Gaming off the Beaten Path

It’s been a fun month, but I’m all Final Fantasy’d out. And how do I follow up and entire month of borderline obsessive coverage of a super nerdy RPG?  By covering something even nerdier!  After all, what’s nerdier than Magic: The Gathering? I have played MTG for a very, very long time.  There was a time in my life that I was ashamed of that, but that time has come and gone.  I may not have the time or resources to dedicate to the game that I used to, but I still like to play any way I can.  That usually means playing digitally and unfortunately, I have always found Magic video games to be lacking.  They usually fall into one of two situations, either they require too much of a financial commitment or they deviate too far from the actual game to be any fun.  But now, Thanks to the (pun intended) “magic” of the internet, I have finally found the game I was looking for.  And the best part?  It’s abandonware, so it can be downloaded for free. Actually call

I am always going to prefer old school games to modern ones.  I would never say never, but its unlikely that will ever change.  Gaming always had an “indy-ness” to it, even with big budget titles.  With that came a certain sense of creativity that has since been lost. However, modern gaming offers a bevy of conveniences that absolutely improve the player experience.  One of the biggest is easy access to cheap games.  I have talked about PS Plus/Games with Gold at length, but even beyond those services there are massive libraries of budget titles, including this week’s entry Anodyne.  How budget was it?  I spend $0.99 on this game.  Ninety Nine cents.  That’s the cost of a doughnut at Dunkin Donuts.  I don’t know if I have ever bought a game for less (although through a strange BoGo promotion in the early 00s, GameStop did once give me, not charge me, give me, $1.50 to take a game.)   But at that price point, you are going to get what you pay for.  This

So, sorry for no game review again, but I am going to lay out some of the changes I am going to make for 2020.  Moderately obscure games are still going to be my focus, but there are a few other gaming related subjects I am going to bring in. Think of each one like a different column.  My goal is going to be one of each per month, but that may not be 100 percent what happens.  I also want to try and incorporate some more podcast style audio and video.  I may even change the name, although I haven’t decided yet. So, anyway, back to the content.  As I mentioned, I’m going to keep going off the beaten path, but I also want to focus on; Gaming on a budget:  We all know gaming is an expensive hobby, but it doesn’t have to be.  There are so many free and cheap games out there that its hard to sort through them.  I am going to talk about games that are free or almost free and whether or not they are worth your time.  I will focus a lot on games that are avail

It’s been about a year since I started blogging about games again.  The combination of goings on at work and a new year’s resolution led to this whole thing and frankly, I can’t believe I saw it through.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stopping anytime soon, I’m just shocked I didn’t stop half way through.  I am excited for yet another year of gaming and I have tons of changes planned for next year. With that said, its time for my inaugural end of year awards.  I have played and reviewed a lot of games this year and its time to go back and reflect.  For these completely fictional awards that I just made up in my head, I will be naming best game, worst game, biggest surprise, most disappointing, most potential for a series revival/sequel and most unique.  First, a reminder of my scores, from highest to lowest. Sonic Mania 9.25/10 The Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon 9.25/10 Vigilante 8 9/10 All star Baseball 99 8.5/10 Guilt Gear X2 8.25/10 NHL Hitz 2003

It’s no secret at this point that I’m a huge RPG fan.  That said, I have always found action RPGs to be hit or miss.   I find a lot of them to be very unbalanced, filled with difficulty spikes and generally inconsistent.  So naturally, I wasn’t all that excited when Dark Cloud was released back in 2001.  There were just too many other games out there that were more interesting and it got fairly middling reviews, so it was easy to ignore.  However, it also garnered something of a cult following and it has been one of the longest standing classic games available for download on Sony’s PlayStation store.  I figured now was as good a time as any to try it. Right off the bat, I noticed a bevy of themes that are prevalent in modern games: randomly generated dungeons, ‘town building and other mini-games and an almost singular focus on item collecting and upgrading.  This stuff existed in games back then, but it wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is now.  These elements c

The Legend of Dragoon, Part 1 I really, really would like to play and write about JRPGs of this era, but they are just too long to review consistently.  I am trying to always have a JRPG going on as I play other games, as they are my favorite genre by far.  That said, each of them are going to get a two part blog when I finish them, because I want to get the most out of my 40 hour investment. I firmly believe that 1995-2001 were the golden years for JRPGs and The Legend of Dragoon fits right into that window.  I wouldn’t exactly consider it a forgotten game.  In fact, I wanted to cover it for the opposite reason I have covered most games so far.  More recent online conversation around LOD paint it as a classic, an all time great, yet another jewel in the crown that is the PS1’s RPG Library.  People count it among their favorite games, touting it as a must play.  Funny, that’s not the way I remember it when it came out. While it had plenty of hype pre-rel