Gaming off the Beaten Path

So I have decided to do something a little different with some of these posts.  After my son was born a few weeks ago, I decided to pull out a bunch of games I had based on “kid friendly” IPs.  I am still going to review these games, but I will also add some commentary on whether the youngins could actually play or enjoy them. And we will get started with one my very first games, Mickey Mouscapade.  This game came with my NES, a hand me down from my cousin, way back in the early 90’s.  I don’t have too many of those games anymore, for better or for worse, but this one has sat in my collection since day 1.  It seemed like a good place to start with kid friendly stuff.     Full disclosure, I loved Disney when I was like, four, but I’m not one of those people that is Disney obsessed as an adult.  Now that I have kids, I may one day make a trip to the overcrowded, overpriced hellscape happiest place on earth that is Disney World, but thats about it. I enjoy s

So I just bought a car.  I may not be the first one of my friends to own a minivan, but I'm damn sure the first one to own a minivan of my own free will!  I figured now was a good time to check another genre off the list.  One I have been dreading for a long time.   I really, really don’t like racing games.  At least, realistic ones.  I like my share of kart racers and more sci-if oriented racers, like F-Zero, but that’s about it.  I have just never been a car enthusiast (I just bought a minivan for crying out loud) and I can count on one hand the ones I think are actually fun.  Everyone always talks about Gran Turismo or Forza or whatever, how they accurately simulate driving.  Great!  Who doesn’t love driving!  While we're at it, lets make games that accurately simulate squirting lemon juice in your eye or getting kicked in the nuts!    So as it is, there’s some genre bias here, but I am always willing to give new games a chance.  Especially when t

Joe & Mac, NES After taking baby steps back through gaming history, its time to jump in head first and go back to the Stone Age.   Well, I guess the NES would technically be more like the Bronze Age or something like that.  Of course, it did have its share of games based on cave men, including the subject of our post today. It should be noted that this is a port of an arcade game.  That was pretty common at the time and even the best ports fail to live up to the arcade experience.  I will only be discussing the NES game because, well, that’s the version I played.   I should also note this is a Data East game. The now defunct gaming company made some pretty good arcade games in the 80s and 90s, but its console offerings were usually pretty terrible.  We are talking like LJN level.  I can think of at least one that I plan on reviewing at some point.  Anyway, this meant my expectations were low going in.   I feel like Joe & Mac was pretty popul