A Self-Proclaimed Dreamer

     Alright, folks, this is the big one. I've gone from thinking that Horizon Zero Dawn was a boring slog and not really my style to realizing that it's actually a really interesting and well made game. That's right. I, Jonathan Bowers, am in fact not perfect as I'm sure people have assumed about me, and I'm willing to grow and change my mindset. It's not a perfect game, for sure, and it has a lot of issues to discuss, but overall it was a good experience. The people involved at Guerilla Games have taken a bold step here away from the Killzone series that made them a well known second-party publisher for Sony, and their bet really paid off in this game. They have truly come up with an amazing idea, and although the wind was taken out of this game's sales by The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , which came out a week later, it's clear that people were really invested in Aloy and the world she inhabits. The sequel to this game has already been annou...

      In the past two months or so, I've tasked myself with taking you all around the Magic Kingdom, which I have said is my favorite place on Earth, but today, we will be completing that trip around the park with one final stretch of land. Frontierland and Liberty Square I'm covering together today, because the two areas of the park flow into each other, and are both built around the theme of "America" though it's America of two different times, and the reason for that quite simply goes back to Walt Disney himself. Walt was about as patriotic as someone could be, and he loved to show it. The whole idea for Disneyland came partially from a visit to a state fair if the legend is to be believed, and what could have instilled a feeling of Americana quite like that? It's from this "state fair" mentality that the fireworks show came from for the parks overall, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First, let's delve into the final two areas of the park...

     In the year 1992, Nintendo released a little game called Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo, and unknowingly began an entire genre of new games. The game was a huge success and ended up being the fourth best selling game for the console, which is a big deal when you think about the competition, with  Super Mario World , Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past , Super Metroid , and  Donkey Kong Country all releasing for the system. Nintendo had discovered the "Kart Racer," and even though the series has changed a lot in the 28 years since the first entry, it's amazing just how much they got right in the first attempt. There's a reason that there have been so many competitors and copycats for this genre, everyone from Sonic the Hedgehog to Crash Bandicoot has had a "Mario Kart" attempt in one way or another, but the platforming plumber always takes the cake. The most recent traditional game in the franchise, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, was actually a re-relea...

      Welcome back to my mini series on the Magic Kingdom, friends! I took a couple weeks off of my normal schedule to talk about Christmas, my birthday, and some of the best games that I played from last year, but I'm back to the old grind. Today, I'll be talking about a section of the park that people always seem to forget the size and scale of, Adventureland. This area arguably contains the widest array of different themes and settings in the park, with all of them being centered around the abstract idea of "Adventure." Walking around the land, you'll see all sorts of tiki statues, flying carpets, and even the rare Orange Bird if you keep a close eye out. Let's go in the spirit of adventure, and take a bold step where no one has gone before! Okay, so a lot of people have gone here, but that sounds less adventurous. Just go with me on this one. Adventureland is always a treat!     Once you walk through the archway into this area of the park, it's as if y...

      The year 2020 was a crazy one with everyone locked down in quarantine for the vast majority, and because of those circumstances, all kinds of problems emerged. On the bright side, however, this was a pretty remarkable year for video games. There were certainly some that were less impactful than we originally thought, and then there were some that became huge exactly because of the pandemic, allowing people to communicate and hang out even when not in person. On top of some truly great games, we also saw the launch of two new consoles, the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It's always exciting to see new hardware coming out to the market, though the scalpers have bought up so much of the limited stock and marked them up to ridiculous prices for the holiday season it has been much harder to get one of these consoles in the first few months after release. I obviously won't include any "Next Gen" games here, as I haven't played any of them, and even if I had, there are r...