Alright, time for another set of “free” games from Microsoft. I put free in quotes because quite a few people argue about how “free” these games are given that they are available with an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. I’ll go into the details of this in the future but to put it simply, these …
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The (Relatively Unimpressive) PlayStation Classic Game List
Yesterday the full 20 games that will be featured on the PlayStation Classic were announced to a mixed reception. Some love the games presented, some are questioning what Sony is thinking, and others are stuck in the middle, slightly conflicted about the games list. Consider me in that middle group. Before I continue, let’s actually …
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The Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Turns 30 Today – My Story With The Console
Today, October 29th, 2018, marks 30 years since the release day of the Sega Mega Drive in Japan. This 16-bit beast, better known to us in the United States as the Genesis, would grow to become the first true threat to Nintendo’s dominance of the North American game market and would also grow to become …
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That Time I Got To Watch A Space Shuttle Launch In Middle School – STS-95
Let’s go back to October 29th, 1998. I was in 8th grade at the time. I don’t recall if I knew the launch of Glenn was happening that day – I want to think I was aware – but for whatever reason early in the afternoon that Thursday the students assembled in the school gym …
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20 Years Ago: John Glenn’s Return To Space – The Launch Of STS-95
On October 29th, 1998 the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for a relatively typical 10-day mission in Earth orbit, save for one key element – onboard the vehicle was John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. To say this mission was a big deal at the time …
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50 Years Ago: The Flight Of Soyuz 3 – The Soviet Return To Space
The paralells between the American and Soviet space programs in 1967 to 1968 are quite strange. On January 27th 1967 America had the Apollo 1 Fire which resulted in the delay of the first manned flight of Apollo until October 1968 and the Apollo 7 Mission. The Soviet Union had a similarly bad situation with …
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Solbot: Energy Rush – Mobile Game Review
Mobile games are generally not my thing – I’ve found a few in the past that have been fun for a while, but I don’t go out of my way to find and play them, so when I was approached by Freakout Games on twitter to review their game Solbot: Energy Rush I was a …
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Arena – An Indie Game Review
Think of every first-person shooter game you’ve ever played. Now imagine those games as classic 2D platformers. Now imagine if the developers of those games were in it for the art, and for the love of creating a quality game as opposed to yet another cash grab. The game you’re imagining would probably come close …
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Remember Those Game Reviews I Said I’d Do?
A good while back I wrote about wanting to do some good old game reviews here on Xadara. That’s part of what this blog was originally supposed to focus on, just my love of gaming (especially the classics) and tech, with a very healthy dose of specific reviews of individual games, consoles, and other things …
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The First Winamp Update In 4 Years
Back on Saturday, I found out that Winamp, an ages old but incredibly beloved media player very popular in the late 90’s and through the 2000’s, had a new version release. Normally this wouldn’t be anything major – for comparison, Spotify seems to want to update every damned day – but this was something else. …
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Welcome To The New Frontier (WordPress Theme)
Last night I committed to what I had posted in my previous article (Why I’m Ditching The Graphene WordPress Theme) and said adios to the overall much beloved and very well used Graphene theme which I had run on my site for many years now, instead switching to what has been an alternative for some …
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The Flight Of Apollo 7 – 1968 NASA Film
Here we have a more “traditional” film regarding the flight of Apollo 7 – the typical official NASA Film covering the mission in concise detail, and what detail it is. The launch footage shown in this film is outstanding – an incredible close up of the Saturn IB booster as it lifts off of the …
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Why I’m Ditching The Graphene WordPress Theme
One of the reasons I love using WordPress to manage my site is the massive number of customization options out there for the software – between plugins providing specific extension capabilities to the site experience and themes allowing me to quickly and easily find a look and feel that works for me as a base …
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The Log Of Apollo 7
Here we have quite the interesting little bit of space history – the pilot of a series which was intended to follow every Apollo mission, but was cut short due to the perception of a “conflict of interests” between sponsors of the program itself and the television studio behinc it, KCET out of Los Angeles. …
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50 Years Ago: The Successful Completion Of Apollo 7
On October 22nd, 1968 the Apollo 7 command module carrying Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, bringing an end to the first manned Apollo mission, and bringing confidence back to the nations space program, and our efforts to make it to the Moon before the end of …
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