Saturday, March 27, 2021

Year 5: March Update

Is it the end of March already? Yeah, another month of not posting too much. Although I wrote a fair amount in last month's update, I've had a tough time coming up with things to write about lately but I'll keep going through 2021. This month I've mostly been taking care of basic life things and contemplating my future rather than having fun so not much game playing. I also returned my employer's Xbox One to the office (I had that on loan since it launched) and I let my PlayStation Plus subscription expire. I'll probably subscribe again eventually but I only played a game with my nephew one time last year and didn't play online with anyone else. 

In video game news Microsoft finalized its purchase of ZeniMax which includes Bethesda and it is renaming Xbox Live to Xbox Network. Games keep getting delayed like last year so it's probably best to treat most dates as placeholders, and really that's not a bad idea most years. Gotham Knights is one that was pushed to 2022 and while I am a big Batman fan, that one hasn't grabbed my interest yet. Looking ahead I'd say this year doesn't look too appealing to myself. Based on the current schedule for 2021, the games that I'll likely play would be LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and Life Is Strange: True Colors. I feel like I must be overlooking something but it's fine if I'm not because I've got some big games from last year I still want to play. I'm sure I'll try a handful of other games this year but not enough to complete them. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is tempting, however, I've played through them all at least two times already, though I've not played the DLC before.

Supposedly Toys "R" Us  (TRU) stores are going to return to the U.S. in some capacity. There is a TRU website that forwards to Amazon.com and the Canada stores never closed, and there have always been stores in other countries too, so the brand itself has never disappeared. Now there are new owners that want to re-open some stores here before the end of the year. That's about all I've got for this update. I've still not done anything with the blog's Instagram account despite getting my first smartphone in November. Sorry, I should just stop writing and go do that now but I won't... maybe tomorrow. I don't know, I still need to learn more about how to use the phone beyond making calls.

Thanks for stopping by,
Jonathan

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Gaming Ads: Backfilling #14 (Sports Games)

It's been more than a year since I filled in some ads for previously posted publisher albums. I'm still going to have more to post in the future as well since I'll have some remaining on my PC after this post and have a comic book collection to sort through. Most of my recent acquisitions have come from sports magazines and so I decided to limit this update to ads for sports video games. Plus, it's almost time for baseball season to start, making it a good time for baseball video game ads. I'm including all the new ads in this post but feel free to visit the Facebook page to browse more ads. I'd say you can use the links on the previous blog posts for each publisher, however, I've still not had a chance to go back and update those after having to make the move to Facebook. 





Sunday, March 14, 2021

1990 Electronic Arts Distribution Catalog

This is the complete 1990 Fall - Winter 1991 catalog from Electronic Arts Distribution. Being a distribution catalog, it doesn't only feature games published by Electronic Arts (EA). As indicated on the first page, EA worked with numerous publishers, such as Sega, Ubisoft, Parker Brothers, Ocean, Lucasfilm, and many others (company abbreviations legend is at the bottom of about every other page). Admittedly though, it's not the most exciting catalog to view due to it having very little color and not many box images. There are some colored screenshots in the middle and a few small photographs, including one of Michael Jordan. 

Those symbols next to a title are indicating the platforms it is available on (shown on the top bar): Triangle = IBM and compatible, Circle = Commodore 64/128, Square = Atari ST, Diamond = Apple IIc/IIe/II+, Heart = Apple IIGS, Star = Amiga, Plus = Macintosh, and Circle/Star = Atari 8-bit. You may have noticed the platforms are all computers and while there is a mention of the NES and Sega Genesis in the catalog, the reason this is all computer software is because Electronic Arts wasn't involved in the console game market until 1990.