Around the Network

Good weekend, friends! It’s time once again for that weekly review of what’s been going on here on MoeGamer and elsewhere around my little network.

You almost didn’t get anything out of me today because I’ve had a string of computer disasters today — the USB ports in the front of my PC’s case have broken, my old hard drive (which apparently held the Windows Boot Manager) died completely, preventing Windows from booting even from another drive, and even the god-damn power button on the case snapped its clips and became unusable. All these issues have since been resolved through varying degrees of creativity, meaning I have a working (if somewhat jury-rigged) computer once again — and hopefully there will be a Sunday Driving video for you to enjoy later in the evening.

But enough of my woes. Let’s see what you might have missed this week…

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MoeGamer

Sunday Driving: Midway Pass – I’ve got some new equipment that makes it easy and practical for me to appear “on camera” rather than simply being a disembodied voice, so this was the first (rather imperfect!) experiment. Expect more of this in the coming weeks.

Tina Guo: Game On! – Another MoeGamer Music column, this time taking a look at a video game-inspired album from cello superstar Tina Guo.

Dedicated to the Backlog – Inspired by some fellow bloggers’ writing on the subject, I talk a bit about the dreaded “backlog” and how I consider it to be an investment for the future — if not in financial terms then certainly in terms of potential future entertainment value.

Warriors Wednesday: How the Wild Man Does It – Keiji Maeda is back again, giving us grief with his big ol’ fortress that he’s challenging us to storm. Time to take that big bastard down a peg or two, I say…

Waifu Wednesday: Aya Kamiki – Japanese singer, model and actress Aya Kamiki appears prominently throughout Cover Game 428: Shibuya Scramblealbeit not as a main character. I take a look at the history of this unusual pop star and her place in 2008-era Shibuya.

Delving into Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition #3 – Our third look at Dynast… DW8XLDE once again concerns the story mode, which I’ve found especially interesting as it’s the first Warriors game where I’ve really felt some attachment to the characters and their narratives.

New Game Plus: Creating Explosives – In which we take approximately eight minutes to finish the second assignment in Atelier Rorona DX before moving on to a variety of side activities!

428: Shibuya Scramble – The Mechanics of Storytelling – A look at how various visual novels handle the way they tell their stories and how they implement “game” mechanics into the mix — if they do at all. Cover Game 428: Shibuya Scramble demonstrates a particularly interesting way of doing things.

Atari A to Z

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A thoroughly mixed bag this week, with an unusual and innovative multi-directional scrolling shoot ’em up action adventure for Atari 8-bit, a dodgy arcade port for Atari ST, and a simple but dangerously addictive bomb ’em up from the early days of Atari arcade games!

This week also marks the Atari A to Z project — the 8-bit side of things — finally reaching the end of its first cycle around the alphabet! Woohoo! From next week, we’ll be starting again at “A” and doing it all over again…

Don’t forget you can easily check back through the Atari A to Z archives on its own dedicated site here.

Cool Stuff by People Who Aren’t Me

As always, I’d like to take a moment to note that I’m a Patron of Paul “Mr Biffo” Rose, the Cheap Show podcast and The Game Chasers, because all of them put out great content that is worth your support. The Game Chasers are working on a movie, too; be sure to check out their Kickstarter if you’re a fan.

Check out some examples of what these fine folks have been up to here:

And as is now tradition, it’s time to dip into my Likes to see what’s caught my attention from around the WordPress community this week. It’s been a stressful and busy week, to be perfectly honest, so I haven’t had as much time to keep on top of everyone’s blogs as I’d like! If you’ve written something you were particularly pleased with that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear about it — feel free to drop a comment below.

Anyway. Here we go:

#LoveYourBacklog Week 2019 (Later Levels) – This post by Kim is what led to this week’s “Dedicated to the Backlog” post on MoeGamer. Check it out! There’s been some great discussion over the backlog and how one can think about it more positively, and Kim’s post here is a great place to start.

How to Fall in Love With a Video Game: 4 Simple Tips (AmbiGaming) – Athena from AmbiGaming provides some helpful Valentine’s Day tips on how you can rekindle that elusive sense of romance with pretty much any game.

Tetris 99 (2019) [Switch] (The Well-Red Mage) – Tetris 99 is a masterstroke, and The Well-Red Mage here provides an excellent summary of just how and why it’s so good.

(Vita) NightCry review (kresnik258gaming) – Looking for interesting Vita games to play? Kresnik’s got you covered. Check out his detailed thoughts on adventure game NightCry.

Disney Broke the Emergency Sequel Glass Because Aladdin’s Gonna Suck (Lumi Reviews Things) – Title is self-explanatory, and I can’t help but find myself agreeing with Lumi’s assessment here…

So that’s that for another week. Pray for my poorly computer (who appears to be hanging in there now we’ve done a bit of impromptu surgery) and all being well, things will calm down for me after a few hectic weeks now.

Don’t forget to like, comment on and share your favourite pieces, and if you really want to support what I’m doing, the Ko-Fi and Patreon links below are always open! Thank you, as always, for all your support and kind words. Love you!


Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this article. I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since the days of the old Atari computers, with work published in Page 6/New Atari User, PC Zone, the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, GamePro, IGN, USgamer, Glixel and more over the years, and I love what I do.

If you’d like to support the site and my work on it, please consider becoming a Patron — click here or on the button below to find out more about how to do so. From just $1 a month, you can get access to daily personal blog updates and exclusive members’ wallpapers featuring the MoeGamer mascots.

If you want to show one-off support, you can also buy me a coffee using Ko-Fi. Click here or on the button below to find out more.

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4 thoughts on “Around the Network”

  1. Tetris 99 does seem like the kind of spin the venerable game needed after all these years. Then again, given how famous and pervasive it is, it’s almost like making a sequel to Chess.

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