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When the first trailer for Rebel Galaxy hit, I knew I wanted it. In only a few minutes, it spoke of adventure, "negotiation," and great looking combat with cool explosions! What more could I want? Funny question, exactly that!
When I first saw the game, I began to have expectations that were perhaps unrealistic. Not that they were unfounded in any way, but with knowledge gathered solely from previews and trailers (I did not watch a single demo or video review) I knew it would be one of the few games in the action-RPG genre of space sims, and after all, I loved Starpoint Gemini 2, enough to put in more than sixty hours of playtime before I forced myself to walk away (gotta keep on The List). So naturally, Rebel Galaxy would be right up my alley. The only thing that worried me was that the game insisted that it was best played with a controller, but hey, different strokes, right? After all, it was also released on PS4, so we can't expect our couch-based cousins to bust out a keyboard and mouse just to play a game, right?.
Continue reading Rebel Galaxy
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Oh Summer, you fickle maiden, how our relationship has changed. Once upon a time, we cavorted through the woods and meadows, looking for empty cans and bottles so we could thumb a few extra quarters into the Contra machine, or maybe rent an NES game again (for $3 a day). Now, I either pray for rain (figuratively speaking) so I can do work inside the house, or fix/trim/dig/clean things outside my house, while trying to keep one eye on my kids. Still, this is a big time of year for nostalgia, so I might as well pick up a summer-themed game. What do you all think? No? Really? Uh, okay. How about we meet halfway in between, then?
Continue reading Attack of the Friday Monsters!
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As long as I have been collecting games, I have always described myself as a "functional collector," meaning that I only picked up games I wanted to play. With only a few exceptions I held true to this ethic, and I plowed dutifully through every game I bought, but slowly my collection began to get larger; so slow that I hardly noticed. I began to long for a "video game" clean slate, longing for a day long past where I looked at upcoming games for something to play, not just something to add to the pile. So, I set out to create a backlog list of some sort, then everything came tumbling down around me.
Continue reading The List - Getting My Gaming Back on Track
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Final Fantasy IV is one of the most important JRPGs to grace the console market, and would go on to shape the cinematic direction of developer Square's flagship Final Fantasy series for decades. It wasn't my first RPG, but it was the first for me where story primarily drove the game, and was the first to feature a knockout and memorable ending sequence. Despite this, I haven't played the game in nearly a decade (and not completed it in almost twelve years). So, won't you join me, my friends, as I re-experience Final Fantasy IV for the first time in years?
Continue reading Playing Final Fantasy IV on PSP
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The mission seems simple, use the might of our Inner Sphere mechs to finally put a permanent stop to the advance of the Clans. With the eventual restoration of the Star League, our glorious leader, Archon-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion, will lead us to victory against the last of the clans, Clan Smoke Jaguar. For our part, we will perform a quick strike against Jaguar facilities on planet Traquil, where no doubt we will have to face the most vicious, genetically modified warriors the clan can throw at us. Here comes the mission briefing over the com. Oh, this is bad news. The second dropship in the assault, the Black Hammer, has been... Wait a second. I know that voice from somewhere. It sounds like -
Uncle Phil?
Continue reading MechWarrior 3 for PC
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Among PC gamers, the MechWarrior series has always stood out in the sparsely populated "giant robot" sub-genre of video games, not so much for being a more visual representation of the tabletop strategy/role-playing game, Battletech , but for being a pretty hardcore simulation. But, no longer. A free-to-play online version has been available since late 2013, but has since lost it's sim and story-line focus in favor of team-based action. With a tantalizing tease of a new "real" MechWarrior game in the near future, what better time to take a gander at the road that led us here.
Continue reading MechWarrior 2 for DOS
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I've been at this for about thirty hours now, and I'm not sure exactly about my goal. I mean, I know what the next quest is that I should be going on (as far as the story is concerned), rather it's my personal goal that's in question. See, as I move around the landscape on my way to someplace, I find myself distracted by literally hundreds of various caves, grottoes, castles, outposts, bandits, camps, giants herding woolly mammoths, and dragons. I've been doing this for thirty hours. And here is another keep, which I (of course) have to clear, for no reason save to get a "clear" mark on my map. Man, is that mountain pretty, bathed in the morning sun with the clouds partially concealing the peaks, yet clearly moving...
Oh, man. Where the heck was I even going?
Continue reading Lost in Skyrim
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I don't know about y'all, but in late December, the year 2016 didn't feel very memorable. There were very few games I could even remember playing, so I scrapped the idea of a "Top" list of games and moved on. However, as I reviewed my post on the "Beaten in 2016" thread, I couldn't help but reconsider this notion. Pretty much all of the nine games on my list were awesome, and I was somehow able to finish them, despite my severe lack of time. So, here is my end of year list, but re-written with a new angle - Top Four Games of 2016 I Didn't Blog About (Well, Mostly).
Continue reading Top Four Games of 2016 That I Didn't Blog About - Well, Mostly
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If Dragon Quest is your thing, the announcement of the ports of Dragon Quest VII and VIII to Nintendo's 3DS handheld have to be very exciting. They were for me, but for different reasons. For part VIII it is a curiosity, since coming from the more powerful PS2, some sort of compromise or trickery was surely needed to squeeze it on a humble 3DS cartridge. However, for part VII, it was to be a large, graphical upgrade from the PSX original, whose blocky and pixelated look caused it to sell so abysmially outside of it's native Japan, according to many publications. Could a remake, based almost entirely on graphical fidelity, fare any differently outside of it's native country (where it is one of the best selling games of all time)?
Continue reading Dragon Quest VII 3DS - Pure Nostalgia
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I don't know about y'all, but November has always been kind of a null month for me. There are a few birthdays to celebrate this month, as well as some holiday events (shopping or otherwise), but nothing that really grabs me or inspires me to write. But, whether I have an inspired article idea or not, the year marches forward. So, in lieu of anything themed, I'll go ahead and drag out an old idea from the stack. So, readers of the RFGen front page, I give you My Two Favorite Schmups.
Continue reading My Two Favorite Schmups
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Date : Early Winter, 1998
Time : 2am
Place: The bedroom in my first apartment
It is cold, maybe forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. It's just the way my room is; like a cool spring day in Michigan, nearly all year round. Suits me just fine. But just for once, I want it to be a teensy bit warmer. I've been glued in front of my crappy CRT for close to five hours now, ever since I got off the phone with my fiancee, and my toes are starting to go numb, but I'm not ready to move yet. DOOM, for the Sony PlayStation, has gotten it's claws into me once again, and this time I'm not moving until I see those credits roll.
Continue reading Spooky Plays: DOOM for PlayStation
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Like many of you, October (or as I call it, Scary Month) is one of my favorite times of the year for theming my gaming habit. Generally, I tend to enjoy playing a small pool of games that are scary or perceived to be scary by others, but I've been doing this a long time now, and I do believe a change is in order. So I will play some Scary Month-themed games that I either haven't played in years or that I am completely new to, with the idea being to play as much as I can and pound out articles as time permits. In the end, hopefully something coherent will come out of this effort. Well, no point in beating around the bush. Let's go.
Continue reading Spooky Month - Silent Hill 4: The Room
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Back in the day, I managed to beat the overwhelming majority of the video games I played, but there were a few titles that remained above my humble gaming skills, so playing for completion was a hopeless effort (like smashing your head against a wall). Blaster Master was one of those games. I loved playing Blaster Master, but the ending always seemed unattainable, like the summit of the infamous K2 mountain in winter. Now, just over twenty-five years later, and I feel ready to climb that mountain again. Being older and generally less skilled at gaming than in my youth, do I have a chance to finally beat this notoriously difficult game?
Continue reading Blaster Master - The Savage Mountain
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Every year, at least once or twice, I get what I like to call "Retro Game Depression." Symptoms include irritability (at overly complex controls), sleepiness (falling asleep while pondering beautiful, yet functionally dead vistas), and short attention span (perhaps from open world game burn-out). The treatment is simple; a barrage of games that both tickle my nostalgia as well as my love of retro gaming. Please join me, my friends, as I embark on a Late Summer Retro Gaming Expedition.
Continue reading Late Summer Retro Gaming Expedition
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Yellowed plastic. Pretty much all game collectors know what I'm talking about, and often blame gets thrown in different directions; from smoking, to sunlight, to just plain dirt and grim. But how do we deal with it? Cleaning doesn't seem to work, and many of us have learned the hard way that some cleaners can even score and damage plastics. So what do we do? We try to remove the yellow, of course. But how? That, my friend, is the interesting part. As odd as this may sound, I'm taking my Commodore 64 to the salon supply store.
Continue reading Taking My Commodore 64 to the Salon
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