PixlBit

I rediscovered the really great 1992 X-Men: The Animated Series. The theme music is always close at hand in my mind, and I always imagined it was from a 70s era X-Men show, a time I would've watched it as a kid, but, I think, I was watching Super Friends then and not X-Men. I guess my friend Mad Krammer and I were watching X-Men in the 90s. Well, we watched it again and it's really great. Good writing, excellent animation, nothing to complain about at all. Oh, and then there's the gaming I did this week. 

Retro:

I'm making this a priority starting next week because I can never get to it. I'm going to start with the games in my collection, getting rid of anything that's not good. I'll break out my Genesis first for the 90s and the first game in my collection, alphabetically, Combat Cars. 

Game Pass Games:

Despot's Game: I didn't play it for long but it was interesting. It's an autobattler. You set up four stick figures in a room, give them equipment, position them, and start the battle. After victories you're awarded points you can spend of buffs, equipment and new fighters. You move to a new room and repeat. I like these sorts of games as short plays. 

Forza Horizon 4: I had to get 7000 fame points (or whatever those are called) for the rewards points. I played an Eliminator round, which is a fun multiplayer challenge where you roam the world, pick up new cars, and race real players when you see them. You're eliminated if you lose and the last car surviving wins. I also took on a few of the seasonal challenges. FH4 is so great, and I still have many achievements left to get whenever I return to it. Always more to do there. 

Atomic Heart: A coworker reminded me of this first-person shooter, and so I installed it. I played through the first chapter (or whatever that's called). It reminded me strongly of Bioshock Infinite set in Russia. The look, the story, everything is so similar. It's great that way though. Amazing visuals and fun dialog. I stopped when I got to the part where you are given a weapon. I'll save it for my regular Game Pass rewards game for a while. GP just got Age of Empires IV though, ahhh! Choices. 

Social Game: 

Earth Defense Force 2025: I decided to always start on Inferno difficulty and lower it if I fail a level. In multiplayer this seems to be an excellent strategy because other players really like playing Inferno, and I get a team going really quickly: I and Mad Krammer, plus two others, usually at least one of them a very experienced player that can sometimes carry the day when the rest of us fail. I made great progress on my Wing Diver and Air Raider (I play as one of them exclusively on any particular day). Man, it's fun when four players really cooperate for a win. I'm getting used to the in-game comments you can make. I never play with mics on, but you can quickly sellect comments with the d-pad in-game or in the prep screen. 

Casual: 

For the rest of the month I'm going after achievements not related to medals for daily challenges since I've already got Bronze, Silver and Gold on Suduku, Mahjong and Wordament. I gave up trying to get a perfect month on Mahjong. Like Solitaire, it's so up to chance. I'm not beating my head against something like that. But I got several other achivements in Mahjong and a few new ones in Suduku. It looks like, when I finish gaining all the medals, I'll have all 1000 for Wordament. It's always nice to get 100% on a game, it's so rare. 

That's a week. I can't wait to put retro up front and center next week. I also can't wait to finish my casual games so I can focus on handheld stuff. 

Anyone see Gamescon this week? I watched a lot of highlights of it on youtube.