Rundown (7/30/2023) Hoarding Games I’ll Never Play!
This Week’s Topics:
- Natalie’s Plump ROM Hole
- TSF Showcase for Chari & Cassie!
- Tencent’s Techland
- Capcom’s new cane
- The rise of 𝕏
- A bad collection that made Natalie slightly less sane
Rundown (6/13/2023) Segmented Summer Showcases (S3) 2023: I’d Rather Be Doing Anything Else!
This Week’s Topics:
- A generation of trained 2 B 2-D game haters
- The big Xbox summer bash
- Fallout X Skyrim X SPACE!
A tray of Ubisoft’s treats- Capcom’s box of festive snacks
Rundown (2/20-2/26) The TSF Well Is Deep, Dank, and Viscous
Wherein I discuss how I wanna make more TSF stuff, a premature sequel, a sequel 25 years in the making, two collections of disproportionate quality, and how you can make super emulation machines if you are smart enough.
(more…)Rundown (1/17-1/23) Strife Stifler!
Wherein I discuss the stifling of political strife, the highs and lows of a grand village, corroborated creative conflicts, the vanishing of a vision, and another cool cat giving into the corporate machine.
(more…)Rundown (12/06-12/12) Cyber Dump
Wherein I discuss the aesthetic failures of the hottest game of the moment, Nintendo being Nintendo, the return of the Metatron, and Mr. Keighley’s latest trailer festival.
(more…)Rundown (11/15-11/21) The Christmas Cake Birthday!
Wherein I discuss my inevitable demise, the woeful hunts for the new games machine, a better revenue split, the trails to a completely localized saga, an unexpected licensing arrangement, and the dirty fruits born from a ransomware attack.
(more…)Rundown (4/14-4/20) Natalie Versus Transit
Sometimes when travelling back between the standbys of home, school, and work, I pontificate about how few placed I typically visit in a given year, and how that number is realistically less than 30 unique locations. I suppose this is a sign that I should “get out” more, but I truly have little desire in going to places for the mere sake of leaving, especially when the process of getting from one place to another is such a dull affair for people without the ability to work, read, or mess around on their phone while in transit. Seriously, I went to two new places yesterday but my 6 hours out involved about 4 hours of setting up computers and another 2 of sitting in a hot car in silence. It, combined with how often paratransit is late in picking me up really does make me worry about the future and the transportation related woes it will contain.
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Rundown (9/16-9/22) I Welcome Our New Koopa Queen Overlord
Remember how last week I was befuddled by the notion of Toadette obtaining a Royal Crown power up to become Peachette, as demonstrated in the reveal trailer for New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe? While doing so, I also wondered what would happen if other characters got ahold of the item, though I never would have expected much to come from this. Then somebody made a comic featuring Bowser using a Super Crown, and turning into “Bowsette”, which in turn sparked a slew of confusion and fan art. I have made it no secret that I like TG stuff, and seeing something like this pop up and become a big deal is akin to a miniature Christmas for me, as it is rare that such a niche interest gets meaningful exposure. Plus, the sheer quantity of art that has been made is downright absurd. I thought that the Fatal Cutie Terry Bogard craze was the best I was ever going to get, but this makes that look like the Mario Odyssey possession craze, which was so upsettingly small!
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Rundown (9/09-9/15) Bonk This Bank!
This is such a petty thing, but the way Pokemon Bank subscriptions are handled really bothers me. At first I thought that if your subscription lapsed, you could more or less indefinitely recover your stored Pokemon, but no, they are erased from the server after a while, and then they are gone forever, which is utter nonsense, especially considering how renewing one’s subscription works. You need to wait until you have 14 days or less left on your pass before you can extend the subscription, and if you forget, say goodbye to whatever is in there. No email notifications, no nothing. I have a near complete Pokedex (I missed Marshadow a while back), a box of shinies, alternate forms, and a Ditto with 3 perfect IVs in there. Do you know how upset and fundamentally broken I would be if I were to lose all of that? More than a goldarn smidget.
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Rundown (3/12-3/18) A Galaxy of Probable Disappointment
So, Mass Effect: Andromeda is almost out, and the consensus from the people who played the game is far from positive. Apparently the story indulges in many trite tropes and fails to feel distinct while the animations are somehow remarkably worse than the stiff animations Bioware used in their games over the course of the seventh generation, to the point where it is genuinely remarkable anybody thought some of this way okay. I had high hopes for this game after going through the Mass Effect trilogy this past year, but from the sound of it, the game is not very good. Though, considering how closed off the development has been, how the lead writer position for the game changed three times, and how many people left the company since the release of the last Mass Effect game, I guess I should not be too surprised. Still, this is quite upsetting. (more…)
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen Review
Dragon’s Dogma has been on my list of games to check out for about five years now, but I never got around to it during the time the seventh generation of game consoles were relevant. So after it was released on PC, and after finding the time to invest in a massive western styled action RPG, I was finally able to go through the game. Though, I sort of regret putting as much time into it.
(more…)Remember Me Review
I often try to avoid playing games that bring me frustration, and even if I want to write a review about it, I try to stop my playthrough after I invested two digits of time into the game. However, I only got about seven hours into Remember Me, a ten to twelve hour long game, before I became so frustrated with it that I felt that it would be a waste of my time and energy to continue playing it. Why did I feel this way? I would likely forget within the year, so here’s a review to properly articulate why I disliked this title
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Rundown (8/24-8/30) Gamergate =/= Gamersgate, Buttface!
Okay, so this whole Zoe Quinn, Phil Fish, JonTron, “Gamer” validity, Journalism Debate, thing that apparently has been dubbed #Gamergate by some dolt, which I think will result in 37 murders, 7,208 layoffs, and 72 company deaths, has been going on, and I’ve lost track of what the hell is happening. All I really gathered was in the form of 4Chan deciding to fund a game made entirely by women, and creating the character of Vivian James, who I will end up using the design of in something I have yet to properly outline. She will probably have a Di-Sword or some shit. Oh, and thanks to TotalBiscuit for keeping a calm head about the situation and making this peachy keen blog post. But let’s not talk about that and instead, let’s just talk about VA-11 HALL-A a bartending sim about “waifus, technology, and the hard lives of post-dystopia citizens”. If it was on the Humble Store and had a Steam Greenlight page, it would already have my $8. Seriously though, check it out! (more…)
Stider Review
I’ll just say upfront that I played the game, got to the area before the final boss… or maybe the area before that- point is, I was near the end and quit playing the game as I was not having a good time with it. That alone summarizes my thoughts about it, but I feel the need to justify my opinions on games in order to have a deviant opinion about them due to my own mental insecurities and sense of loyalty for something I don’t have any investment in beyond how I’ve been doing this too long to give up (I am speaking of the blog you are likely viewing this on). (more…)
Rundown (7/20-7/26) Press-Switch
Okay, so following a, well, a year sparse in terms of great games, at least in terms of what I’ve been playing, I both revisited The Walking Dead and visited what I dub the fifth tier of indie games, titles that nobody knows about, have little information given, and are for the majority of the cases, just bad. Well, that’s where I stumbled onto Press Switch, a Ren’Py made visual novel that is the most overly ambitious and pandering appearing thing that effectively blew me away by offering a barrage of content, and quality stuff at that. Now, I am naturally bias as I am part of the subset of people who are fond of transformation, gender alteration, and body swapping in terms of fiction, as if you couldn’t tell by reading my novel, The Body of Raiyne. Yet the fact that I found something that is both a visual novel and a quality one at that is nothing short of amazing. Downside is that the game’s choices are difficult to track, to the point where a flowchart is necessary. It is also made from a subset of Japanese visual novels by the name of Bishop, and the creator made sure to use as much as they could from them, including several sex and masturbation scenes, some of which include rape… Yeah, not a fan of that in the slightest. Still, third best game I’ve played in 2014 after The Stanley Parable and Persona 4 Golden… take that, game industry. (more…)
Ducktales Remastered
Let me get this straight, brain. You wish to play a game that is a remake of one you’ve never previously played… on a system far older than you… based on a show that ended about four years before you were born. Well Steam Sales are a nice thing that encourages my wallet to ejaculate money, and for $5 I figured the critically acclaimed, I think, Ducktales Remastered would be worth the price. The quick verdict? Well, yeah, I guess. (more…)
Rundown (1/12-1/18) Monkeys Are in Business of the Busyness
So, I just barely have enough for a post this week, as it is the middle of January and people are still getting back into the swing of things after a holiday break. I do not have enough time to come up with a creative intro, as I’ve been trying to plow through the insanely large Assassin’s Creed IV. 27 hours in and I’m 39% done. I like myself a fine long game, but this is utterly nutterly buttery, Ubisoft. Other than that… screw it, wait for my review of that after Just Cause 2 and Marlow Briggs.
Project X Zone Review
The general rule of thumb with reviews is that you consume the media to a state of completion before writing them. Well, I’m pretty much breaking that rule, but only because I’ve given this game 60 hours and would prefer it to stop and not experience the final eighth. Some might call this laziness and a lack of devotion to a hobby, I call it my review of 60 blasted hours of a game.
Rundown (4/21-4/27) Those Delightful Diamond Dog Days
The world was his oyster, or at least that’s what he always said. Running around the country for 25 years, twice his expected life span. No one cared or noticed, he was just a stray mutt. Still, he bounced between owners, shelters, and even demonstrated his powers in the war. He was effectively a monster who would bite your dick off even after taking some buck to the ass. He never had a proper name, I just call him boss, the leader of the Diamond Dogs… It was either that or, “I know she’s got a booty, and damn is it a cutie, so I’ll go, back it up like a dump truck, gotta get it in and pump-” Which while fun, I prefer writing about immortal dogs biting off knobs, oh and video games.
Rundown (4/14-4/20) A Clever Title That Was Wasted On Demon Sharks
You know, I actually did have a bit planned for this opening shtick, but I decided that it would be better on another piece this week. So for now I shant speak a tidbit about bums, and will now just admire that header… thing’s hideous, right? Yeah… video games.
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Warriors Review
Okay, time for a bit of history, seeing as How I like doing that when digging up fossils. Originally a series that began on the PS2, Sengoku Basara was originally brought over to the English world as Devil Kings, which tried to remove the Japanese from a game named after the Sengoku period. Why? Because Capcom, I suppose. So they decided to remove the three from the third game in the series and hope they could make some money. Not that it stopped it from getting 4.5s, which I can’t help but laugh at.
Rundown (3/22-3/27) PAX East and Being Late To The Party
Well, I realized that the whole idea of a weekly segment being the actual title was pretty stupid, so I’ll just relabel that bit with the word, “Rundown”. If only because it fits and I like how it sounds. So… PAX East! Very cool convention, with some cool things happened in and out of it that I want to speak about. At least enough to fill a segment with things I personally consider to be worthwhile. But it was originally going to be both GDC and PAX, until I realized that was an awful idea, and am just putting everything together minutes before the post goes up.
NWS (2/03-2/09) Racist Residents, Awakened All-Stars, Lackluster Legends, and Impossible Inquiries
Let’s see how things went last week… no reaction, lovely! Not that it matters to me, because I just like writing, but hopefully if I keep doing something, I can at least get a fish. Because there is truly not a more noble weapon.
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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Review
I enjoyed 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Professor Layton and the Curious VIllage, Ghost Trick Phantom Detective, So it would make sense that I would end up playing the most well known visual novel for the DS, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. But is this series of murder cases interesting enough to have me search through the series, let’s find out! (more…)