The Grand Emperor's Retro Video Gaming Blog

The XBox 360 is one of those systems that has gained legendary status, and even despite being replaced by the XBox One still has its teeth firmly dug in. Take a look online and see how many new releases there are for the system, up to and including Madden 17 , and you'll suddenly come to realize what a force the XBox 360 was in its generation, and even after.  But before the hardy wireless black beauty that is the XBox 360 came out, it was preceded by Microsoft's first console, gen 6's simply named XBox. The XBox was released in November of 2001, a full year after its chief competitor the PS2, and nearly two years after the Sega Dreamcast. In a way the XBox came into a market that the industry had already conceded to the PS2, and until the 360 the XBox would find itself following in the PS2's shadow just about everywhere. This by no means meant that the XBox was a losing system though, and despite the obstacles set before it managed to make a mark on gamers that woul...

One of my New Years resolutions for this year was to get myself an Atari Lynx, and round about February I did thanks to Best Electronics. I'd pretty much been shopping for a Lynx since October of 2015 after I heard the first full (and only) episode of the Atari Lynx Game by Game Podcast . After the host, Christian, did such a good job explaining the Lynx  and what really made the system unique for its era I was pretty much sold on the Lynx and I started my endeavors to get one of my own. Now for me the Lynx had, up until that point, always been a bit of a mystery. I knew Atari had briefly flirted with a handheld system around the time of the Nintendo Gameboy, and that it was notoriously hard on batteries, but that was all I knew. I'm probably not alone in having thought this or saying it now, but many of us in that time regarded Atari as being a bit behind the times, and not as serious into gaming as Nintendo or Sega. As a newly minted Nintendo fan, I thought my Gameboy ...

Well all I can say for this Friday is that I'm a bit shocked at both how quickly and how easily this week passed by. Of course it's also been a big planning week, and week of working on household projects. As for this weekend I'm in the unique position of having a three day weekend thanks to Columbus Day on Monday. Of course it's always weird having Columbus Day off because it's still a regular work day for most, so although I have the day off the rest of the world can still pester me on that day. Of course I'm hoping it translates into more play time. This Weeks Buys: Damage Inc (PS3) - This game was developed by Madcatz and comes with a unique joystick, specially made for the game. The game itself is pretty standard PS3 flight sim fare, but it's the joystick and cool packaging that are they true selling factors. The joystick itself looks like it's made up of components from a World War II fighter cockpit, and has the overall appearance of a U...

I'll  be the first to openly admit that I've been critical of the Atari Jaguar in some of my past posts. Although I never bashed the system or its games, I did have to question Atari's 64-bit claims in a 16/32-bit era. After all it's no secret that  the Jaguar had a more than a few key issues with its lackluster, and exaggeration filled marketing, and that it played follow the leader in the wake of Sega's "In Your Face" advertising for the Genesis.  Then  came it's games like the Jaguars pack-in  Cybermorph a  game that looks relatively unimpressive, and gives you the sense of it being a Star Fox  rip off, and the always somewhat embarrassing  Kasumi Ninja , with its odd stereo types, including that of Scotsman shooting flames out of his...well wherever you believe he's shooting it from.  As an outsider the Jaguar looked like a huge mess to me, between the bad marketing and horrible games, it was easy to pass judgement as to why this was At...

Sadly, after a long and stressful week this was another weekend that was not my own, or to translate not a lot plays this weekend. With that said I have another stressful week ahead of me next week, so I'm hoping next weekend is a big play-through weekend for me, maybe even one more push through the old backlog. This Weeks Buys: Secret Weapons Over Normandy (XBOX) - This is actually the sequel to Lucas Arts Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe which was really unique but somewhat obscure flight sim from late in the DOS era. It's not an XBOX exclusive game, but its cheap and looks pretty cool, it also makes me want to pick up a copy of  Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe too. Superman: Man of Steel (XBOX) - This is an XBOX exclusive, and in a way reminds me of  Superman 64  but done right. It looks like a lot of fun and despite being obscure is pretty well reviewed. Darius Twin  (SNES) - I've never played any of the  Darius  games before but they do se...

Sadly, after a long and stressful week this was another weekend that was not my own, or to translate not a lot plays this weekend. With that said I have another stressful week ahead of me next week, so I'm hoping next weekend is a big play-through weekend for me, maybe even one more push through the old backlog. This Weeks Buys: Secret Weapons Over Normandy (XBOX) - This is actually the sequel to Lucas Arts Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe which was really unique but somewhat obscure flight sim from late in the DOS era. It's not an XBOX exclusive game, but its cheap and looks pretty cool, it also makes me want to pick up a copy of  Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe too. Superman: Man of Steel (XBOX) - This is an XBOX exclusive, and in a way reminds me of  Superman 64  but done right. It looks like a lot of fun and despite being obscure is pretty well reviewed. Darius Twin  (SNES) - I've never played any of the  Darius  games before but they do se...