PixlBit

Damn, that's a lotta codes.

So far, this year is shaping up to be one of the best years in gaming in my entire life, right up there with such years as 2013, 2008, 2006, and the peak years of the PS1. The past three months alone have had more treasure than some entire two-year periods.

I miss the old arcades. Even then, I was a huge Nintendo fan: Donkey Kong was my favorite arcade game of all time, I also liked Mario Bros, Popeye, DK Jr, DK3, and Punch-Out!!. I even played Vs. Super Mario Bros a few times.

I love 1943. Great music. I even have it on my phone and listen to it on my car radio. I play it when I'm battling freeway traffic.

My sister had a generic Pong console that I still have somewhere. I think it was made by Venture Electronics. It ran on 6 C batteries but also had the option for an AC adapter.

I always wanted to do a video with my 20-something year old stepdaughter and I playing Pong video games, since I have Pong on the Atari classics collection on PS4.

My family had a Heathkit TV that my dad built. I think he still has it somewhere. He didn't build a video game into it, but he did build a cable box into it.

It's funny, you and I seem to have had the same perception of video games back in the day. I just thought it was cool to make stuff move on a TV screen. It used to be a real treat when my cousin would let me play his 2600 when we went to visit.

In my area, our video game channel was 4 as channel 3 was an actual channel (our ABC affiliate if I remember correctly).

The only two games I'm really interested in achievements on are Final Fantasy VII (first platinum) and Valkyria Chronicles HD. Most achievements/trophies are boring.

Win some, lose some. I've filled up my PS4's stock HDD and I'd rather be able to plug in an external HDD rather than going through the trouble of futzing around with replacing the internal drive.

Stage Select: My top 3 cancelled games.

1. Earthbound 64 (Mother 3 prototype): This is always the one that hurt the most. It looked great for the late 90s, coming close to Final Fantasy VII, and would have helped to fil a huge need for RPGs on the N64. Sadly, it was a 64DD game, and instead of converting it to a cartridge game - which would have been feasible late in the N64's life cycle, given that they were able to stuff Resident Evil 2 into a 64MB cartridge -  they gave up on it and ended up releasing it on the Game Boy Advance instead. I guess by that point I had completely moved on to the PS1, but I would still have loved to play it. Hopefully the GBA Mother 3 will make it out on the Switch.

2. Mega Man Legends 3: It sounds sacrilegious, but Mega Man Legends was the only part of the Mega Man franchise I ever really got into. I had the first game on PS1 and have since downloaded MML2 and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne on PSV TV. This game looked awesome and it was frustrating how Capcom just pulled the plug on the project.

3. Socks the Cat Rocks The Hill: Honestly, a game starring the then First Cat sounded interesting, even more so when the team released the ROM online.

Chrono Crossing:

My favorite game of 1999 was Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. I wanted Lunar ever since I saw the ads for the Sega CD version, and I was excited when the clerk at Electronics Boutique told me it was being remade and released, and on the PS1 instead of the Saturn no less. I would probably have bought a Saturn just to play it though. The other games of 1999 I enjoyed were Final Fantasy VIII and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

I'd have to say my favorite 1999 game was Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. Wanting it for five years (when the Sega CD version first appeared in ads in gaming magazines) and getting it fulfilled after all that time was memorable.

Other than that, it was Final Fantasy VIII, which I bought on September 9 instead of a Dreamcast. I will say that I liked the Dreamcast version of SoulCalibur though.