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*pic from Mission17.org*
Towards the end of 2011, I had a discussion with my late friend Jesse about gaming in general, as this was typically all we ever talked about. We were talking about the age old balance of gaming versus collecting. At the time, I was all about collecting and spent way too little time actually playing games. I was persuaded and inspired by Jesse to start enjoying my collection for more than pieces of plastic that look nice on the shelf. I decided to lay down and follow some "rules" for myself for the year of 2012. I would play no more than two games at a time (this allowed me to play one console game and one handheld game concurrently). I would finish every game I started. Lastly, I would remove at least one game from my collection for every new one that came in. The last rule helped me trim a lot of fat in collection, but it's not something I strictly adhere to anymore. However, I still try to follow the first two rules to this day.
Continue reading A Year of Unfinished Games
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I am on record cheering with unreserved optimism for the arrival of virtual reality to the mainstream. Technology that has been teasing me for as long as I can remember seems to finally be available in a way that legitimizes VR gaming as as worthwhile venture for both gamers and developers. As a console gamer, the peripheral I was most excited for was Playstation VR, which released early in October, 2016. Though it took me longer than I anticipated to finally give it a try, I spent a few hours with it last night, and I'd love to tell you all about it!
Continue reading Playstation VR
[img width=700 height=397]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Psp-1000.jpg[/img]
As with most Sony consoles, I purchased my first PSP solely for the purpose of playing the Metal Gear Solid title for the platform. It wasn't Portable Ops though, it was Peace Walker. This means I acquired my PSP pretty late in its life cycle. However, I have played it quite a lot and physical PSP games make up a nice chunk of my overall game collection. I recently added a second PSP to my collection and decided to spend some time with a few games I've never tried before. If I've learned anything from watching MetalJesusRocks on YouTube for years, it's that the PSP is home to many incredible racing games and rpgs. In fact, the first two games here have been mentioned by MJR so many times that once I got back into playing the PSP they were the first games I checked out.
Continue reading PSP Three for One
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image from terapeak.com
I have always loved light gun games. All the way back to playing Duck Hunt on the NES as a child, I have always felt that light gun games were special. Though these games can sometimes be lacking in creative gameplay ideas because of the nature of the a gun peripheral, I love the pick up and play aspect of a light gun game, as well as the direct physical correlation between aiming the actual gun and the actions on the screen.
I remember finding out way back when that light guns do not work on high definition televisions. I was disappointed that I would no longer be able to use the light guns I owned at the time for the NES, Xbox, and Dreamcast. Luckily, the Nintendo Wii eventually came along to rekindle my love for the light gun genre. Let's take a look at a few of my favorites.
Continue reading My Favorite Wii Light Gun Games
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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a fantastic game. At the time of this writing, I have put over one hundred and fifty hours into the game and I'm sporting a completion percentage of only 70%. I would write a full review of the game if it weren't for two things. First of all, I finished the story missions so long ago that some of them have blurred in my memory. Secondly, even if I did remember all the finer details, a comprehensive review would be more than I would be willing to take on. However, I was so excited to play this game upon release that I wrote my first blog post here about playing it with the rest of the world. Since it's almost been a full year since the game's release and that article, I wanted to talk about the game's lasting effects and why I am still playing it.
Continue reading Still Playing: Metal Gear Solid V
[img width=550 height=694]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-131/bf/U-131-S-04790-B.jpg[/img]
Last year I played through LucasArts' 2008 classic Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on the XBox 360. Like most people who played the game, I had quite a fun time blasting my way through the galaxy as Darth Vader's secret apprentice, Starkiller. That game also has one of my favorite opening levels of all time, where the player takes the role of Vader himself, slaughtering scores of Wookiees on their home planet of Kashyyyk. The Force Unleashed is a lot of fun, though I don't think it's perfect. There are a few frustrating platforming sections, a sometimes finicky camera and few aggrevating boss battles. In general though, I share in the overall positive critical consensus of this game.
Continue reading Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
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It's been quite a while since I gave any love to my actual collection, either in real life or on RF Generation. In fact, after recently moving my entire collection for the second time in just under a year, I noted it to be quite burdensome, and I found myself wondering: "Why?" However, in organizing, setting up, and alphabetizing everything after the move, I realized I truly still love the hobby. Holding items in my hands, which I forgot I even had, renewed the sense that I am in fact curating a library of games and items that reflects my personal tastes and curiosities. The room I'm using in our new place is actually smaller than any I've put my games in before, but I actually think this is the best iteration of my game room yet for exactly that reason. The cozy, intimate setting takes me back to huddling around a garbage-picked CRT dinosaur in my parents' basement playing Super Nintendo with my friends and siblings. Let's be honest, the reason we collect is largely to chase that feeling.
As much as we try to organize, there are always odds and ends that fail classification and confound even the most obsessive collectors. Sure enough, after the move I discovered and took a second look at some of the eccentricities in my game library. I imagine we all have odds and ends like this, and they should be celebrated. They make our collections unique. Here's what I have.
Continue reading Collection Odds and Ends
[img width=600 height=330]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2007/08/14/sports/basketball/14rizzuto3-600.jpg[/img]
The baseball season is in full swing and after a few years of my baseball fandom fading away, I've begun following the MLB and my beloved New York Yankees again for the 2016 season. The Yankees stink, but I'm also fortunate enough to live close to one of the nicest minor league parks in the country, that being the Dell Diamond of the Texas Rangers' farm club, the Round Rock Express. So as I rekindle my love for America's pastime, I've decided to take a look at some of the baseball games in my collection throughout the generations. Though I typically don't collect sports games, my game library is peppered with some of the better baseball titles from the past. I am by no means contending these to be the best baseball games from each generation, they are simply the ones I own because I happen to enjoy them quite a bit. Let's play ball!
Continue reading Talkin' Baseball
[img width=700 height=501]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-182/bf/U-182-S-03380-A.jpg[/img]
When I picked up Fire Emblem: Awakening in 2012, I had no idea I was about to play what would become not only my favorite 3DS game to date, but one of my favorite games of all time. I had never played a strategy rpg, but I was aware of the Fire Emblem series' reputation as both a quality franchise and also a brutally difficult one. I might not have gotten into Fire Emblem if it weren't for the controversy surrounding developer Intelligent Systems' decision to make the series' trademark permadeath completely optional.
Continue reading Fire Emblem Fates
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The ERISAN UC40 in all its glory.
I was originally planning to review the cheap Chinese projector I recently bought for this article, but I immediately realized that I am not willing to scrutinize this seventy-five dollar miracle in a way that would satisfy even the most casual reader. I plugged the thing in, fired up Nazi Zombies, and instantly fell in love. The End.
But I realized that perhaps a lot of my readers have not discovered the joys of gaming with a projector, and having recently purchased my third one, I thought I could offer some advice for those on the fence, or those who have never even given it a thought. So, where to begin?
Continue reading Projector Gaming
[img width=550 height=774]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-072/bf/U-072-S-11650-A.jpg[/img]
Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico was released in 2005. It is an open world, third-person action game with driving and shooting. A lot of people refer to this game as a Grand Theft Auto clone, but honestly, I think that's being generous. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was released almost a full year before this game, and Total Overdose can't even hold a candle to Grand Theft Auto III. It is an example of a game that attempts to expand on an established formula, but falls short.
Continue reading Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico
[img width=400 height=185]http://www.giantsparrow.com/games/swan/swan_logo.jpg[/img]
It's amazing for me to think that I don't like indie games as much as I "should." When I was growing up, I tended to restrict myself to listening only to bands who were on a short list of only the most exalted independent record labels. Everything else was "sold out" or "too trendy." Yeah, I was one of those kids in high school.
You might think given that kind of holier than thou upbringing I'd be heralding the current indie boom in video gaming, but quite frankly, I'm not really feeling it. Don't get me wrong. I am certainly cheering on smaller teams making games that are touching a select amount of players with whom their work resonates. After all, month after month on the RFGPlaycast it seemed I would try to break down the "problems" with modern triple-A video game design, and the indie movement is providing so many answers to my pleas for innovation. Having said that though, every time I try an indie game, I rarely get into it enough to bother finishing it, despite the fact that they tend to be shorter than mainstream titles. There have been a few exceptions like Limbo, but I haven't gotten deep into an indie game in a while.
I recently sat down with The Unfinished Swan and although I can't say I have changed my tune on indie games, I did enjoy it more than most others.
Continue reading The Unfinished Swan
[img width=550 height=762]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-075/bf/U-075-S-02650-A.jpg[/img]
I am on record as proclaiming that Sin & Punishment: Star Successor on the Nintendo Wii to be an "objectively perfect" video game. The excitement and wonder of that game, as well as the motion and scale of the scenery, left me floored after playing it. I thought it would be a long time, if ever, before I found a game that combined the thrilling gameplay, amazing atmosphere, and grand scale of S&P in the same perfect mixture. I haven't had to search long, as I have just finished my first playthrough of Panzer Dragoon Orta for the original XBox.
Continue reading Panzer Dragoon Orta
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Once upon a time, I convinced my mother to buy me an Atari Jaguar on clearance for sixty dollars at our local K-B Toys store. I had a nice stack of games with it including some of the 'good' ones like Alien Vs Predator and Checkered Flag. However, two games my sister and I played together for hours on end were Ruiner Pinball and Val d'Isere Skiing and Snowboarding. Ruiner Pinball is a pretty basic pinball game with some great sound effects. I remember Val d'Isere Skiing and Snowboarding to be a pretty good downhill skiing game, and for its time it may have been, but as it turns out, I must have had my nostalgia-colored glasses on.
Continue reading Ski Paradise
It's rare for me to be on the cutting edge of new video game releases. They're so expensive first of all and as a collector I'm never short of other things to play. There are rare instances where a game comes out and I just can't resist the urge to be an early adopter. In recent memory I did it with Mass Effect 3, and I quite enjoyed being part of the discussion going on in the media about the game and of course, the ending.
I recently broke down again and purchased Metal Gear Solid V. At first I intended to wait until I owned a Playstation 4 to play it, but I don't know when that will be. After months of pre-release hype and the explosion of information coming out about the game after its release, I decided to purchase and download the Playstation 3 version of the game.
Metal Gear Solid V is an astoundingly good game, but that's only part of the excitement at this point in history, just after its release. There are pros and cons to being in the mix, but on the rare occasions where I get into the fray with a new game, I tend to find an added layer of enjoyment to my overall experience.
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First of all, I find it more fun to learn, discover, and share tips and gameplay tactics with the community as other people are doing the same thing. It's more exciting than pulling up an FAQ and looking up what you need. It's fun when there are things in a game that haven't been figured out yet. It's great to read forums where the other members are trying to figure the same thing out as you are, and no one is really an expert on the game yet.
Further, if the game is highly visible like MGSV, there will be constant news about it coming from gaming news sources, and sometimes even mainstream news outlets. It's nice looking in my social media feeds and seeing story after story about the game. From a psychological perspective, it's one of those things that helps reinforce a buying choice.
There's also the fact that publishers will support the their games closer to the release day, and one can expect diminishing returns from that point on. The servers will only be viable for a finite amount of time, so why not get in while they're being supported wholeheartedly by the publishers?
Of course there are drawbacks too, the main one being story spoilers. At a certain point, many people will have finished the game and the internet is full of people who really don't care that you haven't yet. In the case of MGSV, I was listening to a podcast recently where the hosts were about ten story missions ahead of me. As much as they tried to be spoiler free, there were times where I had to put my fingers in my ears and say "La la la la la" to drown them out until I could press fast forward. On the other hand, this encouraged me to push forward with the story missions and progress further into the game. Those aforementioned social media feeds can be a minefield (pun intended) of spoilers as well, with some outlets putting them right in their headlines.
So as much as classic games and overlooked hidden gems are my bread and butter, it is rewarding on occasion to jump in with the mainstream and join the meta-game of interacting with the gaming community at large. It's expensive, but rewarding. I probably won't do it again until Persona 5 is out...or maybe Fallout 4.
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