World Ten: Favourite Games of 2012

As a way to polish off the year, I wanted to highlight my favourite games of 2012. These are in no particular order, bear in mind...because all of these games are fuckin' amazing and you should be sure to check them out! Hope you enjoy, and let's get to it!

------------------------------------------

Quick Thoughts: Nintendo Wii U

Very recently, the Nintendo Wii U was released, for which I placed a preorder a couple of months ago when they were first available. I've been playing that system a lot recently, obviously. It's a brand new toy after all, and it's also generally a pretty damn sweet system so far! Here are some small blurbs about the system and some of the games I've been playing recently for it:

Gaming Grads!!!

Myself and a friend have gathered up some gear and decided to have some fun spreading our horrible personalities across the vast plains of YouTube. We're basically gonna play some manageable games together while ripping on each other's gaming performances, make cracks about the game content, and generally just have a damn good time and (hopefully) be entertaining for you people as well!

We just uploaded our very first video for our playthrough of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards this evening. If you like it or are easily manipulated, be sure to subscribe and get the latest updates on the channel! Share it with your friends and spread the gaming joy!

Check out our channel right here!

Enjoy it, and if you have any comments be sure to post them. We have tons of games to choose from and can likely get our hands on more...any suggestions are welcome!

- Adam

What's the deal with Resident Evil 6?

Resident Evil 6 came out just a while ago, at the beginning of October. At first I was pretty apprehensive about picking it up, because the folks at Capcom have been a bunch of assholes lately. They've made some horrible choices with DLC distribution, rehashed multiple games multiple times for a quick dollar, and canceled every single Megaman project under the sun, seemingly throwing the Blue Bomber to the curb. Resident Evil 6 looked okay to me, but had gotten some very negative press when the demo first arrived.

I kept an eye on things however, and lots of good information started to crop up. Word of a 30-hour campaign spanning 3 different characters started floating around, making this the largest main-line Resident Evil game to date. Afterwards, a 4th campaign was mentioned as well, adding more and more to the meat of the game. The controls were apparently tightened up, some camera issues were fixed, and overall it seemed like this game was in good shape after a fairly rocky start. I decided to pick it up...that's a lot of game content and well-worth a purchase.

Just a quick mention...

Today I noticed that my blog breached the 20,000 view mark! Thanks a lot for reading my shitty writing and/or humouring me!

Seriously though, I hope you're all finding the content on this site fun and interesting, and hopefully learning a few things about classic games as well! If you have any suggestions be sure to leave a comment either here or on the DtC Facebook page. Also, if you know anyone who might take an interest in my blog, be sure to link them here!

August happenings!

Hey everyone,

There are two links that are currently keeping me intrigued and will continue to do so until the end of the month. Figured I'd relay them quickly!

The Thrill of the Hunt

You may have recently heard about a massive collection of video games in Paris that contained complete, factory-sealed collections for the NES and Sega Genesis, among other systems. This giant trove of nostalgia wound up auctioning off for about...oh, over 1 million dollars and was purchased by a fellow Canadian. This is all pretty cool stuff...it would be amazing to have a full collection for even any one single system, let alone multiple, and I'd personally love to one day acquire a full NES game collection. Obviously this would involve a lot of cash, but I like to think that everyone's allowed to have one expensive hobby.

Oh, and one more thing...

Defend the Classics now has a page on Facebook! You can access it by clicking this hyperlinked text, or by checking out the updated Links to the Past section at the right side of the page.

SEND ME YOUR LIKES! SHOW YOUR FRIENDS!

Item Acquired: 4 NES games!

Over the last couple of weeks, I've managed to get my hands on 4 new games for the NES collection! I managed to snag three of them from a vendor at a (relatively) local farmer's market when I was visiting some friends, while I snagged the final one just today. Let's take a look, shall we?

Item Acquired: Chrono Trigger

My previous blog post described a few games that I managed to snag, with a bit of a small cliffhanger at the end. I’m sure all ten of you are just teetering on the edge of your fuckin’ seats in anticipation to find out what the heck it was that I also found during my NES game hunt. Well, I’ll show you:

Not bad!

That’s right, Chrono Trigger. This bad boy cost me 35 bucks, which is ridiculously cheap for a physical copy of Chrono Trigger, even one that’s not in the best of shape! Let me put it this way: I was always under the impression that in order to get my greasy nerd hands on a SNES cartridge of Chrono Trigger again, I would have to pay $120 to someone on eBay.

“Wait a second,” I’m sure you’re thinking. “What did he mean by ‘again’?”

Or maybe you’re not thinking that at all, but read ahead anyway!

Axiom Verge

I wanted to write something up about a sweet lookin' game that's slated to be coming out in 2013. Planned for release for the PC and XBox 360 as a downloadable title, Axiom Verge appears to be...fucking...amazing...*drool*

See for yourself!

Official trailer from the Axiom Verge website.

With a sweet retro graphical style and awesome-sounding music, this game seems to be hitting all the right notes with me and I may have peed a little when I first saw this video. The action looks tight and intense, and the atmosphere and setting appear to be absolutely unsettling and brooding in the best retro sci-fi way possible. The official site even states the following:

"Axiom Verge takes its inspiration from greats such as Blaster Master, Contra, Bionic Commando, Rygar, Cave Story, and, of course, Metroid."

Wow...so basically elements from six awesome games are all packed into this sweet little gem! Sign me up, cause I'm keeping an eye on this one, and you damn well should be, too...trust me. Once this game is safely in my hands, you can expect a thorough review of it. Of course, that won't be for a while since the release is a bit far off...but I'm already looking forward to writing it.

E3 ROUNDUP!!!!!

This year's Electronics Entertainment Expo has come and gone, and with it came an initial peak of intense hype at first...followed by what seems to be a generally agreed-upon "Meh" afterwards. I was absolutely pumped for this year's E3. For starters, Nintendo was going to give us specifics on their new console, the Wii U, as well as a lineup of games that were on the slate for it. This alone was enough to get me riled up...just the thought of seeing what would come out of their conference, but of course there were other potential points of interest as well. Conferences were on the way from Microsoft, Sony, EA, and Ubisoft...and within all of those presentations, there had to be some amazing things!

A Fixer-Upper

A couple of days ago, I swung by a local video game store to check out their selection. Since I just moved to a new town/apartment, I've been trying to at least get out and explore and see what the heck is around me...video game outlets included. I had checked this particular store out the week prior and saw that they had NES games, but their selection was limited at the time. This Friday however, I went back and had another look (since I wanted to pre-order a game and also look for my own copy of Shadows of the Damned) and to my happiness, I found two games that I was really interested in grabbing: Double Dragon and A Boy and His Blob.

Profound Sadness: Mistakes and Consequences

Just recently, I acquired a copy of Dr. Mario for the NES. Actually, that's incorrect...I RE-acquired a copy of Dr. Mario for the NES from a local vendor. My own copy was lost to me years ago due to an unfortunate occurrence that I am still trying to rectify to this day.

Games list updated!

I have updated the list of games that I've played with 19 new ones I've checked out. You can observe this disgusting tally of sadness here!

This brings my total up to 910 now, and I've probably forgotten a couple. Either way, pretty gross!

"Been a long time...comrade."

This is my guilty post. I haven't posted anything on this site since January as things have been pretty damn busy and there's been a lot of rushing around and I just haven't had the time to post anything lately. I tried to write up a La-Mulana review for you all a while ago, but decided to scrap it and start over because it just wasn't sounding too good. So you'll have to wait for that!

However, some news to report!

1) Over the course of the last month or so, this blog reached 10,000 pageviews! 12 grand now, to be exact. Sorta cool I guess...I don't reckon that's really too much in the grand scheme of things but it seems like a benchmark to me so I'm posting about it!

2) Just the other day, a local game vendor had a sweet sale on classic video games and I managed to pick up some gold. Specifically:

Dr. Mario (NES) - I had this originally...and then one of my friends lost it when we were kids, so it's good to have it back!
Shadowgate (NES) - A very cool first-person adventure/puzzle game that I always loved to rent when I was younger.
The Illusion of Gaia (SNES) - Well-made Zelda-ish game with a cool little storyline. Sort of an indirect sequel to Soul Blazer, and the precursor to Terranigma.
Alien 3 (SNES) - Technically I picked this up for one of my friends...but this is a sweet game. One of those prime examples of how games based on a movie or license actually used to be good.
Blackthorne (SNES) - A sidescroller by Blizzard (YEP, THOSE GUYS!) and Interplay which is sort of like if the Prince of Persia ran around with a shotgun and explosives and blew orcs away in a Warhammer-style universe.
Bnajo-Kazooie (N64) - FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK YEAH!

So I have some really good classic material to keep myself busy for a while, which is nice. I've already started playing Blackthorne and Shadowgate through, and man they're awesome games.

3) Sine Mora came out...last week? Or 2 weeks ago maybe? I have lost track of time, which is ironic since this is a game with a time manipulation mechanic. I will absolutely be writing up a review of this game...it's amazing!

4) I've also downloaded a freeware game called Doom Roguelike. It's simple as all hell but so addictive...I can't seem to stop playing it whenever I get a chance, getting a game in here or there and clearing a level or two. Check it out if you're into Roguelike games and haven't played DoomRL yet.

That's all for now, but rest assured I AM alive! As much as it seems like it, I have not given up on this blog just yet, and I look forward to putting out some content soon. Sine Mora will come next, and then I'll finally write up a review of La-Mulana. At this rate, the damn remake of it for WiiWare will be out before I write about the original one!

Take it easy, and keep gaming! Check back soon for updates!

Coming Soon...

I had a whack of posts at the beginning of this month, and clearly that number has dwindled...but it has all been for good reason. The last while has seen the release of a disgusting number of high quality games, and I've been busy playing them when not busy. These include the recently released epics Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, as well as an extremely cool retro-styled 2D platformer called La-Mulana.

All of these games are...long and involved! Even La-Mulana is taking me forever to complete, and I can't remember how long it's been since it's taken me well over 20 hours to complete a sidescroller so it's certainly a breath of fresh air.

Very soon, I'll be posting reviews of Skyward Sword and La-Mulana, likely in that order since I've completed Skyward Sword already.

Check back soon for an update!

Experience Points: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Gears of War 3, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, F-Zero GX

Well it's about damn time I wrote about something, isn't it? Lately I've really been busy and tied down by various happenings/distractions around me and projects coming to their finality, so unfortunately my writing has had to take a bit of a back seat recently. Despite that, however, here's a quick rundown of my latest gaming activity:

Recent lack of activity...

Hey anyone who reads this!

Just wanted to let you guys know that I realize there has been a distinct lack of activity on the blog this month. Unfortunately it's been a little bit busy lately what with various projects finishing up and a lot of running around, so I just haven't gotten around to writing anything significant yet, but expect a World Ten entry and a tally of my recent Experience Points shortly!

Quick Notes

Hey all! Just a few short things to mention:

1) A friend of mine just decided to start blogging about pretty much anything on his mind, but mostly pertaining to entomology, wildlife, and SWEET SWEET NERDERY! You can check out his site here and I'll also permalink it in the Links to the Past section, so be sure to swing by!

2) Speaking of Link to the Past, maybe you oughtta dust off your copy of it...or any Super Nintendo game for that matter, because as of yesterday the SNES is 20 years old. Happy 20th b-day to one of the best consoles to have ever existed thus far...celebrate by 16-bit gaming your ass off!

That's it!