New year! New column! During my absence, I picked up a good number of new video games thanks to Christmas, my birthday and my collecting addiction rearing its ugly head again. Yes, the same ugly addiction that I spent an entire article preaching about how I kicked its ass..has crept back into my life. Well kind of. It’s not as bad as before and I’m actually playing what I’m buying this time around. With that said, my game room/man cave/ nerd den has been slowly filling up over the past month so I thought that going forward; I will share some of the recent additions to my game collection with you guys.
Hyperkin Retron 2: For years I’ve seen the various Retron consoles on Amazon.com and have always scoffed at them. No way was I EVER going to play a single game on a…bleck.. 3rd party console. Plus, no matter what version there always seemed to be some bad reviews concerning certain games not working on them and the sound being sub par at best. Welp, long story short, there was one under the
ol’ Christmas tree for yours truly and I have to say that I’m actually really impressed with this console. It plays SNES and NES games without having to blow into the carts for 5 minutes like a jackass (Yes, I replaced the 72 Pin in my original NES, and no, it wasn’t a dramatic improvement). As far as games not working goes, I own a decent collection of NES games and I haven’t run into one yet that didn’t immediately work. I also really like this console because it cuts back on the amount of wires I have behind my TV and saves on plug space in the power tree (one console as opposed to two) which is essential if you are like me and want all of your consoles to be “Plug and Play”.
South Park: The Stick of Truth (360): I’m a huge fan of South Park, but to be honest I didn’t have high expectations for this game when it was first announced. I was pleasantly surprised. Don’t be fooled by the South Park skin, at this game’s core lies a really solid JRPG. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s hilarious and makes you feel like you are actually in an episode of the show.
Final Fantasy Anthology (PSX): Speaking of JRPG’s, my girlfriend picked up this gem for me. Final Fantasy 5 and 6…you just can’t go wrong. After I complete South Park I plan on diving into FF5.
Deathsmiles (360): A bullet-hell shooter (I’m a fan of the genre), where you choose one of 5 girls (the Xbox mode gives you the choice of an extra character) who each possess magical powers and, well, basically you shoot the crap out of anything that moves, including a giant cow, a pissed off tree, demons, pig chefs, cyclops, lizard men, dancers, dragons, and even Death itself. It’s a great game for when you feel to need to unwind with a game that doesn’t require much
thought.
Persona 4 Arena (360): I can honestly say that I have never played any game in the Persona RPG series, or even had the desire to try one, but I can never resist a 2D fighter. I’ve played this one for only about 40 minutes or so but I enjoyed it and I look forward to breaking this out on the next “nerd night”.
Dead Island (360): I kept meaning to pick this title up but just never got around to it, now that I own it, I can see why it was so popular. It’s an insanely fun and gory shooter. And there are zombies. Good times.
Neo Geo Battle Coliseum (PS2): A 2D fighter consisting of characters from Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury and other classic Neo Geo games. Now that I own this title, I’m only 1 game away from achieving my goal of owning every 2D fighter for the Playstation 2 (Now I just need to pick up Arcana Heart).
That wraps up this month’s edition of Collector’s Corner. Listen up loyal readers; I’m always on the lookout for any “hidden gem” games to add to my collection. By that I mean any game that didn’t get media attention. If you know of any games that fit that description please let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!