Month: December 2020

My games of 2020

I’ve been keeping a running thread of video games I’ve beaten on Twitter this year, which has been a fun project and a highlight of 2020 for me personally. Being under lock and key during a pandemic, it seemed a good time to make some headway on my backlog, go back to some favorites just for fun, and to clear some space on the docket for some new games … which is now reality as Santa delivered the kids (and to a lesser extent Mom and Dad) a Switch for Christmas.

Woohoo!

Anyway, I took the liberty of ranking the games I’ve beaten this year and included them in a list below. What you won’t see is a whole bunch of other games I played/enjoyed this year that weren’t “defeated” per se. Puzzlers like Mean Bean Machine, Tetris, Chew Man Fu, and Bubble Bobble ate a ton of my time, but weren’t an easy out. I also dipped my toes in with games I just didn’t have time or motivation to finish (such as Super Return of the Jedi, Comix Zone and Zombies Ate My Neighbors) as well as some games previously defeated to continue the process of unlocking items (like New Super Mario Bros. Wii). Finally, there was stuff I played with my kids that I had no interest in beating … like SSX Tricky, Kirby Super Star or Eternal Champions. Honestly, there’s a lot I played this year that didn’t make this list. But I wanted to be fair and only evaluate a game in its “complete” form (or at least as close to that as possible).

Continue reading My games of 2020

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 7)

Of the many gaming opinions I’ll often state as fact, none inspires quite the level of self-confidence as “Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best retro Sonic game.”

Yes, Sonic CD has many fans. Yes, Sonic 3 & Knuckles as a combo of two solid games becomes a better version of itself in its unified form (sort of like the Devastator or Voltron of video games). But I feel comfortable, confident, and maybe even downright cocky about this particular stance.

Sonic 2 is incredible.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Genre: Side-scrolling platformer
Released: 1992
Platform: Genesis
GameFan Score: 197/200
Continue reading Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 7)

Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 6)

Within the pantheon of video games every gamer should experience, quality is a must. It’s essentially your starting point: Is this game, for lack of a better term, “good?” That’s always first and foremost.

But closely behind that consideration is the importance of a game within the industry. Does it have historical significance in a way that other games of that era might not? If one were to put together a timeline of video game history, what games would require representation?

Street Fighter II was unlike anything that had come before it, and it revolutionized the gaming industry in a way that is exceedingly rare. Per Wikipedia, the game is responsible for selling over 200,000 arcade cabinets, 15 million software units, and $10 billion of revenue for Capcom. And I can corroborate those numbers on a personal level; Capcom inspired me to purchase a Super Nintendo, four different versions of the game, and pump countless quarters into arcade cabinets over the years.

But what made the game so popular? And why do many people think “Hyper Fighting” might be the best version of all?

Let’s go down those two rabbit holes together, shall we?

Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting

Genre: Fighting
Released: 1993
Platform: SNES
GameRankings Score: 82%
Continue reading Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 6)

Your Star Wars Rebels Viewing Guide!

Because “The Clone Wars,” the Star Wars animated series set between “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” is rather unwieldy and difficult to get into, I put together this episode guide earlier this year. Well, several people got some genuine use out of it and some even requested a similar guide for “Star Wars Rebels,” so I figured, why not? Let’s see if we can make this series more approachable as well.

My first big caveat to that statement is that Rebels is much more of a successful series than Clone Wars. It’s a much tighter story, revolving around a small group of characters, with a definitive beginning, middle and end. So by its very nature, it doesn’t require shortening in quite the same way (or at all).

My second big caveat is that the ending to this series is one of the best on TV, and it rewards longtime viewers in a multitude of ways, many of which you might miss out on if you’re skipping around.

BUT…

I get it. It’s a lot of episodes. Maybe you want to have a better idea what’s going on in “The Mandalorian” or you’re out for some fun crossovers or you just want the basic gist.

Here’s my attempt to distill the series down to its most essential episodes.

Continue reading Your Star Wars Rebels Viewing Guide!