As I mentioned in a previous entry, I'm a huge fan of light-gun games and specifically such games on the Nintendo Wii, which carried the torch of light-gun games into the world of modern televisions.
I recently played through the Wii version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and I was absolutely blown away by how much fun I had with it. My expectations were very low going into the game, but the fact that I continued to play the game after completing the campaign demonstrates to me that there is a solid title here, and one that is sadly underrated and largely forgotten by the Wii community.
During the last episode, I once again suffered a humiliating defeat at the endcap of my enemy, the Budget Game Wall. You know that thing, right? No? Well, this endcap (who is a complete jerk, mind you) used to sit on the end of the video game isle at my local toy store, displaying the unloved and unlovable from the NES, both old and new, at an attractive $20 price point. But I wasn’t there on that fated day for game shopping, no. My task was much simpler: get a functioning NES controller, one I ideally wouldn't have to share with my siblings. And since I still had another six months (at least) before my SNES came out of layaway, I needed something help me play Final Fantasy and the string of rentals and loans that would follow. But I had no idea how much a controller would cost, having misplaced my most current Toys 'R Us circular, so I brought all $40 of my lawn-mowing money. My mom gave me a knowing look at this act, but said nothing to stop my action. It was fine, though: This was a utility trip, not an excuse to look at games, okay mom?. There was no reason I was going to need all that cash, right?
It is pretty amazing, when you think about it, that video games can present practically as many universes as our imaginations can conceptualize. Race car drivers, ancient warriors, formless deities, abstract observers, mustachioed occasional-plumbers, the possibilities go on and on. We tend to settle into comfortable niches, as is human nature, but really any medium so tethered to artistic expression can as open as our desire to explore.
In 1995 LucasArts released an adventure game that was a little different from anything they had developed before. It deals with motorcycles, mechanics and murder. It's Full Throttle! I teamed up with the Adventure Game Geek to give you two opinions for the price of one. We played the recent remastered version of the game, though do compare it to the original.
Project Xenon Valkyrie+ is a new 8-bit styled, "Rogue-like" action platformer, developed by Diabolic Mind, and published by COWCAT Games. It is available on the PS4 and Xbox One digitally, on PC via Steam, and on the PS Vita digitally as well. For PS4 and PS Vita owners, the game has crossbuy as well, so that's a nice bonus for Sony hardware fans. PXV+ (as the game shall heretofore be known as) combines a "Rogue-like" random level generation aspect with traditional 8-bit art and aesthetics, albeit in a widescreen aspect ratio, with action platforming, traditional combat, and some interesting mechanics. The game has a lot going for it, but ends up being a bit less than the sum of its parts.
As some of you may know from talking with me, my wife and I recently purchased a new house. This series is going to chronicle how things are progressing as we complete various projects around the house.
So, my family of four have been living in a house that is less than 1000 sq. ft. and no basement. It has been tough with such little space, but we have made it work with a lot of extra storage (re: Ikea trips) and a storage unit. While it hasn't been ideal, it was ours. Over the last year and a few months, we have been on a bit of an adventure as our house was sold (without ever hitting the market, long story) and now we have recently purchased a new place.
The new house is quite a bit larger than our old place, including a partially finished basement. While the extra space is very nice, it's also going to be a bit of work to get things the way we want it. We still have our old place until October, so we don't have to try to paint, move furniture, and get things the way we like it while the house is full of stuff.
I've never owned an arcade cabinet before! My good buddy wildbil52 found this on a Facebook group that happened to be in my area. Works great, condition is pretty solid, and the price was right. The guy I was buying it from was nice enough to hold it until we took possession of the house, so it was one of the first things that we moved in...
In the short time I've owned it, I've learned a lot about cabinets, JAMMA, and kick harnesses. Part of why I wanted a CPS2 cabinet was the ease of changing games. Pop off the back, remove some clips, and take the top board off. Replace it with the new game, power it up, and you're good!
I did see one other thing though. With the CPS2, there is a battery on board. If that battery dies, the entire board can be rendered inoperable. One way to fix it is to replace the battery before it gets too low with a new one quickly enough that the board stays powered. If you come across a board that has failed or a board you own has failed, there have been recent developments that will allow you to resurrect the board by reprogramming it with unencrypted ROMs.
In the time that we've had the house, it's mostly been a lot of cleaning and painting, but there are a few pieces that will be installed that will turn the new home in to a new smart home. Look for that in an upcoming entry.
Hello, fine movie-lovers! Today we continue our look at recent blockbuster game movies with the second of three for the year, Rampage. Starring Dwayne "Walking Slab of Meat" Johnson and....a bunch of other people, it tries to do what the Battleship movie did and make a film out of a game that really had very little plot to speak of. Does it succeed where Battleship spectacularly failed? Let's find out.
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.
Back at E3 2017, a trailer for a game known as A Way Out was shown and, while it seemed to get little attention from most others, I was immediately intrigued. Its promise of a cooperative experience like no other coupled with a premise that showed two inmates working together to escape from prison seemed like a match made in Heaven for myself and the friend that I later played the game with. The trailer invoked shades of The Shawshank Redemption, a favorite of ours, and the idea of being able to play through a similar scenario together was too exciting to ignore. With the game being released just recently, we were finally able to experience this adventure together, and we were not disappointed.
[img width=700 height=525]https://blogs-images.forbes.com/olliebarder/files/2017/08/rtype_boss.jpg[/img] Get ready to blast off and attack the evil Bydo empire!
Do you like shoot-em-up games? I do! I'm a long-time fan of the genre, and have spent the better part of the last 20 years, or so, collecting as many of them as I can. While I have played and enjoyed many of these games, I have never felt like I got full enjoyment out of them, because I haven't engaged with other players to talk strategy, compare scores, or revel in the games themselves at the level I would like to. Now's my chance! I'm starting a new monthly series here at RF Generation, where we can play and discuss classic scrolling shooter games!
Join me for the stream of conciseness that is Neo's "A Brief Look At" series!
This month, we check out Darkest Dungeon, an RPG focused on killing all of your characters and stressing you out! There is a TON in this game, and I know that I do not cover everything, so if you have any questions, leave it in the comments!
I was born in 1975 and spent my childhood in the 1980s. Now as an adult, I am a lover of 80's nostalgia. I am so excited to share this video series with you that is a unique and fun take on reliving my past. There is something so magical about seeing a toy or video game for the first time since childhood and having that "Oh, I remembered that!" feeling, and that is at the heart of this series. I hope you enjoy reliving my past with me!
Sometimes people come to your house to play games, other times you have to bring games to them. I was invited to a game night for kids this month. For whatever reason they put me, of all people, in charge of bringing older games. Where would I ever come up with older games I wondered?....Probably in those large piles of boxes that have been sitting in the garage and basement since we moved my, wife told me.
It took quite a while to find things. Most of my collection has been in boxes since we moved. I peek into those boxes from time to time and wait for the day it's all set up again.
Knowing my audience was going to be young people, around 30 kids, middle school to high school aged was predicted. A few adults to keep things not on fire, or whatever it is adults do. I tried to come up with a good list of fun stuff they probably hadn't seen much of. Mostly games that were quick to pick up, nothing too obtuse. Also I didn't want it to be overly familiar, what's the point of having stacks of games if you can't show off something a little off the beaten path? Since this was for a group were the oldest one would have been born after 2001 I didn't think that would be too hard.
Several old consoles, a few handhelds, one to six games per machine, a dedicated screen for everything was my goal. I went to those piles of boxes. Some of what I wanted was easy to find, some not so much and some of it not at all. Two player Typing of the Dead didn't make the cut because the keyboards are hiding. Original Gameboy made it but not with Tetris, GB games are off in some un-found box, Pipedream was in the GB so that was what I brought. I did some cleaning, some of it had dust on it, some of the controllers were tangled with every other controller possible in the box...The Gameboy had some careless owner ahem leave the batteries in it when they moved which leaked. Fortunately Gameboys are made of adamantium and are impervious to all but fun. It cleaned up nicely after a very late minute disassembly.
You would not believe how many young people want to play the first Halo. So many times I heard someone come into my room and excitedly say "Is that Halo CE?! I want to play!" The weirdest thing was how many of them had current skills in the game, as in they've played it in the recent past. Several of them could navigate the menus and choose game types with ease. They could explain to each other the differences between CE and the later game in the series. When I joined in and played I wasn't able to go 25 and 0, the kids were pretty good
There were two rooms set up at this thing. One with more current games and my room. There was another room to eat and play board games too. I brought 14 liters of Mt Dew because that seemed right. I think there was spaghetti and juice too but who knows.
In seriousness, the food was good and my wife complained of me smelling of garlic later, "They had garlic bread though!" I told her.
My room was used pretty well all afternoon. There were a few lulls in the action but not many. I got to chat with some of the other adults. One who had recently bought a Switch because he had to have Breath of the Wild. Another guy came in and immediately asked about the Vectrex, he then told me of the first video game he ever saw, I guessed the next thing he would say was going to be Atari but no, it was Pong, in 1971 though! I quizzed him about it later and he lived in the Silicon Valley area growing up. He had a friend who's dad worked for some tech company. Magnavox Odyssey didn't ring any bells for him so we were speculating he may have had some custom made pong console the dad brought home from work. We chatted a bit, pretty fun story.
I never got all of my machines set up. Even being there an hour early there wasn't time. No real need though. Kids were all over Contra, Halo and the Vectrex. Those three got by far the most playtime. There was some SMB3 and Duck Hunt. I got a few people to play Katamari Damacy for a bit. The new Oregon Trail handheld was tried out by several people, had one little girl come up to me at the end and say how she really liked it. Again it was funny how much the kids knew about the older stuff, one young lady, maybe 14? picked up my Game Boy and was like, "Hey! A Game Boy"
I was like, "Yeah! You turn it on by.....oh, you know how to turn it on..." Her in all seriousness, "I'm a big Nintendo fan" Me, "....awesome!"
She wasn't the only one either, how do these kids know how to turn it on so easily? I don't mean that they simply assume there is a power switch somewhere and look for it, I mean they just turn it on like they've done it a hundred times.
I put the Vectrex right by the door. So many people asked about it. The best part, aside from all the play time it got, was after me talking about it a few times, other kids started doing that for me. New person enters room "That thing!" other kids, "Yeah, it's a Vectrex, it came out in 1982 and was...."
The little kid in the picture, maybe he's 3?, played it for an hour I'm sure. A bunch of others too. No one even knew to complain about the controllers broken centering spring either, great stuff.
I didn't go into this expecting no chance of damage or loss. The only bad thing was this broken NES door. That one has the Blinking Light Win mod. Works great but games fit really snugly, takes a bit of doing to get carts out. Probably, the kid was absently pressing it open in some way trying to get a game out. I heard a noise and walked over there, helped him out the rest of the way. Oh well, if that's the biggest loss I'll just count it as a battle scar.
I had fun, kids had fun, adults had fun. It was a bit of work getting it all together. Still wishing for game things to get organized here at home to make this sort of thing easier. While I knew to keep the game selection simple, next time it'll be even more streamlined. While I wouldn't go so mainstream as CoD or Madden, there isn't any need to drag out hundred hour RPGs or highly tactical grand strategy games. Fun and easy to play is the way to go. No need to bring out spendy collector items either, none of these people would know a hundred dollar shmup from a five dollar one. Game nights on the road are different than ones at home.
Anyone ever do this? Setup a mini traveling museum of sorts? Ideas for next time? I kinda wanted to bring Steel Battalion, Project Cars with a full race wheel and pedals, four NES Advantages with Smash TV, two player Typing of the Dead.....
I read Ernest Cline's dystopian, reference-laden young adult novel Ready Player One in 2015 after it was recommended to me by my wife. Though I enjoyed the book, I felt that the reliance on references of 80's pop-culture was a little overwhelming. When I heard that the book was going to be adapted into a film, I was intrigued. What would it be like to have the many intellectual properties referred to in the novel seen on the big screen together? Even with Steven Spielberg at the helm, and the original author contributing to the screenplay, could a coherent story be told with all the pop-culture overlaying the action? I recently checked out the film with my wife, and here are some quick, spoiler-free thoughts.
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
