It was a long winterish season up here in Maine. I say winterish because the weather never could decide what it wanted to do. One day it would be sub-zero, and the next would be in the upper 40s. It would snow, and then all the snow would melt. I don't do well with winter if there isn't any snow. It seems darker and more depressing, and all the outdoor fun stuff I like to do in the winter depends on snow. I never did get my regular snowshoes out, and the racing snowshoes got used maybe half a dozen times, three of those for the actual races.

I'm getting a little bit irritated with trying to get rewards points and keep up with my friend Mark in the monthly achievement leaderboards. I end up playing a bunch of games that often don't leave me feeling to good. I think I'm going to institute a time limit on my attmepts to get them from now on. But, in any case, here are the things I played, and mostly complained about, yesterday. 

Microsoft rewards leads me to new places. I have just played my first mobile game, Gears Pop. I also discovered developer mode on Xbox One. And then there are the regular games played, or attmepted to play, as my download speed is so slow that several days wasn't enough to get to play Final Fantasy XV. Details follow.

Games Beaten

Good morning Pixlpeeps! It is a nice Southern California morning and I am waiting for the butter to soften up a bit so I can go toast my homemade (Eggo Waffles from Costco) waffles and not tear a hole into it with a little piece of rock hard butter. So what has been going on? Let’s find out and hopefully I remember all the interesting stuff before I eat breakfast and get going on my 3 day weekend.

I have a routine now: check sales, chase rewards points quests, EDF. So details. . .

So, as Rick Dalton has his moment of crisis and doubt and overcame it, I did the same with Super Mario World, as far as the main road to Bowser's Castle was concerned. The last 2 areas leading to the castle (Chocolate Island and Valley of Bowser, if memory serves correct) were the hardest of the journey, harder than I remember. Trying to make it through Larry Koopa's castle was so maddening (Magikoopa, eat shit and die, you fucking fuck) but I eventually powered through. SMW also has one of the great end credit sequences in a video game; the music, the character roster, the long trek back through all the worlds (at least as depicted through the background).

I really need to blog more. Actually, I need to game more so I'll have more to blog about. But anyway...

Good morning Pixlpeeps and for you folks who are living in one of the many states taking part in Super Tuesday THANK FREAKING GOODNESS this day is here because we won’t get all those damn ads, texts, and other useless crap tomorrow. I had another rando guy running for senate send me a text and when I asked why they’re doing this on their Facebook I got no answer and their website had no Contact Us button. Way to blow a bunch of money on losing rando guy. I also got a dirty look from the people running the voting spot this morning because my ballot wasn’t the same as their beliefs. Whatever. Anyways this is video game blog and I’m here to talk about some games. Let’s go!

So these, I remembered, were the same game except 4.1 was remastered and given a few kaiju for the PS4. But in playing 4.1 again, I realized there are a lot of differences and I am quite pleased with it. It's definitely the best version. 

I've decided to keep my old lists and do this thing where I take in one classic from four media types every month. It's a thing to do, and fun. So here are the media for March I'm focusing on. 

Bonus BaD! What’s up my BaD Pixlpeeps! Final day of Feburary and it is a bonus day, how cool is that? There was no way I was going to let it slide because it doesn’t come around that often. One of my cool 29^th moments was to get a Platinum on Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. I rushed to get that and then had to save the last thing on the 29^th. Anyways happy 29^th, enjoy the bonus day…and than you all for being part off this wonderful community event. It’s a little hold over from 1Up, but I never got to take part until being part of this swanky home here at Pixlbit. Thanks Pixlpeeps!

Your questions answered

I wanted to type this blog on my phone because I didn’t want to get up off the couch but apparently Flickr is a pain to use on mobile (seriously it’s 2020, websites should be seem less on both mobile and PC) and currently it is taking it’s sweet time uploading six pictures. SIX! Well it also seems that Flickr has hidden or removed the share to feature so that sucks. Anyways let’s get some positive vibes going

I've been a big fan of Jeremy Parish ever since the 1UP days when he was the guy that liked portable and retro games. He has always been very good about putting his content out as physical books, an extravegance in this digital age that weirdos like me greatly appreciate. I have quite a few of his Gamespite Quarterlies but here I wanted to highlight two books. First is Good Nintentions (the predecessor to his current NES Works youtube series, which has accompanying books), an exhaustive look at the NES library. How many times have I been through thorough information about the NES era of gaming and yet still I find it fascinating. The other is The Anatomy of Castlevania, a deep dive into the NES trilogy. Basically he walks through each level of the games—with pictures!—showing the underlying design and why it's so brilliant. As a long-time fan of Castlevania, this book was super interesting to read.

Hardcore Gaming 101 is a great resource covering a ridiculously wide range of games. Surely you're all familiar with them! They have collectively put out quite a few books, of which I have two. The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures is HUGE and was a Christmas gift I received several years ago. Every now and then I pull it out and read a few entries, which sets me up to finish it sometime next decade, I think. It's especially interesting for me because I know so little about the genre. The other is about Treasure, the idiosyncratic Japanese action game developer—one of my all-time favorite developers. I've only scratched the surface on this one but I'm excited to dive deeper into it. Treasure still exists but is not actively developing new games anymore. I miss the days when we got new Treasure games.

Well we’re nearing the end of BaD.  Sorry I didn’t participate, but with my goal of having three articles a week up at GamerDad.com, it would’ve spread me too thin to do that.  Speaking of which, I’ve got another batch of reviews I’ve recently posted at GamerDad.com!  Please click on the links and read as many as you can and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  OK let’s begin!

Hey you thought I forgot about you good people, didn’t ya? I’ve been busy today but here I am, I have some time because copying a drive is going to take almost two hours so instead of mindlessly going though Twitter and Reddit here I am...also I needed a reason to type on my swanky iPad keyboard.

Taking a step deeper into our beloved hobby passed history and the broader gaming scene leads us to how individual games are made. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a delightful read that covers an interesting spread of games, including The Witcher 3 and Stardew Valley. I am interested to see how Jason Schreier follows it up. Making Fun is a recent acquisition that I have not started yet. The author, David Craddock, is quite prolific in the game space and does not usually get his due, I feel. He does good work.