Well, that came out of the blue, and it was a rather nice surprise! The xbox is 20 years old, and as part of the celebration, Microsoft announced 76 titles being added to backward compatibility!  The Max Payne trilogy is finally backward compatible, as are some other games that I own, like Mortal Kombat and Operation Racoon City!   Maybe it's time to look for some used games on

Not necessarily in the order that I watched these, but here are some thoughts on recent TV shows on IMDBtv, Netflix, and ANT1Leverage: RedemptionI was surprised to see this series rebooted under the IMDBtv brand, but I was also delighted to see it back. The original ran for five seasons, and it was a story of sticking up for the little guy.  This second series is that, and it's also about the

 One more gamepass title that I completed before that ran out.  This one from August 9, 2020Carrion is described as a "reverse horror game." This means that instead of playing a human trying to escape some really horrific fate (like being killed by aliens or amorphous goo...) the player assumes the role of an amorphous creature of unknown origins. Your goal is to escape the facility which

Alright.  Here is another review from back when I had gamepass and I tried to play as much as I could 🤣.  I think that my general review of Rise and Shine is that THIS. GAME. IS. PUNISHING.😬😩😵Rise and Shine is an action platformer. In this game you are on Gamearth (basically a planet where everything is a game reference from our world). Gamearth was once a peaceful planet that

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin My rating: 5 of 5 stars I wasn't quite sure what I'd make of this book, but since it was free on the Stories from the Stars TOR podcast I gave it a try, and I am glad I did.  One of my audiobookphile friends recommended it, so I knew it had to be good.The storytelling is written (and translated) in a way that engages the

Star Trek: Flesh and Stone by David Tipton My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was an interesting story, despite the fact that it seemed a little contrived to get most of the doctors for the various series together to solve a medical mystery. What I am wondering is this: How the heck is McCoy still alive?! View all my reviews

I guess there are more games that I tried and completely forgot about! Thanks to my drafts in Blogger I didn't totally forget 😂. Anyway, another gamepass game tried while I had access to it.  There really isn't much to write about this game.  I think I probably sent about 90 minutes on it and it wasn't very much to my liking. I did like the visuals, but I kept finding myself in a "WTF

Another "tried" review from my gamepass days. This one from April 2020.  I think this may be the last one!Anyway, I am a fan of FPS games, and of the zombie genre, so I had high hopes for this game.  It was a fairly fun game, but really low on replayability IMO.  The game teams you up with four other people and you can choose your location (see story summaries from Wikipedia). 

This one was another xbox gamepass game that I gave a quick try back in May 2020. Since my gamepass was expiring, I thought I try as many games as I could to see what might be worth buying.Anyway, the story drew me in, but the gameplay kept me away. The game seemed to be very heavy into the resource finding, resource managing, and resource crafting components and not so much in the getting stuff

Catching up on my quick thoughts on games that I played a long time ago (or so it seems!).  This one was completed on 5/31/2020 and it was a game that I had access to on Gamepass The game is a classic side-scrolling beat-em-up, similar to other titles like Double Dragon, Final Fight, and of course, the classic Streets of Rage.  Having played this game, I think I like Streets of Rage better