Games Updates and July Post
July 21, 2024
Tags: games nintendo hackandslash bayonetta arcade spaceinvaders
July - The Busiest Month Yet
I’ve one hell of a month, lots of work and everything that comes with that. Stuff like backed up chores, paperwork, drama, etc. I like a good balance of work life and everything else but this month really tipped the scales. I had a load of huge projects at work which resulted in some amazing final projects, but it was a lot of work.
That is all to say that not a lot has happened to warrant a blog but I’m trying to make sure this thing stays current so I’m sort of forcing myself to put together a post on this semi-lazy Sunday afternoon. I’m really just looking for an excuse to think about the History of Space Invaders but I’ll get to that.
Games Are Back on the Menu, Folks!
Since January I’ve been dealing with an issue with left wrist that left me out of the game, so to speak. I think it was De Quervain tenosynovitis but it was never officially diagnosed. After about a month of dealing with the pain I got a brace, had a physical therapist friend treat me a few times and showed me some exercises to do. Even with all of that it took until about June for normal use of my hand and thumb to come back. I’m still doing stretches and exercises but I’m not using a brace and, more importantly, I’m able to use my thumb and play games again!
In 2022, with the launch of Bayonetta 3 imminent, I decided to devote all of my gaming time towards “Hack & Slash” (or “Character Action”) games. I was a big fan of Bayonetta and decided to really look into Kamiya and the genre he helped create. The following year I wanted to finish filling in some gaps of my favorite game creators, like Kamiya and Suda51.
Without being able to play for so many months of the year, my finished game list is looking pretty anemic. Unicorn Overlord was a big surprise hit for me, I was able to play that kind-of one handed. In the wake of the (excellent) Fallout TV show, I dabbled with Fallout 1. There are two great community editions for Fallout 1 & 2 to get them running on macOS.
I also got a few hours into Disco Elysium, which I found absolutely thrilling, but I really don’t think I’m in the mood for anything extremely narrative currently. Its been a month or so of being not able to commit to any game at all. I’ve started a lot this year and have either given up because of my wrist, work or something else.
Enter the ARCADE
So what do you do when you want to play a game but don’t want to get bogged down all that narrative and junk? Arcade games! I’ve been obsessing over Outrun for some reason. It turns out there is an absolutely excellent project that keeps Outrun 2006 updated for current systems. Outrun2006Tweaks is a very ambitious and interesting project, and it turns out that with the right install process you can get Outrun2006 PC edition running on the steamdeck, and it runs great. After that the most excellent Sega Ages Outrun edition was up on sale for under $3 so I picked that up on the switch. Between those that was a lot of my gaming time in July.
Recently I picked up Space Invaders Forever, which is basically just Space Invaders Extreme for the PSP ported to the switch. Its an excellent port, an even more excellent game and it pushed into a rabbit hole about the history of Space Invaders. It’ll garner a longer thing on my part but I’m going to save that for another time. I want to like do a dive into the series, the creator, the many different iterations of the game. For now I’m just having a great time on the game on the switch.
Lastly, I’ve been playing the excellent new release from Nintendo, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. Its an interesting game, it isn’t a sequel to the NES Remix games on the Wii U & 3DS, but it can fill the same itch. Its pretty fun to try to shave some milliseconds off your times. Its a quick “pick up and play” game that I was enjoying more than I expected I would. Its also pretty interesting to read “official speedrunning tips” from Nintendo.