Skylanders is a super-popular toys-to-life video game that features real figurines that you can scan into a game and play as those characters. I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to review all the main Skylanders games here at GamerDad.  Now there is also a collectable card game as well called Skylanders Battlecast, which you can also play on mobile devices.  And for a limited time, you can get a free Skylanders Battlecast card in boxes of Kid Cuisine TV dinners (do they even call them TV dinners anymore?).

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Tags: Misc

Star Ghost hearkens back to the good ol’ days of arcade 2-D side-scrolling shooters. Pilot your ship through 12 different star systems with various levels in each, blasting spacecraft and gathering power-ups.  But what makes this downloadable Wii U game unique is how you control your ship.

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Tags: Game Reviews

Yesterday we went over the exhibits in the newly-opened National Videogame Museum in Frisco, TX. If you haven’t read that article, I encourage you to go back and read it, too.  But the museum is more than just exhibits; it’s just as much of a video game art museum as it is a history museum.  So today we’re going to look at the artwork in the museum, all of which was hand-painted by super talented local artists.  We’ll also look at the museum’s awesome arcade and some opening day fun and shenanigans, too!

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Tags: Misc

There are all kinds of museums in the US, but none so far dedicated to the history of video games. Until now!  On Saturday, April 2, the National Videogame Museum opened its doors in Frisco, TX.  Which is cool because that’s only about 15 minutes driving distance from where I live!  So for the next couple of days here at GamerDad.com, I’m going to take you all on a virtual tour of the museum.  But I won’t show you everything!  You’ll just have to come out and see it all for yourself.  And I hope you do, too!  It’s not some rinky-dink operation either.  It’s like something you’d see at E3 or even Disney World!

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Tags: Misc

I got a PS Vita for Christmas this past year. There are enough games on it that interest me now, but I guess it’s a little late since nobody is making new games for the Vita hardly anymore.  But one of the games I wanted for the Vita was Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz.  Luckily since it’s been out for so long, I was able to get it from Amazon for only 12 bucks!  Which is good considering it’s not much different from past Monkey Ball titles, and they’ve been declining in quality anyway.  But the first two Monkey Ball titles on the GameCube were great, so I always like to give the series a chance anyway, if the price is right.  While the main game has you rolling around a monkey in a ball through mazes and obstacles, many of the Monkey Ball titles have fun mini-games, too.  Banana Splitz included.  So since I like to write about mini-games, here are all the mini-games you can find in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz for Vita.

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Tags: Game Reviews

One thing I miss about being a kid in the 80’s is going to arcades. You just don’t see them anymore, and if you do, a lot of times they have more modern arcade machines, which I don’t like as much.  But one cool trend I’ve noticed in the past couple of years is the rise of ‘Barcades.’  These are bars that have a bunch of arcade machines in them, and since they try to cater to an older crowd, a lot of times they have old arcade cabinets from the 80’s (and early 90’s are OK, too, I guess).  A couple of months ago, my brother Jeff and I went to one of these barcades close to where we live (well, 30 minutes away anyway, it was in Richardson, TX).  It’s a little late, but I just got around to showing off some of the pictures I took there.

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Tags: Misc

I swear when LEGO Dimensions first came out, the makers did everything they could to get me to want to buy it! LEGO Dimensions plays like other LEGO titles, but incorporates the ‘toys to life’ gaming concepts brought about by Skylanders and Disney Infinity by giving you LEGO characters, vehicles, and items you can use in the game by building them and placing them on a special pedestal.  I wrote a big article about it that you can read here.  Anyway, like I said, they did everything they could to tempt me to get LEGO Dimensions.  They must’ve read my mind and knew I liked Portal, so they put that in the game.  I also like 80’s movies like Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, as well as TV shows like The Simpsons, and those are in here, too.  But the icing on the cake was the recently released Midway Arcade Level Pack.  I’m a huge fan of classic arcade games, so you know I had to get this.  But it’s not what I first expected!

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Tags: Game Reviews

Meet Harvey, the star of a new downloadable game called Replay: VHS is Not Dead. Harvey is just an unassuming average guy who must live in the 80’s or early 90’s, as his favorite thing to do after work is go to the movie rental place and rent lots of tapes to pop into his VCR at home.  Of course, he may also go to that store to see that cute blue-haired girl behind the counter that he likes.  Anyway, one day while renting movies, the lady clerk gives him a remote control along with his rented tapes for some reason.  And on the way home, he gets struck by some weird lightning and manages to survive.  At home, with his VCR tapes still glowing with energy, he still puts them in the VCR and uses the remote control, but then gets sucked into his TV and is stuck in the movies he rented!  Now you must help him and the stars of the movies reach the end so he can escape in this retro-styled 2-D puzzle platformer.  It’s available to download for most of the current gen consoles and PCs, but reviewed on Wii U here.

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Tags: Game Reviews

Normally I wouldn’t review every free-to-play Candy Crush clone that comes about on the iPad, but I had to with this one because it has Pac-Man in it! And you know how I like Pac-Man!  Apparently the ghost monsters have stolen all the fruit from the Pac-Man arcade machine and have run off, and now Pac-Man must catch them.  Help him by matching three of the same fruits in a row in this downloadable game available for iOS and Android devices (reviewed on iPad here).

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Tags: Game Reviews

Today I’m going to show off just two new amiibo figures I got recently, but these were pack-ins with games. There’s a robot and a wolf.  Let’s check them out!

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Tags: Misc