This worked out pretty well last year, so with 2022 upon us, it’s time to start a new list! As with 2021’s list, new entries will be added to the top. There’s plenty to play, so let’s get busy:
Continue reading “FINISHED in 2022! (Updated 10/26/22)”
A lot of gamers keep lists of all the games they’ve finished throughout each year. That’s something I’ve always kinda-sorta intended to do, but I’ve tried to keep them all in my head, and at my advanced age (I’m all of forty-damn-seven), that’s nearly impossible for my withered old brain.
So since the beginning of the year, I figured I could keep track of them right here in a blog post, which I continually updated throughout the year. The latest games were added to the top. (I did not include re-playing old games I’ve already finished, like, say, Super Metroid or Mega Man.)
With the final update on New Year’s Eve, I ended up finishing 15 games in 2021. It’s not a lot by some standards, but considering how busy I’ve been with “real life,” I’m fairly pleased with that count, especially considering there are a couple long RPGs on the list. Hopefully 2022 will bring an even longer list, but for now, here’s a look at my year in gaming:
Continue reading “FINISHED in 2021! (Final update: 12/31/21)”
If you haven’t seen the M2 documentary on YouTube by My Life In Gaming, watch it first, then come back for this article. Also, make sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to MLIG to show your appreciation! If you have seen the doc, read on!
Wasn’t that great?
For years, gamers have raved about the work M2 has done in bringing arcade games to home consoles with amazing accuracy and a wealth of added options, customizations, and assorted bells and whistles. And now, thanks to this new documentary, we know a little more about who is behind all that meticulous work: A bunch of crazy hardcore game nerds, that’s who. My kinda people! …and if you’re reading this, probably yours too.
Continue reading “Let’s Hear It For M2!”
The 16-bit Sega Mega Drive (aka Genesis) was released in Japan 30 years ago today, on October 29, 1988. Happy birthday!
Much like when I wrote a little about the PC Engine at 30 or the Famicom at 35, I’m not here to give a history of the Mega Drive, which you can find anywhere, but I will bore you with some of my favorite things about the console.
Today is the second anniversary of Retro Game SuperHyper! Happy birthday! Continue reading “2 Years!”
At the risk of featuring too many PS4 games in recent posts (what can I say, they all have a retro connection or I wouldn’t be talking about them), Sega’s Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (aka Hokuto no Gotoku) was released in the US this week, to the gleeful delight of combined Fist of the North Star and Yakuza fans everywhere. How wide or slim the overlap of that particular Venn diagram is, I don’t really know. But I’m wedged in there myself, and when this game was first announced, my head almost exploded like one of Kenshiro’s unfortunate opponents.
FotNSLP/HnG (it’s a long title either way, I don’t even know how to abbreviate it for this post) is just the latest in a really long line of video games based on the classic manga/anime property, Hokuto no Ken (lit. “Fist of the North Star”), dating all the way back to the ’80s when the manga was current and the show was actually airing on Japanese TV. Some of the games are good; many are not. And out of the dozens of HnK games released, only a handful were released outside of Japan. Let’s take a look at some of the good ones, shall we? (Perhaps I’ll do another post about all the not-so-good FotNS games someday, and call it “You’re Already Disappointed” or something.) (Don’t steal that, I just came up with it.) Continue reading “You’re Already Having Fun”
I seem to keep writing these posts where I stick up for things that other people seem to be down on, like Riding Hero or Castlevania II. I briefly thought about renaming these articles “Shut Up It’s Awesome” and making it a series, but nah.
Anyway, today I’m here to lavish praise upon another oft-maligned facet of this diamond that is the videogaming hobby, and that is the Sega CD! (Mega CD in Japan and Europe, where the Genesis was called the Mega Drive.) Although this expensive add-on for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive became mostly infamous for grainy FMV (full-motion video) games like that stinker Sewer Shark and the notorious Night Trap, and derided for crapping forth Marky Mark: Make My Video upon the world, one needn’t look too far past those turkeys to find some unique, important, and pretty damn hardcore titles that the serious gamer really shouldn’t miss. Continue reading “For the Love of Sega CD”
I’ve read lots of books on video game history. Some have been engrossing page-turners and some have been a bit amateurish and bland.
I’ve just finished Console Wars by Blake J. Harris, which I’d heard a lot about recently. The book is a somewhat dramatized account of the marketing battle between Sega and Nintendo in the 16-bit era.
If you were around in the early 1990s, you no doubt remember the Genesis vs SNES “war” that raged across the battlefields of magazines, TV, and school playgrounds. (“Genesis does what Nintendon’t” should definitely ring a very loud bell.) Continue reading “Gamer’s Library: Console Wars”
Revenge of Shinobi (aka The Super Shinobi) is the game that absolutely defines the Sega Genesis to me. I had a friend who was an early adopter of the Genesis, and that first wave of games such as Altered Beast, Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, and Golden Axe were enough to thoroughly impress those of us who had grown up on Atari and Nintendo. But to me, Revenge of Shinobi was at the top of the heap. Continue reading “Video Vinyl: Revenge of Shinobi on Data Discs”
Retro Game SuperHyper 