PixlBit

        I was good for a few weeks not buying anything but a few things came up that necessitated me to pick up a few things: One was my need to read everything Halo; another was getting an Amazon gift card for Christmas; yet another was the dimness of my GBA SP; and finally was the sickness I just contracted – RETRO FEVER!

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     Sony at The Computer and Electronics Show this week announced their streaming service Playstation Now to begin this Summer. It will stream games from all generations of Playstation and possibly other publishers to TVs, Phones, Tablets and PS3, 4 and Vita. Sony bought Gaikai to do the programing for this a little while ago for a ton of money showing their commitment to making this work. The full breakdown is on the Playstation blog.

      Saw this today on my Facebook page. It's kinda cool. Apparently someone put this together on redit and it was reposted on geekxgirls.com (the image is bigger there) and then a friend of mine made a facebook post. It's a chart of all the consoles and what they would cost in today's dollars. The Intellivision at almost $1000? The 3DO IS $1000. Ha! The Colecovision and Atari Jaguar look like real bargains by comparison.

       For me this week is the official start of the new generation of video games. It seems weird to make that distinction now because what does that mean for phones, tablets and PCs? Nothing. It only means something for consoles and handhelds. The rise of phone and tablet games has made me think the generation distinction doesn’t speak to the entire world of video gaming anymore. That being said, I still play all my games on console or handheld and so speaking of a new generation means something to me. Additionally I have only two of the current gen systems, a 3DS and PS Vita and still play on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii and probably will continue to do so for most of 2014 if not longer. So as last gen as my week was, and as out of touch with iOS and PC, here it is.

    Lots of games provide a main story that lasts ten or less hours that I can say I finished in 2013. Some I still didn’t finish in that time, but at ten hours, I’d say I was interested enough to spend a weekend or two playing them and for that they deserve a mention.

    I played a bunch of games this year (70 to be exact), not all were released this year. I think the most important factor is time spent, so I ranked them that way. This first blog are all the games I spent at least twenty hours with. These games I’ve developed intimate knowledge of. Some I still haven’t completed even with all that time.

    MAGFest, or the Music and Gaming Festival, is an event held in National Harbor, Maryland just outside Washington D.C. on the east coast of America January 2-5. Here’s a video for the show:

     It’s an appropriate day to be playing Sonic, this fifth day of Christmas, but instead I’m recapping my week. I chat about Mario & Lugi: Dream Team, Halo: Spartan Assault, Skylanders: Swap Force, Lego Star Wars, Despicable Me Minion Rush, environmental design, Jared Diamond’s criticism of video games, game conventions,  and complain about Halo 4… again.