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2017 was a very weird year for me. I was in a funk for much of the year and not really enjoying any of the things that I used to love so much. I wasn't happy running my game store, I didn't want to air guitar to my favorite bands, I wasn't exercising or eating healthy like I typically do, I wasn't watching cool sci-fi movies or TV shows, I wasn't reading any new comics, I wasn't socializing much if at all most months, and for the first time I can ever remember I didn't really have a desire to play games when I had the chance. It was a lame year and 2018 started off just as depressing. Early in 2018 though I was able to get control of my mind once again and make some important changes in my life that made me start to appreciate things again and see the joy in all the things I used to love so very much.
Continue reading The Joy of Gaming
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As someone who's grown up with and lived and breathed Mega Man since the age of about five, I was particularly excited for Mega Man 11 to come out this year. I have a friend who has gone through every mainline and X series Mega Man game with me, so we cleared our first Saturday morning after it's release to dive into the game. Fast forward to one week later and I've done all there is to do in Mega Man 11: beaten it on each difficulty, unlocked every upgrade, gold medaled every challenge, and obtained every stamp in the record menu. So where does 11 fall on the Mega Man spectrum for me?
Continue reading Mega Man 11
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Here I was thinking that my days of writing about my old game store were over, but a recent event that was closely tied to my days there has pulled me back for one more. Not long ago I was invited to a wedding that turned out to be quite an amazing event for me. What do weddings and game stores have to do with each other? Find out below!
Continue reading Game Quest Gets Formal
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Lately I've been digging deep into the world of Super Mario, from the 1985 NES release and working my way towards Odyssey, leaving no Goomba unstomped. Many of these games I've played many times, but there are several I hadn't played before and I got to experience them for the first time. Currently I'm 15 games into my project and got to revisit the GameCube staple, Super Mario Sunshine. This game has always stuck out in the series to me, but I haven't quite been able to articulate why. Having so many Mario experiences in such a short time I feel has finally given me the perspective I've always lacked and may allow me to better discuss why I think Super Mario Sunshine feels so out of place as a Super Mario title.
Continue reading We Need To Talk About Super Mario Sunshine
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I've often talked about how I feel like I'm no longer the target audience for most game makers these days and how I've been more rapidly retreating into older generations of gaming to get the types of games I love most. One of the amazing side effects of the current state of gaming is that when games come out that appeal to me, they are quite often niche games or passion projects that have decades worth of influence to draw upon and implement, or use for inspiration in their new project. Octopath Traveler was immediately on my radar when it was announced due to the beautiful visual style of the game coupled with the fact it was a console quality JRPG. The young Square Soft fan that has been locked deep, deep inside of me and has slowly been losing faith in them really wanted this game to scratch the itch that they used to for me. To say that Square has finally put out a game that is everything I love about the genre and is one of the few games that takes newer gaming concepts that I thought I would never enjoy and makes them fun and appealing to me is a true pleasure in every way.
*The following review is spoiler free*
Continue reading Octopath Traveler
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My very first customers lining up on opening day!
At some point during this week, my stint as a game store owner will be coming to an end. It's been right around 5 years since I opened a local store called Game Quest and I'm pretty excited to move on from it at this point in my life.
Continue reading Game Store Chronicles
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If you've paid attention to my gaming tastes over the years, it would likely be easy to peg me as a guy who loves old school, action games. I'm super comfortable with platformers, fighters, shmups, run 'n guns, and I've also got a soft spot for JRPGs. I tend to talk about these types of games the most, but there are some extremely modern genres that I enjoy just as much as those I grew up with. In this case, it's a the decision based, cinematic, story driven game Detroit Become Human. I have yet to play Indigo Prophecy, but have drawn a great deal of enjoyment out of Quantic Dreams previous titles, Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls. Based on my past experience with these two titles, as well as the intriguing setting of a near-future, pre-sci-fi world in which Androids have become common place in the homes and work forces around the U.S., I had no hesitation picking this one up day one to dig into.
Continue reading Detroit Become Human: Review
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With Avengers: Infinity War still very fresh in my mind, as well as my attachment to most of the characters involved in the MCU, I have no choice but to write about super heroes to decompress after this film. I won't be talking about the movie directly so don't worry about any spoilers. I'm simply going to be writing about my favorite games starring a playable version of each character from Avengers: Infinity War.
Continue reading RFGen: Infinity War
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Through some relatively recent unfortunate financial circumstances, I was compelled to sell off my copy of Stadium Events for the NES. My journey to complete my NES collection and the fact that I'm just a handful of titles away from having all the unlicensed games as well, made it quite a difficult decision to let go of this game. A brief little background for those unfamiliar, but it took me nearly 10 years to gather a copy of each licensed NES game. This journey lead me to meet many friends over the years, some from RFGen, NintendoAge, Facebook, locally and many other areas that helped me reach this achievement. The final game to cap off my collection was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Ubisoft) and it was sent to me as a surprise when a group of amazing buddies on RF Generation pooled their resources to purchase me a copy and send it along with a card signed by each contributor's signature. It was truly the perfect end to a fantastic journey and has held a special place in my home for the last several years. The recent selling of this single game however has me really contemplating what and how I plan to collect going forward. This may have changed my overall approach to collecting.
Continue reading Contemplating a Change in Collecting Style
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Posted on Mar 2nd 2018 at 01:00:00 PM by ( Crabmaster2000) Posted under Mario, Nintendo, Platormer, NES, SNES, N64, GCN, Wii, Wii U, Switch, GB, GBA, DS, 3DS |
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I've reviewed games casually on and off for the better part of the past 15 years. It's something I enjoy doing and I feel like I've got a relatively decent handle on objectively looking at the whole package of what a particular game consists of. What I don't have a lot of experience doing is comparing a game directly to another game, as I usually just look at what is in front of me and for the most part ignore any past or future releases. Can games even be, or should they even be, directly compared to one another?
Continue reading Comparative Mario
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When I was a kid I owned ActRaiser 2 for my SNES. I don't remember buying it or receiving it as a gift, yet somehow it was in my tiny collection. I remember playing it fairly often, but I'm pretty confident I was never able to beat a single stage in the game despite it having multiple stage options available to choose from right off the bat. Last week I decided to finally remedy that!!
Continue reading ActRaisers
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2018 is now upon us! That means a whole new year of games to look forward to! Here's a few that I can't wait to dig into this coming year in no particular order
Spider-Man
I said no particular order, but Spider-Man is the exception. I am more excited for Spider-Man than any other game on this list by a significant amount. I have high hopes for this game as well as licensed franchise games in general. My hope is that Insomniac is able to tell a new unique Spider-Man story as they see fit and build the game they want to build around that story. Batman Arkham Asylum was so special and I believe this game can have a similar impact. I don't necessarily want it to become a franchise or even have a sequel. I just want Insomniac to put out a great game and get rewarded with great sales to match. Hopefully it's significant enough that other companies take notice of what Batman and Spider-Man have done and see that if they put their licensed properties in the hands of caring studios and don't require them to tie it to an upcoming movie (or other property), they can be rewarded with critical and commercial success that helps their brand overall. I want to see better Star Wars games, Ninja Turtle Games, Transformer Games, and of course, better superhero games in general. I believe this game is the next stepping stone on that path.
Continue reading A Lot To Look Forward To
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In some forms of media, the word “remake” can be a scary thing. In the realm of Video Games though that word is often embraced and encouraged. In fact, the word "remake" often doesn’t do this “new” release justice, so many sub-catergories have been created to better describe a new version of an old favorite. You may have heard terms such as: Port, Enhanced Port, HD Remake, Re-Release, Localization, Director’s Cut, Compilation, Backwards Compatibility, Virtual Console, Emulation, Complete Edition, Game of the Year Edition, Legendary Edition, Demake, and so many others people use to better describe the type of experience you can expect from an impending release.
Continue reading Do We Really Need A 20th Port of Doom?
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The Switch has been out for roughly 8 months as of this article. It's been selling at or above expectations each month. Software attach rates are incredibly high. In general, people seem quite enthusiastic about the system. I picked one up at launch hoping Zelda would tide me over while I waited patiently for much of the future software that has been promised. Zelda didn't strike me like I'd hoped it would. Arms and Splatoon 2 are for a different audience than myself, and while I had a bit of fun playing both with my son, they are not games I've returned to or have ever been interested in playing by myself. As a day one Wii U owner, I've played a significant amount of Mario Kart 8 already, so the deluxe version isn't quite what I want to justify owning the system.
With games like Fire Emblem, Shin Megami Tensei V, Kirby, Dragon Quest and others looming in the distance, I've never been worried that I'll regret my purchase in the long run. But after 8 months, I really do long for something to play that gets me excited to own a Switch. With that in mind, I have very high hopes for Super Mario Odyssey and how it will make me feel to be a Switch owner.
Continue reading Super Mario Odyssey
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This could be me soon!
While I eagerly anticipate the arrival of October because of my trip down south to meet up with several rfgen members to once again attend the seminal Retro World Expo, I'm making sure I've got my wishlist in order and ready to rock. This trip gives me the opportunity to delve into the stock of dozens of stores and vendors that I'd normally never have access to while at home. My hope is to be able to find some of the more challenging games to obtain in different sets. Since completing my licensed NES and Turbografx 16 collections, I've been focusing on completing a few other full libraries. Some easier than others.....
Continue reading Travel Prepping for RWX
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