PixlBit

Got a late start, so I'm moving fast through what I played this last week. 

Atari 50: I tried to unlock any locked games and get achievements. The locked games had me playing upgraded versions of classics like: Haunted Houses to unlock Basic Math, Neo Breakout to unlock arcade Breakout, Quadratank to unlock Combat Two, and VCTR-SCTR to unlock Gravitar. I liked VCTR-SCTR a lot. You play new versions of Asteroids, Lunar Lander, Tempest and something that looks like Battlezone. Neo Breakout was fun too, but I still have trouble with using an analog stick for accurate control. Nothing beats a rotary controller like the Atari Paddles for a game like Breakout. 

Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1: I ripped through the games I didn't get the achievements for and didn't get any of them again. Canyon Bomber, Centipede, Millipede, Tempest, Yar's Revenge, Black Widow, and Lunar Lander. My favorite in this collection is still the prototype game Save Mary. 

Pinball FX [2023]: Phantasystar77 on my friends list told me this was new, the sequel to Pinball FX3. I guess I missed its release. So I got the free download and checked it out. It's an upgraded version of FX3 with an added feature of a customizable virtual room where you can collect items won in the various modes of the game. A down side is that your purchases in FX3 do not cross over. I most wanted to play any 70s era pinball machine. They have the Williams collection here but it doesn't cover any of their 70s games. I'll have to switch to Pinball Arcade to play William's Gorgar machine, '79. I downloaded all the pinball apps I have on Xbox: FX3, FX, Pinball Arcade, Stern Pinball, and Zaccaria Pinball. 

Park Beyond: I was excited for this amusement park builder, so I downloaded the free trial (you don't see free trials much anymore). The tutorial had me building a roller coaster, and it was more intuitive than Planet Coaster, but still a bit too complicated for me to enjoy it. I still look towards Zoo Tycoon on Xbox as the model of the perfect sim for consoles. They got the controls just right and didn't overwelm you with details. Please copy that game for whatever sim you are doing (Kerbal Space Program, take note). 

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown: Games with Gold freebie I checked out. It's for people with visual imparment, I believe. The story is told through mostly audio cues. I am a jerk, but I didn't give it much of a chance. I wasn't in the mood for a story-based game that relies only on talking and sound. Korgoth says, "I didn't know there would be so much talking.". 

7 Days to Die: Played for Game Pass rewards. It's a open-world survival zombie game. Kind of cool but totally difficult to figure out how to craft and use anything. I had to bludgeon two zombies for the points. It took me a while to find them. In the meantime I learned how to craft clothes from grass, make a bed, a stone axe, and a club. After beating the two wandering zombies into craftable parts, I tried to sleep in my bed, but couldn't figure out what controls did it. That's when I loudly expounded on my theory that every game should begin with developing an intuitive control scheme. 

Earth Defense Force 2025: I and my friend played multiplayer a lot. I got my Ranger through all the Easy difficulty levels and then beat as many of the higher difficulties as I could. Then I played as the Wing Diver and ran through all 94 of the Easy difficulty levels and some on Normal. I was trying to build my 100% completion rating. I'm now at 32% and that's after nearly 300 hours of gameplay since the game came out in 2011. Kind of hard core that achievement. Oh, I took my Air Raider out for a few levels too. The Coastal Missile drop is hilarious. Four very large missiles hit targets on the ground. Fun to watch. 

Well, I've put away my Switch and PS4, and am now on a hunt for an Atari to replace my Xbox for the remainder of the month. I'd like some simplicity, and retro to feed my weekends for a while. Only one week left to do that, though, and then it's on to the 80s for July where I'll replace my Xbox Series S with an NES and focus a bit.