PixlBit

I liked the Spyro games on the PSOne.  Maybe not enough to get the new collection right away.  Spyro reminds me of Figment from EPCOT Center.  In the original game, the same guy who did the voice of the Taco Bell dog also did Spyro's voice.

I never played the games as a kid, but they are the perfect mostly stress-free games for me right now. It's funny how I associate Spyro and Crash Bandicoot with PSX mascots, but their games are completely the opposite in design philosophy. 

And I did not know that about the Chihuaha from the Taco Bell ads. I don't think the DidYouKnowGaming? YouTube video about Spyro I watched mentioned it. 

Some trivia about that dog: His campaign correlated with some financial losses (about a 6% food sales decline) for Taco Bell and that's why he was scrapped, even though he became a cultural icon. I was surprised when I learned the dog was bad for Taco Bell business and Doritos Locos Tacos were amazing for businees. I don't love those things. So powdery. 

The first Lords of Shadow is a pretty decent action game that feels like an amalgamation of good ideas from other games (combat from God of War, platforming from Prince of Persia, etc.). It's a little too long, I think, but it's fun, even though it does not feel at all like Castlevania. The second game, however, got so trashed in reviews that I skipped it altogether.

I bought Lords of Shadow in part for the lore. I'm looking forward to Patrick Stewart doing VO for what has become one of my favorite franchises. 

I might care more about reviews for the sequel if I paid more than about $5-7 for  ... 

That's good to hear about Spyro being more about exploration. I like that sort of thing. I definitely want the game. It was on sale today on Xbox for $30. I almost bit, but my impulse buy is $20. Plus, I want a physical copy not digital. So maybe my digital impulse buy is $10. 

There's a bundle with the Crash Bandicoot trilogy you can buy that on sale is a really good value. I'd have got it if I hadn't received both trilogies as Christmas gifts. 

I saw that on Xbox. Very cool. I'm really keen on Spyro though at a $20 price. 

Ah yea the backlog problem. Yeah it just keeps growing. At some point I need to jump back into Horizon and start God of War. I want to try Tomb Raider but I need to finish more games before I jump into a new one. 

I'm trying to play and purchase mostly games I can jump into right now. I kept thinking the problem was having too many games to play, but back in the day I rented WAY more games than I actually owned, and I probably bought as many for the same price as what a Blockbuster rental used to be. 

The kicker for me is I used to make Zeldas my "dive-in" games and everything else was pick-up-and-playable. So I think I might keep buying games on sale, but buy one BIG game every year ... which I basically did with Horizon last year and God of War this year and it hasn't really helped.