PixlBit

Yeah I can understand why people would be worried when Microsoft buys a company.  They did that with Twisted Pixel, one of my favorite developers during the 360 days.  Twisted Pixel was an Austin, TX-based company who did 360 games like 'Splosion Man, The Maw, Comic Jumper, and Loco Cycle.  But Microsoft kind of abandoned them.  They're still around, as I just learned, but I don't think they're quite the same.  Hopefully they won't do that with Double Fine.  But at least we'll get Psychonauts 2 from them before anything happens.  And I'm glad it's coming to the PS4 as well.

Well for me personally, the Golden Age of RPGs was with the SNES.  That's when I was really into RPGs anyway.  I can understand why people would say the PSOne era was great for RPGs, too, but that's when I slowly got out of RPGs.  They're just too long nowadays.  But I think we can all agree that the entirety of the 90s had a lot of great RPGs.

I was thinking about other "Golden Age" eras the other day.  Like how the 80s had the best arcade games, but the 90s had the best console games.  And Namco's Golden Age was probably in the early 80s arcades, but their "Silver Age" was probably on the PSOne.

I never got into tower defense games.  Although I did play one based on the Regular Show cartoon but it was like a reverse tower defense game for iPad.  Only one I've ever beaten.

The first Monster Hunter Stories is on iPad?  Wow.  I'd play the second one if I didn't have so much on my plate now.

I may rag on BoTW a lot, but I spent 65 hours on it and beat it, so I must've liked it somewhat.  How many Divine Beasts have you tackled so far?

Well if you remember any of those cartoony games, please let me know.

Yeah back then the Age of Empires folks were called Ensemble Studios and were based in Dallas.  It was real interesting to see their game before they even had a publisher!  And then to see how popular it got later.

It makes me wonder if Nintendo was expecting everyone to be more excited about Breath of the Wild 2, but instead everyone was ga-ga over Metroid Dread.  I just love WarioWare games, as you know, so I'm happy for the new one.  Comes out 5 days before my birthday, too!  The first two Monkey Ball games are really good so I'm glad they're making a collection of them.  The mini-games in those titles are just as good as standalone games in those genres.  

I thought of you when they announced that Advance Wars collection. 

Aside from Psychonauts 2, was there anything else in the Xbox presentation you think I'd like?  I didn't watch it since I don't have a new Xbox system.  I have nothing against Xbox, in fact the 360 was my favorite console of that generation.  But the new ones just don't have enough games on them I'd like for me to get one.  I'm glad that Psychonauts 2 is coming to PS4 as well, though. 

I thought Age of Empires was already at least on a handheld.  I got to meet the team that made the original Age of Empires when I first started writing for The Dallas Morning News.  They were based in Dallas then, and when I met them, they hadn't even found a publisher for their game yet.  But they said they were thinking of Microsoft (which is what happened).

I kind of wish that if they had to do a Namco fighter character, they would've picked someone from Soul Calibur instead of Tekken, since I like Soul Calibur more.  But I guess Tekken is the more popular series. 

Didn't they have a Lloyd Mii fighter one time?  If I wanted a Tales character in Smash, I would've picked someone from my favorite Tales game: Legendia.  But nobody likes that one but me so it'll never happen.

I don't know who else I'd want in Smash.  I've already got my three boys: Pac-Man, Kirby, and Mega Man, so I'm pretty happy.

Yeah Ridge Racer games have a lot of ads and cameos of other Namco games in them.  Heck, in Ridge Racer Type 4, there's a whole track named Phantomile, which is the setting of Klonoa!

Another PSOne game that has a Galaxian 3 billboard is Tekken 3.  There is an amusement park level with that in the background.  Which makes sense, since Galaxian 3 was probably showcased in Namco's indoor amusments parks in Japan around that time.

In Japan, the Galaxian 3 theater arcade game looked way more immersive, with more players and chairs and stuff.  In the US, at least the one I played, it was just behind some curtains and four players could stand at the guns and shoot at a big screen.  But it was still pretty big for something in an arcade from the early 90s.  Now go read my E3 article! :)

Well it's up now so go read it or I'll send Chun-Li over to your house and she'll roll you up like a basketball and dribble you around the house!