Gaming off the Beaten Path

  As much as I like sports games, I'm really not a fan of most of them before the 5th generation. However, I do have my share of exceptions. Of course, Tecmo Super Bowl is awesome. I don't really consider them true sports games, but I guess Punchout and Super Punchout are boxing titles. Exceptions like that are why I don't really like to make generalizations. But then again, those generalizations have to come from somewhere. It's a weird dichotomy. And fortunately, we don't have to explore it any further, because this week I want to talk about another, almost universal exception to this generalization, arcade style sports games. Maybe it's because they make absolutely no attempt to mimic actual sports at all, but I've always loved old school arcade sports games. NBA Jam is the first one that jumps to mind for a lot of people. I'm not a huge basketball fan...but I absolutely love NBA Jam. What other game allows you to have Hillary Clinton do a 360 flip du...

  You know, I don't think I've quite lived up to my stated goal of reviewing obscure, old-school games from series that died out prematurely. So this week, I'm going to make sure I check all of those boxes. What's more retro than pinball? You know, those giant tables that used to be at arcades before video games were a thing? And how about we check another console off the list too. Because, for the first time, I am going to talk about the TurboGrafx-16. Called the PC Engine outside of the Americas, this interesting little machine was born of a collaboration between Japanese home computer company NEC and software developer Hudson Soft. Believe it or not, the TurboGrafx was the console that kicked off the 4th generation, beating the Sega Genesis to market by a year in Japan. In its home country, this thing went toe to toe with the Genesis and Super Nintendo (I guess the Mega Drive and Super Famicom if we're getting all technical) and was actually the latter's prim...

  It's been a while since I've done a 10 Round Fight, but this time I'm going to do something a little different. And it's not that these two games aren't RPGs, or that they are part of the same franchise. You see, the first two times I've done this, I've used them to compare either: a) two great games - or - b) two very good, influential new games. But that's not the case here. For the first time, we are going to throw two games in the ring not as a result of their quality, but lack thereof. In plain English, that means we are going to compare two games that suck. Okay, I guess in the scheme of things, neither of these games are actually that bad. I've said this before when I reviewed titles from the series, but a bad Mega Man game is still better than some franchises at their best. But still, these two are among the most maligned titles in the franchise. Mega Man and Bass is widely considered the worst game in the classic series, while Mega Man X6 ...

  I'm not one for overly difficult games, but this one has been on my list for a long, long time. I think I've covered more Mega Man titles than any other series. What can I say, I've always loved these games. Despite being an iconic video game character, the blue bomber fits more into the whole "off the beaten path" theme than you would think. I forget where it was, I ended up looking at the series' sales figures and was shocked to find just how few units it has moved. I guess it makes some level of sense. Mega Man has had quite a few fits of starts and stops, often coming out with two, three, four titles in the span of a few years before going dark. A lot of this is due to spinoffs, I always considered the classic and X series to kind of be one and one A, but there is also Battle network, Legends and a host of other interesting outliers. A lot of folks consider these games to be incredibly difficult. Honestly, I just don't see it. Maybe it's because ...

  I've been reviewing games for quite a while now and it's really changed the way I think and talk about games. I look back at some of my old blog posts, mostly from my college years, and it I can't help but feel a bit embarrassed. It's not so much that my writing is bad, though I have certainly grown as the writer. It's more the language I use that just doesn't sit right with me. I did a top 100 games of all-time list, but is that really what I should have called it? It's not really "THE" top 100, it's "MY" top 100. I'm sure some people would agree with my opinions, though most wouldn't. There are a lot of games I wouldn't rank even close to my top 100 that many people consider to be classic and vice versa. The thing is, it's not just me. It seems like a lot of online discourse around gaming is filled with hyperbolic declarations and personal attacks against people that disagree with them. I have certainly been guilty...