PixlBit

Posted on 01/02/2021 at 12:32 AM | Filed Under Blogs

Our Heathkit TV was 27 inches, which was pretty big for a TV back in 1981. That was when 12 inch TVs were still pretty pricey and a lot of people still had black-and-white. The TV plus its wooden housing probably weighed at least 200 pounds. So it was a pretty big piece of furniture. It didn't have a remote control. You had to walk up to the TV and push a button on it to change the channel. In Arizona, Channel 3 was an actual TV channel, so you hooked video games up to Channel 4 instead. 

My first big-screen TV was a 36 inch Toshiba TV I got when I was right out of high school. 36 inches was pretty close to the biggest tube TV ever made. If you wanted something bigger than that, you had to get a projection TV. That thing was an absolute monster to move, not only because it also weighed over 200 pounds, but because it was very wide and bulky.  I kept it until HDTVs came out, then I splurged on one of Sony's earliest HDTVs in 2007 thanks to a zero interest financing deal from Best Buy. It was 720p/1080i and had a 25 inch screen, and was by far the most expensive TV I ever bought. My new 65 inch TV cost less than a third of what it did. 

I know CRT TVs are supposed to be better for retro-gaming, but I'm not that dedicated. I like having a large TV that I don't have to have three people to move.

Posted on 01/02/2021 at 12:24 AM | Filed Under Blogs

Happy new year. Right now I'm working my way through The Outer Worlds on Switch. Better port than people gave it credit for, though it's possible that Obsidian patched it pretty good. I also finally picked up Octopath Traveler at Target.

Posted on 01/02/2021 at 12:22 AM | Filed Under Blogs

Dragon Quest XI S is my second favorite game of the generation, behind only Breath of the Wild. Age of Calamity actually sold really well from what i understand. It made it to 3 million in its first weekend. I'll bet Koei Tecmo is really happy about that.

Posted on 12/31/2020 at 01:31 AM | Filed Under Feature

I started out with a launch year PS4 with the promise that the 8th gen would mark a change from things I didn't like about the PS3/Wii/360 generation. Ultimately, my favorite system of the generation would become the Switch.

My top games of the generation: 

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was fun just exploring the world, battling monsters, and discovering stuff. Honestly, it has a great shot at being my favorite game of all time. It recaptured the feeling I felt the first time I played the original game on NES, and I never felt railroaded to complete the main quest, which was the point. 

2. Dragon Quest XI S: This game is peak Japanese RPG (hopefully so far). It's high adventure and the Toriyama art style is beautifully rendered to boot.  

3. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch): In addition to a likeable cast of characters, in particular Edelgard, who makes a great villain depending on your perspective, there's so much content stuffed into this SRPG that it isn't even funny, and the battles are satisfying AF.

4. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I agree with what was said about the side quests in this game, and I like Geralt as a character. Does a great job at portraying a crapsack medieval fantasy world, though combat is a bit sketchy.

5. Valkyria Chronicles 4: It isn't quite as graphically or gameplay-wise groundbreaking as the original, especially compared to Fire Emblem as far as gameplay. But it's a welcome return to form for one of my favorite series and is a great conclusion to Europan War II.

Honorable mentions: 

Super Mario Odyssey: Just barely missed the Top 5. I liked the aesthetics of the new worlds, and the ability to control enemies is a nice touch. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons: This game, with its social aspects of visiting your friends' islands, came out at just the right time during the pandemic, and I dig sim games.

Persona 5: a very stylish RPG that handles certain sensitive themes pretty well, for the most part. It's probably the Japanese equivalent of The Witcher 3, and I'm looking forward to Shin Megami Tensei V and the eventual Persona 6.

The Outer Worlds: Fallout 4 was a disappointment (though the settlements were fun to test out) and the less said about Fallout 76, the better. Outer Worlds picks up on the legacy of my favorite Fallout game, New Vegas, with the humor, aesthetic, and RPG mechanics of New Vegas. Sucks that Obsidian got bought by Microsoft though.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: A great remake of one of the classic Zelda games. Very colorful, lots of quality-of-life improvements that made the gameplay a lot more fun. I hope Nintendo eventually gives the same treatment to the Oracle games and perhaps to Minish Cap as well. Maybe even A Link to the Past, though I'd like a more detailed art style. That said, the Mother-esque style chosen for Link's Awakening was perfect.

Final Fantasy XV: Still not a perfect game, and its labored development shows, but it's a huge improvement over FFXIII. 

Super Mario Maker: I've always enjoyed game creation kits. Who didn't dream of building their own Mario levels. 

Cuphead: I liked the 1940s Warner Bros animation style of Cuphead. Tough boss batlles. 

River City Girls: Probably my favorite beat-em-up since Dragon's Crown on PS3. I've said of this game that it's the closest I'll ever come to having a Project A-Ko video game.

Astral Chain: I was glad to see that, after a few years of being relegated to making licensed games for Activision, that Platinum Games made such a great comeback with NieR: Automata. This game was more reminiscent of the same early zaniness at Platinum that gave rise to games like Bayonetta (where's Bayonetta 3?)

Super Smash Bros Ultimate: It's like a love letter to the entire Japanese game industry, but has expanded to include Western games such as Minecraft or Banjo-Kazooie as well. This is the game I've spent the most time online with, by far, this generation. 

Posted on 12/30/2020 at 12:04 PM | Filed Under Blogs

2020 was kind of a lackluster year this year, but I still found plenty to play. I played a lot of Animal Crossing, but my favorite game released this year was actually Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, which gave my favorite Wii game of all time a facelift, an audio lift, and extra content.

Boulder Dash was a golden oldie I played on the Atari 130XE, which is the platform the game was originally developed on and the version which had the best graphics and sound.

My dad built one of those Heathkit TVs. I remember him doing it, too. When he got the electronics part put together, he got busy at work, so he put the TV on a bookshelf stand until he could find time to finish building the wooden TV console. So for awhile we were watching TV on a bare picture tube with all the electronics exposed. I was four years old and it's a wonder I didn't electrocute myself messing with it, but I think my parents put the fear of God in me about touching the exposed parts. He eventually did finish the console. The TV only lasted a few years before the tube went out. My dad tried to fix the TV, but never could find the parts to get it right, so they bought a more modern TV and put it up in his workshop where he still has it. I think it does have a picture but it's very washed out. My sister had an off-brand Pong machine. My big Christmas gift to myself, incidentally, was a 65 inch Sony 4K TV that was on sale at Best Buy. Really makes movies and games look good, even on the Switch.

Posted on 12/28/2020 at 01:54 PM | Filed Under Blogs

You never do see a lot of Santa Claus games. I had one in the 80s for my Atari computer called Special Delivery, which had a flying sleigh sequence where you had to catch presents dropped by angels and avoid mountains, trees, lightning, and evil presents dropped by red angels (who were ostensibly devils.) Then you had to deliver the presents without being caught by kids.

The only Santa Claus I remember seeing on the SNES was the one in Secret of Mana.

Posted on 12/14/2020 at 11:54 PM | Filed Under Blogs

Sorry to hear about your mom. Here's hoping she will have a speedy and complete recovery, and make sure you take care of yourself as well.

For Christmas, I'd give you one of those old Pac-Man candy mazes from the early 80s. My mom got me one when we were on my first car trip, from Arizona to San Diego, when I was 5. The Pac-Man candies were like SweeTarts or Smarties (the US version, not the UK kind that look like M&Ms).

Posted on 12/07/2020 at 11:45 PM | Filed Under Blogs

Hard to believe we're going into yet another console cycle. When the gang migrated over here, it was 2013 and Ni no Kuni was my big game of the year.

My favorite PS4 games were Final Fantasy XV, FF Type-0, Yakuza 0, Sakura Wars, and Fallout 4. Nights of Azure was a fun little gem as well. for me, the Switch was where the good gaming action was, and since I got mine, that's what I've been focusing on. 

Posted on 12/07/2020 at 11:40 PM | Filed Under Blogs

This year I've watched Ratched and Peaky Blinders, and High Score. Also got a new season of F is for Family.

Gaming, been doing Animal Crossing, Xenoblade Chronicles Remastered, Pokemon Sword, and Trails of Cold Steel. 

Posted on 12/05/2020 at 05:22 AM | Filed Under Blogs

I had this when I was a teenager and was obsessed with it. I loved SimCity. I kind of wish I'd gotten the NES version so I could see the origins of Mr. Write in Link's Awakening. The next year my parents got me SimAnt for Christmas, which was also fun.  But I was also frustrated because I couldn't get my city's population higher than 250,000, which is about the size of Scottsdale or Glendale. My dreams of building a Tokyo-sized megalopolis never came to pass.

I didn't play a Sim game again until I picked up the PS2 version of The Sims, and in 2005 I got a laptop and got SimCity 4 for it. After that Maxis and EA went downhill. But I got Cities Skylines on the Switch a couple of years ago, and it's tied with Pokemon Sword as my second most played Switch game, behind Breath of the Wild. Cities Skylines handles traffic much better than SimCity ever did, although I seem to have ambulances everywhere on my city's freeways for some reason. And despite the fact that the city I built looks like downtown Los Angeles, its population has topped out at 170,000, about the size of Tempe. But it's still the best city sim out there these days.