Go Team Mystic! That is all….
Hey Nintendo Is Releasing A New Console This Year!
Nintendo surprised everyone this morning by saying their new console is coming out this year! In a few short months even! Just not the Nintendo NX like everyone is waiting for, but a re-release of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo Classic Mini. It will play 30 games at launch and come with one controller. You will need to buy a USB AC adapter to power it since apparently they are too cheap to include one, but hey for $60 it looks like a pretty fun device. Are you going to pick one up this November?
Here is the pretty awesome list of games:
- Balloon Fight
- Bubble Bobble
- Castlevania
- Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
- Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- Double Dragon II: The Revenge
- Dr. Mario
- Excitebike
- Final Fantasy
- Galaga
- Ghosts N Goblins
- Gradius
- Ice Climber
- Kid Icarus
- Kirby’s Adventure
- Mario Bros.
- Mega Man 2
- Metroid
- Ninja Gaiden
- Pac-Man
- Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
- StarTropics
- Super C
- Super Mario Bros.
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Tecmo Bowl
- The Legend of Zelda
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Overwatch Is Finally Expanding With Ana!
Blizzard has been promising new characters and maps since Overwatch launched, and it is finally starting to make good on its promise with Ana! She is a veteran sniper that has decided to refocus on healing instead of killing. That’s right she can snipe heal you! She is also Fareeha “Pharah” Amari’s mother, so she adds an interesting dynamic to Overwatch’s great but underutilized lore. I am not sure that Overwatch needs another sniper, but if Ana can get the army of snipers in any given Overwatch match to finally help the team then I am all for it. It looks like she has some cool gameplay options as you can see in the video below. I can’t wait for her to get added to Overwatch’s wonderful roster of characters soon.
Pokémon Go Is The Pokémon Game We Have Been Waiting For!
Nintendo’s first smartphone game is a raging success, and they shouldn’t be that surprised. Twenty years ago Nintendo launched a video game, card game, and cartoon show about roaming around and capturing Pokémon, and now all those kids that played and watched Pokémon when it came out have grown up and got smart phones. Thanks to those phones they now get to actually roam around and capture Pokémon. It is twenty years of dreams coming true in a small way. Kids and adults hitting the streets in small packs trying to fill out their PokéDex’s.
While there isn’t a lot of game in Pokémon Go, you pretty much just swipe, there is a feeling of adventure and accomplishment wandering around to new places and adding the little guys to your collection. Not to mention the sense of community that Pokémon Go is building. You can just talk to random people in the grocery store and ask them if there are any good ‘Mons around, and they will know what you are talking about and no doubt tell you where they got their last critter.
While Pokémon Go is shallow gameplay-wise compared to all the new Pokémon video games, this is the game people have been waiting for twenty years. It is the fulfilment of a concept Nintendo has created and maintained for decades. We all get to be Ash hunting through the forest looking for just one more Pokémon to add to our collection. Now if only Nintendo would release the game on Windows 10 Mobile so I could stop stealing my wife’s phone I would be truly happy.
Red Dead Redemption Is Rockstar’s Greatest Game!
The Grand Theft Auto games get all the love and the attention, I mean Grand Theft Auto V is one of the highest selling games of all time, but Red Dead Redemption is far and away Rockstar’s best game (though the case could be made for Table Tennis). It is almost perfect. Almost, it has Grand Theft Auto IV’s terrible shooting mechanics and occasionally frustrating camera angles, but it is the only game in Rockstar’s library that manages to take the open world concept and make the world feel real and lived in with a story that pulls you in and never lets go.
It is a story that reminds us that things like racism, gun violence and immigration concerns are nothing new. In fact they have been around so long you could sadly almost say that they are part of American culture. It also is a personal story about a man that is trying to go straight for his family and leave his checkered passed behind. Not ground breaking, but well told in a way that no other Rockstar game has yet to match.
The multiplayer is equally entertaining. It just lets you and your friends run around in the Wild West together and make up your own fun. I used to love to join up with a buddy and take over a town and then hold it off from the cops for as long as possible, and then run away when things got too hot and then try and hold up somewhere else. It was like an open world Horde Mode, and it was fantastic.
Now that Red Dead Redemption is compatible with the Xbox One I started to play it again and it just feels good to ride around, take in the sights, save random people, play a round of Black Jack, and whatever else I feel like. It is like a warm video game hug. It is criminal they haven’t released a follow up yet, but as good as Red Dead Redemption is, I can see why they want to take their time and get the next one right. Today is the last day to get Red Dead Redemption on sale for cheap on the Xbox Store with a bunch of free DLC. You should do yourself a favor and pick it up.