Random Update: Recent Purchases, New Look...

It's January. Woohoo!

Christmas was pretty damn good this year. Got to spend a lot of time with my grandmother (My only family where I live) and I got to go to a bunch of different parties to socialize with people. Awesome stuff. I didn't get hammered once. Thank God for hereditary alcohol-processing genes. I'm sure that's totally something that exists.

Anyway, my Grandmother managed to do something awesome on Christmas. She managed to surprise me.

I received the following games on Christmas:

PS Vita: Injustice: Gods Among Us: Ultimate Edition
PS Vita: Killzone: Mercenary
PS Vita: Valhalla Knights 3
PS Vita: Ys: Memories of Celceta
Wii U: Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD

Now, that's awesome, right? Most Grandparents wouldn't take the effort or cash to buy one game for a grandchild, let alone five. This is pretty damn cool.

But that isn't the surprise.

After opening the final gift, my grandmother got up to get something from the other room. She came back with a decent-sized gift bag and said "Almost forgot. Here's something else."

Inside was an iPad Air.

Now, those Vita games were ones that I had mentioned to her at a few different points. She must have made a list and got those for me. I had given no real notification to her that I wanted an iPad. Did I? Hell yes I did. But I kind of wanted it in a "Yeah, that's pretty cool." sort of way. I guess I must have mentioned it to her in a conversation at some point, and she decided to surprise me. I'm really touched that she did this for me. It's really made this Christmas much better than the last few ones.

As for the iPad? It's effing gorgeous. It's probably the most awesome gift that I have received in some time. God love her.

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I made a new banner. I was kind of tired of the old one. My original banner was made by me as a banner for my personal blog. It's just a few pictures of me from the last five years or so with the colors inverted. I have a modified version of this on my Facebook page with a few other bits in there. It's supposed to represent my somewhat-haphazard way of thinking and to show how my mind works and what I'm thinking about.

That last sentence is complete bull.

Honestly? I just think it looks cool. But this is a video game blog, not a personal one. I'm going to try to keep this based on video games first and foremost.

So in comes the new banner.

It's fairly basic, as you can see. Just a bunch of game logos and a bit of sprite artwork. None of that is my doing, of course. Those are all logos for companies that are defunct, and each of them are ones that I love quite a bit. Let's go through the list:

Looking Glass Studios: I am a HUGE fan of LGS' work. They were, simply put, some of the best goddamn workers in the video game industry, and it is a damn shame that they were forced to close. This is the company that put out Ultima Underworld and Thief, as well as super-underrated stuff like Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri. They also created the System Shock games, which have left a hell of a lasting impact on me due to the fact that they gave me nightmares as a child.

Amiga Work Bench Disk: I have a soft spot for the Commodore Amiga. Never had one personally until a couple of years ago, but I did use one in school when I was a kid. I don't quite know exactly why my elementary school had an Amiga, but it was really cool nonetheless. It's a computer that is pretty rare in North America. Most of the best software (or any of it, for that matter) is in PAL format, which can cause problems for people like me who have an NTSC Amiga. The image in the banner is taken from the splash screen that show when you turn on an Amiga that doesn't have a Workbench disk inserted. Since Workbench is the OS for the Amiga, you kind of need one to do things with the computer. Fun fact: my Amiga uses a later version of the Kickstart rom, so I don't get to see that particular logo if I boot the computer up without a disk.

Viacom New Media: I'll do a post on this company at a later date, similar to my other ones on dead companies. Viacom New Media's games shaped a lot of my childhood. I'll leave more for another post.

Bullet-Proof Software and Spectrum Holobyte: Check out my post for info on these companies.

The Iron Man image is from the Capcom fighter Marvel Super Heroes, of which I own the arcade machine, but not the game itself. Iron Man is probably my favorite comic book character, and the Modular Armor (the one in the image, as well as the armor that he wore throughout the 1990s) is my favorite out of the countless Iron Man armors. Superior Tech, indeed...

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Picked up a few games at the local Flea Market:

SNES: Wing Commander
SNES: Bio Metal
Sega Genesis: Flashback: The Quest for Identity
Game Boy Advance: Mario Kart Super Circuit

I'll probably do a write up on some underrated SNES games in the future. That console's got a ton of hidden gems that are worth talking about.

And, yes, video games are pretty cool.