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Mashing buttons since 1984

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February Releases

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There still hasn’t been any great next-gen (which I guess is now this-gen) titles to really hit the release list yet, but things are getting better. But February is a great month of games if you haven’t moved on to the Xbox One or the PS4. The Playstation 3 line up is particularly strong this go-round. With that said, on to this month’s releases:

Xbox One

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame

Week of February 18th
Rayman Legends

Week of February 25th
Thief
Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame
Fable Anniversary

Week of February 11th
The Borderlands 2 & Dishonored Bundle
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII – I gave FFXIII the real college try and it never clicked. Now that I’ve been methodically working through my backlog I wonder if I’ll ever get back to it.

Week of February 18th
Earth Defense Force 2025
NASCAR ’14

Week of February 25th
Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Thief

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame

Week of February 18th
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame
Bravely Default – This is probably the only pick up for me this month. I’ve heard great things about Bravely Default and hope to grab it after I finish A Link Between Worlds.

Week of February 25th
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy

Week of February 4th
The Sims 3 Roaring Heights World
Airport Simulator 2014

Week of February 25th
Thief

PS4 Banner

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame

Week of February 11th
Week of February 18th
Rayman Legends

Week of February 25th
Thief
Putty Squad

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame

Week of February 11th
The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC
The Elder Scrolls: V:Skyrim & Bioshock Infinite Bundle – This is the “I only have time for two games this year” Bundle.
Far Cry Compilation
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
The Borderlands 2 & Dishonored Bundle – This is the “I love loot and killing things in gruesome ways” Bundle

Week of February 18th
Earth Defense Force 2025
NASCAR ’14
Ragnarok Odyssey ACE

Week of February 25th
Putty Squad
Magus
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Tales of Symphonia Chronicles
Thief

Week of February 4th
The LEGO Movie Videogame

Week of February 11th
Toukiden: The Age of Demons
DanganRonpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Week of February 18th
Ragnarok Odyssey ACE

Week of February 25th
Putty Squad

(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)

Four Swords Free for 3DS (until Sunday)

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Thanks to a tip from Laughter, I was pointed to a post over on Wii U Daily that Nintendo is giving Zelda Four Swords, the Gameboy Advance multi-Link Zelda game.

According to the post on Nintendo’s site:

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is GameSpot’s 2013 game of the year! We want to celebrate all things Hyrulian, so for a limited time we’re offering The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition for FREE!

I played a little of Four Swords back when it came out but never got a chance to play it very much. Now that we have four 3DSes in this household, we are always looking for ways to play something together. Having a little four-player Zelda should be great.

HELP! (By Playing Ascension With Me!)

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Templar_320x480So I am on a bit of an Ascension kick at the moment and it’s becoming a problem — it’s all I want to play. I scour the “Find Games” section multiple times a day, looking to get a PvP fix. I’ve resorted to bragging to my mates on Google+ about my latest winning streak (current personal best: three wins in a row).

I’m not sure what has got me on this deck building kick. I was a backer for HEX: Shards of Fate (which I recognize isn’t a deck building game, but work with me here). I play HEX when I get a chance, but HEX doesn’t fit in my pocket, so I started messing around with Ascension. I bought it ages ago but never really gave it much of a thought after playing a game or two. But I picked it up again this week and can’t put it down. It’s taking everything in my power not to buy all the expansions at once and to savor the first expansion for a little while.

So if you play Ascension in any form, let me know. I’m “i_aint_yer_pa” and I’m always on the look out for a new game.

Weekend Gaming

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I have decided that I needed to clean-up my gaming habits a little bit. It has been too scatter-shot for too long. I’d start a game and then another MUST-PLAY would come along and I’d drop whatever I had been playing to start playing this new hotness, leaving a trail of not-even-half-finished games in my wake. No more! I am committing to taking a little more of a Getting Things Done approach to my gaming. I’m limiting myself to playing just a couple games at a time. That means concentrating on those games and seeing them through to completion (or until they no longer hold my attention, which may be much sooner than ever getting close to the end). Once I settle on a couple games, I reserve the right to still play some pick-up-and-play games, like Spelunky or Super Meat Boy, when I just need a quick hit of gaming and I’m not settling in for an hour plus gaming session.

So the two games I’m currently focusing on are Zelda: A Link Between Worlds on the 3DS (which is top-notch so far) and starting the single player campaign over in Halo 4. So that’s where I plan on spending the bulk of my gaming time this weekend. With some Spelunky sprinkled in when I can because Good Lord that game is good.

What are you going to play this weekend?

January Releases

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Well, after a ruckus holiday, we’re back to a new year of releases and we are no longer looking forward to the Next Generation. We are now in the Next Generation. This month is relatively harmless, so feel free to stick with what you picked up for the holidays and the Steam Sale. Not much to see here. With that said, on to this month’s releases:

Xbox One

Week of January 28th
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Week of January 28th
Tomb Raider Game of the Year
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z

Week of January 7th
Wii Fit U w/Fit Meter

No January releases for the Nintendo 3DS.

Week of January 7th
METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE – ALL CAPS MEANS BUSINESS.

Week of January 14th
Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD

Week of January 21st
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny

PS4 Banner

Week of January 28th
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Week of January 28th
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z
Tomb Raider Game of the Year

No January releases for the Sony PSVita.

(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)

2013 Fun Games of the Year

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If you’ve read this site for any period of time, you know that we’ve always shied away from naming a “Game of the Year.” The reasons are many, but mostly come down to the fact that we don’t have time to play everything and saying something is the “Best” of “the Year” reduces games to some arbitrary set of factors that qualify it as the best. I don’t have the time nor authority to make such proclamations.

We, in the end, play games for fun. To be entertained, to be challenged, but ultimately to have fun. So that’s what we’ve done every year — reflect on which games we had the most fun with this year.

First, a quick list of games I picked up in the last couple of weeks (or planning on buying) that seem to be on everyone’s year end list that I haven’t got to yet: Super Mario 3D World, Brothers, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Fire Emblem: Awakening. They all look tremendously fun (although Fire Emblem’s Permadeath is hardly ever fun) but they didn’t make the cut.

To be honest, 2013 wasn’t the greatest year for me and playing new games. Time and resources were in short supply. And there wasn’t anything the jumped out and grabbed me as a must have until the end of the year, anyway.

The Fun Game of the Year that didn’t come out in 2013 was: Super Meat Boy. I’m really bummed I didn’t jump on the Super Meat Boy train earlier. This game is tremendous. This game falls into that same realm of accomplishment that Portal and Portal 2 did — whereas solving a level in Portal 2 bestowed the feeling of superior intellect, getting through a Super Meat Boy level (and grading out an A+, of course) makes you feel like you are Billy freaking Mitchell, the greatest video game player that ever played in the history of gaming.

Super Meat Boy is pixel-perfect platforming, challenging, unrelenting, brutal, disgustingly tricky and ultimately fair and balanced.

The game is over three years old. You’ve probably read it all before — the music is great, the controls are perfect and the game is just fun. Straight-up video game fun. I wish I would have played it sooner. This definitely would have been on 2010’s list.

(Runner up: Mark of the Ninja)

And the Buttonmasher’s Fun Game of the Year is: State of Decay!

Wow! State of Decay? Another zombie game?

Sure, why not? When I started writing a review for State of Decay, I described it as, “one part GTA’s open world, two parts Dead Rising’s zombie brawler (minus the good fighting mechanics), sprinkle in some Animal Crossing and a dash of Fire Emblem and you’ve got State of Decay for the Xbox 360.” (Fire Emblem? Permadeath.)

State of Decay is the first zombie game that deals with the topic covered by the show “The Walking Dead” — how do you survive? There isn’t a helicopter on its way in 48 hours to rescue you from the mall. You’re stuck here, so what are you going to do about it? And who are you going to trust?

State of Decay has its issues, the wonky fighting mechanics being the most egregious one. But overlooking the little nits and concentrating on what the game tried to do and what it was successful doing puts this game in the top tier of my favorite Xbox 360 games and it’s my 2013 Fun Game of the Year

(FGotY runner up: Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Runners up runner up: Bioshock Infinite and Halo 4)

As you can see, I didn’t really play a lot of new games this year. I hope to remedy that in 2014 with a new console and new approach to how I play games.

What was your Fun Game of the Year?

The Holiday Haul

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We had quite the Nintendo Holiday around the buttonmashing household — we added to more 3DS XLs to the mix (along with Pokemon X, Luigi’s Mansion and New Super Mario Brothers 2) and we added the coup de grace:

Special Wind Waker Wii-U

I also gifted myself a copy of the new Zelda 3DS game, A Link Between Worlds, but I haven’t had time to pop that into the system.

All in all, along with the games I picked up in the Steam Sale, I’m flush with new games going in to the new year.

What was under your tree?

In My Digital Hands

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starbound

Getting behind on your emails is perilous: you might miss something you bought for a long time.

When I first saw people posting their experiences on playing Starbound, I thought “didn’t I back that game?” I didn’t remember if it was Kickstarter or what, but I was pretty sure I plunked down some coin to give it a whirl. The game looked fun and since I had so much fun with Terraria, and Starbound looked like Terraria in Space, I figured I’d like Starbound, too. So as I finally made my way halfway through my November emails, I came across two emails from Humble Bundle. One was for the Humble WB Games Bundle and the other was for my Starbound beta access! So that is now downloading and I think I’ll take a break from working on my to-do list to play a little Starbound.

And good heavens, I forgot how much crap came with the Humble WB Bundle! If anyone needs/wants a copy of Arkham Asylum or Arkham City for Steam, let me know and you’re welcome to my copies. I’ve got Xbox 360 copies already.

So along with the Holiday Haul (which I’ll be talking about next), I have gaming coming out of my eyeballs. I am literally set for a year of solid gaming. Who needs next generation?

Holiday Weekend Gaming

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While it’s not quite yet the holiday season, the next week or so will definitely involve a lot of gaming around the buttonmashing household (two of the kids will be getting 3DS XLs, bringing the household total to four, plus there’s an outside chance dad buys the kids (read: himself) a Wii U). I assume if you’re reading this that gaming will be going on in your neck of the woods, too. Couple that with the evil Holiday Steam Sale (I already picked these up) that gaming is on everyone’s mind.

So what will you be playing this week(end)? I’m still in a loving relationship with Super Meat Boy, I simply can’t get enough. I also hope to get a little more Halo 4 in while the kids are away. When we travel home for the holidays, I’ll be taking my laptop along with me to work through my Steam list, including Monaco. It’s a good thing I have this rugged computer to tote around with me, but it hasn’t been the most “portable” of devices. I’ll be working up a post along the lines of my laptop-as-a-main-computer experience, as well. So I guess I’ll be adding “writing and blogging” to some of the gaming I’ll be doing this weekend.

I also picked myself up something a little special for my 3DS but I’m going to wait until the 25th to crack into it, since it’s the only gift I’ll be getting this year.

What about you? What are you holiday gaming plans?

In My Digital Hands

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monaco_boxart

dishonored_boxart

The first two casualties of Steam Sale, Monaco and Dishonored. This time, I’m actually going to play them and not let them collect dust, uninstalled, in my library.