Pixel Pacas

PlayStation 2 Region Free Modification – MechaPwn Tutorial

2021 has been an incredible year for the PlayStation 2 modding scene. The PS2 may be over twenty years old now, but the community around it is still quite strong. Earlier this year, MechaCon was dumped in full. This allowed for people to investigate ways to modify this “security chip”. As a result, the MechaPwn exploit now exists. MechaPwn allows certain models of the PS2 to break away from the…

Director: Greydon Clark Writer: Dana Olsen, Michael Spound

I didn’t know quite what to expect from Wacko. Horror comedies are all over the place these days, but they were still a fairly new concept in the 80s. And like many 80s comedies viewed today, I couldn’t help but worry that the jokes would fall entirely flat. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case (mostly).

Wackobegins with a flashback to…

Director: Michael Anderson Writers: Edward Abraham, Valerie Abraham

I was recently introduced to Vinegar Syndrome. These purveyors of obscure genre films quickly caught my attention due to the fact that they released many films I wanted – and many I didn’t know I wanted until digging in further. Dominique (also known as Dominique is Dead) seems a bit out of their typical milieu, but not in a bad…

Marcus’ 2017 Game of the Year Picks

2017 was a year full of high-profile sequels and brand new franchises. And, as has been increasingly the case, I primarily strayed from the path of triple A titles. Of course, there were still a few huge games that snuck onto my list. There were tons of excellent games out this year and I’m going to highlight ten of my favorites! Friday the 13th the Game Between horror series classics Friday the…

Mini Golf Mundo Review

Developer: EnsenaSoft Publisher: EnsenaSoft Platform: PC – Steam After successful rounds of weird golfing in Golf With Your Friends, I decided to load up another mini golfing game from my Steam library. Unfortunately, this decision came before remembering the game was originally received as part of Bundle Star’s Dollar Mega Bundle. This bundle offered 28 games for $1… Suffice it to say Mini Golf…

Developer: Zaratustra Productions Publisher: Zaratustra Productions Platform: PC – Steam Eversion is one of those games that it seemed everyone had played back a few years ago. Time and time again, it saw mentions in articles and forum posts about creepy games. I bought it sometime around then, but never ended up playing the darn thing until now. Mechanically, Eversion is a simplistic 2D…

Golf With Your Friends Review

Developer: Blacklight Interactive Publisher: Blacklight Interactive Platform: PC – Steam Mini golf is pretty fun in real life, but not something I typically get to play very often. Golf With Your Friends brings this simple formula to the gaming world with the right amount of seriousness (that is to say, very little at all). The point is to have fun with a decent simulation of golf alongside a…

Checking Out Steam Releases in March 2017

It’s time for the third of my monthly Steam summary articles. As usual, expect to find some information about the total number of games released in March as well as how many of them were Early Access and/or virtual reality releases. (more…)

Kitty Cat: Jigsaw Puzzles Review

Developer: EnsenaSoft Publisher: EnsenaSoft Platform: PC – Steam Casual games are great. For me in particular, they grant an escape from playing other games which require more attention, strategy, and skill. Because of this habit, I’m increasingly aware of which games have serious effort into their releases versus those that are simply re-skinned releases. Kitty Cat: Jigsaw Puzzles falls into the…

Barnyard Mahjong 3 Review

Developer: EnsenaSoft Publisher: EnsenaSoft Platform: PC – Steam “Mahjong” is a term which is typically used incorrectly in English-language games. Many use it to refer to the familiar tile-matching concept, which is not the same as traditional mahjong. Real mahjong is a much more strategic, multiplayer experience. In any case, Barnyard Mahjong 3 is of the matching variety. As the name implies,…

My 10 Most Influential Games: Rule of Rose

  I found myself fascinated with Rule of Rose before it even released on PS2. It was certainly no secret that games often launched in Japan prior to North America, but never before had I felt the need to play a title as soon as it hit Japan in early 2016. Yet, here I was, with a Japanese copy of Rule of Rose about a month after its Japanese launch. Fortunately for me, the game was not heavy on…

Checking Out Steam Releases in February 2017

Last month, I decided to try my hand at keeping track of Steam releases in 2017. It just seemed like the right time, as 2016 was a landmark year of releases for the service. This year is also poised to be quite different once Valve shutters Steam Greenlight. Defined as a failure practically out of the gate by Valve, Greenlight stuck around for years regardless. At the beginning, getting Greenlit…

Developer: Yunus Ayyildiz Publisher: Yunnus Ayyildiz Platform: PC – Steam Puzzlers have really taken over my life as of late. It’s just really enjoyable to chill out with games featuring one specific thing that makes their puzzles stand out. In the case of VOI, it’s the concept of 1 + 1 = 0. What does that mean, exactly? It makes sense in the concept of the game. Each stage of VOI features a…

Developer: Hyper Hippo Games Publisher: Hyper Hippo Games Platform: PC – Steam, Mobile – Android, iOS With so many puzzle games out in the world it often seems like there’s no way to create something new. Well, Phrase Shift does exactly that. At first, it looks like someone cut out a small segment of a word search. Each puzzle offers one vertical column and multiple horizontal columns with words…

Emulation, Me, and the Raspberry Pi 3

Emulation is one of those things that became an obsession from the minute I learned of it. This all began one day in high school when a friend asked to borrow a PS1 game of mine. When it came time to return it, he told me about playing it on his PC. My immediate reaction was something along the lines of “What do you mean?” Instead of explaining himself fully, he cryptically only gave the name of…

Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Platform: Arcade, Console – NES, PC – Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX2, ZX Spectrum Contra is one of those games folks can’t help but talk about. Comments circle around its high difficulty as well as the infamous Konami code which grants players thirty much-needed lives. The thing is, I never even touched the original Contra before. The closest I came to…

Checking Out Steam Releases in January 2017

2016 was an interesting year for Steam. According to Sergey Galyonkin of Steam Spy, 38% of games available on Steam were released in 2016. That means 4,779 titles hit the popular digital marketplace in a single year. The news shocked many, though just makes sense given the increasingly thin barrier that Steam Greenlight presents to getting onto the storefront. My belief is that 2017 will be…