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I thought this was going to be a K-mart special!

It is too bad that virtual console support for Wii / Wii U / 3DS was abandoned by N. I would have liked to have eventually downloaded more games to my 3DS.

And a belated thank-you to you all!

This video is worth a watch. It is a good commentary on the state of the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 nowadays...

Annddd... as a related follow up, what happened with the modern Halo games?

MasterMario, SpartanEvolved, and I discussed it on Thursday. MM suggested that we'd need to set aside a full session since the game is time-consuming.

If you keep playing and exploring, you find the dead ends and impasses. Drawing a simple map can help early in the game. The map added in Super Metroid or Metroid: Zero Mission did make things easier. There is a reason that the entire genre of Metroidvanias is based on Super Metroid.

Also, since Metroid takes place on planet Zebes (same as Super Metroid) there are some passages that get familiar between the two games.

Nah, the wave beam is pretty important, but Super Metroid really fixed those issues.

I remember back in 1989, getting Metroid and trying to draw my own maps of Brinstar. It is epic how the game basically tells you to find and defeat the "mechanical life brain" and gives you no other instruction. Anyone who played Mario intrinsically starts going to the right, only to hit a dead end and have to go left to get the maru mari (round ball).

That game came from an era of Nintendo-hard arcade-style games when starting over is easier than dying and continuing. By the time GameBoy Advance had the NES Classics series, I picked up Metroid and would play from start to finish in one life, about one hour per session. The game was never easy, but definitely gets more manageable with practice and patience.

Also, you don't need every energy tank or every missile to beat the game. The wave beam, though helpful, and ice beam, though nearly necessary in the final areas, are not actually needed as a condition to beat the mother brain either.

Learning the bomb jump trick and getting the Varia suit early is a major boon to Samus before getting to Norfair as well.

If you haven't played Metroid: Zero Mission, the early 2000s remake of Metroid, it is worth checking out for the extra abilities and extra chapter!

Mostly MasterMario and Spartan wanted to play more Mario games on Switch!

I have not really played it much since the season update. I got far enough to get a horse. That's about it.

The last three episodes of The Clone Wars were epic and intense. Filoni allowed the team to experiment with some more ambient music. That music experimentation has followed through to the Bad Batch, making each episode very intense and moody. Along with the amazingly detailed animation and relatable characters, this show is pure win.

This does not feel like a "kid's show" at all. The writing and overall tone is more akin to Andor's heavy-handed view of The Empire than the rest of the Star Wars franchise.

My spoils!
I also got three games for the Switch,
Sonic Mania
Star Trek: Prodigy Supernova
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth complete edition

In the photo three NES games and two for the Famicom.
You cannot view this attachment.

Happy birthday, nice haul!

I watched it a few days ago. I did not pay much mind to the Ms. Marvel series as I felt it was aimed toward a much younger audience. I may have gotten more out of the movie had I watched the series first. Kamela (Ms. Marvel) is pretty much an annoying fangirl; the actress plays the part well, but the character's place in the movie does not appeal to me much.

The action scenes were solid, the acting was somewhat good overall, the writing and directing had scenes jumping from one to another too quickly for the characters (or audiences) to digest what happened in the scene prior.

I didn't hate the movie. I didn't love it either. I think that it could have been better with some more careful directing.

Rebels was great. What'd you think of it BV?

Deep Space Nine was one of the more difficult Star Trek shows for me. The political drama and stationary setting for many of the episodes did not intrigue me as much as Voyager, Enterprise, Next Generation, or Brave New Worlds.

Fact check--I won the 2nd game with Stars! At the last round, I picked up my 6th star, while MM had 4. He did get one of the bonus stars, but that still left me with 6 and him with 5.

 

It was a pleasant, but short game. I think that I pretty much beat it in three sittings over a weekend. There are only 10 achievements to acquire. Overall, it is a decent story; I definitely found myself wondering what was going to happen next.

Firewatch is 90% off on Steam for $1.99 (plus tax).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/

I played a good chunk of the game yesterday. It makes for a great narrative-driven game. Graphics sound, and voice acting are all great. The play controls can be a little bit finnicky when trying to find a rope attachment point to climb down a ledge.

Overall, definitely worth $2.

It is a great binge series.

Like you said, Echo (Maya) is introduced in Hawkeye, so revisiting Hawkeye prior to watching is a good idea.

I really like how the hearing aid issues introduced in Hawkeye are taken further with Maya's deafness. The mythos from the Choctaw nation added some more depth to the story as well. As is par for Marvel series, the action sequences are excellent and each character gets a fair amount of backstory. I'd recommend the series for a binge watch.

Spartan (koalaEvolved), MasterMario (Iceman), and I played some Diablo IV tonight. Some things in partying up are not really clearly explained, like the tier system of veteran vs beginner not matching up questlines. Loot is handled way differently than Diablo II.

I really don't remember much of Diablo III. I have it and did play it, but just found it wasn't as memorable or as addictive as Diablo II was back twenty years ago.

So, Diablo discussion is in order; go!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all!

During November 2023, Half-Life is available for free on Steam for a limited time.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/70/HalfLife/

Thursday nights, what are ya'll playing?

MasterMario and I got a little victory in Overwatch 2 before moving from PC to Switch. We invited Creepin to play, but he declined to come out of his retirement from online games.

MasterMario, SpartanEvolved, and yours truly (Grindspine) played some Mario Party Superstars with Spartan Emo taking the lead at the end. Mega almost joined us, but couldn't find his game cartridge!

We all won an hour long game of Nexus Wars in the Starcraft 2 arcade--it was epic.

MasterMario and I died horrible deaths in a game of Mafia, also in the Starcraft 2 arcade.

Yggdrasil... cool! 

Nope, I didn't just have a stroke. That was a huge reference to Norse mythology.

If I am already on Disney Plus or Netflix and rewatch a move, I may stream it. However, if the movie is on Hulu, I'd rather ditch the commercials and watch a physical DVD.

Physical games have resale value, downloads absolutely do not.

I have a mix of old CD-roms, cartridge games, and various (Playstation, PS2, PS3, Xbox, 360) game discs along with a few downloaded console games and a pretty large Steam library.

I will say, since we use the Switch mostly in TV mode, fidgeting with the little door to put in a new game cart is more of a pain than on older systems. I have considered sticking with download games with that system. But I will also be selling Breath of the Wild since I have that on hard copy.

The Loki series is delivering. I wasn't too impressed with Secret Invasion. It wasn't terrible, but didn't have the same intrigue as Loki does so far.

Man, @BLUEVOODU, you've got to stop putting D+ in post titles. It makes me think that you are rating all these shows as barely watchable!

I will check the other thread to see if you finished Ahsoka.

I am just hoping that at some point, Sabine, Bo-Katan, Boba Fett, and Din Jarin get to be on screen together. We have already seen that these stories are happening around the same time period. Sabine has worked with Bo-Katan before; they had some long history with the Dark Saber.

Nah, I moved onto other things a while back. The game looks cool, but when I have limited time to game, cheap gotcha deaths wear thin pretty fast.

Spoiler: ShowHide

You can tell that Hayden Christensen reviewed all of the Clone Wars and really gave his all to give fans the Anakin they saw transitioning from Jedi Knight and General of the Grand Republic into Dearth Vader. This was the version of Anakin we have all wanted to see since the prequels!

The above spoiler scene is the best Ahsoka content thus far.

I am a huge fan of the Rebels series. The dialog does seem quite a bit stiff from the live action actors.

Spoiler: ShowHide

The Sabine from Rebels would never leave her Mandolorian helmet behind though.

SpartanEvo and I gaming on Steam, Battle.net, and on Discord right now!

Thank you! I was able to see Bluevoodu for a bit over the weekend and was able to play some Starcraft with MasterMario last week too!

I really need someone to make me a Portal cake!!