PixlBit

They're based on Atlantic City, with Boardwalk being the AC boardwalk. AC looks kind of run down these days, as the hopes of various developers to turn it into the Vegas of the east never came to fruition. I took my wife to AC for her birthday when we lived out there. We had dinner at a nice steakhouse (22 ounce prime rib and potatos with all the fixin's, $20 a plate!) and stayed in a nice hotel with a good hot tub, but as far as entertainment, we felt it would probably have been just as well to go play the slots at Maryland Live. I felt a little bad that it didn't quite pan out. Still, I can now say I've seen Atlantic City. And Marven Gardens.

My favorite early 80s racing game was The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, a racing game published for the Atari 8-bit computers by Activision. It was designed by the guy who made ATVI's 2600 racing game Enduro, so it bears a certain resemblance. You raced across the US from the West Coast to the East Coast, having to deal with driving conditions, changing traffic patterns, making sure you didn't run out of gas, and the police, where you either had to get your speed down to the 60s or try and outrun them. It was a precursor to games like OutRun and Cruis'n USA, and was inspired by a 1981 movie called Cannonball Run.

In the Namco vs. Sega arcade wars of the late 90s, I generally preferred Sega's offerings (one notable exception was Tekken 3, which was a better game than VF3). I did get Ridge Racer R4, sans the Jogcon. It actually had a catchy soundtrack. Nintendo kind of outdid both of them, not with Cruis'n USA, but Wave Race 64.

These days, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has largely spoiled me for any other racing game. I never could get into the Gran Turismo/Forza style of racing sim, though I did entertain building a sim racing cockpit at one time. One of the guys who was on 1UP had a pretty sweet racing sim cockpit. But at this point, it's hard for me to go back to racing without turtle shells, plumbers, and weird gravity stuff. I also briefly contemplated getting Mario Kart Live.

One other racing game I'd like to mention is Car Wars, which was a TI-99/4a clone of Dodge 'Em and Head On. I played that a fair bit back in the day.

I think there was a Choro-Q game on N64, which is when I first heard ot the toyline.

I was a SNES dude, so most of what I knew about the Genesis library came form kiosks at Service Merchandise and my cousin who had a Genesis. Almost got one for Mortal Kombat... then I saw the SNES version of MKII, plus the SNES got a Zelda bundle. Over recent years, I've been trying out Genesis games, notably Phantasy Star and Shining Force 1-2.

Recently, they added one of the Genesis games I did know: Alisia Dragoon. You're a sorceress with a pet dragon familiar, which was kind of novel back then.

I don't mind the ports so much. It's getting older games into current ecosystems, and that's a good thing.  Plus, I like RPGs and enjoy the occasional farming sim. Totally didn't see farming becoming the next hot thing in gaming. So that Nintendo Direct hit the spot.

The new Zelda games is "Tears of the Kingdom" in the former sense. That's part of the reason why Nintendo UK delayed its presentation, in light of the death of Queen Elizabeth.

I have a mithril Gamecube.

Incidentally, I've visited the real life Marven Gardens, which gets its name because it sits on the boundary between Margate City and Ventnor City in NJ. Unfortunately, the homes there are a little out of my budget.

The Smash Boats game sounds kind of interesting, especially now that it has multiplayer.

Tactics Ogre releases 11/11.

Definitely looking at Valkyrie Elysium. My only misgiving is that it's a full action RPG game. Einherjar are AI controlled.  Still interested and will likely pick it up. We haven't gotten a new VP game in forever. 

The original game is getting ported to the PlayStation family at the end of this month, so I'm definitely down for that. It does conflict with The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero, sadly.

Probably means Count Chocula is on shelves, too.

Stage Select:

Final Fantasy VII's Gold Saucer had some fun little minigames. I spent a fair amount of time on the Chocobo racing chasing the Quadra Magic and Knights of the Round Materia by cheat - I mean, using legitimate racing assist methods. There was "G-Bike", which was based on Cloud riding a motorcycle with his giant-ass sword. There was "Snow Game," aka the snowboarding game. The lameness of the name was kind of funny in itself, but the game itself was probably second to 1080 Snowboarding as the best snowboarding game on 5th gen consoles. And then there was "Mog House..."

The Battleship minigame in Wind Waker. You know, the one with the guy who wears all the cutout signs and says "spliiiiish" and "Ka-BOOM!" in response to misses or hits. Honestly, Zelda on its own could fill this list.

The Mario Bros mini-game included with Super Mario Bros 3 and the Super Mario Advance games, which helped that game be well known long after a lot of other early arcade games were forgotten. It was fun to take a break from the main game with my cousin. These days, though, the original arcade game is available on Switch, so that's what I play, as Mario Bros is still near the top of my list of favorite arcade games. But hey, Super Mario Bros 3 was so awesone, it had a full arcade game as a minigame.

Cage Match: 

Dr. Robotnik and his chicken sidekick from the DiC cartoon show up ready to rumble, but Dr. Mario slips him a pill which turns out to be Versed, which is a powerful sedative. Dr. Robotnik goes down for the count. Dr. Mario wins, although he is now described as a person of interest in a DEA investigation.