PixlBit

It's the 90s for me this month and maybe for two months, we'll see. I got my Retron 3 and Genesis up and running so far. Here's what I got to this week. 

SNES

I went through my whole collection to see what I wanted to trade. These are the keepers. 

Final Fight - Eating strange meats out of trash cans gives you super strength. That's what I learned here. Also how to do a spin move to shake off those baddies that are always trying to surround you, an essential skill. 

Donkey Kong Country - I still remember where all those banana bunches are underground and the barrel short cuts are overhead. 

Arkanoid: Doh It Again - I just got this and was stuck to it for a few days. I battled Doh in one endless continues battle but didn't beat him. Was that the final boss? I finally tweaked the Vaus speed in the options to give me an edge. I'm still playing it. 

Space Invaders - Unfortuneately this is just the original in all it's colored and black & white forms. I was hoping for some then modern upgrades or special modes. Still, I'll keep it. 

Genesis

Golden Axe - Stop knocking me off my ride! I hate that. The swordsman has a nuke for a magic attack. Kinda... weird. I'm trying to master that dash move. Kinda tricky to pull off. 

PGA Tour Golf - I played a round of 18. The controls came back to me very quickly and I had a blast. It's still my favorite golf series. Maybe Links 2004 is a close second. 

Fire Shark - You can tweak the difficulty and shooting speed to get a little farther than you would on the arcade machine. It has great power ups and it looks good and plays fast. I love those wacky tank designs in the land based bosses. They're like WWII prototypes that never really existed. 

Risk - I played against the computer in arcade mode for the first time. You control a cannon and shoot at moving troops to determine who wins a battle. Hit first and you win. It makes the game move a little faster. I took over the world in 6 turns. Nice. 

Road Rash II - Controls not as smooth as the Playstation Road Rash 3D that I love but is essentially the same gameplay. It seems extra dangerous now that I've seen so many real motorcycle crashes on youtube. 

Shining in the Darkness - A favorite Wizardry clone I will always keep. My gaming buddy and I beat it way back. This time I just went a few rounds in the labyrinth and tried to find the rest of my team, which I can't remember where they show up, only that the bar keep says they're waiting for me somewhere. 

Current Fare

Puzzle Quest Immortal - I keep going back to it until I get frustrated and take a break. My buddy in gaming is more tolerant and is way ahead of me in it. I'm kind of enjoying it in shortish sessions. 

Borderlands: GotY Edition (PS3) - This is not the remastered version I was playing on Xbox the other week. I got the version for PS3 because I have a mind to get trophies in it since I've maxed out all the achievements in every version on Xbox. I'm about level 21 so far as Brick, who I named Cohen after Terry Pratchett's Cohen the Barbarian in The Color of Magic. 

I'm surprised at how quiet this first Borderlands game is compared to the later ones. I felt like Borderlands 3 tried my patience with so much crazy, and ultimately annoying, dialog. This frist game seems downright silent. At one point, I wondered if I had turned off dialog in the settings somwhere. They just didn't do as much voice work in the first game. I'm enjoying it, and the trophy drops, but the game still frustrates me after a while. I always get into underpowered situations that I can't understand. But I keep going back to it. 

Books

I'm reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman in paperback, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami on audio book, Elementary Particles by Michel Hoellebecq on ebook and am borrowing Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time from the library soon. 

Film/TV

I'm not big on film right now, but there will be several in the theaters this month I'll watch. On youtube I checked out Young Indiana Jones (1990 tv series) because George Lucas produced and wrote it (similarities to Phantom Menace abound) and Swamp Thing (also 1990 live action TV series) just for curiousity because I read about the Alan Moore revived comics of the 80s that won awards ans such. 

Podcast

I'm still on What Went Wrong, this time all the 90s movies that went wrong. This week was all about Phantom Menace and I'll be listening to Galaxy Quest next. 

That's a week. I'm trading a lot of my Game Boy and GBC games today. I realized I want simpler games than RPGs for my handheld gaming. That's a wrap.