PixlBit

I may pick up DKC Tropical Freeze for Switch in the near future. Looks great.

"Snow day"? What is a "snow day"? Is that one of those weird new-age holidays you see every once in awhile so that you can look at the snow on the mountains? And what's this stuff about "daylight savings time" I hear about every few months? I've asked all my friends here about it and they're just as confused as I am.

There are some series I don't follow with every game despite the fact that I enjoy them when I do. And Mario Kart and Smash are not annualized franchises. They make one of these per generation, typically market them as a platform rather than as individual games, and in the case of Smash, the only handheld Smash they ever made was Smash 4 3DS. I got my Gamecube more with Wind Waker in mind than Melee, and I wasn't sure how big Smash 4 would be given the rather weak-selling platforms it was on. With Mario Kart, I never was interested in the 2D Mario Karts (Super Mario Kart and Super Ciruit), Double Dash got back-burnered for Zelda and Tales of Symphonia, and with MK Wii, I hesitated because of the motion controls. Most of what I know about those games comes from playing Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 8.

I usually play every other Smash game. I played Smash 64, but not Melee; Brawl, but now WiiU/3DS, and I have Ultimate. 

It's like that with Mario Kart. I've played every third one of those starting with Mario Kart 64.

Seeing Penguin Wars honestly makes me wish we could get Pengo on modern consoles. That game hasn't been seen in the US since it had a Game Gear version in the early 90s.

I'll play Tetris once in awhile. I mostly played the Game Boy game because it came with my Game Boy. Right now, my go-to Tetris version is Puyo Puyo Tetris.

Kind of looks like some game I saw on Sega Genesis Classics, but that was made by Sega, not Taito.

The Steam Deck was just released, though in limited quantities. Gabe Newell apparently hand-delivered the first batch of Steam Decks himself at a launch event. It runs SteamOS, which is what Valve tried to use when they put out a line of "Steam Machine" PCs a few years back. I'd honestly rather use my laptop (which is a Macbook and is not the most gaming-friendly equipment out there, but it will run emulators. I mostly emulate MAME and old computer systems like Atari 8-bit and MS-DOS.)

It's prety much my favorite system. It has the best RPG library I've ever seen of any game system. Even puts the PS1 to shame at this point. It's not only got a huge library of Japanese RPGs, it's also got most of the big Western RPGs like Witcher 3, Skyrim, Outer Worlds, and Divinity. By the end of this year, it will have likely outsold the PS4 and Game Boy, which will put it as the second best-selling home system of all time behind the PS2, third overall behind PS2 and the Nintendo DS.

At some point, they will release a next-generation Switch. Part of the reason they haven't is because of the global chip shortage, which is why you have to practically camp out on online retail sites waiting for restocks of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Hopefully, Nintendo will make the Switch platform a persistent ecosystem where Switch software is compatible with its successors going forward, similar to what Sony and Microsoft are trying to do. 

Cage Match:

I imagine the first one playing out like the episode of Futurama where Hermes comes out of retirement for the Jamaican limbo team. Thanks to an extremely high-tech body-shaping suit, Crusader "Hermes Conrad" No Remorse, which did win a couple of competitions in its youth, grabs an early lead and the crowd's adoration. The body suit then ruptures from Crusader's middle-aged flab, and "Barbados Slim" Super Mario Bros carries the win to the cheers of the crowd. Crusader's wife pats Crusader on the head and says, "Don't worry, if I'd wanted to be married to a video game champion, I'd have stayed married to Super Mario."

Meanwhile, Chex Quest vs. Castlevania 64 actually turns out to be a surprisingly even match. Castlevania ultimately wins, but you've gotta admire the pluck and spirit of Chex Quest. They could have just phoned it in as a breakfast cereal tie-in, but they actually put some effort into the match. It's a classic underdog story.

P.S. Dragon Quest is one of the best-selling video game franchises out there, with 87 million total units sold, so it's definitely earned its pile of money on which to sleep on with many beautiful ladies. I've contributed a few copies myself since 1989.

In regards to "me and Quest 64 and me and Area 51," I would like to remind Justin that cloning himself is expressly forbidden under Article VII, Section 19, sub-section 19cc, paragraph 4 of the official Cage Match Rules and Regulations, rev. 12. Violation of the No-Cloning Clause is an instant disqualification for all teams involved.