Month: September 2015

Source: The 80’s Strike Back

It is that time of year again. Every Fall I start gearing up for the holidays. I enjoy them all, Thanksgiving, New Years, Christmas, and yes even that infamous Halloween. On the subject of Halloween I hooked up my PS2 last night and decided to watch a DVD just for fun. The DVD I picked of course was A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master. I usually pick this as my go-to thriller when I am in the mood for getting my 80’s slasher fix. Every time I watch this movie I am always amused by the whole presence of MTV in this film, there is no doubt about it Freddy Kruger pretty much defines the whole “MTV generation.”

Why am I bringing this up then? Earlier this summer we had another big dose of 80’s retro hit theaters. First there was the video game themed Adam Sandler romp, Pixels. Love him or hate him Sandler does one thing better than anyone, 80’s nostalgia, going all the way back to The Wedding Singer. That was a nice little dose of 80’s retro to get the juices flowing. Top that off with some Straight Outta Compton featuring the coming up story of the infamous, and equally MTV defining N.W.A and you have 2015 set to be another big 80’s throw back year. But no that isn’t even the biggest 80’s throw back coming this year, of course I am talking about the Return of the Star Wars crew coming to a theater near you. Very few movies actively get me as excited as a new Star Wars film but this is going to be huge. As a kid growing up in the 80’s Star Wars pretty much dominated everything that decade, everything that wasn’t touched by Freddy Krueger that is.

While I am still planning on seeing both Pixels and Straight Outta Compton at some point, it is the new Star Wars that I am most interested in. That said, I do think that it might be time to start looking towards the future and finally letting the past just be the past. Between Girl Meets World on Disney, the upcoming Fuller House on Netflix, to the Home Improvement “remix” better known as Last Man Standing, this 90’s revival hasn’t been nearly as satisfying to me as the 80’s revivals of the recent years. Maybe it is nostalgia but I always felt like the 80’s were just a more all around fun decade than the 90’s. In the 80’s you could dye your hair pink and purple and get away with it, all we had in the 90’s were some Gothic wannabe’s devolving into the emo craze that culminated in the disastrous third Spider-Man film. Whatever, there is a new Star Wars movie and next year we get a new Mallrats film so I am happy with that.

I have officially decided that I will be getting an Xbox One before the holiday period begins. I have noticed it finally has a few exclusive games that make it worth buying now. I have held off until now. I initially went with PS4 and Wii U for this generation. I based that decision on past experience of course as I always buy the Nintendo console and the Playstation console. I have yet to own a single Xbox game console, I had at one time considered getting an Xbox 360 but then talked myself out of it when I upgraded my PC and bought a PS3 instead.

So what put me over the top on Xbox One? Well it wasn’t just one single game in particular it was a couple of games paired with an idea that I am intrigued by. The first game is a Rare Ware collection that includes dozens, over thirty if the box is to be believed, old school to modern day Rare classics. As a Nintendo gamer I grew up playing many Rare games over the years. I am primarily a retro gamer these days anyways so I am always drawn to any new collection of retro classics, especially since Sony made the HD remake popular. That brings me to my second reason for wanting to get one, the Halo HD collection which gives me hope that other franchises I missed out on or only had on PC will be redone in full HD and remastered for Xbox One. It isn’t much but I figure I am in a place now where I want to get back into gaming full force this generation and I would hate to miss out on some great games.

I haven’t fully decided when I will get one just that this generation I do not want to miss out on much so I will put getting an Xbox One in the plans. Things could change Sony could keep throwing games at me that take my money or Nintendo could score another addicting hit like Splatoon that eats up all my free time. Until then the current plan is to pick up an Xbox One by the end of the year if not sooner.