Gaming off the Beaten Path

Last week, we started our look at Lost Odyssey, a title that seemed to break unwritten rules of gaming left and right. We have a traditional RPG, which is the brainchild of the creator of Final Fantasy, released for XBox, a console not known for the genre, at a time when said genre was at what felt like the absolute bottom of its popularity. We started with the story, characters and world, all of which I thought were really good to great. That's a great start for an RPG, where those aspects are very important. But all of that can be undone if the gameplay isn't up to par. It's critical in any generation, but this is an essential aspect to call out in 7th gen RPGs. There was a lot of experimentation going on in the genre at the time, a lot of which didn't yield positive results. I guess I get it, the genre wasn't doing well at the time and developers were trying to do anything they could to bring it back to relevance. Sometimes, that meant terrible gimmicks. Other ti...

  Before we unpack and review this week's game, we need to talk a little bit about the console it's on and that console's history. But this isn't some lesser known 90's system like the Neo Geo or 3DO. It's a console family that in the last 20 years has become a household name for both gamers and non-gamers alike. Whether you are a fan of the console or not, there's no denying the original XBox caused a seismic shift when it was released in 2001. The big black and green box immediately stood out physically and it wasted little time in establishing itself as one of the most unapologetically western consoles of all time. Born of a marriage between a multi-billionaire's spur-of-the-moment infatuation and excessive 90's edgelord marketing and baptized in Mountain Dew, XBox took Sega's "cool kid" strategy and turned it up to 11. There were no silly plumbers or hedgehogs here. Nintendo and Sony? Those were for anime nerds and little kids. Sega...

  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...

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...