video games

Microsoft Knocked Their E3 Press Conference Out Of The Park

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

The last few years haven’t been very kind to the Xbox brand. The Xbox One started its life with a bad reputation, due to plans for “always online” style DRM that despite never actually happening, cost them a lot of their fans. Then you have the fact that the PS4 was more powerful, cheaper, and had a much more diverse line of exclusives. Then Microsoft cancels one of their big exclusives, Scalebound, while others seem to just kind of disappear. As one of the few people who genuinely prefers Xbox consoles to their PlayStation counterparts, it’s been very hard to watch. So, I’m happy to report that this year’s Microsoft E3 Press Conference was phenomenal.  Continue reading →

EA Kicks Off E3 With A Big Surprise And Not Much Else

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

I look forward to E3 all year and happily watch every press conference. That being said, EA has always struggled to grab my attention. Part of it might be that I don’t care about sports games, which are a huge part of EA’s business. But it’s also the caliber of the announcements that they bring. They just don’t hit the way other conferences do. This year, EA distanced itself from the other shows by being the only press conference of the day. With all eyes on them, did they manage to pull off a better presentation?  Continue reading →

Random Game Wednesdays: Garry Kitchen’s Super Battletank: War In The Gulf (SNES)

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when going through my old games, I find ones that not only have I never played before, but I’m not even sure where they came from. This is the case with this week’s game, Garry Kitchen’s Super Battletank: War In The Gulf. I’ve never played this game before in my life. There’s no Goodwill price tag, which is pretty common in old games in my collection that I’ve never played. My only clue is a faint “2.99” written in marker on the back. Continue reading →

E3 2017 Plans

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

We are currently five days away from EA’s not-associated-with-E3-but-is-at-the-same-time-so-it’s-basically-a-part-of-E3 press conference. While definitely not the most exciting press conference, this will kick off several days of video game news. So, with that in mind, I thought I would just quick outline what you can expect from this blog during E3. Continue reading →

Arms Is Unexpectedly Fun

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 3 Comments

I don’t usually find myself getting sucked into multiplayer games. There are some obvious exceptions, such as Splatoon, but typically I’d just rather play games by myself. Because of that, it’s always a wonderful surprise when I find a multiplayer game that can hold my attention and refuse to let go. I wasn’t expecting Arms to be the next game to do that, but it just might be.  Continue reading →

Random Game Wednesdays: Quadrun (Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1)

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

I like to think that I’m pretty good at being able to just pick up and play a video game. And I don’t think that’s a very special trait. If you’re reading a blog dedicated to video games, you can probably do that too. Just look at the screen, push the buttons a couple times to see what they do, and off you go. That was not the case for me when trying out Quadrun today. Continue reading →

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia First Impressions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 4 Comments

I’ve mentioned a few times in other blog posts that I have very little experience with Fire Emblem. In fact, Fire Emblem Heroes is easily the Fire Emblem game that I’ve spent the most amount of time with. I did play a little bit of Awakening, however. Anyway, I’ve been interested in the new game, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, since it was unveiled in a Nintendo Direct back in January. Now I’ve played a few hours of it. So, what do I think? Continue reading →

Dragon Age: Origins Check-In Week 8

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

We’re getting really close to the end of Dragon Age: Origins. This week features a lot of pretty crazy things. There’s a daring prison escape, the crowning of a new ruler, and we learn that we can’t keep fooling around with two women without it catching up to us. But, before we get to all that, we need to go over some numbers. I’ve played for just under 26 hours and Ivan Ooze is currently level 17. Continue reading →

E3 2017 Predictions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 11 Comments

E3 is about a month away, and that means it’s time to start guessing what’s going to happen! This has been a yearly tradition of mine since long before I started this blog. Usually, I would post them as a long Facebook post. Last year, I did the usual post and wrote up a more detailed one here. This year, I’m just going to post them here, since the Facebook post gets buried pretty quickly. Continue reading →

Random Game Wednesdays: Bionic Commando (NES)

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 2 Comments

Bionic Commando is one of those games that despite not being super well known, has a very loud and passionate following. I did not grow up playing it. Instead, I was introduced to the series through the remake/reboot, Bionic Commando: Rearmed and the under appreciated Bionic Commando for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I loved those games, infamous plot twist and all, but how does the original game fare these days? Continue reading →