I'm going to try this again. The blogging tool ate the last blog I wrote.

Happy 250th birthday, America!  To celebrate, here are some reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com.  Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  OK let’s begin!

In revisiting my collection, I'm trying to keep it brief by not respawning unless I can't resist it. I restarted many times in Space Invaders Extreme, for instance. I wanted to respawn in Minecraft, but didn't. Sometimes I just want to leave something for later. Going back to one I've 100% completed is kind of downer. So these are this week's revisits. 

In the last part of my PS4 tribute blog, we looked at the games I enjoyed on the PS4 that were classic collections or remakes.  And on this one, we’ll look at the more AAA titles (well as AAA as I get anyway), as well as the indie titles on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Like I said before, most of these games you can enjoy on other platforms, I just played them on PS4.

Here's my "waiting for a car repair" blog about the 2011 games that I played relatively close to release date in order of Metacritic rating for that year. Also, I'm just noting the system I played the game on, not all available systems. 

It's fun to go down the Metacritic [MC] list, so I'm doing it again for the stuff I played in 2010. 

But here they are. All the stuff I played last week while my car was laid up with repairs. 

When a game console is considered “dead,” I like to write a tribute blog about that console and its games.  While most people would probably consider the PS4 ‘dead’ for a while now, I’m still reviewing games for it.  I guess a game console is really only considered ‘dead’ once you stop playing it.  But since recently I wasn’t able to get simple games like LEGO Batman and Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection on the PS4, I figured it was about time.  I’ll probably do a similar blog with the original Switch later towards the end of this year.  Most of the games on this list you can play on other consoles as well, I mostly used the PS4 as a third party machine if I couldn’t play or review it on the Switch, or if I’d rather play it on the PS4.  Anyway, there are so many games I’m going to split this up into two parts.  And the first part is going to be all about classic game collections, and remakes of classics and styled games.

Going down the top ranked on Metacritic for that year, these are what I played a lot within console generation 7, 

In 1991, Origin Systems gave Game Boy owners a taste of the Ultima series with a unique entry, Ultima: Runes of Virtue. Unlike many Ultima spinoffs, this was actually developed in-house at Origin Systems, by many longtime Origin staff who had most recently worked on Ultima VI: The False Prophet. As a result, the art style in this games resembles Ultima VI.

What it is: Stuff I played close to the year of release or at least during console generation 7, listed in order of Metacritic ranking for 2008. 

I'm getting closer to the end of my 360 games now, but it may be a few more weeks still before I move on to PS3 or Wii. I really can't wait to start those. 

One of my brothers got married a couple of weeks ago, hence the title of this blog.  So congrats to him!  And I also got married as well.  Sort of.  You’ll just have to read on to find out!  Yeah, sorry to use clickbait on you all, but it’s fun when it’s fun.  Anyway after all this wedding stuff are more reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com.  Please click on the links and read as many as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  OK let’s begin!

The first thing that comes to mind is changing my Xbox gamertag. I got one in 2004 when Xbox Live Arcade dropped but a mini-game on an Official Xbox Magazine demo disc was giving me trouble in '07, and I thought a new gamertag would solve it. Well, it did solve it, but I lost touch with my old gamertag over time, and now it's probably been deactivated along with the few games I bought under it. It'll be 20 years on my current gamertag next year. It could've been 23 years if I'd stuck with my original one.

I ripped through a lot of stuff this week, being impatient to get through it all, the slightest annoyance sending me to the next game in my collection. But, I had a lot of good experiences anyway. I'll break these 360 games into two categories, physical and digital only (or, Xbox Live Arcade as it used to be called). 

Games Beaten

'cause it feels so good. Stuff I played a lot in the 7th generation of consoles, 2005-2013ish. 

I got through a lot combining the end of last week's and all of this week's gaming. I'm clearly not going for complete runs. I just play to revisit and go as far as I stay interested. Here's the lot on Xbox 360:

It’s always nice to get to review a game I really wanted to play.  It happens less and less nowadays.  So as a big Bluey fan and genuinely interested in good games for kids, I’m glad I got to review this first game on my review blog list.  So please click on as many GamerDad game reviews as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  OK let’s do this!

These are games that are still stuck in my memory today. Many highly rated games are good, and I've been revisiting them, but these are the ones that come to mind first when I think of 360. 

I ripped through a bunch more on my quest to get through my collection and decide what stays and goes. 

At the end of my "vacation", I did the rounds of my west side game stores (I got two west, two east and one south - working on the north side) and filled a bunch of holes in my 360 collection and one for DS. 

Just a few but with some interesting death throes in most of them. 

Another ten on my list to play this year going in order on the Metacritic all-time best list for DS. 

I'm on vacation this week for the most part. LJ and I went to Washington D.C. to visit the Smithsonian Zoo and Museum of the American Indian (also, accidently - 'cause we parked beneath it - the Bible Museum and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit), but I manged to squeeze in some gaming on a few days here and there and last week, which I couldn't report on 'cause Pixlbit was down.