PixlBit

¡Viva la escuela vieja!

Old school games are here to stay, thanks to gems like Guacamelee, a fun 2D beat-'em-up/platformer with endearing characters and dialogue and a distinct Mexican flavor. It's filled to the brim with humor and now-ancient video game references to Mario, Zelda, and Metroid that will leave you laughing at how blatant they are. Its setting, music, and modern design choices all work together to make something new enough that you'll forget you're off yet again to save una otra princesa.

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The road to hell is paved with beautiful 2D sprites.

As someone who cut his teeth on Super Mario Bros., Mega Man, and Sonic the Hedgehog, I have a fondness for the 8- and 16-bit sprite art classic style, but I also want to see games that evolve the 2D platformer and bring it into the 21^st century. I often ask myself how things would be if the games industry never moved on to polygons but instead kept refining their sprites for 25 years. What would that game look like? Thanks to Arkedo and their new game Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit I have my answer, and that answer would be “pretty damn sweet.”

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Wait...Blizzard made games besides WoW, Diablo, and StarCraft?

When talking about Blizzard Entertainment, it’s almost impossible to imagine the company before the creation of their core pillars of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. It’s even more difficult to think of the company making games for home consoles, but in the early 90s both of these unimaginable things were true. Under the original company name of Silicon & Synapse, the house that would be Blizzard produced The Lost Vikings—a beloved side-scrolling puzzle game that fell by the wayside for juggernauts like Warcraft.  We have some love for those quirky Vikings around here, so it was high time for them to get their very own MIA.

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Once upon a time, one of the toughest games got its rightful sequel. It’s now.

Out of all the 3DS titles released this year, Shinobi is the most likely to become a hard-to-find cult classic. Even with all of its faults, hardcore fans will find more than enough content to feel fulfilled. The developers at Griptonite have reinvigorated a dormant series that has stayed true to its roots as an unforgiving, relentless, combat-based platformer. 

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