Gaming off the Beaten Path

With all the hate the 5th generation gets in the internet age, it can be easy to overlook just how important that era in gaming was. For those that weren't there, or those that don't remember, the jump from the 4th generation to the 5th was an absolutely huge deal. Minds were absolutely blown by then-revolutionary 3D graphics and increasingly arcade accurate ports. In North America, this was the first time where CD based consoles were considered the norm, a major change from the cartridge dominated 3rd and 4th generations. But one of the more overlooked aspects of this era, at least for console players, was the massive increase in more adult oriented games. It's not that there weren't 4th, 3rd, or even 2nd generation titles featuring this kind of content, because there were. It's just that they were surprisingly uncommon. Of course, this phenomena was fairly console exclusive, violent games or games with other "adult" themes were pretty dime a dozen on P...

I've been skirting around it for a few years now, but its finally time to add yet another console to the list. A few years ago, I reviewed Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, a Genesis platformer that I didn't really enjoy all that much. I talked a little bit about how Alex Kidd was Sega's mascot before Sonic became a thing and how hyped up I was to give AKITEC a try, having heard so much about the series. That was part of the reason the game fell flat for me, though poor level design and awful boss fights were more than likely the bigger culprits. What I didn't realize at the time was that much of the positive sentiment I had heard about the series had nothing to do with its lone Genesis entry. Instead, much of the positivity was focused on the various entries on Sega's third generation console, a machine that I have been looking for an excuse to play for a long time. For most North American gamers, the Genesis was the first time we interacted with Sega. Many peop...

 It's been a long road, but we are finally at the end. We've already seen some powerful commanders, but the top of the list here is a cut above. As most of us have probably seen by now, this set has some incredibly powerful commanders that are going to see a lot of play for a long time. I am going to go into a little more detail about the top five cards or so, but I still want to include a link to the card gallery here.  for reference. Anyway, without further ado, let's close out our rankings. 53) Kimahri, Valiant Guardian In addition to being super flavorful, Kimahri will just about always be the most powerful creature in play, even if just by a little. Thanks to vigilance, he will be able to both attack and use any abilities, which makes him even stronger. It's not a complex or interesting commander, but it's a strong one. 52) Ultimececia, Temporal Threat Do you want to kill your opponents out of nowhere? How about draw a billion cards. Well then step into Ultimec...

One down, two to go. We got the bottom third out of the way and now it's time to look at the middle of the pack. I will say it again; this set has some incredibly strong commanders and even those that we took a look at in part one will see a lot of play. And it's only going to go up from here. A quick reminder, I'm not going to do images or links to every card, because that would take me years. I will, however, include a link to the card gallery here. Well, let's jump right back into this. The next 53 starts with: 107) Black Walz No. 3 Have you ever wanted to run Guttersnipe out of the command zone? Well, now's your chance. Plus, you get to add black and deathtouch for an added bonus. I think this will see a surprising amount of play out of the command zone as it's a reliable redundancy piece in an already popular archetype, even if it isn't inherently powerful on its own. 106) Queen Brahne I think this is going to be surprisingly powerful for a mono-colored...

 Now here's something I never thought would ever happen.  I have been a fan of Magic: The Gathering for a long time. I've been a fan of Final Fantasy for just as long. Yet I never thought I would ever see a full-on MTG set based on Final Fantasy. When it was first announced, I thought this set was a joke. Honestly, it sounded like something I dreamed up when I was a kid, not an actual product that Wizards of the Coast was actually going to release. But here we are, two weeks away from the release of MTG - Final Fantasy. So now, it's time to rank some of the cards. I've talked a little bit about MTG before, but I think now is as good a time to talk about it again. Hey, I did a ranking for the Street Fighter cards, why not Final Fantasy? Well, I am going to do the same exercise once again. I am going to keep it to my most played format, commander/EDH, and rank all the new legendary creatures/potential commanders. The difference is this time, instead of eight new commander...