Some Thoughts on Fallout 4
As the entire gaming world knows, Fallout 4 released this week. And I, like the entire gaming world, am currently engrossed in the wasteland that is the Boson Commonwealth. As a…
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November 13, 2015
Top Ten Party Games
One of the best things video games can do is bring people together. Multiplayer has been around for decades, and with a general shift toward online multiplayer being the only way to play with others, local multiplayer and party games have been declining. Despite this, some of the greatest video games created were made specifically with local multiplayer in mind. Recently Nintendo seems to be the only publisher making games to fit in this genre, but there have been dozens of games released over the past years that exemplify the party genre. Here is my list of the ten greatest party games ever! (more…)
November 2, 2015
Video Review: Fortune Street
It's been months since I was able to get behind my desktop, record some voiceover, edit a heck of a lot of video, and make a new review, but here…
October 29, 2015
Sunday Roundup: 10/25/15
A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV PS3 Release Date: August 27th, 2013 Purchased at: Target (Sunnyvale, CA - $4) This game was repackaged and/or it was used, but for just…
October 25, 2015
Pro Tips for Playing The Legend of Legacy
A spiritual successor to the beloved old Saga series, being developed by past developers from Square Enix and Level-5, and featuring wonderful visuals and an intricate battle system caused Legend of Legacy to get a small amount of buzz from RPG fans before its release. Regrettably I haven’t played a Saga game, but I have played plenty of RPGs and really love me some Level-5, so I was all on board to give this game a go. A few hours in I found out just how difficult the game was: I was losing to small mobs, getting absolutely devastated by bosses, and generally not having a great time with the game. I stuck with it though, and discovered how to actually play the game. If you were like me and you are struggling to get a foothold in the world of Avalon then use these tips to better your adventuring and conquer even the most difficult of foes! (more…)
October 22, 2015
Sunday Roundup: 10/18/15
This is going to be one of the biggest Roundups for the site! I made it a goal last week to hit up literally every GameStop in the greater San Jose area in hopes of finding some harder to find gems in the ranks of old DS, Wii, and even some Xbox 360 and PS3 racks. While most of the GameStop’s I won’t be making special trips to again, there were a few stores in some nicer areas that really surprised me! Unfortunately none of these games I would classify as “Super Rare” or anything like that, but there are some fun games here that I’m happy to have in the collection. And I can safely say if you are looking hard enough, you can still find some diamonds in the rough that is retail video game shopping. (more…)
October 18, 2015
Skylanders Trap Team is the Best Way to Play with Toys in Video Games
By now the formula for a Skylanders game shouldn’t surprise anyone: you purchase/use toys in the real world to use the digital version in the game world. Gameplay is your standard action RPG blend of combat, level progression, light puzzles, and boss battles capping off each stage and world. I was pretty happy with the very first game, but thought after Giants came out the following year that the fad was done. Surprisingly, Swap Force released and it was somehow the best game in the series. Well surely after three games Activision and Toys For Bob have put all they could into the game and couldn’t possibly make it any better, right? Hmmm… (more…)
October 16, 2015
Tao’s Adventure is a Portal to When Designers Didn’t Know How to Make DS Games
You take some risk when playing games from nearly a decade ago. In that span of time many developers and game designers have time to hone their craft and really get a grip on what a system or console can do. The Nintendo DS is a perfect example of this, because not only was it a more powerful version of Nintendo’s handheld line, it also introduced a second touch screen to play around with. Early games on the DS used that second screen as an inventory management screen, a place to show the map, or a different way to control the game. Perhaps we’re all spoiled now in 2015 after 10 years of successful games on the system, because going back to Tao’s Adventure on the DS just reminds me how far we’ve come. (more…)
October 12, 2015
Sunday Roundup: 10/11/15
While Laura’s out of the country for work, I decided to do a bit of a game collecting experiment: Determine of GameStop’s in my area are conducive to collecting. There have been many negative comments on the internet about GameStop, how they’e a terrible place to shop for games, they charge too much for games and give too little with trade-in prices, and in general that they’re a bad place/thing for gamers. Personally I’ve never had a problem with GameStop: they don’t have all the stuff I want all the time, but I can usually find some quality games there time to time. So this week I’m going to try to hit up each of the dozen or so stores in my general vicinity and see if I can actually find decent stuff at each one. Here’s the first part of that, with two brand new GameStop’s I’ve never been to giving me some games I’ve actually been looking for for nearly 5 years! (more…)
October 11, 2015
Games I Wish I Were Better At Playing
While growing up, I idolized how well my brother played fighting games. Mortal Kombat II, Killer Instinct, and Street Fighter II were way too tough for me, but seeing Phil take on M. Bison and come out victorious, or somehow land Killer Combo after Killer Combo in KI was like watching a professional basketball player land 3-pointers one after another. I’d try my hand at the games, and while I did develop some skill (even enough in some games to overcome my brother/rival), I was never able to get where I wanted to get. And after a couple of decades I’ve added even more games to that list of games I wish I were better at. So here they are, and in no particular order, the video games I wish I were better at. (more…)
October 9, 2015