Monday Update: 9/1/2014

Pilotwings 64 (N64): Third Appearance, Second Straight Appearance
This lasted a second week somehow. I love this game, I guess. It's a flight simulator, but a flight simulator with pizazz and personality (I took those terms from a poster by my desk in the third grade). In most simulators you fly realistic planes in realistic locations and eventually we get bored and fly the planes as far up as they can go and then watch them fall back down to earth, by then the class period has begun and our 8th grade industrial tech teacher wants us to make balsa wood towers or something. Mr. White rarely had anything really planned for us.

Anyways I can't say much about Pilotwings that I haven't already said. Still a good game.

Trials Fusion (XBONE): Fifth Appearance, Third Straight Appearance

played like a champ

NCAA Football 2014 (XB360): Second Appearance, Last Appearance 5/26/14
I stopped playing this game last summer because I figured out that I wasn't good at defense in the new game. I tried again because let me tell you I literally sat in a chair on Saturday and exclusively watched football all day. I like football. This is my thing I wrote about said subject.

Anyway I tried playing with Illinois again (in the 2017 season now, my fifth in-game) and I figured something out. In NCAA Football 2005 and 07, I would routinely shut teams out. Defense was the way I succeeded, and has always been how I succeeded. I wrote a thing about that too. However, I couldn't figure out how to do it well on NCAA 14, so when it came time to play both ends, I just quit. However, Saturday, I figured something out:

I'm still good at defense.

Halo: Combat Evolved (XBOX): First Appearance
Sunday night was Halo night with my family. I am the only one who is good at Halo in my immediate family.

Mario Kart 8 (WII U): Third Appearance, Last Appearance 6/30/14
Sunday night soon became Mario Kart night. I am only fairly good at Mario Kart, not nearly as good as Laurie. I didn't actually know that there was new DLC coming out in the next few months, with Zelda and Animal Crossing characters, so that opens up a whole new number of possibilities for Mario Kart and they can't go back on it like they did with Pac-Man in the arcade game. So, I have compiled a list of possible characters for Mario Kart 9:
-Captain Falcon
-Pac-Man
-Ricky Winterborn
-Dog from Duck Hunt
-Geno
-Mallow
-Tony Hawk
-Moe from The Simpsons
-Pikablue
-Great Web Design
-Wasting time online

Monday Update: 8/25/14

Last week was Band Camp, so there was no update, which was fine because there wasn't much that I did two weeks ago anyway. This update encompasses the past two weeks.

Trials Fusion (XBONE): Fourth Appearance, Second Straight Appearance
The developers behind Trials Fusion know how to create a difficult course. Granted, difficult doesn't have to mean that it isn't still fun. Even after 40+ faults in some cases (I'm really bad at this game), I've still been driven to at least finish courses, even if I won't get a great score on them. Also, I found out way too late in game that you can go backwards at the start of some courses:

NBA 2K14 (XBONE): Fifth Appearance, Fifth Straight Appearance
The original title for this video was "b'doop" but I felt that an impromptu Robin Williams almost-tribute was better (?)

 (Note: 2K14 would have missed the update if we only included the past 7 days)

Pilotwings 64 (N64): Second Appearance, Last Appearance 6/23/14
If you remember what I said last time about how I play weird games during the first few weeks of any venture (be it school, summer camp, etc.) this shouldn't be a surprise. I now live alone in a dorm room, and currently hooked up on my TV are an XBOX One and a Nintendo 64. The XBOX gets used mainly for TV purposes and Trials Fusion (as my Cable connection is grainy and some channels don't get sound) and the N64 gets used for trying to fly a person on a jetpack through multi-colored rings in a small scale replica of the United States.

Pilotwings 64 gets overlooked for being a flight simulator and not having much of an end-goal (as well as being released alongside Mario 64 and thus confined to being just a launch game with pretty graphics) but there's a solid game underneath it. I don't want to give away too many opinions here because you'll hear more of them in a video soon.

Doom 64 (N64): Second Appearance, Last Appearance 8/4/14
Sometimes critics will refer to Mature rated games with adult themes as "dark." This is generally used to describe a game's atmosphere and to tell possible customers that they'll be dealing with something more adult oriented than the typical affair. Doom 64 is just dark. Not that shooting demons isn't 'adult' and 'dark' as well, but Doom 64 just has a severe lighting problem and I had to turn up the brightness on my TV to figure out what was going on.

Monday Update: 6/23/14

Mario Kart 64 (N64): First Appearance
I'm gonna do something about this game soon. Clay and I enjoyed this title yesterday. Have you ever noticed how amazingly easy it is to fall off a ledge and not be picked up by Lakitu, but end up on the road behind you having lost time and position in the race. This happened to me on Choco Mountain, Royal Raceway, and Frappe Snowland. (actually, on Frappe Snowland, I fell into some water between a jump and the rest of the track and was unable to work up the momentum to continue going so I had to turn all the way around and then build up more momentum because the game replaces you on the track in no position to build up speed). Mario Kart 64 is not my favorite Mario Kart, but damn if it isn't one of the most interesting.

Adventure (Atari VCS): First Appearance
I read a book about this game so I figure I better talk at least a little bit about it.  Crazy how games like that, games that are 35+ years old, can still be readily enjoyed by friends. Clay and I tried streaming it and then figured out that we had possibly the dumbest problem of all time happen, wherein I had the stream itself playing in one window and you could hear us talking and then us repeating ourselves a few seconds later in what must have been the most confusing thing of all time. But hey, Adventure is still enjoyable.

Pilotwings 64 (N64): First Appearance
This is such a weird game but I love every second of it. I never enjoyed flight simulators all that much (except for Microsoft Flight Simulator 98, which was installed on the computers in my 8th grade industrial technology class and was about the only thing we had planned for stretches of about a week at a time). Pilotwings really isn't any typical flight simulator, though. Also if it looks like I'm playing a bunch of N64 games from 1996-97, it's because I am, I'm trying to collect N64 games and I'm going to do it... Chronologically. Starting with the games from 1996 (I currently have 5 of the first 8, missing Shadows of the Empire, KI Gold, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy at the moment).

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (GBC): First Appearance
I played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for the Game Boy Color and it went about as well as you'd guess.

So that updates you on most of the things going on in my life games-wise. What a weird ass week.