Refraction Gaming

No, I will not be comparing Metroid: Samus Returns to the well received fan-game "Another Metroid 2 Remake" [AM2R] here. I feel that enough is already going to be said, and I simply want to look at this game on its own for its own values and understanding of what makes Metroid 2 good to attempt to remake. With that out of the way, let's talk about my first impressions when I saw this air first. I was surprised, excited, and frustrated all at the same time. It had been way too long since we had seen any kind of 2D Metroid game, and the promise of this new one being a brand new 2D styled adventure had me excited. The fact that it was a Metroid 2 remake...had me both excited and frustrated. I love AM2R to pieces so to see this made me feel conflicted. However, I did push all of that aside, because in the end, I really just wanted another Metroid game from Nintendo, and so here we are with a brand new game that promised to be really, really fun with brand new, helpful abili...

With the arrival of Metroid: Samus Returns  for the 3DS handheld console, there has been a debate had on whether it achieves what it needs to be to excellently be a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus  for the original Game Boy. Of course, to do this without quite understanding the roots of where this game comes from would be relatively simple, but I feel that it would be best to compare this to the source material to understand what was done and whether it translated well or not in coming out to become a remake of this classic Game Boy game. It is worth noting that outside of this game, the only major Metroid title released for quite some time with Nintendo would be Super Metroid , which demonstrated the possibility of a masterpiece for the series and embedded it as one of the flagships for Nintendo, especially among western audiences. It has also been said literally everywhere that this game is considered the "black sheep" of the Metroid series. I find this rather baff...

I find it funny that I intended to write my Sonic Mania review before this, and yet here I am writing a review for a totally unrelated game. At the time of writing this, I wasn't even 100% on Sonic Mania nor had I fought the final boss, yet this game, I had and I didn't want to play it quite as much as Sonic Mania. Irony? Or laziness? For a bit of background before we start, though: I have played all of the Pikmin games prior to this one. While I have not gotten far in Pikmin 3, I have completely finished Pikmin and Pikmin 2. I was rather surprised, then, to hear that the next Pikmin game would not only be on 3DS, but wasn't going to be an RTS. I don't really recall the reasons that were stated as to why this change was being put into effect. Perhaps it had something to do with the fear that it would be a "number managment" game or perhaps they were worried about the movement being constrained to feeling too much like the mouse + keyboard type of gaming th...

This is a two part blog. The first part is to reintroduce what I'm going to be doing with these blogs. I had lost interest in doing them, and I figure that a chance in perspective would do me some good. The second thing is: Sonic Mania finally came out on PC. Is it any good? Oh yes, it's amazing, but we'll get to that in a moment. Blog rules are as follows. No more angry rants, no more ranting in general, just talking about games, talking about game contents, specific guidelines for MMO and multiplayer play, and stuff like that. Calm, casual, good talks, and if I have something to profess that has been bothering me, I'll put out a warning that says that it might get a little bit salty. Sound good? Good. Let's get to work. On Sonic Mania and it being good? It is very, very good. I have only gotten five stages in, haven't experienced the rest that this game has to offer just yet so I can't exactly write a review. But my first impressions are very, very goo...

I get it, Windows 7 is now two operating systems behind everyone else. The major difference is that, where Vista was supported over XP, Windows 8 wasn't as supported as Windows 7 for the longest time. People strayed away due to the failing popularity of Windows 8 as a whole. So, when Windows 10 came around, people started supporting that, sure, but how come it's starting to become nearly impossible to get things for Windows 7? The latest of these, and the reason why I'm writing this, is because of Steam. I have, for no reason at all, started having troubles with Steam after it and Windows 7 both had nice, large updates that I left to run overnight. Steam just stopped working. A reinstall worked...somewhat. I still could not run Steam properly, had to fight with it every morning to get access to my games and play anything on it. Now, the ultimate "screw you" has happened. After attempting to reinstall Steam a second time to fix this issue, the bootstrapper simply...

Some would say that "being a jerk" is a bad thing, especially if you're intent on healing the group. Being a jerk promotes a team that isn't actively trying to work together, others would say. I, however, have this to say, concerning healers. If your tank is being an idiot or an elitist and is pulling more than you can chew? Let him know. Be blunt. Be a jerk. It'll get the point across. If he doesn't like it, stop healing him. If he kicks you, good, let someone else deal with his stupidity. If the group doesn't like you, you don't belong there anyway. If the DPS are pulling for the tank, be blunt and tell them to knock it off. If they talk back, or keep doing it, or both? Stop healing them. Remind them who is in control of their own ability to act like such pricks. YOU ARE THE HEALER! The healer is the one thing that is standing between everyone in the group and certain death to adds. Without the healer, no one can survive the dungeon adds. Witho...