E3 or Whatever: PlayStation Showcase 2023

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

PlayStation’s presentations are typically either incredible or fairly boring. Remember the E3 press conference where Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue III were announced? That’s one of my favorite E3 moments of all time. But on the other hand, remember the one where they only showed four games and it was in like a weird church setting? Yeah, pretty boring. This year’s PlayStation Showcase leans more towards boring, in my opinion, but there was a few really great announcements.

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, More Than More of the Same

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 2 Comments

How do you follow up a game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? It came out day and date with the Nintendo Switch, completely reinvented the series, and may have pushed the medium of video games forward. Do you reinvent everything again, or do you refine what you have into something more polished? It’s been six years since Breath of the Wild, and in that time Nintendo really could have done either.

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Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp First Impressions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

As much as I like the Fire Emblem franchise, there’s always been a part of me that was mad that it blew up and took the attention away from Advance Wars. Advance Wars was the first of Intelligent Systems’ strategy games that I had played, and many lunch periods and study halls were spent passing a single Game Boy Advance around a table, taking turns in intense multiplayer matches. It did get a few sequels, but ever since Fire Emblem Awakening’s success, it’s seemed that Nintendo felt that Fire Emblem was enough for the turn-based strategy niche and turned its back on Advance Wars. But now, after a fifteen year gap from the previous entry, Days of Ruin on the Nintendo DS, we finally have a new Advance Wars release.

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Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection First Impressions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

About 22 years ago, Mega Man Battle Network came out on the Game Boy Advance. I didn’t play it, or any of its sequels. Looking back on it, that seems weird. I always really liked the Mega Man and Mega Man X games, I had a Game Boy Advance, and I really liked RPGs, which Battle Network happens to be. But for whatever reason, I didn’t pick it up back then, and that means that today’s release of the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection contains a whole bunch of games that might as well be new to me. Do these games hold up so many years later, especially for someone who doesn’t have any nostalgia for them?

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So, E3’s Been Canceled Again

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 1 Comment

I think we all knew it was coming, but yesterday, E3 2023 was officially cancelled. If you’ve followed this blog, you know that I at least used to go all out each E3. I’d have a predictions post, individual posts for each press conference, and just general thoughts on the event overall. With me getting back into consistently updating this blog, I was really hoping that this would be the year that I’d get serious with my E3 coverage again, but now this.

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Top 10 Most Anticipated Games Of 2023

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

2023 is shaping up to be a very good year for video games. With all the games coming out, I thought it would be fun to list my ten most anticipated games. Well, that and we’re on the last day of the week and I haven’t written a blog post yet and this seemed like something I could do pretty quick. But to give it at least a little effort, I’ve decided to list them in the order of my excitement, not simply by release date. So, here’s the list. Continue reading →

Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Demo Impressions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

It wasn’t any sort of surprise that following the success of the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, a remake of 4 would soon follow. It is a little disappointing for some people, like me, that Capcom chose to skip over Code Veronica, an important chapter in the overall story and a game that’s more in need a remake in favor of 4, but it is a logical idea. The original Resident Evil 4 shook up the formula of the series, going in a more action heavy direction that brought in a much larger audience than the previous games, and would go on to influence the survival horror genre in general. The remake comes out at the end of this month, and like they did with the last few Resident Evil games, Capcom has put out a demo. So let’s take a look at it.

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A Prime Remaster

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 1 Comment

A few weeks ago, Nintendo announced and released Metroid Prime Remastered digitally as part of their Nintendo Direct. They also announced that a physical version would be coming two weeks later, and since I’m a weirdo who likes putting games on my shelf, I decided to wait. The wait was difficult, as Metroid Prime is one of my all time favorite games, but I have the game now. A lot has changed in the slightly over twenty years since Prime’s original release on the GameCube. Is the game still one of the best, or is that nostalgia-fueled rose-tinted glasses?

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