Have you ever wished you could relive moments from your past with the knowledge and wisdom you have now? I think everyone has fantasized about this to a certain extent. It could be as minor as wishing you'd made a better comeback in a argument to making different decisions at major forks in the road of your life. I think about this a lot, to be quite honest. I'm very happy with where my life is now, but I can't help but be tempted by the thought of going back in time to take different courses of action, be they simple or major. In the 1987 novel Replay, author Ken Grimwood explores what would happen to a person who was forced to relive a large chunk of his life, in his younger body and with all of his memories and consciousness intact. I'd seen the novel mentioned in a handful of 'best sci-fi novels' lists on YouTube and was so intigued by the premise that Replay jumped right to the top of my 'to be read' queue. I'm not a fast reader, but I cruised through this one in just a few days. So is this time-jumping tale worth your valuable time? Continue reading to find out.
[img width=550 height=677]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-005/gs/U-005-S-04655-A.jpg[/img] Should have suspected survival in the future requires extensive use of Imperial Shuttles.
By now you have probably read quite a few gaming articles (including on here) about how folks are doing during these tough times. In light of this moment, there were a handful of topics I tossed about when considering what to expand into a full write-up, and ultimately it seemed best just to take a few ideas and breathe them out a bit. While this may read more like a journal entry, or really a series of rambling and disjointed thoughts instead of a concentrated article, it is my hope that constructively sharing thoughts right now may be more useful and connecting than one of my gaming lists or reviews. Well, more helpful to me at least.
The social isolation of the recent month has made me want to partake in some gaming comfort food -- old favorites from my childhood and teenage years. I decided to play one of the most memorable adventure games, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. It's a slightly more mature take on the adventure genre that looks at a series of voodoo murders. It has a fantastic setting and voice cast, but also some aspects that I needed to take a more critical look at. Enjoy!
In this month's episode of the Playcast, Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81) address these strange times as they travel to the fantastical world of Albion, the setting of Lionhead Studio's Fable II. The guys discuss the ins-and-outs of the game's story, battle mechanics, gameplay, graphics, sounds, and the game's one-of-a-kind morality system. Speaking of morality....the fellas get a bit cheeky as they discuss the current state of our world and government. It goes without saying, but we will, that the opinions herein are those of the hosts and in no way reflect the views of RF Generation. So welcome to this special episode of the Playcast; we hope you enjoy the listen as you practice your social distancing. Stay home if you can and do your best to keep your families and communities safe.
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on the games we play on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss these games more. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes and/or Podbean to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen, we hope you enjoy the show!
We interrupt your regularly scheduled program...but seriously what are you doing beside watching FetNicks or pulling your fighting kids apart?....to bring you the April 2020 edition of RF Generation's Site News! In this issue, we announce a VERY special May Community Playthrough game, unveil the next game for our site shoot 'em up club, congratulate the winners of our site raffle drawing, and of course, thank those members who sent in submissions to our site and registered approvals last month. Thanks for keeping it on Channel 3 and please STAY SAFE!
REMEMBER: If you have any news about upcoming events or topics that you think the site needs to hear about, please PM singlebanana and put "RFG Site News" in the subject line. Who knows, maybe your news will make our front page!
As collectors, we can sometimes fall into the dreaded hole, known as choice paralysis. Whether we collect strictly for the sake of it, or try and curate a small collection of things we want to play, it's bound to happen. Sometimes, you'll walk to a shelf full of games, and no particular mood strikes you, but you have free time, and know you want to play a game. In those situations, you can either try to pick something new, and see if it clicks with you. Other times, you return to an old favorite; an evergreen game, if you will.
Over the years, while I haven't quite built a long list of them, I have identified a few games I can always go back to, no matter what. These are games that I don't tire of. Some of them are very pick up and play, and some of them are not. However, these titles are the kinds of things I can return to, over and over, and immediately get that feeling again, reminding me why I like them so much, and always have a good time. Here are a small handful of my evergreen games.
Some people have had issue with their joy cons drifting, or maybe they got tired of the look of them. There are plenty of ways you can modify them. I custom painted my whole switch to look like the new turquoise Switch Lite, only thing, I still had black thumbsticks. I ordered a set of white ones to make the look compete and I show you how I installed them. Enjoy
Four years ago, id Software resurrected the Doom franchise from development hell. Under the creative direction of Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton, Doom 2016 retained just enough of the original games' DNA to make it feel old-school, while at the same time bringing the series into the 21st century with intelligent upgrades, combat that rewarded you for playing aggressively, and a demonic fire-and-brimstone soundtrack that was perfect for the ridiculous and irreverent tone of the whole thing. It was my favorite game of that year, and in August of 2018, singlebanana, GrayGhost81, and I took to the RF Generation Playcast to heap praise upon it for the community playthrough that month. At long last, the direct follow-up to 2016's game is here. Its predecessor set such a high bar that it's hard to see how this new title could improve things. So join me as I give my thoughts after the first half dozen hours.
This year has been a good year for me in regards to making progress on beating my NES library. In January and February, I was able to pump out some serious completion numbers. For the first couple weeks of March, I was able to tackle a few games from my sublist of games that I anticipated to be the hardest ones for me to complete. Before all this COVID-19 stuff, I planned to continue putting time into these challenging titles specifically. Things are stressful enough at the moment, so I decided to change my tactics and go with some comfort food instead. My stress reducer of choice was the original Final Fantasy. Now I've beaten this game before, but not before I started keeping records and recording my plays.
I've mentioned it many times before, but Illusion of Gaia is a game that I have fond memories of from when I was a kid and is still one of my favorite Super Nintendo games today. As many already know, it is a loosely-based sequel to Soul Blazer, which has earned itself quite the reputation over the years as a great action-RPG for the console. As such, Soul Blazer has been on my mind for many years as something that I should eventually play, so I finally made time to experience what is now another in a long list of favorites for the SNES.
Nintendo is easily among the best when it comes to long support for some of their game series. Plenty of characters that got their start during the NES days, or even older, are still alive and kicking. The Legend of Zelda series is one such franchise, having seen continual development and new games released for every Nintendo console and handheld, except the Virtual Boy, since the original Famicom Disk System release of The Legend of Zelda in 1986.
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was first released on the Gamecube in 2002. It would spend most of the console's life as the only single player Zelda experience for the console, as the follow up, Twilight Princess, was released alongside the Wii's console launch. A Hi Definition remaster of the game was released in 2013 on the Wii U, which also got a similar HD re-release for Twilight Princess.
This month, Rich (singlebanana) and Shawn (GrayGhost81) travel to the fictional, snow-capped town of South Park, Colorado for a little LARPing with the kids. The crew discusses the diverse intricacies of this surprisingly well-done RPG, including the gameplay, the graphics, and the music. They also discuss their history with the television series and reveal which of the episodes is their favorite. Which one of the guys has a new found appreciation for the series? And who calls an early shot that this title may be in the their Top 5 at the end of the year? To find out, come on down to the Playcast and have yourself a time!
As always, we are happy to hear your thoughts on the games we play on our discussion page (linked below). We will respond to your comments and are always happy to discuss these games more. Please be sure to rate and write a review of the show on iTunes and/or Podbean to help us increase our listenership. Thanks for the listen, we hope you enjoy the show!
