Sit down and let us school you.
Welcome back to a thoughtful Nerds Without Pants! Patrick had a smarty pants Stage Select topic, so we enlisted the smartiest pants person we know: Mike Fallek of the Hackthought Podcast. What follows is comedy, heated debates, and the debut of the Patrick Leap? Listen and find out, Pantsless people!
If Seltzer and Friedberg made a game.
For all the retro-inspired indie titles out there, the genre seems mostly earnest, even deferent. There may be a small jab, such as Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon regulating the whip to a sub weapon, yet these are smaller details as opposed to poking fun at the original retro titles. Granted, the goofy nature of many retro games renders parody harder to accomplish, as even Shovel Knight feels like it could have once been an earnestly made game from the '80s or '90s. Enter Old School Musical, a rhythm game which pokes fun at an entire smorgasbord of games.
Yacht Club Games kickstarts an instant classic.
When you think of side-scrolling platformers, it’s hard not to recall old-school classics like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, and Mega Man. Shovel Knight, a modern day 8-bit 2D side-scrolling platformer, feels like a blast from the past. After an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign, Yacht Club Games’ first release is a grand slam.
Suffering from insomnia? Play Inquisitor for ten minutes before bed.
One of the things I enjoy most about working for a gaming website is the way it’s helped me expand my horizons when it comes to genre. Here at PixlBit we don’t just get to review the games we already know we love; sometimes we’re assigned a game and other times we get reviews based on our available schedules. I’ve reviewed a ton of games I likely would never have even considered playing in the year I’ve been with PixlBit, and if I’ve only learned one thing in that time it would be this: I really am not cut out for the classic ‘90s-style PC RPG. These were games designed around a specific template of hardcore tabletop RPG rules. As I played Inquisitor by Cinemax I realized that these are games made for a very specific audience, and if you aren’t part of that audience you may as well run along, because this isn’t for you.
Don't tell this cheerleader that zombies are overexposed.
Suda 51 has never produced what one would call a ‘normal’ game. Pairing odd subject manner with hyper-stylized aesthetic in games like Killer 7, No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned, the fruits of the famed developer’s labor have struggled to find any kind of sizable audience. Perhaps it makes sense then that Suda’s next game, Lollipop Chainsaw, while sporting a strange title and a concept that may still be considered a departure from the norm, is his most mainstream title yet.
Bear witness to my journal of failure!
Avernum: Escape the Pit is in love with the '90s. In fact, it’s so in love with the '90s that every copy of the game should come with a flannel shirt, a can of Crystal Pepsi, and Nevermind on CD. Spiderweb Software has created a new game that feels old, not unlike what Capcom did with Mega Man 9 and 10. To gamers that cut their teeth on games like Ultima and Baldur’s Gate this is fantastic news, as games like this simply don’t get made very often anymore. For gamers such as me who were weaned on consoles and people under the age of 30, this game is a total head scratcher.
The commando returns for the sequel to the remake of the classic NES platformer.
The second iteration of Capcom’s Bionic Commando reboot once again takes us to the brutally difficult world of old-school NES platformers. Gameplay improvements and an awesome soundtrack await returning players as they precariously swing the commando from level to level. Technical issues keep the game from feeling too polished as a whole, but fans of the original may be pleasantly surprised as they play through the game’s many environments.
