Earthbound and Dune 12.10.16

The Pac Man CE series so far in my opinion has been the best example of making an old video games character relevant in the modern age. Pac Man CE 2 does something really nobel in attempting to continue to evolve the format and in doing that making sure the series still feels like its moving forward. The safe bet would have been to update the game minimally adding a few maps and some new skins for the characters what this game feels like though is a complete reevaluation of the game. Gone are clearing left and right sections to collect fruit as well as to move onto the next string of dots you don't always have to eat all the existing dots but more drastically you can now bump into ghosts a number of times before hitting them becomes fatal (thats a big deal) also jump pads and a bomb which restarts you at the centre of the map I believe are additions (might be wrong though). Some of these features don't always work, the jump pads confuse things a bit too much for me for example. What I found relieving though was that once I unlocked new music and maps I found the same old addictive arcade feel of the first two games.  I'm loving it the same way I love the earlier games, short bursts of score attacking gameplay. Certainly I wouldn't play it for hours, but it does have that addictive "just one more go" feel when everything clicks into place. 

I also played more than I should have of NFL Blitz (N64). It does for American Football what NBA Jam does for basketball, making it more accessible by striping out a lot of the more complicated features of a more simulation based sports game. Thats perfect for me, the games are quick paced and simple to get into (at its most basic around 9 plays are available for both offence and defence) it's even so unafraid of getting away from reality that it has a depleting boost bar. Once I'd got around the complicated process of clearing a N64 memory card, something I'd completely forgotten, I started a league and am really getting into it. It's a real shame that these sorts of sports games have gone by the wayside in the modern day but at the same time I'm really pleased this game holds up so well. The only downside is that the CRT i've got hooked up at the moment refuses to play NTSC games in colour, so I'm missing out a little on the graphics!