43 Games I Haven't Reviewed Yet

For years, I've been doing mini-reviews of my video games. I started with the "100 Games" project in January 2013, and since then have done a roundup of everything I beat each year. But that means that some games got left out - ones I didn't include on my initial list.

Not getting on the original 100 Games list doesn't mean these games are bad. On the contrary, I rather enjoyed quite a few of them, and some of them probably deserved to make the list. I never claimed to be good at ranking stuff, as fun as it is.

As usual, only games I cared about enough to see to the end get listed here, and everything I haven't already written about is up for grabs. Sifting through my Backloggery turned up 43 entries' worth of games (a few games are combined into one entry). Instead of trying to rank them, I'll cover them alphabetically.

I've also linked a gameplay video for each game. It's a longplay whenever one is available. Looking at how few games DIDN'T have a complete longplay up on YouTube speaks volumes as to how good longplayers are at doing their job.

GB's Vidya 2014: Year in Review

Ouch. I didn't beat too many games this year. Nonetheless, I'm doing my yearly wrapup, ranking, and review!

I only finished five games all year, and two of them were disqualified for reasons you'll soon see. However, I beat two other games very late last year - so late that they missed the last writeup - so they are being added to this year's list, bringing me back to five games. Without further ado, here's the games I beat this year and my opinions on them!

Honorable Mentions: Pokemon Emerald and Crystal
Systems: Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: RPG
Date Beaten: April 18 and April 22, 2014

Why are they honorable mentions? Because I can't really count them - I technically never beat Pokemon Emerald or Crystal until this year, but I had already beaten the near-identical Ruby, Sapphire, and Gold versions. I generally consider all of those near-identical "versions" to be the same game, so Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald together are all "Pokemon GBA Hoenn" while Gold, Silver, and Crystal are all "Pokemon GBC Johto". Remakes like FireRed and LeafGreen are separate, however, so Omega Ruby will have its time at bat next year.

My Crystal run was a pure nostalgia run, although the ability to speed up play with the emulator made grinding bearable. The highlight of the run was finding a shiny Skarmory and adding it to the team. Later in summer I returned to Crystal and beat Kanto, capping things off with a nice fight against Red.

The Emerald run was... unconventional, thanks to the game being wrung through Pokemon Randomizer. You can get all the details about the upside-down world Ariel was thrust into here.

GB's 100 Games: 16-11

We've now reached the games I consider permanent classics. Two are from my childhood and early teen years, but the other three are all relatively recent. Two of them I just played last year. Even though I sometimes feel concerned that I'm losing touch with video games and sometimes go long periods without playing one, games like these remind me that there's no getting off this train I'm on.

Today's update is brought to you by Saralex and Liberty Medical.

GB's 100 Games: 45-41

As you've probably guessed from the list so far, I'm a bit of a Nintendo loyalist. I was a Sega fan in the early and mid-90s before Pokemon drove me to Nintendo. In recent years I've been taking advantage of my brother's purchases of a PS2 and Xbox 360 to branch out a bit, but I've always had a connection to family-friendly Nintendo fare, and it makes up the backbone of my collection.

Here, we have five different games from four different time periods - pre-Nintendo, Nintendo, late Nintendo, and the branching-out period. And only two of them are actually Nintendo-produced games, so... variety, I guess?

GB's 100 Games: 55-51

We're all over the map in today's installment of GB's 100 Games! A game that everyone's heard of, a game that next to nobody's heard of, long entries, short entries, and everything in between.

And remember, U R MR GAY. And a hipster, as well.

GB's 100 Games: 95-91

This installment of GB's 100 Games is chock-full of Big Dumb Vidya Games. As I've mentioned in the past, Big Dumb Vidya Games are essentially the junk food of gaming. They tend to lurk in bargain bins and deliver cheap enjoyment by focusing on basic but enjoyable gameplay. No less than three such games have made it into today's lineup.

Chatzy Madness Volume 34: Toys May Vary From Illustration

Gooper Blooper: Today I would like to tell you about Big Dumb Vidya Games
Saberwulf: Big Dumb Vidya Games? Those are my favorite
TheDeleter: those are great
Gooper Blooper: If you look over my collection, you notice a few themes
Gooper Blooper: There's the Mario games, the RPGs, the Smash Brothers, etc
Gooper Blooper: But there's also what I like to call Big Dumb Vidya Games
Gooper Blooper: Every so often I get a hankering to play a game that isn't deep, that isn't meaningful, and that may not even be that technically good
Gooper Blooper: It usually fulfills a primal urge to beat the shit out of something
Gooper Blooper: Hence Big Dumb Vidya Games
Gooper Blooper: I bring this up because today, in addition to playing some Sticker Star, I started my Big Dumb Quest on MONSTER JAM: URBAN ASSAULT, which is a game about monster trucks
Saberwulf: oh god
Gooper Blooper: sunday sunday sunday
RedSpy: Awww shit monstah trucks
Gooper Blooper: I was Grave Digger
Gooper Blooper: The Undertaker of monster truckdom
Saberwulf: Now we're gonna have to fight a monster truck next RP year, aren't we
Saberwulf: THE BRINGER OF LIGHT OH YEEEUHHH
TheDeleter: yep
Gooper Blooper: I might have a character drive one
Gooper Blooper: Come on, Widow, seaplanes are so 80s
Gooper Blooper: get in there
RedSpy: The King of Day
Saberwulf: Sarah in a monster truck, for size difference hilarity
Gooper Blooper: She has to cast Float to get inside

Final Fantasy Tactics Custom Case

The spine needed to be a tad bigger, unfortunately, but I think this still turned out pretty good for a first try.

See the label in detail here (not 100% complete).

Next time: A Four Heroes of Light custom case!

What Have I Become?

"What is it?"
"Aside from being a PlayStation game? I dunno. Help me flip it over."

"...Are you freaking kidding me."
"SQUEEEEEE ALEEEEEEEEEX"

Widow Maker begins looking through the instruction manual. 

"Lessee here...  'Ramza Beoulve' has two successful older brothers serving in the military and sports a sword, an ahoge, and an inferiority complex."

She notices some fine print.

"'This is a true story. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.' Welp."

(Dammit, Harpy, look what you made me do.

Now to wait for the memory card to arrive. Derp.)

BLAST PROCESSING

So I got a 3DS for Christmas and [insert FrogDrugs here]

That 3D effect, man, it's something else.

My other gifts this year included Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, Ghost Trick, and Seek and Destroy in the gaming department, and a book about Godzilla, a chocolate bar, and little tiny Robot Wars pullback toys in the not-gaming department.

My poor mom fell into the "Flavored" trap, though - I also received a pack of marshmallow snowmen that are "chocolatey coated". Nooooooo

My brother made out like a bandit - he got a case for his electric guitar, a giant amp for said guitar, Rocksmith (which is also for said guitar - have you guessed his favorite instrument yet?!) Skyrim, and a laptop. And some Old Spice. Even with my limited budget, I got him a damn television (only paid ten bucks and it works like a dream!). But the best thing about his haul is that laptop. Not only does he love it, it means he has much less reason to take the desktop computer from me, meaning I'll hopefully be able to participate in more Zoofights RP next year without getting stranded on iPod and being unable to keep up with everyone else posting like mad.

Viva la commercialism!

Gaming Retrospective (Part 6)

While I have stuck behind Nintendo, getting the DS and Wii and planning on a 3DS, my brother has been branching out to other companies. The trigger was Guitar Hero. He showed interest in the series, and when Guitar Hero 3 released he snatched up the Wii version on launch day and played the absolute living daylights out of it, forever ruining Dragonforce in the process. That next spring, he used his Christmas money to buy a PS2 Slim and Guitar Hero 2. He ordered them online, and much to his dismay GH2 arrived first. What a tease!

A few years later he opted to get a 360 since the Wii always got the shit end of the stick when it came to multiplatform releases. He now plays Microsoft's system almost exclusively, and his library is almost entirely first-person shooters and music games - genres I've never cared for. We used to like the same games, but around when he found Guitar Hero we started drifting apart. The last game we extensively enjoyed together was Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Neither of these systems has really been played by me a great deal - they're not really "mine". The 360 in particular is just where I've played a couple Xbox Live Arcade games I liked. The PS2, meanwhile, has seen a lot more use from me, first in the form of compilation games like Capcom Classics Collection and then later some of Nippon Ichi's strategy games after I played and thoroughly enjoyed Disgaea DS. So keep in mind my experience with both systems is pretty weak.

As for the DS and Wii, there's not much in the way of interesting anecdotes surrounding them - it's pretty brief. First there was my mom's heroic efforts in acquiring a DS in November 2004, managing to get an employee to hold the systems for her at Toys R Us so she could drive down there and claim them, even though the employee wasn't supposed to do that. Our Wii, meanwhile, hails from Florida. My father was taking his annual trip to Florida and my brother and I gave him our money so he could buy a Wii and Super Paper Mario. My brother and I have had a complicated relationship with my dad I won't go in-depth with here, but suffice it to say 1) My parents divorced over a decade ago, 2) I no longer see my father, and 3) Recently he took off to live in Florida permanently, and if my mom hadn't spied on his mother's FaceBook we wouldn't have known until he sent us a court summons ordering that he wanted to pay less child support (my brother is still a minor). In short, he's a douche and I hope he dies, but at least we were able to use him as a Wii-retrieving pack mule back in '07.

GB's DS Favorites
-Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and every sequel (LOCALIZE AAI2 CAPCOM YOU MORONS)
-Pokemon DPP
-Pokemon BW
-Disgaea DS
-Kirby Super Star Ultra
-Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
-New Super Mario Brothers
-WarioWare: Touched
-The Legendary Starfy
-Mario Kart DS

GB's Wii Favorites
-Super Smash Brothers Brawl
-Super Paper Mario
-Space Invaders Get Even
-Blast Works
-Deadly Creatures
-Godzilla Unleashed
-MySims
-Mortal Kombat Armageddon

What GB has liked so far on PlayStation 2
-Capcom Classics Collection 1 and 2
-Disgaea 2
-La Pucelle Tactics

What GB has liked so far on Xbox 360
-Castle Crashers
-Assault Heroes