Sunday Roundup: 4/24/16

A visit to Los Angeles for family and friends is great, and being able to hit up a couple used game shops along the way is even better! I haven’t been to LA in six years, so it was nice to get back there and see that some places were still the same, but others were totally revamped! Par for the course for a major city I suppose. Anyway, after a visit to a shop that wasn’t all too thrilling, my brother and I hit up a place that was literally, and I mean this in ever sense of the phrase, packed floor to ceiling with games from every console. It was a little piece of heaven that I can’t seem to find in my neck of the woods. Anyway, let’s get to it!

 

Top Ten Series that Need amiibo

Something I’ve touched on surprisingly only a small bit are Nintendo’s NFC amiibo figures. To put into perspective how I feel about amiibo, let’s just say I have had friends shop around for me to get the more expensive ones back when amiibo were the hottest toys this side of Furby and Tickle Me Elmo. Out of all the toys-to-life options out there, I feel like Nintendo’s offerings are the coolest, if only because I (like many others) grew up with a lot of these characters. Also, while I love me some Skylanders, I think amiibo have a wider function in games, making them more of an investment than essentially an extra life or character in Skylanders and Disney Infinity. That being said, and in typical Nintendo fashion, there are more than a handful of series’ deserving of the amiibo treatment that haven’t seen the light of day. Though most of these will never happen, we can dream, and I can wish for some of these games to come out sooner rather than later!

 

Sunday Roundup: 4/10/16

Hakuoki: Memories of the Shinsengumi 3DS Release Date: September 19th, 2013 Purchased at: GameStop (Sunnyvale, CA – $18) Releasing a few years back, Hakuoki is as random a JRPG one can get on the 3DS. I decided to pick up this one for a couple reasons: I needed a game to fit into a Buy 2 Get 1 Free category to maximize the potential of the free game, and two it was released awhile ago and I likely won’t see too many more of it out there. The game isn’t particularly rare, and you can still find it on sites like Amazon, but it might be a game to keep in your collection. If for nothing else, it’s supposed to be a pretty decent strategy game.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Wii U Release Date: November 18th, 2012 Purchased at: GameStop (Sunnyvale, CA – $18) Way back in 2012 I reviewed this game for the 3DS and was impressed by its variety in levels, characters, and quality of the racing in general. I have heard good things from a lot of people about this Wii U version (which also happens to be a console launch title!), with some people going so far as to say it’s a superior game to Mario Kart. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I’m all for games I can play with my friends on the couch! Unfortunately though this might just be a two player co-op game. Can anyone shed some extra light on this for me?

Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition PlayStation 4 Release Date: October 27th, 2015 Purchased at: GameStop (Sunnyvale, CA – Free) The original Darksiders happened to be one of the very first games I ever reviewed for the now defunct Inside Gaming blog of the Machinima network. I thought it was pretty great back then, but not great enough to pickup the sequel until this “Deathinitive” re-release. Granted, I have had the game on Xbox 360 for awhile now, but this is in HD! Following Death as he fights in the war between the Angels and Demons, Darksiders II takes what made the first game memorable (the Legend of Zelda-esque exploration and gameplay) and makes it all better and pretty on the PS4!

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Wii Release Date: March 24th, 2009 Purchased at: GameStop (Cupertino, CA – $2) A port of an old point-and-click adventure game released on the PC way back in 1996, Broken Sword has gone down as one of the more influential games of the genre. Despite this, and the countless systems this game has come out for, I feel like the game has still gone unplayed by a lot of gamers, myself included! The game is a story driven adventure centering around the Knights Templar, a terrorist attack in Paris, France, and the mysteries around those involved. It’s interesting, don’t get me wrong, but I almost feel taken aback by how old the game is I don’t want to even try it. But we’ll see; maybe I’ll be surprised by it one day!

Laters,
Jsick

 

Fallout 4’s Automatron DLC is a Good Investment for Fallout 4 Fans

The first batch of Bethesda’s open-world post-apocalyptic garbage collection simulator otherwise known as Fallout 4 is finally out. Automatron is all about robots and a bad buy known as the Mechanist who is terrorizing the Commonwealth more than the Vault Dweller you’re playing. There’s a lot of nifty little morsels of content to chew on, and seeing as this is just the first, supposedly small’ish, piece of DLC for Fallout 4, I’m hopeful the rest of the upcoming content will be just as fun and expanding as Automatron!

 

Ten April Fools’ Day Jokes in Gaming

Don’t be fooled!

Keeping with tradition, April first of every year is the time where video gamers can no longer read blogs or watch their favorite videos because they’re full of lies and jokes. Of course I’m talking about April Fools’ Day, and for the past couple decades many video game developers, news publications, and even video games themselves have taken the opportunity to trick their fans into thinking something that isn’t true. Oftentimes these instances are so hyperbolic you can tell quickly they’re a joke, but every now and then there are a few jokes that walk the line between truth and deception with exquisite flair. Here are ten of my favorite April Fools’ Day jokes for you to get angry at for not being real.