PixlBit

     The first Star Wars movie (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as it's now refered to) came out in May ’77 and the Atari Video Computer System in October ’77. What a year! My Dad probably got the AVCS (or Atari 2600) that Christmas or the next one, and I played Air-Sea Battle, Combat, Basketball, Baseball, Breakout, Bowling, and Night Driver. I think Breakout is still fun today, as is Bowling, which I bought in XBLA’s Game Room recently. I would’ve got Breakout as well but it’s critical to use the paddle controller for it. The same is true of Night Driver which I still think of when I’m in the car at night.

    I was playing Sega Bass Fishing on my Dreamcast the other day when I noticed it was Wednesday, comics day. I told my Dreamcast to bring up the Sega Marketplace and, with the fishing rod controller, made my way through the new releases, the announcer said “Hit!” on every one, which became annoying after a while, and selected the ones I wanted with a tug like you do when hooking a fish in the game. Then I reeled them in to my purchase screen, the announcer saying, “Fight!”. I don’t know why they make you pretend to reel in a fish when you select products to buy, but it is fun. Then an image appeared looking like a basket of fish but filled with comics and the announcer said, “This one’s huge!” A day later, they showed up at my door and here’s the pictorial evidence.

      I missed a day of BaD due to Icepocalype. Yesterday night there was freezing rain that added to the already snow heavy trees and brought down branches and whole trees down all over during the day. I just managed to pick up my comics. The store hadn’t any power, but they were open for cash transactions. But on the way back, I actually witnessed a tree coming down. It came down over the road and then got trapped in the power lines. I turned down a side street and got around it but what a sight that was!

     Every Tuesday it's release day for retailers in N.A., so I look up what's new in various forms of media: games, music, comics, and books. Here's a rundown of what I'm interested in this week.

This is BaD. I'm just going to list today's events. No time.

    This is my weekly recap but think about it meshed with the Genesis game DecapAttack. It’s like I’m removing my head and throwing at you. All you have to do is catch it and look inside. Then, please, please, throw it back. A man without a head is like… you know… never mind. I think that might be a good thing. Keep it.

          Kicking off BaD this year a day early ('cause I'll be actually gaming tomorrow), I decided to revisit a series I did at 1UP way back in 2011. It was on an old profile that I erased so I couldn't just link to it. I did have the files on my computer though, so I thought this would be the perfect time to rewrite it and add all sorts of nice multimedia for Pixlbit. So here goes the epic journey of The Video Games of My Life.

    First it was Halo now Gears. What other game franchises does Microsoft own now? Well, a lot. Just to name a few are: Age of Empires, Crackdown, Fable (‘cause they own Lionhead), and all the games by Rare and Twisted Pixel (‘cause they own them too). Microsoft has partnered with many developers as well including formerly Sony exclusive Insomniac Games who are now going to release Sunset Overdrive later this year for Xbox One.