Category Archives: Digital Playground

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Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Dragonball FighterZ (PS4)

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Well, if you read my ?Rapid Firea’? post from a couple of days ago then you know that I was eagerly awaiting my copy of Dragonball FighterZ. Turns out our local UPS terminal must be avid readers of this site because lo and behold, the game was delivered that night. I eagerly ripped opened the box and had the game in my PS4 before you could say a’?Gokua’?. I then received the familiar message that most PS4 owners have seen, a’?Not enough memorya’?. After the stream of expletives fell out of my mouth, I started the unpleasant task of finding items that I could delete. 35 minutes later, I was able to finally the start the game. Have I mentioned how much I love to play this game? Ya”know, the find and pick stuff to delete that you dona”t really want to delete game? Thanks to Sony for putting such HUGE hard drives on these things. Yes, Ia”m aware that I can go out and spend $60-$150 for an external hard drive but I shouldna”t have to after dropping 300 on the console! But I digress, this is about Dragonball Fighter Z and not Sony.

When I first fired it up I was a little disappointed that I had to setup an online username and character. Ia”m a pretty antisocial gamer and I wasna”t planning on spending ANY time online with it so this felt like a waste of time. After getting setup, you must choose a lobby to join. The maximum characters in a lobby is 64, so there might be times when you start up the game and you wona”t be allowed into that lobby because of too many players, so then you have to either choose another lobby or hit [Triangle] to go to an offline lobby, which is just you (Hoozah!). The lobby is essentially just an area that serves as a main menu for the game, so you can walk around to what modes you want to try out or hit [L2] to bring up a list of areas and you can just warp to it. After perusing the lobby for a while, I found that I didna”t mind it has much, yes there are other players running around, but unless you go into a tournament or the arena, you dona”t really interact with them.

After the playing the game for a couple of hours, I sent Shawn a text saying that while I might just be in the moment, this is the best fighter I have ever played. And most of the games that I play are fighters. After putting more time into the game, I can confirm that it *is* the best fighter Ia”ve played. The graphics are amazing, the combat is fast paced, the combos are really easy to perform, and if you can throw a fireball in Street Fighter, you can perform any super combo. No a’?hold back for 2 seconds, forward, back, down-right, forwarda’? nonsense in this game. It really keeps the fight flowing and after a match or two, I was performing 30+ hit combos. If you hit the heavy attack [Circle] you hit your opponent against the wall and they bounce off of it, hit [Circle] again and you perform a a’?Dragon Rusha’?, which means that you fly into the character to juggle them. The game does take skill though, you have to time those combos to keep them going. Dragonball FighterZ is the closest thing to Marvel vs Capcom 2 that Ia”ve played to date. MvC2 is usually my benchmark that I compare all other fighters to, but after many years, I have to say that ita”s been dethroned as far as overall gameplay goes. While similar, (both are 3 on 3 tag fighters with great gameplay mechanics), MvC2 has more than twice the amount of characters that DBZ has. I believe MvC2 has 56 characters, as opposed to DBZ having 21. That said, I found that I wasna”t bored with the character selection at all. Although, I did buy the a’?Day One Editiona’? which comes with a code for an additional 2 characters that you normally have to beat a’?Arcadea’? mode on hard to get. At this point I have played as all of the characters multiple times and Ia”m still figuring out new ways to chain combos together. Thata”s the thing with this game, ita”s easy to pick up and play, but only after putting in a good chunk of time was I able to see that while it looks simplistic, ita”s intricate under the surface.

I thought I was going to have buyera”s remorse after paying full price for this game, but I had been looking forward to it since E3 and just couldna”t help myself. Ia”m happy to report that I dona”t regret it all, this game is worth every penny. Ita”s an instant classic and the hype was real.

Buy It: If youa”re a fan of 2D fighters, crazy 3 on 3 battles, or just love stringing together those combos in fighting games.

Try It: No, just buy it. Ita”s worth owning.

Walk by it: If youa”re not into fighters, or more of a a’?realistica’? fighter fan (i.e Tekken, Soul Calibur, DOA).

Final Score:
Dragonball FighterZ: 10/10 (!)

Digital Playground

Some Notes on the Nerfs

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Introduction

I know that you don’t come here for the latest breaking news in games. Also realize that this article won’t change that. I barely have the time right now to post my articles about 30 year old video games and my status as a filthy casual as a Magic the Gathering player. I’m not going to even attempt to keep up with all of the current video game news.

However, I did notice a post on the Instagram feed of one of the people that I follow. It had a picture of Patches the Pirate from Hearthstone and the tagline “I’m in charge now”, but with the “now” crossed out and “next turn” scrawled above it. I didn’t know what to think because Hearthstone players have been screaming for a nerf of that card since it was released.

I mean, seriously, what the hell was Blizzard thinking with this one?

Initially, I thought it was a joke and laughed accordingly. But, something nagged at me, so I went in search of an article that I didn’t even think existed. I typed “Hearthstone Nerfs” into Google and expected to only find articles from the past. Much to my surprise, an article written that day was the top search result, so I followed the link. Apparently, Blizzard finally got around to nerfing the card right as it was on the cusp of rotating to Wild. More on that later.

I texted Chris about it, but then we got to talking about something else. Later in the night, he must have checked out an article about it because he texted me out of the blue “I actually agree with the nerfs” in response to my assertion that maybe Blizzard had gotten it a bit wrong. It’s not that I don’t agree with the nerfs. It’s just…warlock right now. Jeeze. How could they not do anything about Warlock? I know that they want the players to use the tools available to them to figure out the meta, but c’mon. When they nerf one of those tools, what are players supposed to do? More on that later.

Patches the Pirate

This is the big one. As I said earlier, this is the one that players have been talking about since before the card was released. It thins your deck, gets played automatically most of the time, and has an immediate board impact. There was a time when players were running pirates in their deck just for this card. It was absurd. The power level has diminished some in standard due to the proliferation of control and durdle combo decks, but this guy is still all over wild.

It’s gotten to the point where when I see this card in wild, I just concede. Sometimes I will just concede if I see a warrior or rogue because I know that they are probably pirates. Rogue also has the mill archetype. They are both just such triggers for me. They are just no fun to play against.

I will say that I’m impressed that Blizzard is at least making an effort to support their eternal format. I was afraid that it would just be a dumping ground for past standard cards and they’d never even think about it again. I like wild because I like the eternal formats, so I play it almost exclusively. Instead of ignoring the format, they actually made a nerf that was at least partially due to their thoughts of how the card could warp in Wild.

Raza the Chained

This is one that has only recently gotten on to people’s radars due to the Priest Razakus combo deck that has taken over Standard. According to Blizzard, though, that wasn’t the main reason. Actually, come to think about it, their statement makes it sound like that wasn’t even a consideration.

I find that strange. They’ve nerfed cards in the past to prevent one turn kills and the Razakus combo is exactly that. Then again, it takes some effort to pull off, standard rotates every 3 or 4 months, and the card will eventually meet it’s match. Where it again becomes a problem is Wild, where Razakus could rule, potentially forever, squeezing out any creativity and imagination in deck building.

Since Wild gives you all of the cards to build your decks, that’s exactly what it needs to be. There needs to be room for new and interesting decks that are constantly evolving due to new cards rotating into the format. It doesn’t need to be a stagnant swamp of durdle deck against durdle deck that makes you want to throw yourself off a cliff. Again, good job thinking of us filthy casual Wild players.

The problem with this one is that Razakus was the only thing keeping Warlock from being a truly dominant force in the Standard meta. They may have plans to deal with Warlock in the coming months with some rotation/hall of fame moves, but in the mean time, Warlock is going to be mean. This doesn’t affect me much because I never play Standard at any high level, but the streams I watch will become Gul’dan v. Gul’dan, which is troubling.

Corridor Creeper

0 mana 5/5? What could go wrong? This card is crazy stupid in a game that encourages minion trading. At least with the giants, you can get them to 0 mana, but it takes some skill and strategy. This thing, you just throw your little guys into the other guy’s little guys and play him for free. Good riddance. It might still be borderline playable in arena, but the other two picks would have to be pretty bad.

This is the one that I’m least concerned about. It has a powerful effect and delaying that effect for one turn might make it unplayable. Because, we all know, when Blizzard nerfs a card, they either miss completely and the card just becomes slighly less powerful or they ban hammer it into a deep hole. I think this card might be in the first category instead of the second. It’s still a decent late game card in arena and maybe even in constructed control decks. I have no idea and I’m honestly not all that concerned if it isn’t. This card just doesn’t register all that much, but that might be because it is an arena nerf and I don’t play much arena.

The Verdict

While I ultimately agreed with Chris and all of the nerfs hit the spot, I’m a bit concerned about what Warlock will become. I like to watch streams because I’m terrible at the game, but I do enjoy the interaction. I have no idea when the next expansion is going to hit, but until then it is going to be all Warlock all the time.

It’s going to be like when Pirate Warrior and Aggro Shaman were all over the place, but as of right now, there isn’t a natural enemy of the Warlock. I’m sure that streamers and pro players will find that counter and hopefully they do soon. Because during the aforementioned Pirate Warrior and Aggro Shaman meta, I watched less and less Hearthstone. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Comics!, Digital Playground, On the Tabletop, Snap *censored* Pop Culture, Uncategorized

Rapid Fire! Random Thoughts 1/29

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-C’mon UPS, bring me my copy of Dragonball FighterZ. I’m tired of watching all of the gameplay videos on Youtube, I just want to play the friggin’ game!

-Scott Snyder is taking over Justice League after the next Justice League event. How the heck are they going to fit all of the those character in that book with all of those text boxes?! Hah! I kid, I’m sure it’s going to be really good. I’m definitely adding it to my pull list. I am a little confused as he and Greg Capullo kept teasing fans on Twitter about working on a Swamp Thing series. Hopefully that’s something that’s still in the works. I personally think his cerebral style of writing would fit Swamp Thing much better than Justice League but hey, what do I know?

-Speaking of the next Justice League event, it starts up after Dark Nights Metal concludes and during the event the title will be going weekly. Much like the Avengers: No Surrender storyline. Hey, I’m all for more comics and competition is healthy but how about a price break? I would have to think that having an expedited deadline on each book would cause the quality to suffer a bit. Do you really want to spend $20 a month on just The Avengers or even $12 for just the Justice League? I know I don’t.

-Looks like Rivals of Ixalan has lit the fire of 2 Guys Gaming again. This weekend we will have a sealed draft and I’m pretty excited for it. Quite a few cards in the set have my brain churning out some deck lists.

-I know that my random thoughts are supposed to be rapid but something has really bothered me today. Usually I listen to Boston sports radio station WEEI maybe once a day for an hour or so just to see what the topics of the day are. I tuned in this morning just in time for Tom Brady to call in and, in a really restrained way, tell them that he felt disrespected and that he was going to evaluate whether he wanted to continue his weekly interview with them. This was apparently due to a comment that a host, Alex Reimer, had said about his 5 year old daughter. Last Thursday night, after watching the Brady Facebook documentary series, he decided that he would call Brady’s little girl an ?annoying little pissant?. Dude. Really? A 5 year old who is just excited about playing a soccer game? What the hell is wrong with you? Of all the things he could have talked about pertaining to the first episode that’s what he came up with? That’s his hot take? No, that’s his cry for attention and notoriety in the world of sports media. My guess is that he wanted to go for ?funny? shock value but it ended up ruining his career. Or at least it should. He has since been indefinitely suspended as the big dogs of WEEI tear out their hair since Tom Brady basically flipped them the verbal bird this morning and hung up. Tom Brady is a public figure so he is under the media’s microscope at all times, but to sink to insulting his kid? That crosses a line.

I don’t blame the guy at all, to be honest he probably should have done so a long time ago. The morning guys he talks to are two of the biggest idiots in radio with one of them, Minihane, always going for the hot controversial take in order to keep his name in the papers, keep the ratings up and foster this new culture of shock value that is becoming more pervasive in the halls of WEEI. At this point, the morning show doesn’t even talk about sports, they talk about other journalists, politics, and most of all other hosts of the station. WEEI has turned into nothing more than childish in-fighting between shows with younger hosts saying dumb crap in an attempt to emulate Kirk Minihane. I’m essentially done with the station at this point, let me know when it gets back to sports instead of hosts calling each names and criticizing each other. It reminds me of my days working in a warehouse with each shift claiming to be better than the one before it.

This is the reason why I stopped watching ESPN. I can’t stand Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman, both of which personify all that I can’t stand about sports media. Mindlessly shouting ?hot takes? at each other and arguing over each other for an entire show and collecting a paycheck for it doesn’t take talent, it takes the masses approving of this kind of ?reporting?. ?Hey! Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless like to yell and say dumb stuff too! Let’s give them a show!? Good idea Fox! Not that I should expect anything less from you.

Aren’t we better than this people? Do you think these hosts really believe half of the garbage they are spouting? You don’t think it’s fabricated?! Is watching Stephen A. Smith/Max Kellerman trying to form words to eloquently debate their points and shouting them at each other really entertaining? Whatever happened to just reporting the news and reporting it accurately in order to make a name for yourself instead of always going for the hot take that will get your name out there? It seems like having journalistic integrity is no longer important in our society as all of these shows have decent ratings. Apparently I just need to stay away from sports media all together.

Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Trackmania Turbo (PS4)

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Trackmania Turbo is one of those games that you think might be really repetitious and get boring quick, but is actually really sneaky good. My wife bought this game for me for Christmas and I’ve been playing it religiously ever since. This game is different from most racers because instead of racing head to head against a buddy or the CPU, you compete for the best track times in order to win medals. I know, it sounds really boring! No head to head racing?! Time trials?! Trust me, it’s probably one of the most fun racing games out there that I’ve played.

The tracks are something out of a Hot Wheels game, from crazy upside-down loop to loops, to jumping huge gaps, it’s pretty intense. Soon, you become so focused on beating the times that you don’t care that there isn’t a car next to you. There are about 200 tracks and all are short but very cool, no Forza-length tracks here, guys. In fact most of the them are under a minute long. The game is also capable of making tracks for you and you can also try other players’ tracks, making it pretty tough to run out of tracks to try out. Hint: master the e-brake because you’re going to need it on most of the tracks in the game.

The game can get frustrating at times because you will find yourself having to replay tracks many times over if you want to get the gold medal. To alleviate some of the frustration, there are checkpoints that you can hit a button and restart from which comes in handy on the gold medal tries. Silver is slightly easier to obtain but you will probably find yourself replaying some tracks a few times. Bronze is pretty easy, as long as you don’t crash too hard you should be able to get the qualifying time.

To me, the best part of the entire game is the track builder. There is something really fun about designing your own crazy little track, setting the challenge times and then seeing if your buddy can beat it. I actually think that out of all of the time I’ve spent on this game, a majority has been playing around and designing my own tracks.

I’m not a huge racing fan, but this game really surprised me. For the most part, I play it every other day and still really enjoy it. The gameplay is addictive, the tracks are entertaining and the track builder is really easy and fun. I give this game a 8.5/10

Buy it: If you’re a fan of all racing games, not just the Forzas and Gran Turismos of the gaming world. You won’t find realistic cars in this game. Just really fun racing.

Try it: If you’re a fan of arcade-style racers, but not sure if the time trial style racing is for you.

Walk by it: If you’re only a fan of realistic head to head competitive racing then this game isn’t for you.

Digital Playground

Top 10 2018 Upcoming Releases

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1. God of War 4 (PS4)

How would this not be at the top of everyone’s list?! There has not been one bad God of War game, not one. I’m pretty excited to see how the switch to Norse mythology goes. Truth be told, it was about time they rebooted away from Greek mythology. I will miss Kratos’ chains though, such an iconic weapon, but in GOW4 they will be replaced by lightning axes. The developer also said that the game will be 3x longer than God of War 3 and will have more character development. This is a must own in my book.

2. Dragonball Z Fighters (PS4, Xbox One)

I actually just finished texting Shawn about this game. This is literally the first game that 1. I’ve preordered and 2. Paid full price for. Yeah, that’s saying something about this one. I’ve had my eye on it ever since it was announced and the gameplay videos that I’ve seen look phenomenal. It’s 3 on 3 tag fighting with simplistic combo mechanics to make the fights flow as well as graphics that look straight from the anime.

3. Darksiders 3 (PS4, Xbox One)

I really enjoyed the first 2 games in the series so I’m hoping this one is just as good. I’m a big fan of the character design in these games, which is done by one of my favorite artists, Joe Madureira. If you haven’t tried the first 2, I highly recommend you give them a shot. They’re dirt cheap right now and play like a mix of God of War and Zelda.

4. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Ps Vita)

This is basically a Castlevania game.without the name. It’s designed by the same guy who created Symphony of The Night and Aria of Sorrow, both of which were some of the best Castlevania games ever made. Although it’s not Castlevania, I’m hoping some of the same rpg elements are included in Bloodstained.

5. Final Fantasy 7 Remake (PS4)

Mother of God. Finally, my 2nd favorite game of all time is getting a new coat of paint slapped on it and re-released in hd. This will most likely be another game that I pay full price for. Here’s hoping that it’s a $30 special considering that it’s a remake.

6. Earth Defense Force 5 (PS4)

I’ve briefly covered one of the Earth Defense Force games in a previous article, but in a nutshell, it’s a 3rd person shooter where you choose from different classes of futuristic military warriors and fight giant insects, robots, and other creatures. It feels like you’re in a cheesy sci fi movie but it’s ridiculously fun. The fifth game in the series looks really promising and I definitely plan on adding it to my collection when it’s released in the States.

7. Days Gone (PS4)

Yep, it’s kinda like a zombie game, the enemies aren’t zombies but are called “Freakers”, which I believe are humans who are infected with a virus. So why am I excited for this game? Because it’s true open world, you go at your own pace and choose your own path. You cruise around on your motorcycle, which holds your inventory, you craft weapons, (kinda like Dead Island), and of course get chased by massive hordes of infected and mow them down with a gun of your choice or something a little more up close and personal, like a chainsaw.

8. Mega Man 11 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch)

It’s a new Mega Man, ‘Nuff said.

9. We Happy Few (PS4, Xbox One)

This game seems like the strangest of the bunch. It’s a first person survival game that even though it’s bright and colorful, as a slightly creepy look to it. You play as a character that lives in a fictional English town where the residents are forced to take pills called “Joy” that makes them trip balls. You decide to say no to drugs and are labeled a “downer” who must be killed on sight. Sounds pretty interesting.

10. Metro Exodus (PS4, Xbox One)

Apparently this is the 3rd game in this series. I might have to hunt down the other two. This is a FPS set set in the post-apocalyptic ruins of civilization, you are trying to survive by scavenging for supplies while shooting all sorts of mutated animals. Sounds pretty straightforward.

Honorable mentions:
Soul Calibur 6, Red Dead Redemption 2, Indivisible, Metal Gear Survive

 

Digital Playground

Gotta Tilt ‘Em All

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Introduction

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about my latest trip to the past. No, I have not unlocked the secrets of time travel. Well, not directly. Instead, it’s about how my trip to The Quarters with Liam sparked an interest in retro video games again. I basically ran through all of the retro video games that I’ve been playing from most recent all the way back to my gaming roots with the Atari 2600.

In that article, I wrote a bit about Pokemon Pinball. Unlike some of the other games on the list, it is not my favorite game on the system. It might not even be top 5. Saying that it isn’t top 10 would be a stretch. Perhaps, one of these days, I will get around to putting together a top 10 list for all of the games that I’ve played by system and then overall. Until then, I waffle!

Note to self: Buy a new waffle maker.

The point of the waffle is that while the game isn’t my favorite game on the Game Boy Advance, any time I get my hands on the technology to play GBA games, this is one of the first ones that I play. Usually, it is the first game that I load up to test that the technology works. Then, I end up playing it through an entire game. Usually when I load a game to test, I just load it and then move on to a more fun game. Not Pokemon Pinball. You can read my other article to get my theory of why I use a game other than A Link to the Past or Final Fantasy III, which are my favorite games on the system depending on when you ask. But, it mostly has to do with my father, pinball memories, as a kid, and Zelda and FFIII are very long games that would suck me in for hours instead of 15-20 minutes at a time.

The Good

I’ve played both this game and Sonic Spinball. If I remember correctly, I played Sonic Spinball first. While fun and enjoyable for what it was, it didn’t fully emulate the pinball experience that I’m looking for. That’s one thing that has so far eluded me from my childhood. I haven’t been able to properly capture that feeling of putting a quarter into a pinball machine, plunge the plunger, flip the flippers, and nudge it here and there right up to the point of TILT!

Sure, there are actual pinball emulators like PinMAME (which might not even be a thing anymore). But, unlike the video game emulators that I play and can order controllers for them, I haven’t found an controller for pinball that has all of the controls I mentioned above. I can recapture the memories of all of the tables I used to play. I just can’t get the proper feel.

Then again, I have recently discovered these things. They’re costly and big, but we have a gameroom upstairs and a possible den in the basement.

Sonic Spinball has Sonic as the pinball. Admittedly, that is a fun and interesting gimmick. However, it takes away some of the “peril” of playing pinball because Sonic can grab the edge and save himself from the side alleys. Also, being able to “advance” into higher boards is much more of a video game that pinball feel. Spinball is fun and writing about it now makes me want to play it again. I’m just not playing it to play pinball.

Pokemon Pinball comes as close as a video game ever has to giving me the total pinball experience. The pinball is a Pokeball. It’s also a great gimmick that fits in with the franchise. But, other than using it to catch Pokemon, it acts exactly like a pinball. If you get caught in that side alley and don’t have your Pikachu meter filled, you’re going to have a bad time.

The boards are able to change, but they only change what Pokemon you are able to catch based on the “area” of the game you are in. There are bonus stages, so it’s still got some of that video game feel. There are bumpers that give you bonus modifier to your score. There are alleys, buttons, and “hidden” areas that all lead to different game modes. It is just a great pinball simulator and video game mixed together. Just about the best of both worlds.

The Bad

It’s not exactly pinball. It neither claims nor tries to be. Still, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes I’m just looking to play pinball. I like video games and I play them because they are fun. I also like pinball and would like to be able to play them every now and again. I could buy one of those virtual machines from the picture above. It’s just that they are so dang expensive and I might be the only one in the house that would play it. Who knows? Maybe the boys would find it and have some fun with it.

Okay, okay, I get it. First world problems, amirite?

I could also stop talking about it and just go visit the new pinball parlor that opened up in a nearby town. We’ve been to The Quarters a few times now and I want to make it more of a regular trip because this last one was so much fun. Maybe the trip to the pinball place could be a trial run to see if the boys would get use out of the virtual machine were I to buy it. Then again, maybe if I go to the pinball place, it will inspire me to buy the silly thing and that would be a difficult explanation to Christine.

In the meantime, I am limited to as close to pinball as possible. Again, yes, not the worst predicament in the world. Pokemon Pinball is very close to real pinball, but it isn’t real pinball. Therefore, even when I play it, I get something resembling a warm and fuzzy nostalgic feeling, but not quite the exact feeling.

The Ugly

The slogan of Pokemon is, of course, Gotta Catch ‘Em All. I have never done so in an actual Pokemon game. I’ve never even attempted to do so. I doubt that I ever will considering that I’m an adult with other responsibilities and there are almost 1000 Pokemon in the newer games. Okay, that’s not entirely true. When I was playing Sun last year, I did try to capture all of the Pokemon on the opening island before moving on to the next island. That’s mainly the reason that I never made it to the second island.

I just image searched “all Pokemon” and this is the first image. I have no idea if it really shows all Pokemon, but it does give you an idea of how crazy this game has become.

Seeing as how I made that insane attempt, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that I would try to catch all 151 original Pokemon included in this game. I don’t know how difficult that is nor how long that will take, but I imagine that it could take an ugly amount of time and I might look at the achievement in a similar light as my butterfly catching days in Skyrim. That is to say, when all is said and done, how proud of myself will I actually be to say that I “caught ’em all?”

The Verdict

Pokemon Pinball is a fun video game that is as close to a pinball game as I’ve ever played. If you miss pinball, don’t want to spend 800 dollars on a virtual pinball machine that you might not even have room for in your house and would have to hide from your significant other, this is the game to play. However, you won’t get the full pinball experience and that might be an issue. I still fully support and endorse this game. Go tilt ’em all!

Digital Playground

Opening Pandora’s Box

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Every Christmas Eve my parents and older sister come over to our place to have a family Christmas party. Every year it’s a lot of fun, and every year my sister ends up surprising me with a gaming related gift. One year it was a Nintendo 3DS, another a Sony PSP,..etc. This year she dragged in a fairly large box that had me perplexed. When it came time to exchange gifts I noticed that she had stopped opening her gifts from me and my soon-to-be wife and was just watching me open the massive box. At that point, I knew that she had one-upped me again. Inside the box was a massive arcade board called Pandora’s Box. At this point I’m sure some of you are asking, ?What the heck is that??. While some of you might already know but are apprehensive about buying one. Regardless, I’ve been playing it for almost a month at this point so I thought a review might be helpful. Let’s get into it:

What is it?:

Pandora’s Box is an arcade emulator. It’s a fairly large board with two sets of controls consisting of 8 way joysticks and 6 buttons for each player as well as a pause button and 2 insert coin buttons (don’t worry it’s set on Free Play right out of the box). It measures a little over 2 A? feet long and a foot wide. Inside is a JAMMA motherboard pre-loaded with 800+ arcade games. Note: I have the Pandora’s Box 4S, other versions come with more or less games depending on which one you pick. It has its own power supply, HDMI cable, USB lightning cable, VGA monitor cable, internal speakers, a neon light that illuminates the board when powered on and depending on your taste, you can order one with a SFV, KOF, Tekken, MVC, background. Mine came with a King of Fighters background and while the board looks like a glass top it’s really a sturdy plastic.

The Review:

So how does it work? Well, you power it on and after the title screen, a list of the games appears. Highlight a title and a neat trailer for each game plays on the right hand side of the screen. Choose a game and a catchy vintage tune plays while the game loads. The loading time is fairly quick, I think the longest I’ve experienced to date is maybe 15 seconds with the majority of the games loading under 10 seconds. The games look fantastic on a 1080p TV with nothing looking overly pixelated, expect for the Atari games, because, well, they’re Atari. The controls are really responsive with no noticeable lag time and a majority of the games that I’ve played didn’t suffer from slow down. I’ll say it again: the majority of the games *I played* had no slow down at all. So let’s get down to business; what games does thing come with? Well, I don’t have the time or energy to list all of 815 games that are preloaded on the console but I will name some of my personal favorites. Note: some of the games pre-loaded are duplicates in a way, i.e you get the Japanese and English versions of the game. This isn’t the case for all of the games however, I would say out of the 815 probably 700 of them are not duplicated. Ok! Onto the list!

King of Fighter 97, 98, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03 (all versions of each)
Snk vs Capcom Plus
Samurai Shodown 5
Rage of Dragons
Metal Slug (All versions of all Metal Slug games)
The Last Blade
Shock Troopers 1 & 2
Knights of the Round 1 & 2
The Punisher
Strider
Golden Axe
The Simpsons
Alien vs Predator
Sunset Riders
Rambo 3
Sengoku 1 – 3
Ninja Commando
Mutation Nation
Street Fighter 3 (all versions)
Street Fighter 2 (all versions)
Waku Waku 7
Mortal Kombat
Art of Fighting 1-3
Prehistoric Isle
Raiden
Super Contra
Super Sidekicks 1-3
Neo Bomberman
Bomberman World
WWF Wrestlefest
Puzzle Fighter 2 (all versions)
Mega Man 2
WindJammers
Dungeons and Dragons 1 & 2
X-Men
Cadash
Captain America and the Avengers
Marvel Super Heroes
X-Men vs Street Fighter
World Heroes (all versions of all games)
Pacman
Super Pacman
Galaga
Burning Fight
Vampire Hunter
Vampire Hunter 2
Street Fighter Alpha 1-3
Street Fighter Zero 1-3
Ninja Combat
Ghouls and Ghosts
Red Earth
Double Dragon
Double Dragon Plus
AeroFighters 1 & 2
R Type 1 & 2

Whew! That’s really just the tip of the iceberg with this machine. There are a ton of good games that I couldn’t name off the top of my head (there’s a really, really cool Mega Man fighter that I can’t remember the name of right now), and even more games that I just haven’t had the time to actually try. Ok, so what’s my verdict? Well, it’s tricky because there are so many positive qualities of Pandora’s Box but one glaring ugly one. I think the best way to sum this up is the same way Shawn structures his review articles; the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good:
-You get 815 of some of the best arcade games ever released with the ability to add others via the USB lightning cable.
-The internal speaker sounds pretty good and creates a feeling of being in an arcade as does the board lighting up.
-The games look really good and look exactly like they did in the arcade.
-Controls work well. I had seen a couple of reviews before I owned this where some people claimed that the 2nd player controls didn’t work and it kind of kept me away from this machine. Thankfully my console arrived without any bugs and functioning perfectly and I’m seeing other reviews saying the same thing.

The Bad:
-The buttons feel a little on the cheap side. They do supply you with some backup buttons as well as the option to upgrade the buttons to higher quality when you order.
-No Marvel vs Capcom 2?! No Mortal Kombat 2?! No Killer Instinct?! Okay, okay, I can just go download the ROMs and add them in but still, you have 8 versions of Street Fighter Frickin’ 2 but no Splatterhouse?! C’mon!

The Ugly:
-The price tag. Depending on the version it will cost between $220-$399. Yikes. Looks like I owe my sister a TV.

Digital Playground

Return to River City

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I was perusing Amazon a few months ago when something caught my eye in the Nintendo 3DS section of the website. It was a new River City Ransom game, River City Ransom: Tokyo Rumble (technically not new as it had been available for almost a year) and also another one, Rival Showdown, that was available for preorder! I was instantly transported back to my childhood as I fumbled wildly for my debit card.

I still fondly remember walking with my dad every Saturday morning to the video rental store down the street from my house when I was 10 years old. Besides the armful of horror movies he would rent for himself and the few Godzilla movies we would watch over and over again (All VHS, I’m old, kids), we would always go to the NES section and pick out a game for us to play together. Usually he would pick out a sports game like Bases Loaded or Blades of Steel but I remember one Saturday he pointed out River City Ransom and asked if I would want to try it. I wholeheartedly agreed. As much fun as sports games are they had become repetitive and I always had my eye on Double Dragon, and well, this game looked a lot like Double Dragon which unfortunately was always rented out.

Now usually when you ask someone which was the first game that converted them into a gamer, you will hear the typical responses of ?Super Mario Brothers, Pacman, Contra,..etc. For me, River City Ransom was that game. It was the first game where I didn’t want to stop playing. Even after we would get tuned up, there was no frustration, no rage quitting, we just kept grinding away, earning money to buy books to obtain special moves in order to get farther next time. We adopted the old ridiculous 2 player beat ?em up strategy of ?I’ll take the top of the screen and you stay on the bottom so we don’t hit each other.? Inevitably this would lead to us running around the screen like maniacs completely disregarding our ?strategy?. Well, me more so than him.

I vividly remember one such instance of this happening. It was actually near the beginning of the game, we were fighting one of the street gangs and were outnumbered 5-2. My dad, at the top of the screen, was basically a punching bag as 3 of the baddies surrounded him, I knocked out the 2 guys who focused their attention on me and grabbed a tire that one had dropped. For once I felt like I was better than my dad at a game! Every game that we played, my dad would be better than me, which, in hindsight would make sense since he was 32 at the time. But in my little 10 year old pea brain, it was my time to shine! I was going to be the hero! I boldly walked into forbidden grounds (A.K.A the top part of the screen, A.K.A dad’s territory, A.K.A the scene of my greatest victory) and threw the tire into the crowd’completely flattening my dad’s character as the 2 enemies who were now left turned their attention to me and had juuuuust got out of the way. I felt my little face flush and I tried to redeem myself by laying a beating down on their pixelated faces. When it was over, I remember just seeing my dad’s character just stand there, completely still. I slowly turned my head to look at my dad who was just staring at me with amazement. I had done it. I was the man at River City Ransom. The young wolf was now the leader of the pack. I waited for the compliments to rain down on me with a little smile of pride on my face. Instead:

?Where’s your guy right now??

?Uh..top of the screen..??

?Where’s it supposed to be??

?Uh..bottom of the screen..??

?Oh! Good! You aren’t deaf’ Nancy! Good news, the boy isn’t deaf! He just doesn’t listen!?

Sigh.

So after reaffirming that I did in fact know that I belonged on the bottom of the screen, we picked up our controllers and started again.

WHOMP!

The same tire completely waffled me as my dad started chuckling to himself. At this point this particular session of River City Ransom turned into Street Fighter as we decided to duke it out.

We actually never beat the game. We came close a few times. We rented and re-rented that cartridge so many times I lost count but it just never happened. We were fortunate that everyone was still enamored with the Double Dragon titles leaving R.C.R always available to us on our weekly trips to the video store. To me, it’s more than a game, it was time well spent with my dad, trash talking the 8 bit thugs, hashing out who should pick up what weapon, and of course who belongs where on the frickin’ screen. It also sparked my love for video games which has lasted, and will last, for my entire life.

So how do these 3DS games stack up? Well, both have the same RPG elements which made the original so great, as well as tons of cool special moves to buy and learn, secret shops to find, and of course the ridiculously fun punching of pixelated faces. In my opinion, Tokyo Rumble is the better of the two as it sticks more closely to the original in terms of mechanics. That said, I’m also enjoying Rival Showdown, which introduces a time mechanic which can change the ending of the game, unlocks special moves, and events that only happen at a certain time and location. There is more interaction with NPCs that also triggers events and fights. To me the difficulty of Rival Showdown is definitely not as beginner friendly as the previous titles, (even on beginner). Here are a couple of tips:

-Don’t be afraid to run if you’re getting absolutely destroyed.
-That 3 day time limit caught me off-guard, but in reality the game isn’t over if you don’t beat it within the time limit. As I mentioned above, the clock is used to trigger events. The 3 day limit is for the ?best? ending.
-If you’re fighting an opponent and your kicks and punches are only doing ?1? damage, run. It means that their defense is higher than your attack and you should work on leveling up, find some other easier opponents to beat on and grind levels.

Tokyo Rumble is much more linear when compared to Rival Showdown, so while there is a small amount of grinding needed to level up, you are in pretty good shape as the game progresses and the difficulty is not frustrating but not too easy either. You also get CPU controlled helpers that fight alongside of you which makes some of the boss fights much easier. I beat this game in about 5 hours, so while it’s on the short side it’s really fun and there are side missions that you can take on to earn money and special items. All said it’s definitely worth the $15 price tag.

I recommend getting both games if you’re a beat ?em up fan, the RPG mechanics make the games more interesting than other games of the same genre. While it’s a lot of punching/kicking/waffling enemies with various objects, it’s fun to earn coins to buy special moves books and equipment to increase the strength of your character. Also both games come with mini games; Tokyo Rumble comes with a dodgeball game and Rival Showdown comes with a fighting game, both of which are really fun to play. Check ?em out and let us know what you think. Also, pertaining to the question posed early on in the article, which game solidified your love for gaming? I’m curious if there are any ones that fell under the radar of most people. As always, thanks for reading!

Digital Playground, On the Tabletop

The Good Old Days

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Introduction

My obsession with retro video games started with mine and Liam’s trip to The Quarters a few weeks ago. That’s no entirely true. While not often one to fall victim to nostalgia, I have always been a fan of the video games of my youth. Let’s say that my most recent obsession with retro video games started with our trip to The Quarters. It was just such a fun walk down memory lane.

XBox 360 (Skyrim/Fallout)

My second step on the nostalgia tour took me to my XBox 360, where I planned (yet again) to play and attempt to finally beat Skyrim or Fallout 3 or both. I already wrote an article about my latest experiences in Skyrim, so I don’t have to repeat myself here. In addition, due to the drive tray issues on my XBox 360, I haven’t even loaded Fallout 3. Oh well, best laid plans and all of that.

That’s not entirely true. I did test both games to make sure that they loaded.

While Skyrim didn’t (spoiler alert if you haven’t read the other article) quite sate my appetite for recaptured youth, that’s not unexpected. I only ever played Morrowind from the Elder Scrolls series and that was well after I had become (at least in the eyes of the law) an adult. I never liked Morrowind much. I did like Skyrim very much, but it also came into my life during quite a difficult time, so maybe I just need to recalibrate the game in my brain space to a happier time.

Nintendo GameCube/Sega Dreamcast (Pokemon Colosseum)

Those of you who follow and read the page regularly know that the Nintendo GameCube was a big storyline through the holidays around here. The short, short story is that Liam wanted one for Christmas, we didn’t buy one because I was confident that we still own ours, and he ultimately felt jipped by Christmas. That led to our trip to The Quarters. It also caused a wild search around the house for our old GameCube.

 

Liam also found my old Dreamcast, which further supported my theory that the GameCube must be somewhere around the house. I have my PS1, PS2, DreamCast, and Game Boy Advance. I know that I sold my N64 to a local YMCA youth program, and we gave our Wii away to a gift exchange for needy families. That is all consoles (not including the more current ones) that I have owned at one time or another. All except for that dang GameCube.

I don’t know what happened to you little buddy, but know that you are missed.

As one of our ideas to sooth Liam’s broken heart over Christmas, I decided to load up the Dreamcast. I discovered that it has a loose drive door and that it won’t load games consistently. I did get House of the Dead to the loading screen. Other than that, it keeps kicking me back to the main menu. Oh well, best laid plans and all that.

Liam did finally collect enough money by selling some gift cards he got for Christmas to buy the system and the game that he wanted for it, Pokemon Colosseum. I’m glad that we could help him come up with the money to buy it. I’ve never seen him so happy about a game. I suspect that when he’s my age, Pokemon will be one of his go to games for warm and fuzzy feelings from his youth.

Nintendo 64 (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)

I loaded this one on a whim a couple of weeks ago. It is probably my second favorite Legend of Zelda game that I’ve played behind A Link to the Past. Quinn got kicked out of the living room one night while Christine was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the older boys, so he took a seat next to me and watched me play. It has become an almost nightly date for me to sit down and play Zelda while Quinn watches and they watch Buffy or Stranger Things if it is just Christine and Aiden.

Most people hate the water temple level, but I’ve never had much of an issue with it. I am, however, currently stuck on the Jabu Jabu level.

Game Boy Advance (Pokemon Pinball)

I can’t fully explain my interest in these types of games. I do know that I played the heck out of Sonic Spinball on my Genesis when I was younger. I also grew up with a father who couldn’t really get into video games, but loved a good pinball machine. I remember going to the boardwalk and he would go up and down the line of pinball machines with his handful of quarters until he found one that he liked. Okay, maybe I can fully explain it.

The thing that I can’t explain is with all of the games that I have available to me on this system, why is this the first one that I play? I have a history with Pokemon all the way back to the first games and I played and enjoyed Pokemon Sun a couple of years ago. But, I’m not crazy about Pokemon like Liam. I don’t know. There’s just something about this game that calls to me. Maybe it just is the connection to my dad, pinball, and those memories.

Atari 2600 (Various, but mostly Frostbite right now)

And so, we return all the way back to my beginning with video games, the Atari 2600. This is the first console I ever owned, bought by my parents for Christmas one year? Maybe? I honestly don’t remember how we ended up with one in the house, but it was so cool to be able to “play the games from the arcade” in my living room. Sure, Pac-Man wasn’t even close to an accurate port, E.T. is routinely blamed for killing the console, but Mario Bros and Jungle Hunt both looked and played as close to their arcade brethren as the limited 2600 hardware allowed.

I know I ask this every time the subject comes up, but what was so bad about E.T.? I loved the game and it is one of the first games I beat.

Jungle Hunt, especially, holds a place close to my heart. I played the game in the arcade one time, plugging quarters into the machine until I finished all of the levels. I don’t remember how much money it took, but it must have been at least 5 and maybe even 10 dollars. Well, I split my head open being a dumb kid. My parents said that because I was so good when I got the stitches in my head, I could get a prize. I chose Jungle Hunt for the Atari 2600 so that I could play it at home and not have to keep dumping quarters into it.

Frostbite, Pitfall, and the other Activision titles are just very good games. I especially played Frostbite and Pitfall so much as a kid. One of my most vivid memories is playing Pitfall all the way to the end at my grandmother’s house. I don’t remember if she also bought a system or if I brought my system with me. I just remember playing it until the timer reached all zeroes.

Post Script

I’m not going to go full “back in my day” mode and argue that games were better then than they are now. That is simply not true. Graphics on modern systems are better. More memory and storage allows for better and deeper stories to be told by games. Sure the games were fun then, but they are fun now, too. The fun of games from my childhood are the fun of children. It’s the repetitive and familiar fun that will get old after a couple of weeks or months. But, I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Digital Playground

This Little Pika Went to the Gym

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Introduction

Well, a day of substitute teaching and the college championship game were enough to distract me from posting anything to either page yesterday. Therefore, I have to be extra dilligent about making sure that I start my daily posts again today. I realize that I won’t be able to update the page daily when I go back to work in a week and a half. However, if I make that the goal now, when I am teaching again, 2-3 updates per week wont’ feel so cumbersome.

I’ve done a couple of articles about Pokemon Go in the past. Like most other pages, I wrote about the improbable, unbelievable, and almost inexplicable initial success and then the inevitable crash of the game. Since then, I have played the game on a semi-regular basis. Quinn wanted to do his little kid podcast about Pokemon this week, so I thought this is as good a time as any to revisit the game.

The Good

When the game first released, there were words upon words to create paragraphs and pages (if pages still existed in their traditional form in our digital world) about the exercise benefits of the game. It inspired people to get out into the outside world by leading them to new or possibly previously unexplored places. Gyms gave important items like potions and eggs. In order to hatch the eggs, you needed to walk 2, 5, or 10k.

The phenomenon was so ubiquitous that it married an established meme and had little meme babies.

Any time you went to a new place, you opened up the app to see what new types of Pokemon might be available in that area. We went to the beach and I remember being excited when I saw and caught my first Staryu. After the beach, we went to a restaurant and Quinn and I had way too much fun taking pictures of Pokemon on our food plates. Just as unlikely as getting people to go outside and exercise, Pokemon Go got them to interact socially.

In addition to taking those pictures and posting them online, you could always recognize another Pokemon Go player. I know that we aren’t supposed to stereotype, but anytime you saw someone who was just a bit too pale for the time of year and they were looking at their phone, there was a good chance that they were playing Pokemon Go. At the beginning, all you could do was tip your hoodie to them, trade war stories, and maybe contact information depending on how brave you felt. Niantic promised other ways to interact, but they were slow in implementing them.

It doesn’t make it any better, but this is always the reaction to new and interesting things. “Wow, this thing is very interesting! You should check it out!” *later* “God, I liked this thing so much better when there weren’t so many people interested in it.”

One of the ways that have finally been brought into the game that have allowed people to get together and be social is raids. The only experience I have with raids is that it looked like one was going on during our trip to the aquarium in Woods Hole, someone posted something on Facebook about one happening in town in an attempt to get a group (but it never happened) and I foolishly tried to solo one that was happening down the street. I didn’t get a chance to try the raid while on the Cape for a couple of reasons, but I wish I had just taken the time to check it out. Living in a small town without many tech or gaming savvy people strikes again as I haven’t gotten an opportunity like that since.

The Bad

Because of the community aspect of raiding, as I just mentioned, I don’t get any chances to experience what is now a fundamental part of the game. As a result, I’m stuck playing the game as it was released. Walking down the street to the local Wal*Mart, I keep an eye out for Pokemon and hope that 10k egg hatches into something interesting or fun. Look, I’m not one to needless complain about something and I hope that’s not what this sounds like. I mean, I am complaining (and it may be needless because there are ways to combat the isolation), but I also think I have a valid point.

Okay, okay. I get the point. At least I’ll hatch a ton of eggs.

Because, other than the raids, there aren’t a ton of new features. I think I saw something about weather effects determining Pokemon spawns and there are new Pokemon, which I said earlier is one of the most fun parts of the game (and in fact the reason that the games exists), but some of the most anticipated features have not been included in the game. There are no trainer battles. There is no trading of Pokemon. Those, too, are integral to the games and need to be a part of this game for it to ever be considered in the same league as the other games.

The Ugly

I did an article about Mario Run before Thanksgiving. That is another Nintendo property that has made the move to mobile. I enjoy that game quite a bit and a major reason why is that Nintendo hasn’t given into the real money pressure that mobile puts on developers. Most mobile games give you the full game, but to get the full experience, players quickly realize that they have to pay real money for items or experience. Mario Run has none of that and it is a refreshing oasis in the salty sea of P2E (Pay to Exist) of the rest of the mobile gaming library.

I was careful earlier to call Mario Run a Nintendo property. Nintendo owns that one and they developed the game. However, Pokemon Go is a Nintendo property, but Niantic has made the actual game. That was important in the article that I wrote about Pokemon Go user base crashing once people realized just how limited the game was and it was even worse than now. I said then that the game felt like a beta test that somehow made it to release. That’s not the ugly anymore. The game still feels unfinished, but it’s getting better.

My main complaint about the game is that Niantic has embraced the real money trend that I dislike so much. They aren’t pushing it as much as other games. It isn’t necessary to buy things to advance in the game. However, I have noticed that when I logged in a few times or checked out the webpage or social media for the game, they’ve been testing the waters a bit with taking that route.

99 cents to win the game? What is the objective of the game? To remove the ads?

The Verdict

Look, I get that game companies need to make money. I also get that this is the environment that mobile games have grown up in and that it is harder to get people to pay money up front for games that are so simple that they can fit on your phone. However, phones are getting more powerful and some of the games are more interesting and have as good or better gameplay than their console counterparts. It only takes one success before others start to attempt to mimic that success. If Pokemon Go can just resist the P2W siren song and start to build back up its user base, maybe it can lead to a new era in mobile gaming.

That’s certainly not going to happen if they don’t implement those features that are missing. Since the early announcement that they were thinking/considering/dreaming of possibly thinking about maybe putting together a committee that might introduce trading and trainer battles to the game I have not heard any more discussion along those lines. It’s probably tough to make them happen, but it would be nice to get an update about the possible update. Oh well, I will just continue to try to find funny pictures to post on our Instagram and get excited every time that new Pokemon type pops up on the screen when I open the app.