Bagels with Cream Cheese and a side of leftover WingStop isn’t the ideal breakfast but it was tasty yet now I would like a nap and it’s only 10:55am. Let’s get productive before I give in and ruin this humid, hazy (lots of smoke in the air because California is on fire) Tuesday morning. Let’s get started with things before I forget. I may have a good rant.
Don't ask me. I jumped into the portal and found myself in a swirl of psychedelic color with strange creatures and farm implements circling round me like I was in the eye of a tornado. Every single button made me sick to my stomach with zero-g movement, so I quit, watched a tv episdode and played the following seven games instead.
Here are my media picks for 2005. They're not CSI, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Resident Evil 4, Green Day's American Idiot or Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, but I like what I like.
It’s now September, and you know what happens this month? It’s my birthday on September 15! So let’s have a pretend birthday party right here on my blog! In the comments section, leave me a pretend birthday present. It can be anything you want. It’s the thought that counts…literally! I’d love it if you did that as I could use a bit of cheering up this year (I think we all could). And here’s some presents for you! 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!
Shadow Score is an old board game made digital and then fused to a romance simulator. It's online, streaming, 5v5, mobile, and asynchronous; use your webcams for added intrigue. I hated it because no one liked me even when I won, and I had to watch all the other randos complete the story paring up with faeries, furrys and fembots. So I played the following three games and watched a tv episode instead.
Ok so I just finished the stage 5 (?) of the Tour de France, I didn’t take out a breakfast sandwich because last night’s Panda Express isn’t sitting well. Apparently when you ask for Orange Chicken they give you spicy chicken that isn’t sweet. I really need to find a mom & pop Chinese spot that offers Sweet N’ Sour Pork. Going back to actual gaming stuff I tried to write a Quick Hits but ended up getting sidetracked with random trips to different stores, but here we are on a Monday and apparently it’s September. Who knew? Let’s get started.
Dual weilding is a great mechanic, but a whole game based on it? Use the left and right analog sticks to swing Okage's giant muscled arms to punish goblins and orcs on a super colorful farm of Yggdrasil trees. Thought there was only one of those, didn't you? There's always a least two of everything in this game including two ways to annoy: one is the camera which contantly zooms in and out as you punch to dramatise the action but which makes you dizzy as heck; and two is the glitchy gameplay. Yeah, it's fun to see goblin parts flying all over but when your fists get stuck in a ygdrassil and don't come out, it's game over. I played the following four games instead.
Just an interactive novel where you learn the true depth of sorrow as a valkyrie who rescues the souls of dead soldiers and brings them to valhalla. Did you know crying is quite exhausting after a while? I mean, who can do ten hours of this? I wiped my eyes and played the following three games instead.
An anthropomorphic animal high school where young furries have to perform trials, not unlike those in Hunger Games, or face starvation. I found the story and relationships gripping, but the targeting controls were terrible. I had to play a pin-the-tail-on-the-furry minigame that was near impossible. That tail looked funny on a nose though. I went and played the following four games and watched a tv episode instead.
It's been a crazy week what with teaching classes in a hybrid format for the first time, getting through a couple syllabus days, then having classes cancelled due to hurricanes. We got lucky and they missed us so now we just have a lot of water bottles. I plan to take them into work since water fountains are questionable. I mean, I have COVID-19 antibodies so nothing is likely to happen to me, but it seems like a huge no these days as far as spreading. I'm probably just being paranoid but seems like a good use of this artisan water either way (I bought two 24-packs of Dasani and a six-pack of Fiji ... and it turns out two 24 packs of Dasani is the same price as one six-pack of Fiji).
2004 was more pizza and music, but I do remember going to my dad's summer beach house in North Carolina. We had fun fishing, going to book stores and eating out. The drive from Philly was fun too. 7 1/2 hours with a stop on the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel. I also enjoyed the following media.
One of my first RPGs was Ultima III: Exodus on NES and PC. Ultima, along with Wizardry, was considered to be one of the two ancestors of the video RPG genre. Eventually I was able to get a hold of the other games in the series. The entire series is on GOG, including the spinoffs like Worlds of Adventure and Underworld.
One final part of my blog series on the TG-16 Mini! Last time we looked at some of the games on the Japanese PC Engine side, and now we’ll look at the rest of them. The games in this batch I’m more familiar with, because they were released in the US in some form or fashion either on this console, other consoles, or in the arcade. And they’re also made by well-known companies like Namco, Capcom, SEGA, Taito, and Konami. OK let’s finish this off!
My angel faction is so rad! These winged badies can wreck demon butt and perform a mean flying circus to boot. I got them tricked out with platinum wings, diamond mind bullets and radiance shock halos. I'm taking down RAID bosses with ease in this MMO. Thing is, Darla can only play on Wednesdays, Bob on Thursdays, Jeremy on Saturday night and Tamara on Sunday afternoon. It got so tricky getting people together, I played the following three games, watched a tv episode and downloaded two new games instead.
So I finished my breakfast sandwich and I found that if I wrap it the opposite way (having the ends of the paper towel meet on the bottom instead of the top) the cheese at the top doesn’t get hard. Real life mod I tell ya. I’m going to type most of this up before I head off to Target to look for G.I. Joe’s for my 4 month old nephew. He won’t play with these toys for at least 6 or 7 years but at least they’ll be ready.
I've organized this according to my usual routine when I sit down to play stuff on the weekend.
What's a rpg/action platformer/brawler mashup where you also harvest resources like? It's just like Rogue Blob Heroes and its Gears Farm expansion. Thing is, I got annoyed that while I was away jumping and slashing my way to fame and fortune, my farm was getting raided by vacuum goblins sucking up all my juicy fruit. It drove me so nuts, I rage quit and played the following five games instead.
Nothing much to tell about me in 2003. It was kind of the same as 2002, music and pizza. I took in a lot of media though. Here are my favorites.
As I mentioned in previous TG-16 Mini blogs, the Mini has two different menus you can choose from. One has US releases on the TG-16 side, and one has Japanese games on the PC Engine side. Since we’ve gone over all the US releases, now we’ll look at the Japanese ones. I’ll split these into two blog parts. In the first one we’ll look at the Japanese games I’m not so familiar with, and then in the final blog we’ll look at the games I’m more familiar with. So let’s get started!