Can you believe this year is already half over?  What I like to do this time of year is write about the best games of the year 2015 so far.  Everyone is all excited over the E3 announcements, and most of the really good titles come out during the Christmas season at the tail end of the year, and the games that come out earlier tend to be forgotten.  So this is where those games get their due.

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Tags: Misc

Apparently, Badland is a popular mobile game, so much so that now it has a Game of the Year edition playable on most consoles and Steam (reviewed on PS3 here).  In the game, you control a flying bat creature as you help it flap up and down to avoid obstacles in a strange and shadowy swampy and mechanical backdrop.  But is it really worthy of a ‘Game of the Year’ edition?  Read on to find out!

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Tags: Game Reviews

Jurassic Park is one of the most famous dinosaur films around, and the newest entry in the series is one of this summer’s big movie hits.  And now you can enjoy all four movies in LEGO form with LEGO Jurassic World.  Play as all the characters from the flicks as you explore the original Jurassic Park and re-enact all the famous scenes, and visit the new Jurassic World them park as well!  Drive vehicles and even play as the dinosaurs themselves in the newest in the LEGO game franchise.  It’s available for all current game consoles, but reviewed on Wii U here.

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Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children

I love the Portal games!  They were some of my favorite titles from the last console generation, and I’ve played through both of them multiple times.  So I was really excited when Zen Studios brought out a Portal Pinball game for their Zen Pinball 2 and Pinball FX2 platforms!  (Reviewed on 360 here)

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Tags: Game Reviews

In a kingdom made of pixels, a princess is born with the power to create objects from those blocks.  But the evil queen DeRezza wants that power, and kidnaps the princess and turns everyone into single squares.  Now it’s up to Pip to save the day!  Pip has always been a lowly red pixel, so he has nothing to lose.  But on this 2-D platforming adventure, Pip will gain the ability to change into 8- and 16-bit versions of himself, and use different skills to defeat enemies and overcome obstacles.  It’s made by ex-WayForward employees and has music by the same composer of Shovel Knight and Shantae, so you know it’s good.  Adventures of Pip is downloadable on PC and Wii U (Wii U version reviewed here).

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Tags: Game Reviews

Well, another E3 has come and gone.  Now it’s time for me to complain about not being able to go to E3 AGAIN this year.  But the games they showed at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo were pretty neat, and still worth talking about, so here’s a blog all about that.  Enjoy!

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Tags: Misc

So recently, Nintendo released another wave of their Amiibo figures. In the past, I was able to easily get all the Amiibo figures because I could reserve them at the nearby GameStop.  But for this last wave, GameStop decided to change their reservation process and have it be all online.  Even if you reserve them at the store.  So now I had to compete with the entire country, not just one place.  They WOULD have to do this on the wave that had the Amiibo I wanted most: Pac-Man!  I thought my Amiibo collecting days were done, but thanks to the graciousness of a good friend of mine, he drove me around to a couple of stores on the morning that the new wave of Amiibo figures would be released.  So I managed to get nearly all the ones I wanted!  So here’s a blog about them.  Will this be my last Amiibo blog?  Well, I guess we’ll just have to see what the next wave brings.  I would like to get Palutena, Zero Suit Samus, and Dr. Mario, and maybe catch up on exclusives like Meta Knight (not to mention upcoming Chibi Robo and Yarn Yoshi).  But we’ll just have to see when that time comes!

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Tags: Misc

Nintendo is going hog wild lately with the free-to-play games, especially when it involves Pokemon.  First we had Pokemon Shuffle, now this.  In Pokemon Rumble World, you visit the Kingdom of Toys and meet the King.  He’s jealous because an evil magician has more toy Pokemon than he does, so he commissions you to battle and collect toy Pokemon to show the magician who the real toy master is.  Pokemon Rumble World is a top-down action game that plays similarly to Gauntlet, and you can download it for free on the 3DS eShop.

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Tags: Game Reviews

In the last weekend of May, Nintendo held a new Nintendo World Championships at Best Buy stores around the country.  Participants played the championship mode on the 3DS NES Remix game, and winners will play in the finals in LA during the week of E3!  You may have read about many people on the Internet getting all excited over all this.  But why?  What’s the big deal?  Well, it’s because for people who grew up in the NES generation, the original Nintendo World Championships 1990 was such a monumental event for those who attended it.  Including me.  So in this blog, I’m going to share with you my experiences with that original event, and how it shaped me as a game reviewer today!

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Tags: Misc

In the downloadable Wii U game High Strangeness, you play as a young adult man named Boyd.  One day he wakes up in the middle of the night to find that his house is overrun with shadowy figures trying to attack him.  And even stranger, his cat is talking to him!  Boyd learns that only he can save the universe by collecting crystal skulls, so he goes off on an adventure with his talking cat and other friends.  High Strangeness is a top down action adventure game similar to Super Nintendo titles like Soul Blazer, Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore.  In fact, one of the main gimmicks in this one is that you can switch between 16-bit and 8-bit versions of the world.

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Tags: Game Reviews