I want to say thanks to you guys for being here. A lot of you know my wife and I have been going through some dark times, mourning the loss of our baby 5 months ago. Talking video games on X has helped a lot and taken the focus off of grieving. Even those of you who come to my posts to only insult me, I have nothing but love for you and wish you nothing but the best. Thanks to everyone for continually being in my replies. 🫶

Battlefield 3 came out 15 years ago today. Two weeks later Modern Warfare 3 dropped and everyone had to pick a side. Were you Battlefield or Call of Duty in 2011?

Perfect Dark Zero vs. Halo 5: Guardians They came out ten years apart and both have the same user rating of 6.4 on Metacritic. Which one is the worse game?

Honest and Unpopular Reviews No. 59 Max Payne 3 (Xbox 360) Ask most people for Rockstar’s best game and it’s GTA V or Red Dead Redemption 2. I just played Max Payne 3 and I’m picking this one over anything Rockstar has ever made. There’s no slowdown when you’re playing. Once this game begins, it’s just wave after wave of enemies. The story keeps bringing it. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the exact opposite: you have to go out and find the action in that one. The story in this game is fantastic. Max is a washed up drunk working private security for a rich family in São Paulo, at least until his boss’s wife gets kidnapped on his watch. The game keeps jumping back to how he got to Brazil in the first place, all the way back to New Jersey. The soundtrack is one of the best I’ve ever heard in a game. It was done by a band called HEALTH. The airport scene is one of the best scenes I’ve ever played in any video game ever made. The amount of enemies that come at you with that music playing, it’s its own vibe. Bullet time is back from the first two games. So is the shootdodge. Drop the last guy in a fight and the camera follows the bullet all the way in, every time. Your health doesn’t come back on its own either. That’s what the painkillers are for (go down with one left and you get one last shot at whoever got you). One thing I really liked in this game is it wants you to keep progressing. A few parts of it are legitimately tough. There were a few times I kept dying in the same spot, and the game would give me extra painkillers and ammo. The only knock on this game is the cutscenes. Well, not the cutscenes themselves, more how often they show up. You get 20 seconds of action and then a 3 minute cutscene you can’t skip that’s really just the game loading the next scene. Despite being 14 years old, it holds up better than most of what’s coming out now. I rate Max Payne 3 a 4.5 out of 5.

Impossible matchups No. 26 Metal Gear Solid vs. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild They came out almost 19 years apart, and neither one has anything in common. Which one was the better game?

Happy anniversary to the Japanese release of Super Mario Bros. 3! 🎉 I repurchased my North American copy a few years ago. Found it complete in box at a local game store. 38 years after Nintendo dropped it, it’s still the greatest video game of all time. That includes every Zelda and every Final Fantasy. I don’t think anything will ever top this game.

2004 was a good year for gaming. Here's my top 3: Halo 2 Metal Gear Solid 3 X-Men Legends The world could use a new X-Men Legends game. It's been far too long.

Impossible matchups No. 25 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Red Dead Redemption II They came out 29 years apart, and neither one has anything in common. Which one was the better game?

Looks like work is going to stay busy for at least the next few weeks, so my posting is probably going to be intermittent for a while. It’s been crazy busy the last week and a half. We went from having not a whole lot to do to now we’re doing everything and it all has to be done at once. Wild times. In the meantime, happy anniversary to Super Mario Bros. Wonder!🎉 Easily the best Mario game since Super Mario World.

Birthday weekend is coming to an end. It was a good one. Started Friday night seeing the new Street Fighter movie. The trailer for I Play Rocky came on and my wife said to me that she's never seen any of the Rocky movies. Luckily for her, I own the whole VHS box set.🤌 Yesterday after we got home from my birthday dinner, I immediately put on the first Rocky movie. Then tonight, we watched Rocky II. Next weekend it's Rocky III and IV.

Impossible matchups No. 24 Super Mario Bros. vs. Batman: Arkham City Both came out on October 18 in North America, 26 years apart, and neither one has anything in common except the date. Which one was the better game?

I still remember this vividly, like it just happened yesterday. I grew up in Stockton, CA, not that far from San Francisco. I had just turned 6 years old, and my grandmother and I had just gotten home from school. I was in the kitchen sitting at the table working on my homework when the earthquake hit. I had no idea what was going on or what to even do. I remember my grandmother yelling from the other side of the house for me to get under the table, but I didn’t listen. The quake felt like it lasted for an eternity. My grandpa was in a hurry to get home from work so he could watch the Giants and A’s in the World Series. I remember him saying he felt the quake while he was driving on the freeway. Luckily, nothing in my grandparents’ house was damaged and we were all fine. Heck of a way to celebrate my 6th birthday.

3 video games I own share a birthday with me today. Justice League Heroes turns 20. Sonic Superstars turns 3. South Park: Fractured But Whole turns 9. Who's played these games?

Here's my Street Fighter (2026) review. I’m just going to say it: the 1994 Street Fighter movie was better. A coked out Jean-Claude Van Damme made more sense than what we got in 2026. The critics were mostly right about this new one. It’s a mess, and a lot of the time it plays like a caricature of itself. I didn’t hate it though. Most of the movie was enjoyable. The first 30 minutes had me thinking this was going to be one of the greatest video game movies ever made. Then it drops off and doesn’t really pick back up until the end. The animated scenes were actually the best part of the movie. The problem is they’re serious and dark, while the rest of the movie is goofy, over the top, and colorful, so they clash with the campiness of everything else. The pacing was all over the place, same with the story, with too many fights happening off screen and a lot of it just not making any sense. Some of the character choices were questionable. Guile was nothing like his character in the games. He was obnoxious and over the top, and he was barely in the movie. Same with E. Honda and Zangief. Then there’s Lord Bison. No disrespect to the actor who played him, but he was the least intimidating villain of all time. This is one of the worst casting choices ever. Also, why did they turn Bison into a perv? Why is he always smelling people? It’s weird. His “Tuesday” line was so forced and out of place. He was the worst part of the movie. The music selection was weird to me too. Most of the movie takes place in 1993, so why is “Who Let the Dogs Out” by the Baha Men playing? That song didn’t come out until 2000. And the Marvel style forced humor was in every scene. Every line in this movie was someone trying to land a joke. Chun-Li and Evil Ryu were the best characters in it, and along with the animated scenes, they’re the reason I didn’t walk out of there hating it. It’s an entertaining watch, but that’s as far as I’d go with it. This one gets a 2/5 from me.

Crazy work week is finally over. Wife and I are about to watch Street Fighter. Check out this awesome poster I got!

There are times I want to go back to the simplicity of these phones instead of having a smartphone. I have to use an iPhone for work and I can’t emphasize enough how much I hate that phone. It has the worst keyboard. I threatened my wife the other day that I was going to drop our smartphones and get us basic flip phones. That’s the dirtiest look I’ve ever gotten in my life.😂😬

Impossible matchups No. 23 Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES) vs. Tomb Raider (PlayStation) They came out about a year apart and neither one has anything in common. Which one was the better game?

Holy smokes, guys. Work has been insanely busy this week. It's really getting in the way of me posting on X.😂 Today's the anniversary of the release of Mortal Kombat 3 for both the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo!🎉 Which one do you guys prefer? For me, it's the SNES version. Better sound and graphics than the Genesis version.