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 Dream E3 2015 Predictions

It’s that time of year again. E3 is this week, and with it will come the best and most exciting video game announcements, trailers, demos, and releases for the upcoming year. Many companies benchmark their entire remainder of the year on this show, making or breaking 2015 before it even finishes. Rampant speculation fuels the show year in and year out, and this year is no exception: a few days out of the show and there have already been announcements and rumors flying. But if I could have things 100% my way, we’d be gearing up to hear the following ten announcements at E3 2015.

 

Flea Market Finds!

This past weekend I was finally able to make it to the De Anza College Flea Market! It is held every first Saturday of the month, and I’ve been consistently coming up with reasons why I can’t make it! Laura and I would literally be planning on going one weekend, and then something would come up and cause us not to make it. Thankfully this month we had the backing of Laura’s sister and our friend who wanted to go too, cementing our trip! I went into the flea market hoping to find games (naturally) but was really looking for something extraordinary to make the whole trip worthwhile. There were some good finds, some busted haggles, and, if you can believe it, an extraordinary find!

 

Rare and Obscure Video Game Peripherals

As long as there have been video games, there has been video game peripherals. Used to simulate, compliment, supplement, or straight up change the way we play a game, peripherals are one of the most hit or miss aspects of gaming culture. After the success of the Wii there were dozens upon dozens of totally useless peripherals to waste your money. While the onslaught of plastic is (hopefully) behind us, there are still game peripherals being released. While successes and failures are bound to happen across the board, the obscurity and rarity of some of these devices can fluctuate regardless of quality. Here are some of my favorite peripherals I’m still on the hunt for, as well as a few of the more obscure or bizarre entries into the gaming peripheral market.

 

Sunday Roundup: 9/21/14

All kinds of craziness this week and last has lead to me not only getting a ton of new video games, but also having no time at all to post about them! Lucky for you, faithful readers, I’ll be posting two Sunday Roundups this week! On another side note, I realized after setting up my photography studio thingy that I missed five games to include in this week’s collection picture to the left! I’ve added them down below, but just a heads up. Also, this week, and especially next, i picked up a ton of games from eBay. Usually I swear of the site, but for the past few months (maybe even a year or so) I’ve been awfully dry in the game collecting market. I decided to take a stab at securing some of those harder to find titles online, and I was met with great success! Unfortunately, now that means I’m going to be shopping/wasting money on eBay more frequently now, which isn’t the best thing to happen…

 

Worth Playing vol. 8: The Crossover Collection

Crossovers are the best fan service gamers can get. The blending of popular IPs into one unique game usually gets fans in a fever, finally being able to play as Sonic the Hedgehog in a Mario-themed game. Or finally being able to see who would win between the X-Man Wolverine and the Street Fighter Ryu. The opportunities for creating these scenarios is endless, but despite this we don’t get too many crossover games. Maybe it has something to do with publishing rights, company egos, or (most likely) money, but whatever the culprit may be, there are still a handful of crossover video games that are a hell of a lot of fun to play, and totally worth your time!

 

California Extreme 2014

Last year I was content to leave all of the California Extreme related posts to my Tumblr, which focuses entirely on video arcades and memorabilia. Coincidentally you should check that out if you want to know more about arcade games! This year however, I’m going to grace you all with the retro-filled weekend that was California Extreme 2014. Plenty of great games were played, a lot of machines I otherwise wouldn’t have played in my life were dabbled with, and some games were completely beaten thanks to the wonderful Free Play setting.

 

Games I Have Somehow Never Played…

Well, this is embarrassing.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has played video game for more than a few years that you just can’t play them all. No matter how hard you have tried, you can’t fit in each video game that releases in a year into your play rotation. Video games aren’t like movies: they can’t be seen and completed in a few short hours (at least most of them). They aren’t as easy to come by in some instances. And sometimes they simply don’t fit into your budget.

For this reason or that, we all have games that we’ve never gotten around to playing. Triple A games, too. The games that may have defined a generation. The games that people are still talking about to this day. The games that you kind of have to just shake your head at when others are discussing around you because you have no idea what is going on.

These are those games. Below you will find the shame of my gaming expertise. These are the games I’ve never played. At least as of yet.

 

Top Ten “What Was I Thinking?” Games on my Christmas List

Making a Christmas list has always been something my family required of me around the Thanksgiving holiday. When I say required I mean required: my parents would ask for a physical list so they knew what I might be interested in that year, and what they could tell other family members I’d like. While I’m truly blessed to have a family that cares deeply for me as my family does, keeping all of these lists over the past years has lead me to one very interesting conclusion… I’ve asked for some really strange games for Christmas! I’ve decided to share a few of those with you all here, in what I am calling the Top Ten “What Was I Thinking?” Games on my Christmas List.

 

Top Ten Classic Robot Masters

With all the talk recently about Keiji Inafune’s hugely successful Kickstarter for Might No. 9, I have been doing a lot of recollecting about Mega Man. The Blue Bomber has always had a very special place in my heart, as many of you will already know should you follow this blog or listen to the Recurring Bosscast. I’ve played most all of the classic Mega Man games and was naturally more than excited when this spiritual successor by the original creator turned up on Kickstarter. All the thinking about Mega Man and his storied past got me on a mental spree about which were my favorite Robot Masters.With dozens to choose from, narrowing down the list to just ten was certainly not easy.