PixlBit

A lot of the fun in Smash is using Nintendo characters, and since Brawl, the crossovers in the video game industry at large. Smash Ultimate was a huge love lettter not only to almost the entire Japanese game industry (the only thing I think that they could have added was Adol Christin for some Falcom representation), but there was also a fair bit of Western representation there as well. Just wish Nintendo had allowed Scorpion to be in Smash.  None of Smash's clones have that kind of cachet, though Viewtiful Joe RHR was pretty good. PSABR honestly came at a pretty weak period for PlayStation, plus the characters weren't nearly as iconic as the ones in Smash. All I could think about was how Sony should have bought Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon when they had the chance to do so. Cloud and Sephiroth were an especially glaring omission given that Final Fantasy VII pretty much built the PlayStation brand single-handedly, but I'm pretty sure Nintendo had already secured Cloud for Smash Wii U/3DS by that point. 

The first sports games I ever played were a couple of TRS-80 games. One was a baseball game, the other was a decathlon game made by "Micro Soft." Yes, it was the same company before they turned into the giant company-swallowing behemoth they are today. I played Track and Field and Activision Decathlon on Atari. I had an Atari Trak-Ball with a rapid fire switch on itb(and was about the size of a Sega Genesis) so I cheesed my way through those games. My favorite sports games are the NBA Jam games by Midway, the ones that featured digitized players and had Mortal Kombat characters and even President Bill Clinton as hidden players. I do play the Nintendo sports games once in awhile. 

I played a similar game yesterday: Super Mario Sunshine. It's like Power Wash Simulator, except Bowser's minions are trying to kill you.

Yeah, I'd wear the cat ears. Bonus points if it has a big bow tied to one of the ears.

Stray seems like an interesting game, but it isn't a cat simulator until the cat walks across a keyboard while you're trying to type stuff. I remember playing an Atari 8-bit game in the 80s called Alley Cat.

Stage Select:

3. Cloud in Smash 4 and Ultimate.  Now we could finally settle the age-old 5th generation question of Link versus Cloud. Now you can even have Link and Cloud square off against Ganon and Sephiroth. Or Link and Sephiroth against Cloud and Ganon. Or whatever.  But Cloud was my favorite third party character in Smash. 

2. Link in Soulcalibur 2 for the Gamecube. The developers really did their homework on Zelda lore. On the basis of Link being in that game, it was tied with Virtua Fighter 4 as my favorite 6th gen fighting game. 

1. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 11. He really nailed Shang Tsung in the movie, and it was neat that Netherrealm was able to get permission to use his likeness in the game. To get a little personal, I recently watched Mortal Kombat on HBO Max. It's one of my favorite video game movies of all time. When I was 17, I went to see it in theaters with my dad, so watching it now is somewhat bittersweet, since it makes me miss my dad. 

Cage Match:

Driver 2 never made it to the match. On the way to the match, Driver 2 stopped to rob a gas station in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, but somehow only managed to steal a pack of Bubble Yum. Driver 2 couldn't figure out how to get back on I-40,  so it asked the clerk how to find the highway. The directions the clerk gave Driver 2 led it straight to the Okmulgee County Sheriff's Department. Driver 2 is currently facing 5 years in the Oklahoma state prison for armed robbery. Syphon Filter wins. 

Earthbound Origins was actually released on Wii U in a surprise release in 2015. However,  I believe it was already translated by Nintendo around 1990. It never got released because Nintendo didn't think it would sell, especially with the SNES on the horizon. So it was one of those games that Nintendo had lying around that never got released. For context, Wii U sales were pretty much in the tank in 2015, and they figured that Earthbound Origins would be a way to make a little quick cash and to remind Wii U owners that they were still out there. Maybe when Switch sales dip a little bit, which might be awhile since the Switch is still selling circles around PlayStation and Xbox, Nintendo might release Mother 3. Typically with Nintendo, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, they don't try to put it back in.

Part of the reason why Nintendo no longer makes Ken Griffey Jr/baseball games is because when they were making those games, Hiroshi Yamauchi personally held a full ownership stake in the Seattle Mariners, which was the first time a Major League Baseball team was owned by a non-American. However, it was thanks to Mr. Yamauchi that the team stayed in Seattle. 

So Nintendo had a ready-made entry into the baseball video game market.  When he died, Nintendo sold most of his stake in the team. I think they still hold ten pecent ownership, and the team's financial interests are managed by Howard Lincoln, Nintendo of America's 1980s-era CEO.  

I got bogged down in the last couple of chapters of FFXIII. 

As for Paw Patrol, this is a pretty funny video.

This has been a quiet year for me. My GOTY so far is Triangle Strategy. However, the back end of the year is pretty loaded, what with XC3, Bayo 3 (does it have a release date?I never saw), Pokemon S/V, and Persona 3-5 coming to Switch. I've spent this year working on games like SMT V that I bought last year.

Fallout Kirby was a pretty interesting concept for a game, I have to say.

I have a Zelda-themed 3DS XL that came with a voucher for A Link Between Worlds. I bought a lot of rare games for it over the years, including SMT IV, Bravely Default, Dragon Quest VII, and 7th Dragon Code VFD. It's kind of sad that the 3DS is retired, but I wish more of its library would come to the Switch. I'd love a new 7th Dragon or Etrian Odyssey.

I can remember playing the first game in pizza parlor arcades back when it was new. By then, Mortal Kombat 3, Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken were taking up most of an ever-decreasing supply of oxygen in the arcades, so I didn't see it a great deal. The second game actually released on Saturn before the first game made it out on PS1.