Gaming off the Beaten Path

  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...

  It looks I've gotten myself into a nice little pattern with reviewing Wii games. I started with a typical licensed Wii title, then moved on to an actual game. Well, now it's time to get back to those super fun, always top-quality licensed titles. This week, we have ourselves yet another licensed video game based on another reality show. But this time is going to be a little bit different. Unlike the Amazing Race, which I had only some familiarity with, I've watched a ton of Survivor. I wouldn't call myself a super fan, but I'm definitely a fan and I've seen most of the seasons. Reality shows get a lot of flak for being staged and unoriginal, but remember, Survivor was kind of the OG of the genre. It's crazy that what started as a one-time social experiment has turned into a game show that's run for more than 40 seasons across three decades. I guess it makes sense, stick 20 randos on an island, deny them food, pit them against each other in various gam...

  I think I did the Wii a disservice by focusing my first review of one of its titles on a shovelware game. The Wii had a bad, and in many ways deserved, reputation as a haven for shameless cash grabs and licensed junk. It's the kind of place where you would find, say, a game based on a reality TV show that was thrown together without any thought or effort...not like I'd know anything about that though. However, the Wii has some really good games as well, mostly stemming from Nintendo's big-name franchises. There were some excellent Mario and Zelda games for the console, it feels like there were excellent Mario and Zelda games for every console. In a way, the Wii was very similar to the Nintendo 64, with some essential first party games buoying a lineup dragged down by largely forgettable third-party titles. But unlike the N64, where many of those first party games are household names even among non-gamers, many of the Wii's better first party titles have been forgotten...

  Time to check another console off the list. This time, we are going to go with something a little more modern. As I've alluded to in previous posts, I consider the 7th console generation to be very much modern, even if it is going on 15 years old. It was a very interesting time in gaming, a time where online play was becoming the norm and video games were reaching new audiences outside the standard "gamer" stereotypes. The "bit wars" were over, this was the first generation of consoles I never once heard referred to by the number of bits they had (it largely stopped in the previous generation, but early media surrounding the Dreamcast and PS2 did refer to those consoles as "128-bit"). A war that started between Sega and Nintendo ended with two new powers, Sony and Microsoft, at the top of the gaming industry. The former decided to take itself out of the console market, electing instead to become a 3rd party software developer. The latter was on the d...

While traditional platformers aren’t all that common anymore, many games have taken elements of their gameplay and spun them off into other genres, like rogue-likes. I should back up for a second, because even though Spelunky has randomly generated levels, it is technically not a rogue-like in the strict definition as it doesn’t not have most of the role-playing elements the genre calls for (It's also not really that new, having come out in 2008). It is what some people call rogue-lite, as it lacks a level system or a turn based gameplay.  I wouldn’t call it that though.  In doing research for this game, I learned that some in the community have yet another name for games like this: Procedural Death Labyrinth.  I couldn’t think of a more appropriate description of Spelunky if I tried.  Gameplay wise, it is pretty simple.  You explore a mine filled with various enemies in a free range, 2D platforming style.  You have two goals, stay ...

I have decided to get back into writing after a long layoff.   It’s been a while since its been part of my job description and I need to work my way back into “shape.”   If I am going to be writing during my personal time, I am going to write about something I am passionate about, so I want to continue writing about gaming.    Rather than go through the machinations of creating a whole new blog, I’m just going to use my old one.   I deleted all of the non-gaming content, so all that’s left is the top 100 games of all time list I did when I was in college.   That was several years ago and its something I would like to revisit at some point.  Because of the layoff, the number of candidates for that list has grown a ton.   I didn’t even include games from the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii generation (which at this point is the previous generation).   While I have become more of a retro gamer in recent years, I can still safely say I have played e...