PixlBit

My antipathy towards Microsoft goes back to over half a decade prior to the launch of the original Xbox. I always viewed them as an out-of-control, rapacious company that ruined whatever it touched. It's colored my perception of both the Xbox line and PC gaming. 

I actually owned a 360 in its early years, when Microsoft was paying Japanese developers to make games exclusive to 360. Almost all of the companies who took them up on it, ended up regretting it. It's why you saw enhanced versions of games like Eternal Sonata and Tales of Vesperia on PS3, because the companies were trying to make their money back. That plus the E74 error that fried my Xbox (that MS was still trying to deny at the time and wanted to charge me $150 to remediate) soured me on Xbox for good.

And if that weren't enough, Microsoft locked my Microsoft account, which had Xbox 360 content tied to it. They won't release my account until I can remember the number of the credit card I used to buy this content, 15 years ago. I pretty much stopped using my Microsoft account after my email became a spam-ridden hellscape. I've been having to switch a lot of stuff that was tied to my Microsoft email to iCloud while my passwords still work because it's clear that nothing I do will satisfy them, even though their shoddy security is why I stopped using Microsoft email.

So yeah, I'm done with Microsoft.

And even in everyday computing, my last Windows computer was bought in 2011. I switched to Mac and have no interest in going back.

Rant over.

Friends of Mineral Town linked up with A Wonderful Life through the GBA Link Cable. 

Me too. I lost some digital games because I can't remember the credit card number I bought them with from Xbox 15 years ago. Where possible I buy physical. I actually bought Switch versions of games instead of PS4 versions simply because the Switch versions came on cartridge, and to me that justified the (often grossly overblown) drop in graphical fidelity. I have the cartridge versions of Atari 50 and SNK 40th Anniversary. Sadly, Donkey Kong is digital only.

No, it's a single copy. The game came on four discs, and each case contains two discs. 

This is the EU PAL version. It originally came with a cardboard sleeve to hold both disc cases. My copy, which was bought form Amazon in 2011 for the low, low price of $150, came like this. I do have all four discs and a fat instruction manual translated into English, French, and German, since this is a EU release. The game itself is in English, as it was primarily produced for the UK market. It works fine on a US monitor using an Action Replay Plus cartridge, as, like almost all Japanese games of the era where it was a fundamentally NTSC game where the bare minimum was done to get it to run in the PAL format.

Honestly, the packaging was nicer than the US version, where they basically stuffed four discs into the case with a bunch of foam padding.  The EU version is also a bit cheaper despite being rarer, though I paid considerably less than most eBay listings for the game now. Maybe the PAL format puts off a lot of US collectors, which it shouldn't.

I also have Shining Force III, the US NTSC version in the case of that one. I plan to play both of these games on my channel at some point.

I agree on the remaster. Supposedly Sega lost the code, as often happened to a lot of older games, but they were nevertheless able to do a nice remaster of the first game. It would probably take a pretty dedicated team to remake this beast,. 

Starmaster was one of my favorite 2600 games, and was more playable than the 2600 version of Star Raiders. I have the SNK collection. I mostly play Vanguard (a game I played a lot on 2600 and Atari 8-bit), Ikari Warriors, POW, and Time Soldiers on it. I take occasional stabs at Athena, but that game is brutally hard. 

Gyruss was another favorite of mine. I had it on Atari, and I have it on Game Boy Advance as part of a Konami collection. I did have it on Xbox Live when I owned an Xbox. Unfortunately, that version is lost to me forever, as Microsoft locked my MS account and will not release it until I somehow remember information from 15 years ago. They seem hellbent on reminding me that dumping Microsoft and switching to Apple was a good decision.

Stage Select:

My most exciting thing would be seeing Microsoft get slapped down hard on their bid for ABK, because I hope it pumps the brakes on some of these acquisitions, especially from Microsoft. Sadly, I don't see the FTC prevailing, since the DOJ couldn't even nail Microsoft when they had them dead to rights in United States v. Microsoft Corp. 

Cage Match:

Charlie finds himself facing off against the Boston Bruins. What happens next is deemed to be unsuitable for broadcast by the FCC, even on streaming. That night, the Bruins are seen at a restaurant enjoying a dinner of omelets provided by Konami and that Egg Council guy from the Simpsons. Blades of Steel FTW.

1981 was when I was first old enough to understand video games. Donkey Kong, the first arcade game I played because of its colorful graphics, animation, and sounds, is my favorite arcade game of all time to this day. 

I had Space Dungeon on Atari 8-bit, and played the arcade version through MAME. I would like to see it as an Arcade Archives game.

1981 was also the release year for Zork II and Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness. I didn't play those until a while after they released. 

Tears of the Kingdom is the most fun I have had with video games in a long time, so it will almost certainly be GOTY for me. But the SMRPG remake looks amazing as well. 

I think the Link Amiibo give you a shot at a classic Link outfit as well. However, you can find classic Link outfits in-game without Amiibo. Nintendo got a lot of flak over the years for locking content behind Amiibos, so they don't do it anymore.

Most of them were awful, and tended to be made by mediocre companies like Acclaim, Activision, and EA. Spider-Man was made by Sony, which relies on a reputation for quality to sell the PlayStation, especially with Nintendo stronger than ever and Microsoft trying to brute-strength the video game war with its checkbook. Game companies have also come to understand that people don't want to simply play a movie's storyline in a game. They can just watch the movie if they want the story.  GoldenEye didn't follow the plot of the movie rigidly and focused more on gameplay, as a result, the game is arguably more successful and better-known than the movie that it was based on. 

For a long time, almost all legacy media had their own studios or bought into the industry. Warner sold off Atari after the crash through their purchase of Midway's IP, they own the IP of Atari Games, the arcade division which was split off when the home division was bought by the Tramiel family and later bought by Midway. Other than the wildly successful Mortal Kombat, they don't seem interested in any of the video game IP they bought, which includes legacy franchises like Joust, Defender, Gauntlet, Rampage, Paperboy, and Tapper.  Warner has had limited success at leveraging DC, most of that with Batman. Warner also gave up the license to Lord of the Rings, which is now owned by the rather dubious Swedish conglomerate Embracer. Disney tried at multiple times to break into the industry only to be rebuffed. They stopped making Infinity early on and go through third parties now, and prefer to sell to little kids with iPads and iPhones. MGM, Viacom and Universal had their own home divisions at one time, now gone. Many of the games produced by these companies were part of the "interactive movie" craze of the mid 90s that fizzled out. Lucasfilm, seeing the video game industry as a natural medium for an special-effects laden sci-fi action IP like Star Wars, entered early on, but they developed a lot of original IP like their adventure games and early first-person games like Rescue on Fractalus and BallBlazer. They're gone now, victims of declining sales and the Disney buyout. Star Wars games are made by third parties. 

One factor that may play into this is that a lot of video game companies actually outgrew legacy media companies. Even Nintendo could buy its own major movie studio, albeit at great risk. They're worth more than WB Discovery and Paramount are. They could afford to buy Mortal Kombat, Bugs Bunny, and Batman. They could probably buy a sizable stake in Universal Studios from Comcast if they were so inclined to cement Universal as a Nintendo movie studio after the Super Mario Movie. Now, movies that tie into video games are made. Warner Bros had more success leveraging Rampage, a long-dormant video game IP, into a movie than they've had trying to make their movies into video games. And that's not even going into the mammoth budgets sported like companies like Microsoft and Tencent.

Setting that aside, with few exceptions, I don't care for licensed games. I'd rather play actual video game IP. I'd rather play Mario or Zelda than Spider-Man or Lord of the Rings. I'd rather play Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy than Game of Thrones. Metroid is a better Alien game than any of the actual licened Alien games. No Man's Sky and Starflight (in the 1980s) captured the spirit of Star Trek perfectly in gaming without being tied to the license. The best 2600 game ever made, Solaris, started out as a tie-in to The Last Starfighter. Untethering it from the license helped make it into a game that could hold its own against a lot of NES games.  Licensed games are a trend that I'm glad to see going away, especially when the SNES/Genesis, PS2, and PS3/Xbox were so glutted with them.

I will say that I do enjoy video game based TV and movies, however, and I hope to see Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem movies in the future.

There are exceptions to licensed games for me as well. I loved Konami's licensed arcade games (TMNT, Simpsons, X-Men, Aliens). I even bought the Cowabunga Collection and Shredder's Revenge last year and would buy The Simpsons Arcade Game in a heartbeat. I enjoyed Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. And I even had Judge Dredd for SNES, and it was fine. It just didn't get as much play time as Super Metroid or Donkey Kong Country.