I went to Classic Game Junkies on Friday and traded a bunch of Atari 2600 games for three Sega Genesis games. While I was there, I heard a rumble and then the whole store started shaking. A little later I learned that there was an earthquake of 4.8 magnatude about 50 miles away in New Jersey. There aren't many earthquakes on the East coast of the U.S.. Last one I remember was in 2011. Anyway, here are the three games and a little info about them. 

Retro first, then new stuff. That's how I do it now whenever I'm in front of my gaming set up at Mad Krammer's place. I'm on Gen 4 now and Genesis, SNES and Game Boy. Here's what I got to this week: 

Early 80s video game technology had come a long way since Pong and Computer Space, but there were still limitations on how realistic graphics could be. Therefore; a lot of game designers drew on classic animation for inspiration, since the slapstick action and visuals were much more achievable with the technology that was available. Mario, for example, was inspired by Popeye.

Let’s ring in Spring with some game 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!

Ok so apparently I forgot to either upload my last blog post or I completely forgot to write one. I checked my folder and it turns out the one that I was typing up last week I either never saved or it got lost before I had a chance to upload it (I probably just forgot) anyways let’s catch up.

Mini-consoles have been a thing for well over a decade now, thanks in large part to the Atari Flashback and all those ATGames Genesis consoles. Mini-consoles experienced a huge surge in popularity with the success of the NES Classic and SNES classic in 2016-2017. Suddenly, everybody was putting out mini-consoles - the PlayStation Mini, two interations of mini Genesises (the OG Genesis and the 1994 revision that came with Sega CD games), and even a TurboGrafx-16 Mini. 

I didn't play many of the most celebrated games at the time, '90-'94. I played my own thing which was brawlers, action games and a few sports and board games. My friend Mad Krammer (MK), who I still play with today, and I would get together and play whatever we had, which was, at first, a Genesis. We started going to flea markets and eventually picked up a SNES and then he ended up with some old computers from his job and we started in on PC gaming. Here's a year by year list of what I remember playing back then. 

It was fun trying out a lot of NES games this month thanks to the NES collection on the Switch subscription service and a few available on collections on Xbox. I also had a few cartriges too for the original experience. Here's what I got to this week plus new stuff. 

I can't resist starting a list of media to check out for April focusing on the years 1990-1994. This is roughly console Generation 4. My only rule for gaming is to stick to the consoles that came out those years regardless when the games actually were released. That means Game Boy, SNES, and Genesis. I'm largely ignoring Turbografx-16 and Neo Geo for the moment because I don't have those systems. I also made a short list of PC, board/card and arcade games I might have time to play. Here goes. 

Ran the retro gauntlet again for console Gen 3 and started a new attack plan on modern gaming. 

Easter is the next holiday coming up, so here’s an egg hunt with reviews I’ve written lately 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 hop to it!

In no paticular order, these are the games I played on my midweek weekend this week. 

. . .about Generation 3 in console video games, but more specifically the years '84-'89. It's my theme for March this year. I couldn't resist expanding it to include arcade, PC and board games too. I thought I'd share it here. 

Much more than just Shmups this week but I played a lot of Shumps and finally had my fill of getting beaten down. I think I'll put the Shmups aside for the rest of the month. So I've also been exploring games of the late 80s both from hits lists and my own lists. I've got the Switch, Retron 3 and Xbox Series S all running and sourcing whatever I can find. So here goes. 

Princess Peach is one of the most popular Mario characters and she’s recently getting her own game on the Switch called Princess Peach Showtime!  And that’s not even the first time she’s gotten her own game either!  And even though she spends much of her time as a damsel in distress waiting for Mario to save her, there are plenty of other times when Nintendo lets her shine and be a hero.  So in honor of her new game, I thought I’d go back and look at Princess Peach’s best moments.

Here's the last week I spent in Gen 2 and the current gen.

Games Beaten

Good morning Pixlpeeps! It’s been a minute but I’m back, and how about that we get an extra day in February. Well it’s been a different couple of weeks where it’s either been cold and rainy, really warm, and now windy in Vegas, but either way I like it. I do wish we had more snow this year but I think that’s over now. Anyways let’s go into what I’ve been playing and what I finished.

St. Patrick’s Day is the next holiday coming up, but it’s your lucky day today as I’ve got more game reviews I’ve recently written over at GamerDad.com for you to look at!  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!

I'm going to focus on the three titles that grabbed my attention, and most of my time, this week. Also a surprise new purchase at the end. 

It’s been a while, but we’re back with another episode of The Pizza Pixel Podcast!  I haven’t had a new episode since last August, but since then I’ve moved to a new apartment, and then the holidays came, so this was the first time in a while that I’ve had a chance to do one!  It’s a pretty important milestone, too, because it’s our 20th episode!  Anyway, in this installment, my brother Ben and I talk about our favorite kids’ shows!  I figured Ben would be appropriate for this one since he has three kids of his own.  Anyway, I hope you get to listen to this one even though it’s two hours long!  That’s our longest podcast yet.  I try to not make them be so long, but we got carried away!

I'm back with gathering rewards on Xbox. Hopefully the auto-redeem will work at the end of this month. And when retro and GP are done, back to current games. 

...'Cause my weekend is midweek. Well, I'm doing this routine where I collect rewards on Xbox, then play my retro adventure ('77-'83 this month), do any Game Pass quests and then play the highest rated game I have access to. So here goes:

Here are some other Gen 2 era games I played last week.

This month, Nintendo is releasing Mario vs. Donkey Kong.  It’s a re-release/remake of a game on the Game Boy Advance that came out about 20 years ago!  It’s also the first appearance of the Mini Mario characters, an army of little wind up Mario toys.  These little guys would go on to star in their own series of spin-offs.  But those games kind of all run together because many of them look and play similarly.  So I thought in honor of the new game’s release, I’d go over each one and see what makes them special, if only for a little bit.  This Mario vs. Donkey Kong series also has quite a few games in its belt, more than what you might think.  And the history of these games stretched back farther than what you might expect, too!  So let’s check ‘em out!