PixlBit

Merry Christmas!  It’s time to do what I do every year and have my Cary’s Pretend Christmas Present Party!  Here’s how it works.  In the comments section, you give me a pretend present.  It can be anything you want.  It’s the thought that counts, literally, and it won’t cost you a dime!  And then I’ll reply with a pretend present for YOU!  It’s fun when it’s fun.  Also, I have MORE presents for you, too!  More game reviews I’ve written recently at GamerDad.com!  Just what you always wanted, right?  Anyway, please read as many as you can and maybe even post a like or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it!

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 (PS4)

It’s more LEGO game goodness.  Since I don’t read comic books, I probably didn’t get all the references.  Now that Disney owns Marvel, this game has no X-Men or Fantastic Four since other movie studios own the rights to those.  So they had to get even more obscure.  There are characters I have never heard of, like Spider-Gwen and Gwenpool.  What’s with all the Gwens?  What’s next?  Gwen Hulk?  Captain Ameri-Gwen?  At least my favorite Marvel character, She-Hulk, is one of the main characters here.

Playing With Super Power: Super NES Classics (Book)

So as you know from my previous blogs that I got a SNES Classic Edition for my birthday.  Well the other thing I got for my birthday was a book about SNES Classic games.  They probably published this book to coincide with the release of the SNES Classic Edition.  I’ve enjoyed reading it almost as much as playing my SNES Classic.  I just REALLY liked the SNES.

Zelda Champions amiibo

In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there are four champions who pilot giant animal-shaped mechs to try and stop Ganon.  So they made amiibo figures out of them (the champions, not the mechs, although that would be cool, too).  Can you guess who my favorite one is?

Just Dance 2018

Some may complain that Ubisoft is just pooping these out every year, but there’s a reason why they do this.  They’re actually pretty high quality games once you take a look at them.  Sure, they’re not my cup of tea, but I can certainly imagine the audience that would like these, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  I’m surprised how well cell phones work as controllers for this game.  Now if only I could get that annoyingly catchy Bubble Pop song out of my head.

Brawlhalla (PS4)

This game’s been around for a while on PC.  I know because I’ve seen it a lot at PAX shows.  But now it’s on PS4.  It’s a free-to-play fighting game that plays just like Smash Bros.  And it’s actually pretty decent for what it is.  There’s a reason why it’s been around so long.  So if you’re curious and have a PS4 or PC, you should download it since it’s free and try it out. 

Spelunker Party!  (Switch)

Spelunker is actually a very old game.  It’s a clunky 2-D platformer about cave exploring.  Like Donkey Kong, if you fall further than the height of your character, you die, so it’s a very hard game.  But it’s actually pretty popular in Japan for some reason.  Games like Taiko no Tatsujin even have a Spelunker song you can play in one of the games, and even anime cartoons make reference to Spelunker.  Over the past five or so years, there have been a couple of remakes and re-releases of Spelunker, and I’ve reviewed them all!  The newest one just came out on the Switch.  It’s a version of the free-to-play Spelunker World that was out on PS4 a few years ago, but they took out all the free-to-play junk.  It’s still really hard, but also surprisingly addicting.

The Mummy: Demastered (PS4)

It’s a movie based game, but it’s also made by WayForward and plays and looks like a 16-bit Metroid game.  Sounds awesome, right?  What could go wrong?  Well something did.  When you die, you don’t start back at your last save point.  You turn into an undead monster and then you play as another character.  But in order to get most of your collectibles back, you must find your undead counterpart and kill him.  That sapped all the fun out of the game right there for me.  Sometimes when game developers come up with a new idea, they need to take a hard look at it and ask themselves, “Is this fun?”

Deer Hunter: Reloaded (PS4)

The last three games I like to call ‘hick games’ because they’re about huntin’, racin’, and fishin’.  But don’t think I’m making fun of hicks, because I’m from Texas and a lot of my family is from Alabama, so we could be considered hicks.  And it doesn’t mean I’m saying these kinds of games are bad either.  Heck, even my grandmother liked to play Deer Hunter games back in the day.  But I will say this particular Deer Hunter game is not very good.  It’s hard to aim, graphics are so bad it’s hard to see the deer, and it’s very buggy.  Deer will get stuck in rocks and run in place for a few seconds before running around them, for instance.  And believe me, I do know good and bad hunting games.  Back when the first Deer Hunter games were out and very popular, I was reviewing games for The Dallas Morning News.  My editor sent me so many hunting games that I finally had to tell him to stop, and I hate refusing games to review!

NASCAR Heat 2 (PS4)

I don’t really know much about NASCAR, but it sure is popular!  This isn’t a bad game at all, and if you’re a NASCAR fan I think you’ll love it.  But racing games where all you do is make left turns just doesn’t hold my interest, personally.  I always picked the M&M’s car because it looked the prettiest.  Yeah that was a real manly statement, huh?  I think it’s neat that the game has the Texas Motor Speedway track, although I’ve never actually been to it, even though it’s not too far from where I live.  I have been to the Talladega track in Alabama, though.  At my old job, I had a customer who would always ask for me, and one time when I visited family in Alabama, I also visited her at her store. Afterwards I went and checked out the Talladega track.  They didn’t have a race that day, but there were cars driving around the track doing test runs, so it was pretty neat.

Rapala Fishing Pro Series (PS4)

And finally is this fishing game.  I actually kind of like most fishing games, or fishing mini-games.  They can be kind of fun.  I think it’s neat that this game has Lake Guntersville in Alabama.  A lot of my family there live in towns around Guntersville, and I’ve been on that lake several times.  If I had to move to Alabama, I’d like to live in Guntersville, as you can almost always see the lake around you, even in town.

And that’s all for now!  Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!  Don’t forget about the pretend presents!  Later!  --Cary