PixlBit

Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy...

One of the things to come out of the last 6 years or so that I’ve found most interesting has been the rise of the free to play model. It wasn’t too long ago that free to play was synonymous with amateur game design and simple flash games. Now, even the biggest companies in the world are creating games that don’t ask for money up front, and the quality of those games has increased many times over. Console manufacturers have been slow to adopt this business model, so I was very interested in playing Happy Wars for XBLA, the first free to play game for the 360. While I don’t think that Happy Wars is a great example of the free to play structure, it stands as a unique and fun experience for Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

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Click, click boom.

In 2001, the original Serious Sam was already late to the first-person shooter party id Software started, but its gameplay was still familiar because id's classics such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake were still fresh memories. In 2012, Serious Sam 3: BFE is a complete anomaly, following neither the artsy nor military styles which now pervade the genre.

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Julian gets nostalgic for his Commander Shepard on BioWare's made up PR day.

It’s November 7^th, which is a very important day. No, no, not the fact that the Presidential election is over; I’m talking about vital, pressing issues. Yes friends, today is national N7 Day, so I thought I’d take some time to wax nostalgic about the Mass Effect series and what it’s meant to me. It’s no secret around PixlBit that I’m a pretty rabid Mass Effect fan. Heck, I hosted an entire podcast about the series. With the trilogy wrapped up in a neat little bow (more or less), what better day to shine a light on the saga of Commander Shepard?

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Despite the "New" moniker, this iteration of the game suffers from all the same problems.

Little King’s Story was one of the many games to see release on Wii that went mostly unnoticed. While I didn’t have an opportunity to play it myself, I did watch quite a bit of it and had always wanted to dive into my own quest. The quasi-re-release of the game on Vita as New Little King’s Story has afforded me that opportunity, and for that, I am thankful. While the little king seems to have hit his teen years, the cutesy charm and simulation/RPG elements that defined it three years ago still ring true.

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I've lived and learned that some things are better left in the past.

I have fond memories of Sonic Adventure 2. The revision, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, was the first game I ever played on a Nintendo Gamecube, and I remember that moment very clearly. At the time, I swore it was one of the coolest games ever. Running down the side of a building at high speeds? It was awesome to me at the time. On top of that you had two parallel stories that lead to an epic final chapter. I made it a priority to eventually own the game and I did, and I enjoyed it a lot. From the campaign to the Chao garden, I spent a lot more time playing Sonic Adventure 2 than I should have.  Looking through the lens of Sonic Adventure 2 HD, it’s kind of hard to see why I enjoyed the game so much in the first place. 

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