PixlBit

I've been busy at work myself. Our business in Maryland is open now, so I'm not sitting there bored every day. My recent gaming activities have consisted of Final Fantasy X on PS4 and Tales of Hearts R.

My wife and I went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC last week. They have a pretty good aviary there as well as a few other animals. It's also one of only four American zoos with pandas. Plus, admission is free, or more correctly, you pay for your season pass every April 15th. :)

On account of becoming my favorite third party developer out of nowhere. I could also say the same about Tecmo Koei, which has been making quite a few games I like in recent years.

I liked some of EA's games during its earliest years, like Archon (the people who made Archon went on to found Toys For Bob, the company behind the Skylanders games/toys), M.U.L.E., and Starflight. But in the late 80s they started to stink.

I don't think they're trying to actively be hated, I think they simply don't care anymore about a product line that is no longer profitable for them when they have so many other products that are more profitable with less cost.

As far as other companies go, Square Enix has been improving of late, while I'd argue that Namco is stronger and more diverse than ever. Surprisingly, Koei Tecmo has become another favorite publisher of mine in recent years.

A part of me isn't surprised. Video games have been an ever-shrinking part of Konami, which owns a chain of successful health clubs, slot machines, and a hugely popular CCG, and I imagine those businesses give Konami a better return on their investment to boot.

Still sad. Konami was right up there with Nintendo and Capcom on the NES, and they were the only third party company worth a damn on N64, when every other Japanese publisher was a no-show. It sucks that the game industry is seemingly being divided between the console makers and a triopoly consisting of three of the blandest, dullest third party companies out there.

Natsume's HM game is actually pretty good, just not as graphically refined as Story of Seasons. Also, Natsume has taken more of a SimCity/Minecraft approach to differentiate their games from the more story- and character-driven Marvelous games. HM: TLV still has all the social stuff though. I'd like to see both approaches continue.

On the AVGN, it's fun seeing all the old games, and honestly, I enjoy his over-the-top ranting and crude antics. They expressed the way I felt about some of those games back in the day. He also worked with Howard Scott Warshaw, the programmer of the infamous Atari 2600 E.T. (and the much better-received Yars' Revenge).

I'd say try making your own YouTube channel. I don't understand phenomena like PewDiePie myself (I find Let's Play videos with commentary annoying for the most part and refuse to watch them, including PDP's) but maybe it's worth giving a shot. You might be the next viral sensation.

The Zelda courses in Mario Kart are cool, and the Nintendo outfits in Bayonetta 2 made me love that game even more. My favorite Nintendo bonus of all time, however, is still Link in the Gamecube version of Soulcalibur 2. MGS: The Twin Snakes also had some neat Nintendo-related content (like Psycho Mantis detecting save files for Nintendo games). I also rather liked the giant Gamecube that appears in the Sylvarant Base in the Gamecube version of Tales of Symphonia.

Yeah, I do too. First fruit snacks that come to mind off the top of my head are Fruit Roll-Ups.

We had fruit snacks when I was a kid, of course, but I preferred chocolate anyway.

Awesomesauce! I was afraid the last game tanked the series for good. Hopefully this is a sign of more RPGs to come.