Gaming off the Beaten Path

 Now that I have kids, a lot of new media has entered my orbit. And frankly, a lot of old media has re-entered it too. It really is amazing how many kids shows are still on the air in some way, shape or form. For every new franchise my kids become obsessed with, it seems like they also become obsessed with one from my childhood. It actually leads to a surprising amount of parenting problems. My kids assume that because I know so much about Pokémon, I know equal amounts about Ninjago or Dog Man. Any other parents have kids in the Dog Man phase? I guess it beats the sheer terror and foul horror of Cocomelon. Anyway, one of the more recent obsessions in my house has been Power Rangers, a show I was absolutely shocked to find they are still making seasons of. Since 1993, Saban has been crossing footage from Japanese show Super Sentai (which has been on even longer, since 1975) with really poorly acted teenage drama to create a massive merchandising juggernaut. My kids are into all the ...

The wait is over, its finally here.  What started as a random tech demo at E3 years ago has finally evolved into a reality: the Final Fantasy VII remake is here.  It took a little extra time for me to get my hands on a copy thanks to the COVID-tastic shipping schedule, but my collector’s edition finally arrived early last week. I’m not going to lie, I haven’t quite finished the game.  Quarantine or no quarantine, putting 40 hours into a game in two weeks is just not something I can do right now.  I thought about going into the history of this game, but I think most hardcore fans already know it and most casual fans don’t care.  I already discussed the original, so that’s out too.  I am going to do a full review next week, but I certainly have enough time in it to give some initial thoughts. My biggest takeaway here: this isn’t really a remake, its more of a re-imagining.  As far as I am in, I’m not sure how I feel about th...

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 ...