On Valentine’s Day I made a big purchase at Micro Center, in the form of a recordable CD / DVD / Blu-ray drive and a 5TB portable hard drive (and some BAWLS).
Author: Ryan
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Diablo II: Resurrected – Reign of the Warlock (PC / Blizzard Entertainment / 2026) – Act II
Continuing my Warlock run, I traveled to Lut Gohlein and faced the greatest test of my build yet.
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Diablo II: Resurrected – Reign of the Warlock (PC / Blizzard Entertainment / 2026)
I’ve seen many video game announcements in my day, but I don’t think any have been as truly unexpected as “new DLC for Diablo II in 2026.” From WoW Classic to StarCraft Remastered, Blizzard has no problem revisiting past glories, but new content for Diablo II never felt like something even on the table. While Diablo II: Resurrected felt like an inevitability, adding on to the game seemed (ironically) sacrilegious.
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Champions of Norrath (PS2 / Snowblind Studios / 2004)
I love EverQuest. For years, Norrath was my favorite fantasy game world, so I was ecstatic to play an action-looter (my favorite genre of RPG) in that setting. What made it even better is that Champions of Norrath was from Snowblind Studios, who had released the sublime Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance on PS2 in 2001. Needless to say, for me, Champions of Norrath did not disappoint.
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EverQuest (PC / Verant Interactive, 989 Studios / 1999)
While I’ve predominantly been a World of Warcraft player for the past couple of decades, EQ was my first MMO. It was, prior to WoW, the most successful game in the genre, and the standard-bearer. Which is wild, because EverQuest in its original form was one of the most punishing games ever conceived.
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The 100 Best Sega Games on Sega Hardware of All Time (according to me)
A picture I took of some Sega games I was considering when I started on this. Many did not end up making the list! Before we begin here is a brief preemptive FAQ:
Q: “What makes a game eligible?”
A: Any game developed by Sega on Sega hardware.
Q: “What constitutes Sega hardware?”
A: Hardware developed / sold by Sega. This includes their primary consoles, obviously, but also their arcade hardware and mini-consoles. So for example, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown would count for this list because it was an arcade release, but Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage would not. It seems kinda arbitrary, but it’s necessary to keep the list from spiraling out of control.
Q: “Where is <game>??”
A: Either I haven’t played enough of it or it just didn’t make my personal top-100.
Q: “Why does Sonic Chaos say Game Gear? I played it on Master System!”
A. The platforms listed here are the ones I played the game on. I don’t want to vouch for versions of games I haven’t played!
Q: “What’s the formula for determining where a game is ranked?”
A: There isn’t one. It’s literally just how I feel about the game.
Q: “I stopped reading after <game> was above/below <game>.”
A: Cool, that’s not a question.
Q: “You just put <game> at <number> to get clicks.”
A: Again, not a question. But this site is not monetized in any way; I actually pay to keep it running so these hypothetical “clicks” mean nothing to me (also, I put the entire list in one post to avoid clicks; sorry if it loads like shit).
Q: “Will this list change?”
A: Inevitably. It changed significantly at least a dozen times in the week I took to write it. I plan to revisit it sometime next year, but we’ll see.
OK, with all that out of the way,
the list begins with Chaos.
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Using Achievements as a Travel Guide in World of Warcraft
After finishing up most of what I wanted to do in The War Within, I’ve been thinking about how I want to spend my time in WoW until Midnight drops. I spent a few days doing the Delve loop, but found myself getting pretty burnt out- this would not sustain me until March. Then something unexpected happened: my wife, after 10+ years of marriage, showed interest in giving WoW a proper try. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and immediately created a new character to play alongside her.
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At the End of The War Within
I’ve wrapped up my two primary areas of interest in the latest World of Warcraft expansion (delves and main story), and have been reflecting on the expansion overall. After a rough year, I’ve thrown myself back into World of Warcraft, which has provided a comforting escape. This is a game I’ve been playing off and on since beta over 21 years ago, and this may be my favorite era of the game.
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“Where is <game> on your list??”
“Where’s Mother 3?” fans ask of both Nintendo and my list. The list of my top 100 Nintendo games is up, so I wanted to address some of the more significant omissions. These fall under two categories: games I haven’t played enough of to have a strong opinion on (yet) and games that I recognize as good-to-great, but just aren’t my thing. The unspoken third and forth categories are games that I’ve played but didn’t make the list and those that I simply forgot.
Because one list isn’t enough, here’s another:
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The 100 Best Nintendo Games of All Time (according to me)
I pulled out all these games and took this pic before making the list, but in the process four of the games pictured here were cut… Before we begin here is a brief, but sassy, preemptive FAQ:
Q: “What makes a game eligible?”
A: Any game developed by Nintendo OR published by Nintendo and will never be available on any other platform (Banjo Kazooie no, Hyrule Warriors yes. Hotel Dusk? idk but it’s on here anyway). There will be no “well it’s on everything but I associate it with Nintendo” nonsense here. Also, no multi-game compilations, that’s cheating.
Q: “Where is <game>??”
A: Either I haven’t played enough of it or it just didn’t make my personal top-100. More on this here, if you want specifics.
Q: “What’s the formula for determining where a game is ranked?”
A: There isn’t one. It’s literally just how I feel about the game.
Q: “Super Mario World came out in 1991, why does it say 1990 on your list??”
A: I ended up going with the year of whichever territory the game released in first.
Q: “OK so if you’re using the Japanese release date why is the picture of the North American box??”
A: It’s really not that big of a deal.
Q: “I stopped reading after <game> was above/below <game>.”
A: Cool, that’s not a question.
Q: “You just put <game> at <number> to get clicks.”
A: Again, not a question. But this site is not monetized in any way; I actually pay to keep it running so these hypothetical “clicks” mean nothing to me (also, I put the entire list in one post to avoid clicks; sorry if it loads like shit).
Q: “Will this list change?”
A: Inevitably. It changed significantly at least a dozen times in the week I took to write it. I plan to revisit it sometime next year, but we’ll see.
OK, with all that out of the way
The list begins with a game of aquatic intensity
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