PixlBit

Merry Christmas everyone!  It’s time for the annual tradition of my Pretend Christmas Present Party!  Here’s how it works.  In the comments section, give me a pretend Christmas present.  It can be anything you want. It won’t cost you anything, and it’s the thought that counts…literally!  And in return, when I reply, I’ll give YOU a pretend Christmas present, too!  It’s fun when it’s fun.  And I’ve got some extra Christmas goodies for you as well!  More GamerDad.com reviews I’ve written recently!  Yay, just what you always wanted…right?  Well maybe not, but you’re getting them anyway!  Please read as many as you can and maybe even post a comment or two.  I’d really appreciate it.

LEGO Dimensions Gremlins Team Pack

When I was a kid, I loved the Gremlins movie.  I don’t know if that made me a messed up kid or what.  I may even re-watch it again before Christmas.  So I was happy to review this pack for LEGO Dimensions.  I loved how the hub world makes references to both Gremlins 1 and 2.  Speaking of which, I loved how the Gremlins sequel was just a parody of the first film.  Anyway, I had fun writing this review and I hope you get a chance to read it.

LEGO Dimensions: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Fun Pack

And what’s even stranger is that as a kid, while I loved the Gremlins movie, I didn’t like E.T. that much.  I felt the movie was too long and drawn out, and E.T. himself looked like a rotisserie chicken.  And they over-hyped Reese’s Pieces.  Once I finally got to try them as a kid, I wasn’t impressed.  They were pretty brave to put him in LEGO Dimensions especially considering what happened last time E.T. was in a video game!  At any rate, I felt this pack wasn’t quite as exciting.

Just Dance 2017 (Wii U)

I’m not a big fan of dancing games, especially ones where you just wave the Wii remote around.  But Ubisoft has been supportive of me since my Dallas Morning News days, so if I get an opportunity to review a game from them, I’ll take it.  What’s weird is that there’s a Hatsune Miku song in this one!  What is this world coming to?  Ha ha!

Cartoon Network Battle Crashers (3DS)

This is just a side-scrolling beat ‘em up featuring characters and settings from modern Cartoon Network shows, like Uncle Grandpa, Adventure Time, The Amazing World of Gumball, Steven Universe, Regular Show, and Clarence.  Unfortunately, the game is not that good.  Hit detection is awful, gameplay is repetitive, and they artificially lengthen the game by making you replay older levels.  A lot.

Tumblestone (Wii U)

During the 20 plus years I’ve been reviewing video games, I’ve very rarely made game developers or PR professionals mad at me.  In fact, I could count the number of times that’s happened on one hand, and still have leftover fingers.  But in regards to this puzzle game, this is one of the few times I made someone mad.  When I played this game at PAX, the developer asked me what I thought of it.  I told him I really liked it and that it reminded me of Magical Drop.  When I wrote that in my PAX article, though, he sent me a nast-o-gram through email.  He was so mad that I compared his game to something else.  I don’t know why he took offense at that, since Magical Drop was a great game and my friends were totally obsessed with it when it first came out.  I figured that Tumblestone was one game I wouldn’t get to review because of how mad he got.  Luckily when it came time for the retail release, I only had to deal with PR folks who had no idea what went on between me and the developer.  And yes, I still said it was like Magical Drop in my review.

Ninja Usagimaru: The Mysterious Kakakuri Castle (3DS)

This puzzle game from Aksys features cartoony characters based on Japanese myths and legends.  And it reminds me of Solomon’s Key.  It’s a good little downloadable 3DS title, but it gets pretty hard!  Aksys has been around for ten years, and I think they’ve been supportive of me the whole time.

Chase: Cold Case Investigations (3DS)

This is a text mystery adventure game similar to Phoenix Wright, except without the interesting storylines and fun characters.  What’s really weird is that this game only took me about an hour to beat.  I’m certain it has to be episodic, but I got no indication in the game or on Aksys’ web site that there would be more episodes.  So it was rather jarring.

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (Vita)

And finally is this dungeon crawling RPG.  What’s interesting about this one is that you don’t explore dungeons in top down fashion, but instead you explore the dungeons in a side-scrolling platform jumping view.  But the story and characters have too much anime teen angst for my tastes.

Merry Christmas!

And that’s all for now!  Thanks for reading my reviews and posting comments!  And also thanks for any pretend presents!  Later!  --Cary