(Sega-CD) This game oozes mid-90s CD-ROM vibes! It brought me back to a time that I didn't even know I missed!

Flashback is a sci-fi adventure that takes place in a dystopian future framed around you trying to stop aliens from secretly taking over Earth. The gameplay consists of killing aliens, avoiding traps, figuring out puzzles, and even completing small side quests in the dark remnants of New Washington.

The graphics are simple but stylistic with animation that is very smooth for a game of that time. It is also augmented by little 3D cinematic cutscenes throughout that are reminiscent of 90s CGI shows like Reboot.

But the sound design is where the Sega CD version really shines. The music is FANTASTIC! It's dark, moody, and has that great late 80s, early 90s electronic feel! Since the action throughout the game is slower paced, the rest of the sound design is sparse but in all the right ways. It's minimal approach perfectly matches the lonely quest you find yourself on.

The one big barrier to entry on this game is the controls. They are definitely tricky and clunky feeling but if you take the time to get the hang of it (rolling, ducking, and turning), you can master them pretty quickly!

This was a random pickup soon after I purchased a Sega-CD and it was worth every penny. If you enjoy a challenging platformer and the film Total Recall, I think you would love this game! Fun fact, there is a mini comic included with the game that acts as a Prologue to the story which is written and drawn by Marvel.

(Playstation 5) FF7 Remake is hitting just right! I purposefully waited a little while between playing Remake and INTERmission. I enjoyed Remake so much that I felt it was better to let the experience sit and take it in for a while and I am glad I did. The story of this chapter interweaves wonderfully with Remake and had more than I expected for DLC.

I didn't use Yuffie in the original so I don't remember much of her background but this expanded on her well and though mostly lighthearted, it knew when to take itself seriously. I am excited to see how and when these two stories come together in the upcoming releases.

(Playstation 5) As I've gotten older, I've really come to appreciate story in video games. Luckily that appreciation has been met with a growing industry of games where a lot of developers share that enthusiasm. The Last of Us series is certainly one of the main champions of that. Not having a PS3, I missed this game on it's original run but with the HBO show, and remasters being the new trend, I'm happy to say I got to play this game on its victory lap on PS5!

I was a little skeptical going in. Zombies have been a bit overdone at this point especially in games but I would say this succeeds where a lot of zombie things have fallen short.

The graphics are just great to look at. Trekking through abandoned cities, woods, and buildings to survive different weather environments feels great when it looks so clear. I think their choice to not have HUD display really helped immerse you in the game. Too many third person action games shift your focus to a mini map or text display. Seeing nothing but an open screen and your very small crosshair kept me focused on what was important, the story.

The writers and voice actors did a fantastic job building on character relationships. The game's pace felt very cinematic with runs of very tense action followed by calming downtime. It's in these downtimes that you hear dialogue between all the characters that gets you attached. Without giving too much away, I really enjoyed the story and it did not end how I expected it to which was very refreshing!

I will surely be picking up Part 2.

(Dreamcast) This is a very cinematic/story driven RPG that deals with more adult themes rather than the typical fantasy or sci-fi theme. It's a coming of age story wrapped in a Japanese mafia/murder mystery. The world is very impressive and extremely immersive! It takes place in a small city with a lot of unique and independent NPCs wandering about, living their lives. All of which have unique spoken dialogue that changes as you got through the story. It's super impressive, especially for a game in 2000! Even today's city based games like GTA have a set number of NPCs that are randomly duplicated throughout. The whole game operates on a day/night cycle with a weather system as well which adds to the realism.

Overall the story starts a little slow but I did find myself getting more and more into it towards the end. It really goes all in on trying to make you feel like you are living a full day in Ryo's life, even to the point where you get a day job as a forklift driver for a few days. It seems a bit silly but it kind of grounds the whole thing, which I really liked!

The game's shortcomings are mostly just being a victim of a game of the early 2000s. The voice acting is extremely awkward but most games with it were back then. Having real recorded dialogue was a very new thing to games. Some of the mini game activities like darts or the toy capsule machines are not that entertaining, but again, you could look at it as part of the aesthetic. It grounds itself by being simple.

Shenmue is a game I can really appreciate for what it was at the time. Not all aspects of it hold up to today but knowing where games were at the time, this is certainly something that should be praised as paving the way. Without Shenmue, I don't think we'd have a lot of the story driven indie games we get today like Life Is Strange.

I'm really glad I picked this up. It's a cult classic for a reason and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Shenmue II to continue the tale. My first encounter with this game was the old Mega 64 sketch which played on the awkward dialogue so it was fun to put context to that as well.

(Gamecube) This had been sitting on my Gamecube shelf since it came out! Despite trying to start it a couple of times, I never quite had the commitment to see it through to the end. 22 years later, my wife and I popped the disc in and started to play and we had a great time!

The game feels very smooth for its age. You can tell it is one of the earlier games in the dungeon crawling genre by its simplicity. However, it does have a pretty extensive skill tree for a game at that time. The story line is a bit slow at first but there is vast dialogue from the main NPCs that grows the story as you progress. The end battle was a cool scene to see.

I do think the difficulty could have been made more consistent throughout. The beginning feels like an uphill battle of low health and needing to spam potions to survive while the end game is flush with potions and weapons that do massive amounts of damage.

We played as the Dwarf Warrior and Human Archer and really enjoyed strategizing our kiting method for killing. By the end, we were spinning enemies in circles and knocking them down like it was nothing!

Overall this was a great time and I would recommend to anyone looking for a good hack and slash loot grabbing game! By playing this, my wife discovered that she really enjoys these action RPG / dungeon crawlers, so more of those to come for us!

(Playstation) Having a game be the follow up to the legendary Final Fantasy VII is a tough shoe to fill. Having never played it when it originally came out, I was skeptical going in but by the end of the game, I found it be a really solid entry in the series.

Graphically speaking, it really does a great job of integrating the "cinematic" graphics with the gameplay graphics. It was really impressive to see how seamlessly (at least for the time), the camera would just zoom out to show the beautiful Balamb Garden or the beginning of a boss fight. The music, although not as iconic as VII, still boasts a nice list of songs that add to the feel.

The story is good but does start very slow. The pacing is a bit off balance from Disc 1 to 4. For any newcomers to the game, I would advise to just stick through the first disc and things will start to pick up. By the end of the game, things really come together and the stakes go for seemingly small to very big.

I think the battle system is the most controversial part of this game. It handles magic, summons, and leveling very differently from other games. It's a pretty steep learning curve in the beginning. However, if you take the time to learn how Junctioning works, you can really use it to your advantage to the point where leveling becomes less important (I beat the game at level 25!).

I managed to pick up a copy of the old Brady strategy guide off eBay to help me through it. It was fun going back to the old days of RPG playing (pre-internet). Definitely glad I finally gave this game a shot!

(NES - on Nintendo Switch) Continuing our quest, my buddy and I finally jumped into the NES conclusion of the mighty Blue Bomber... Mega Man 6!

This game picks up nicely where Mega Man 5 left off. The music and sprites are fun as always!
The gameplay is that classic NES Mega Man action but with a few quality of life improvements. The Rush upgrades recharge automatically which allows you to use them frequently and not feel like you have to save them. The jetpack power was a new one and was particularly fun!

Although we struggled a little in the beginning to get the rust off, by the end we both agreed that this seems to be the easiest of the first six games. The Wily levels at the end were surprisingly easy compared to previous entries and the E tanks were plentiful. This may be because it came out in 1994 when the Super Nintendo was already thriving. Games overall began to get easier because they could be longer.

That being said, it's a great addition to the Mega Man library! If you like any of these classic games, you'll enjoy this one!

(PC) It's funny, having purchased Half-Life back in 2000 only to play what was then just a fun multiplayer mod called Counter-Strike, I never even touched Half-Life the actual game. 20 years later, the pandemic hit and I finally installed it and played through it for the first time and really enjoyed it!

Blue Shift is a really fun yet small expansion. It brings you into the perspective of one of the security guards during the events of Half-Life. It's a quick one but it did a great job of expanding on the platforming mechanics that Half-Life started. It's fun to see the story unfold through these eyes and you even see Gordon Freeman in it!

(Gameboy - on Nintendo Switch) "Pizza Time!" Ahh I have fond memories of playing this on my Gameboy during long car rides though I admit I had to use my Game Genie to help me beat it then! This game takes the first Gameboy entry in the TMNT franchise and improves upon it in nearly every way! The sprites look cleaner and there is a lot more variety and length to the levels as well as fun enemy design. It really seemed to be made with the cartoon at heart!

The game is pretty straightforward like its predecessor but with some heightened challenges at certain points. Most enemies still die in one hit but they certainly throw a slew of them at you at times which can be overwhelming. With levels like the skateboard highway, it almost feels close to the 2nd Gen Turtle games like Turtles in Time. They did a great job with the sound effects and soundtrack... even the pause menu is a jam!

It's a fun game that I was looking forward to revisiting in the Cowabunga Collection. If you're a Turtle fan, definitely make sure you give this one a go!

(Playstation 5) Growing up with the 90s era of basketball games like NBA Showdown 94, NBA Live 97 and of course the classic NBA Jam, I have always had trouble adapting to more in depth and technical modern games like the 2k series. It's nothing against how they are made, in fact they are very impressive, I have always just been used to the simple mechanics of run, pass, or shoot. I suppose that makes me a bit of an old man gamer!

That aside, I have to say that 2k22 was the first that I've played in the series that felt like I could marry the two styles. First of all, with the ability to download custom rosters, I was able to find my favorite years of the NBA and play a full season with all the players I grew up watching! I also set the difficulty lower so I could simplify the controls. Instead of trying to memorize dribble combos and plays, I focused on simpler things like ball movement and pick and rolls which was super fun and just relaxing. It certainly made me more comfortable and I feel like I could start graduating to a harder difficulty to implement some more of the control mechanics.

Being that this game was 2022, I decided to go 30 years back and play a full 1992 season as my beloved New Jersey Nets! I played against all the classic teams, Jordan's Bulls, Ewing's Knicks, Drexler's Blazers, and the list goes on! I am happy to say that I rewrote history and the Nets are now the new 1992 Champions featuring Drazen Petrovic, Kenny Anderson, and Derrick Coleman.

Apart from that, the overall presentation is great! The graphics are sharp with smooth animations, the courts look fantastic, and the announcers are awesome! There is SO much you can do in these games and I didn't even scratch the surface. I am not the kind of person who would get the new game every year, but I do see myself getting one every few years to see what's new in the NBA game world!

(Gamecube) Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 was my first introduction to the series back in 2001. Having played A LOT of that, THPS 4 was and is still a great follow up! It has an awesome soundtrack, extensive roster, and great level design. San Francisco and Alcatraz are two of my favorite maps. Those really captured the spirit of the areas! They also added fun interactions with the environment such as dragging behind vehicles.

Coming back to this after 20 years was really fun! I found myself immediately getting into my old combos like a long forgotten repressed memory. Grinding and doing manuals between everything!

Like many other kids at the time, this game introduced me to skateboarding and I even tried to learn in real life. The game has some great unlockables of real footage of each skater doing tricks that made you want to get out there yourself. I never stuck with it but this game will always bring me back to that time of my friends and I trying something new!

(PC) It was a good time to throw it back to one of the fastest and original first person shooters. The campaign was surprisingly shorter than I had originally thought at about two and half hours. But every minute is full of action!

Looking back this is a great evolution from Wolfenstein and Doom. It took all the fun maze run and gunning and amped it up to eleven! There are some hit box issues with certain mobs but that is definitely a victim of the time. If you haven't played it, I think now is a great time. Computers today can run this so smoothly that you feel like you're flying!

My only complaint would be that the last level is a little bit of a let down. It had a lot of mobs but I think I was expecting a large boss similar to the end of the first episode. But hey, for a nearly thirty year old game, this definitely holds up!

(Playstation 5) Man I really wanted to love this game more than I did! I think the good's of this game are really good but there are a lot of not so good's that unfortunately drag it down a little.

I think the most positive part is the story. I've always enjoyed when the modern Sonic games take a more serious tone with higher stakes. This game had a more mature anime-esque feel to it. It really carried some weight and even Sonic's friends had introspective moments that touched back on their past adventures. It was cool to see them link games together in this story. Gameplay wise, the stage designs were great as well. They flowed like a modern Sonic game should!

Unfortunately, the big sell on this game was the open world, but I feel like that's what held the game back. Other than the obvious comparison to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the open world felt sort of empty. The "puzzles" that you had to complete felt way too simple or almost pointless. These could have been fun intermissions between stages but you end up spending the vast majority of your time in the open world while each actual stage is done under 2 minutes.

This game could have been the Sonic Adventure 3 I and I'm sure a lot of others have been waiting for. It had a lot of the same feel to it but simply missed the mark in some ways. The controls can feel a bit clunky at times and feels like it can punish you for going too fast! The fun moments were good to keep me in through the end but I can't say it didn't come with a fair share of frustration.

(Switch) This was a unique narrative driven game about loss, grief, and closure. Although very simplistic gameplay wise, I really enjoyed traversing the beautifully made world with its minimalist art style. Without giving too much away, the ending hit an emotional high note that offered a really innovative way of hearing from other players that can actually provide some help for real life grief.

If you are looking for a short game that speaks to the relationships we have and priorities in life, give this one a go!

(NES - on Nintendo Switch): Since this came out around the end of the NES life cycle, it really makes the most of its 8-bit limitations. The characters look great with extensive detail as do the stages. The highlight to me is that the controls are simple which keeps it fun without having to memorize extensive combos and each character has a unique set of moves.

This is a surprisingly good fighting game and a great epilogue to end the NES era of the Turtle games.

(Gameboy) You can definitely tell this is the first of the Gameboy TMNT games. Coming off the NES games, it's pretty light on material and is shockingly easy! I would say it's almost like a mini game. It has five quick levels, each with their own iconic boss, all of which are beatable without much of a challenge. I am much more familiar with the Gameboy's second game and I can see how this was foundation for what came next.

That being said, I still enjoyed it, it kept things simple and its ease and length make it a pretty satisfying play-through if you want something fast!

(Sega 32X) Boy I have mixed feelings on this game. Stylistically, this fits right in with Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles on the Genesis. At first glance, it looks like a great follow up to the characters centered around Knuckles and his friends. But I do think this game ultimately suffers from trying to change too many things at once in a game that already has a solid foundation.

The main hook of the gameplay is that Knuckles and a partner of your choosing are tethered together. The idea being that you can use the tether to whip yourself higher or faster throughout each stage. While this is a fun idea and definitely makes things interesting, I found it often slowed down the pace overall which is not something you want from a Sonic game.

I'm not sure why but the partner you choose is determined by playing a claw machine type game and each level is chosen at random. These are both things that just seemed to unnecessarily complicate the experience. The levels themselves feel VERY empty too. I would complete full stages in roughly 90 seconds and maybe only have seen 2-3 enemies total!! This results in the typical 3D bonus stages being longer and more challenging than the actual main levels.

The boss fights are the highlight. I think that's where the tether shines best. Using your partner to whip around and hit Eggman is a fun mechanic.

Overall, I think this is an fun game in the Sonic lore but it's in the weaker batch of games for sure. Maybe with a little more polish and time, this game could have reached its full potential.

(NES) This is a nostalgic throwback to the heyday of wrestling fanfare. Hulkamania was everywhere at the time! I was probably around 8; I had never seen a smidge of wrestling on TV but I was definitely a Hulkamaniac!

The game itself is mediocre, even for the time. The controllers can be frustrating and the difficulty spikes make it for a very inconsistent playthrough. The best way to win is too essentially spam moves over and over and cheese your way through. I rented this game pretty often as a kid and I struggled every time to beat Bam Bam so it was nice to finally be able to get my revenge and beat every challenger as the Hulkster himself.

The main highlight of this game is actually the music. It has all of the wrestlers theme songs but in simple 8-bit versions. I am probably bias due to nostalgia, but there is something so fun about hearing their songs in such a classic way. Other than that, it's not the greatest. I do remember other follow on WWF games on the NES were built much better.

(Playstation 5) This installment in the series continues my quest to get through all the mainline Resident Evil games. I had played this with a friend when it originally came out and I remember not liking it much.

After revisiting it, I think it's a decent game. It's definitely built from the same guts of Resident Evil 4. It leans heavier on the action rather than the horror which is where it loses me a little. I'm not sure why the series took this direction at the time but it does play pretty smooth for what it is and the NPC co-op is surprisingly not awful. I just wish it was a more suspenseful experience similar to the first three games.

If action and shooters are your thing, there are better options to play. At this point, I think I am in these games more for the story but even that starts hokey in this one.