Asides

Fortunately, my Playstation Vita collection was mostly untouched by the flooding.  I lost a couple of collector’s items, but all of the games, cases and manuals survived well.  They were all up on a shelf that was barely touched by water.

We did learn our lesson.  All games are being shelved over three feet high.  If we get more flooding than that, there’s not much we can do about it.  But at least they will stand a fighting chance.

Next up, going through my DS and PSP collections.  I have the most of these types of games, by far, so it’s going to take me a while to figure out where I want to store them.

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Hi Folks!  I know I’ve been absent from this blog for some time now, but life has thrown me some serious curve balls.  It all started with the major flood damage we took from Hurricane Harvey and has kind of spiraled downward from there.  However, I am now back in a writing mood and you will see lots of good posts from me soon.  I have been spending a lot of time with my PS Vita and PS4 and have lots of goodies to share from those experiences.

Throughout it all, gaming remained a constant in my life.  I am thankful for that.

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SNES Classic

Nintendo’s gone and done it again.  I consider the NES Classic a failure.  Not because it wasn’t a cool idea, but due to the way Nintendo handled the rollout.  They simply could not – or did not want to – keep up with the demand.  I really wanted one, but so many jerks were buying them as soon as they were available that normal people like me couldn’t get one at the $60 price tag.  Nintendo has since stopped production, so my only option is to pay 2-4 times more than retail to own it.  I have a GCW Zero with just about every NES on it, so I don’t have an urge to pay it.

Recently, the Super Nintendo Classic was released.  I thought for sure Nintendo would realize the problem with the NES Classic and simply create more of these awesome little devices.  Nope.  I still can’t get my hands on one without either stalking every retailer to find out when their shipments come in or just forking out 2-4 times as much to an online scalper.  I consider this another fail.

You are honestly better purchasing a homebrew (home-made) device that has way more games on it.  Some of them have up to 700 games on them for only about $100.

Nintendo, you have let me down once again.

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atari

So a video on the web site www.ataribox.com has surfaced showing a quick, 22 second hint at a new Atari console.  It appears that this may be the real deal.  Insiders say that it’s not going to be a flashback console, but a brand new Atari system.  There is very little known about it, but the CEO of Atari did confirm that “we are back in the hardware business.”

I’m intrigued and a bit excited!  A new player in the console market?  I would have thought SEGA would have come back first, but more competition is good.  They will really struggle to play with the biggins (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo), but we’ll see what they’ve got.  See the video below for more information.

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Steam

I have featured some fairly obscure games on my site, and you may wonder how I find them all.  I have one word for you – Steam.  What is it?  It’s a service which works with thousands of developers to feature their games for you to buy.  The store interface is great, but what really stands out is their recommendations.  They really tailor to your previous purchases and you can customize the tags included in the search.  You can see customer reviews, similar games, videos and screenshots.  You can build a wish list of up to 50 games and follow many more.  When one of the items on your wish list goes on sale, they’ll email you.  There are many free games as well.

They also arrange “discovery queues” for you, which is where I find most of the obscure games.  They pick 11 games for you, and you can say whether you want to follow it, add it to your wish list or are not interested.  The queue gets smarter as you go.

Steam Store

Steam is more than just a store, though, it’s also a way to keep your PC games organized.  Every game that you purchase from Steam is listed in your library, which you can categorize however you see fit.  You can also add non-Steam games to this library as well.  If you’re not a Steam member, I would strongly recommend it, as this is where all of the best PC gaming is these days.

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March 2017 gwg

March came up on me pretty quickly, so I thought I’d post Microsoft’s games with gold for the months.  There are two titles that intrigue me, and two that I’ll likely play at some point.

Layers of Fear looks like a horror game, which isn’t typically my favorite genre.  (Silent Hill is an exception!)  Evolve is a pretty popular game on Twitch, so I’ll likely try it.  I already have Borderlands 2 and have been playing it quite recently, but if you haven’t, definitely pick it up!  It’s a really fun RPG with some FPS elements, but don’t let that scare you.  I’m terrible at the genre, but I can survive well enough.  I’m not sure what Heavy Weapon is, but it looks like something my husband will like.

I missed last month’s here’s what we missed.  I don’t really know much about this one, but Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime looks somewhat unique and I’ll definitely be trying it out.  It looks like a fun little indie title.  Monkey Island 2 looks funny, and I’m always up for a laugh while playing a video game.

You still have time to download:

Project Cars, which looks like a fairly standard race game, and Star Wars, the Force Unleashed.

If you have an XBox One, be sure to download them all!  If you have a 360, you get Monkey Island 2 and The Force Unleashed.

Feb 2017 gwg

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Genre:  Hidden Object
Platform:  PC

It’s election day here in the US, and things are looking grim.  As a bit of social commentary, I’d like to share a fun game which I feel is appropriate for my mood.  In Papers, Please you play as a lowly checkpoint worker for your government, the country of Arstotzka, reminiscent of iron-curtain Europe or the USSR.  Your job is to inspect the paperwork of people that want to enter your country.  Your life depends upon your performance.  The more people you process, the more money you make, which means your family can afford to eat for another day.  You’re screwed if anyone gets sick, and you’ll really start to feel the pressure as you watch your wife or children slowly starving to death.

This game really does bring about some ethical dilemmas for which there are no clear cut answers.  Do you help the secret underground or the lady that is just trying to see her daughter?  Or do you stick tight to your duty and deny all without proper documentation?

I call this game a hidden object game as I’m not sure how else to classify it.  You have an instruction booklet to refer to.  The documentation gets more and more complicated as you play.  You have to have a really sharp eye to be good at this game, thus the hidden object aspect.  Eventually, you’ll get to start body scanning for hidden weapons.  I made it through an entire month of the game at one point and that was really tough.

This game is very unique and a lot of fun.  It can feel a bit heavy if you let yourself get wrapped up in the story, which I did.  Check this one out!

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nintendo-switch

I just read an interesting article on the switch.  It’s from Cracked, so be prepared for bad language.  The author brings up some interesting points about the design of the system and the reason that we play games in the first place.  It hasn’t altered my opinion of it much, but it does bring up some good points.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/its-finally-obvious-nintendo-doesnE28099t-understand-humans/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrackedRSS+%28Cracked%3A+All+Posts%29&utm_content=FeedBurner

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