time. I am certa...

 Just realized I forgot to post these here, will get started with part 1: And here's part 2:

So, this week we are going to go on a bit of a detour. I wasn’t planning on covering Mega Man 8 this week, but on Father’s Day I asked my son what he wanted to do and he was like “play video games with daddy!”  I wasn’t going to tell him no.  I even told him he could pick the game.  He went right to “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem,” but when I informed him that that game was just slightly not appropriate for a 3-year old,  he happily picked Mega Man 8 as a second choice.  How fitting, starting his gaming career off with the same franchise I began mine with 25 years ago. By now just about everyone is familiar with Mega Man.  I have touched on some of its more unique games and some parts of the X series, but this is the first time we will jump into the original series.  Released in January of 1997, 8 is the only mainline series title for the Playstation 1 (it also came out on the Sega Saturn).  It would also be the last one we would see for a ...

Kagero: Deception 2 For the first time, I’m not entirely sure how I would classify the game I’m about to review.  It’s not uncommon to find titles that mix genres, even back to the early days of gaming.  It’s a great way to keep stale formulas fresh and try new things.  But I’m not entirely sure what genre Kagero fits into, or if it even fits into one at all.  It’s part third person adventure, part strategy, part survival horror, part RPG and, dare I say, a little bit of a puzzle game.  A lot of games like this tend to become disjointed and incoherent, but that didn’t happen here.  Kagero is an outstanding game, but it comes with a major caveat. I am just going to get it out of the way, Kagero is a very violent and at times, very disturbing game.  It really, really earned its M rating.  As a PS1 game, the blood and gore aren’t really all that shocking.  In fact, the blocky character models and lacking details make the game much easier to st...

Oh boy, I have been dreading this for a long time.  It’s time to talk about one of the scourges of the gaming world: licensed movie tie-ins.   There was a point in time where you absolutely knew any game based on a movie was going to be complete trash.  Developers would slap together something as quickly as they could, throw on a label and flood store shelves with it.  These were almost universally shameless cash grabs designed to separate gamers, and their unassuming parents and relatives, from their hard earned money.  Fortunately, that has changed to a degree as quality control has become better.  But it still happens. First, a little bit about the source material for today’s game.  In true “Street Fighter: The Movie” style, we have a video game that’s based on a movie that’s based on a book, the first in Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series.  I remember reading the book when I was younger and thinking it...

The wait is over, its finally here.  What started as a random tech demo at E3 years ago has finally evolved into a reality: the Final Fantasy VII remake is here.  It took a little extra time for me to get my hands on a copy thanks to the COVID-tastic shipping schedule, but my collector’s edition finally arrived early last week. I’m not going to lie, I haven’t quite finished the game.  Quarantine or no quarantine, putting 40 hours into a game in two weeks is just not something I can do right now.  I thought about going into the history of this game, but I think most hardcore fans already know it and most casual fans don’t care.  I already discussed the original, so that’s out too.  I am going to do a full review next week, but I certainly have enough time in it to give some initial thoughts. My biggest takeaway here: this isn’t really a remake, its more of a re-imagining.  As far as I am in, I’m not sure how I feel about th...