video game culture

Being a Wandering Warrior

JettLeave a comment

When I first started following the world of fighting games seriously in 2009, I stumbled across a weird sentiment that a number of older players in the scene had with regards to Street Fighter IV. I got the sense that a number of the best players from Street Fighter III: Third Strike had their issues with the latest installment, choosing to stay behind while Street Fighter IV became a global phenomenon. At the time, I didn’t think that the particulars could be such a dividing factor that top players would abandon being part of the fighting game resurgence to stick with a “dead game”.

It’s 2018 now, and the shoe is on the other foot. Fighting games are bigger than ever, with Street Fighter V leading the pack. However, my personal qualms with the game, along with my nostalgia for “the good old days”, caused me to hop off the hype train around mid-2017. Since then, I’ve found myself bouncing around from title-to-title, looking for a place to engage in cyber fisticuffs in hopes that maybe I can find a new “home” someday.

Continue reading →

Ranking the Games Featured on the NES Classic

Jett1 Comment

The NES Classic Mini is back! Assuming it hasn’t sold out again, of course, which is a very real possibility.

To celebrate, let’s rank the games on the console from worst to best! I’m sure you’ll disagree with my picks, so share your rankings with me in the comments!

Continue reading →

Dead or Alive 6 and its Fight for Legitimacy

Jett2 Comments

A few years back, I bought Dead or Alive 5 almost on a lark. It was part of an EB Games one-day-only sale for an incredibly low price and my curiousity got the best of me. As a fighting game enthusiast, I figured a few bucks here could at least give me a base knowledge of what the franchise was about, beyond the obvious fan service factor. To my surprise, I found a quality fighting game underneath the scantily-clad characters and exaggerated…physics. Though I didn’t stick with the game for too long, I came away from it far more enthused about its gameplay than its saucy presentation.

Had I not run into that deal-of-the-day with money to burn, I probably would still be a stranger to the franchise, as the stigma around its provocative presentation has been a deterrent for me. I imagine many others feel the same way. However, with the recent announcement of Dead or Alive 6 at E3 2018, it looks like Koei Tecmo wants to change that.

Continue reading →

E3 and our Wedding Anniversary

JettLeave a comment

E3 is the Super Bowl of video game news. Since that first event in 1995, I’ve been glued to my computer, hitting refresh like crazy and absorbing all of the news that came in. As a gaming enthusiast, it’s a thrill to get first dibs on this news and chat about it with others to the point where I would put everything aside so I could focus on this.

Then, in 2016, something more important happened.

Continue reading →

Boss Rush: Episode 2

Video JettLeave a comment

Jett, Jason, and JJ talk about Jason’s Overwatch cosplay, Dark Souls Remastered, Pokemon Quest, and many other titles. We also participate in the Nintendo 64 game draft? Which game got picked first? Which games got snubbed?! You’ll have to watch to find out!

Buy The Nintendo Labo Variety Kit Now From Amazon.com

Green Man Gaming has made cost-per-hour as a value metric a thing

JettLeave a comment

Back in 2010, I tackled the hypothetical-at-the-time metric of cost-per-hour relative to valuing a video game. Even in my cursory glance at the challenge, I poked a few glaring holes in the idea to the point where it didn’t make sense to me as a worthwhile metric. In spite of that, it appears that Green Man Gaming has implemented cost-per-hour as a metric on its storefront. No, they didn’t find the magic workaround to make the metric make sense, and I vehemently disagree with Green Man Gaming’s CEO Paul Sulyok’s defense of its implementation.

Continue reading →

Thinking Through My Approach to Retro Game Collecting Going Forward

Jett1 Comment

Save for a brief moment in time when video game collecting was a coping mechanism for the harsh realities of adulthood, video game collecting has been more of a side-effect of being a gaming enthusiast. I bought what I wanted and didn’t really let stuff go. After moving into a house and getting a bunch of my brother and I’s Nintendo 64 and Gamecube stuff, I’m currently sitting on a pretty decent collection that looks really cool in my display units.

Now that I have all of this stuff back in my possession and a gaming setup that can capture and stream these old games, it has the gears in my head turning. What if I could build on this even further? What if I could make this the gaming collection of my dreams? Before I potentially veer deep into the game collecting rabbit hole, here are some of my thoughts before making the jump.

Continue reading →

A Personal Retro Revival?

Jett1 Comment

I’ve always had a soft spot for the classics. Having grown up through most of the history of video games, there’s a nostalgia there that gets me in the feels every time. That said, retro gaming is not a part of my day-to-day life. I have a few retro consoles on display in an entertainment unit, with all of the games tucked away in shoe boxes in the bottom compartment.

There are numerous reasons why this is the case. For one, I like to keep up with the zeitgeist, so modern gaming takes up the vast majority of my time. Two, hooking up retro consoles to a modern TV is a huge pain. Thirdly, there was a time in my life where I used retro game collecting as a means of avoiding the harsh realities of adulthood. Once I got my mind right, collecting moved to the back burner.

Due to recent events, the classics may receive a second wind in my world.

Continue reading →

Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Caught Me By Surprise

JettLeave a comment

When Microsoft announced the inclusion of backwards compatibility into the Xbox One, I shrugged. It seemed to me like a half-hearted retort to Sony rapidly outpacing them in market share, combined with a band-aid solution to Microsoft not having enough exclusive games to make the Xbox One a more appealing product. On top of that, I’m generally not one to spend much time retreading games I’ve previously played or missed at their peak.

Recently though, my Xbox One copy of Far Cry 5 came in the mail, and I fired up the console for the first time in a while. Sitting in my queue were downloads for some awesome Xbox 360 games from my past that I could play right now without having to buy a remaster. It was the first time I really put any thought into the feature and in retrospect, it’s kind of cool.

There are hundreds of games from the Xbox 360 and original Xbox library that you can play right now on your Xbox One. At some point, I do want to make content relating to this “secret” treasure trove of games hiding right under our noses. Stay tuned!

Buy the Xbox One X Now From Amazon.com