Gaming off the Beaten Path

  Mascot platformers were really popular in the 90's and 00's. I'm not sure any other genre or sub-genre stayed so popular for so long. Tournament fighters were huge in the early to mid 90's, RPGs were all the rage in the mid to late 90's, there were like 50 different MMOs in the mid 00's and it seems like there are millions of Soulslike games out there now. But when Mario hit it big in 1985, everyone started trying to replicate his success. Sometimes, they were successful (Sonic). Other times, they weren't (Bubsy). But it seemed like from the mid 80's to the mid 00's, developers were pumping out mascot platformers left and right. I guess the modern FPS craze is getting close, I would say that started in the late 00's and it is still going strong. But they still have a ways to go to catch up to mascot platformers. I think part of the reason mascot platformers were so prevalent for so long was their ability to transition between genres. These game...

I know I've belabored this point over the last few years, but I've always maintained the 5th generation was one of the most innovative eras in gaming. In general, that's a good thing. But even I, an obvious and outspoken apologist for the 5th gen, recognize that not all of the innovations that came about were successful. I think that's a trap a lot of people fall into in their personal and professional lives. Just because something is new or different doesn't mean it's better. How many alleged life hacks actually make your life harder? Look at sports, how many NFL franchises have set themselves back years by refusing to admit some newfangled scheme their new coach came up with isn't working? That being said, trying new things will often lead to positive steps forward. That's true in gaming as well, you never know what's going to work until you try it. And that brings us to Blast Corps., a difficult-to-classify title that hit the N64 in late 1997. I m...

  One of the biggest problems I believe the gaming industry has is how quick it is to dismiss mediocre or even bad games as a complete waste of time. That may not seem like it makes sense at all, but hear me out. Just because a game is bad doesn't necessarily mean all the ideas it presents are bad. In fact, I feel like you can sometimes learn more from a failure than a success. But that doesn't always happen in the gaming industry. I think this is a big part of why it sometimes feels like the same game gets released over and over again, developers just take everything from their successes and slap a new label on them. Sometimes, it would help the industry innovate more if they took some of the more positive aspects from their less successful titles. In case it wasn't immediately apparent, Flying Dragon, a fighting game for the Nintendo 64, isn't a particularly good game. I probably could have just said "fighting game for the Nintendo 64" and you probably could...

You know, for all the racing games I've covered over the years, I think last week was the first time I ever played a simulation racing game. This week I'm going to re-visit another genre I haven't touched in a while: arcade sports titles. Arcade sports games are a love it or hate it kind of thing. In some respect, it's difficult to pin down what exactly an arcade sports title entails. At its most basic level, it's a sports game that isn't a simulation of the sport it represents. But I personally would take it a bit further. It's any sports game that doesn't even attempt to simulate the sport it represents. Obviously, RBI Baseball on the NES isn't anything close to a simulation by modern standards, but it was the best they could do at the time. Would you consider that sim style or arcade style? At any rate, I think it's safe to include any over the top, ridiculous sports titles in the arcade side of things. Games like NFL Blitz and NBA Jam are som...

So it looks like it's we're back into "this is totally and completely countercultural for me" territory. I'm just going to come out and say it, I know next to nothing about NASCAR. I know it's incredibly popular, but it's just not something I grew up with. I'm from the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line for that. But it's more than just regional. Racing just wasn't something my parents or anyone I knew paid attention to. As little as I know about NASCAR, I know even less about F-1 or rally racing or drag racing or whatever other competitive kinds of racing are out there. My extent of knowledge of the sport comes from not changing the channel when SportsCenter showed race footage between football highlights and coverage of MLB trade rumors. It's not that I don't have respect for NASCAR drivers, in fact I don't understand people that refuse to call them athletes. "They only make left turns!" Have you ever made a left turn go...

Of all Nintendo's first party franchises, F-Zero probably gets the least love. I think I made it pretty clear when I reviewed F-Zero GX last year that I think it's BS that Nintendo hasn't released a new title in the franchise in going on 20 years. But while it has gotten a handful of sequels and its certainly seen more releases than its futuristic racing brethren, I've always felt Star Fox is a close second on the big N's "let's not make any more games in this franchise" list. It seems like no matter how hard they try, Nintendo just can't capture what made the old Star Fox games so great. The series' most recent entry, 2016's Star Fox Zero, was met with mixed reviews and is generally regarded as okay at best. Star Fox Assault on the GameCube had its moments, but was an overall disappointing experience that I found to be incredibly lacking. I've already offered my thoughts on Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet and its complete deviat...

  It might sound hard to believe, but a lot of us weren't sure what to expect when Super Mario 64 was first announced. At the time, none of us really knew what was going to happen when games made the jump into 3D, especially not us console gamers. What would Mario look like? How would it play? How would it stay true to the structure of the old games? Seriously, there were a lot of questions, even from hardcore Nintendo fanboys. It didn't take long for us to get our answers though. When the Nintendo 64 finally arrived in late 1996, there were only two games available at launch, Super Mario 64 being one of them. And it's the one just about all of us got as soon as we could. Fun fact, my Nintendo 64 is the first thing I ever bought with my own money. I had been doing odd jobs around the house since it was announced and when I fired it up for the first time, my mind was blown. I remember the first time I saw Mario's face in full 3D, I probably spent like 20 minutes just pla...

Bond.. James Bond Unlike most of my 10's games, I'm not entirely sure where to start with Goldeneye. On one hand, it's a favorite target, possibly THE favorite target, of the "aged poorly" people who absolutely despise this generation of gaming for some unknown reason. It's funny, to me at least, that a good majority of people with this mindset either weren't born or were very young when this game came out. But by the same token, it was such a cultural phenomena and so many people are so nostalgic for it that they are often unable to overlook its flaws or realize that, yes, certain aspects of the game are "dated." I'm going to be honest, if I split hairs and actually ranked my 10's games, Goldeneye would probably finish near the bottom. I wasn't about to go out and say that it was terrible, but I had to really sit back and evaluate whether nostalgia was clouding my opinion of the game before I fired it up again. When it was all said a...

You can call THIS, the New World Order of Wrestling, brother Let’s go back to July 7, 1996. It’s time for WCW’s Bash at the Beach, an annual pay-per-view that will be headlined by the biggest match in the company’s history.  Sting, Lex Luger and the Macho Man Randy Savage are set to defend the company’s honor against the unlikeliest of invaders.  WWF stars Razor Ramon and Diesel, now going by their real names, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, have been terrorizing WCW for months (remember, there was barely an internet, we had no idea these two were under contract to WCW when Hall jumped the barricade unannounced on Monday Nitro, especially those of us who had just turned 8).  Now called “the Outsiders,” the duo had been teasing a mystery partner for weeks.  Those of us who watched both promotions speculated on which WWF-er would show up next: Brett Hart? Mr. Perfect? The Undertaker?  Who knew? The match looked like it was going to go the way of the good guys at ...