A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Month: January 2013
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Satoru Iwata is just so… so lovable, isn’t he? I watched the latest Nintendo Direct presentation last weekend, and I just couldn’t get over what a brilliant marketing tool it is, mostly due to the cuddly persona of the Nintendo President, Mr Iwata. As he cheerfully whips his way through the presentation, you can’t help…
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HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY! It’s Australia Day down under and we Australians like a good celebration. The First Fleet arrived in Australia on 26 January 1788 and marks the date of European settlement in this great nation. Of course on the flip side of that it marks the beginning of a rather difficult period in the…
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If you’re like me, video games are one of many things that I spend my free time doing. You may also be like me in that I find I am having less and less time to actually spend with games, what with all the earning money, keeping fit and domestic duties that have quietly seeped…
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There really is very little to the Phoenix Wright games, but I can’t get enough of them. In essence the gameplay basically boils down to tapping through screen after screen of dialogue for about 25 hours, occasionally interspersed with the odd section where you’re required to make some leap of logic, but really it’s more…
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There it sat, full of mould waiting for its next battle. It was a well made machine of war, having been to hell and back again and battled the most harsh and bloody opponents. But it was always ready, always standing to attention and willing to follow me into war. It was my Competition Pro.…
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I’ve finally given up on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. I’m 11 hours in and just about to face the dreaded Water Temple, but I just can’t ever see myself finishing this otherwise excellent remake, and I’ll tell you for why. It’s impossible to play this game on the bus. More to…
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It’s January, the weather’s horrible outside and no-one has any money – in other words it’s the perfect time to stay in and rattle through a few games from my epic games backlog. No doubt my Australian blogging companion Sir Gaulian is currently sunning himself in the 42 degree heat of the land down under,…
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Meet Clint Mansell, the man responsible for parts of the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack. And what a brilliant accomplishment that was – a perfectly paced mixture of atmospheric synth punctuated some of the more poignant parts of the storyline, with the track “Leaving Earth” a particular highlight. Say what you will about Mass Effect 3, but the…
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…ported Vigilante 8 to the Gameboy Color That’s right. The rather excellent car combat game (that is secretly better than Twisted Metal) was ported from its native home on the Nintendo 64 and PS1, where it was incredibly accomplished technically, to the absolutely incapable Gameboy Color. Of course in the hands of the wonderful over-achievers at…
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Dead Space 2 is easily one of the scariest games I’ve ever played, possibly only surpassed by the original and perhaps more recently by ZombiU. I really did have to turn all of the lights on when playing it one night – it creeped the hell out of me. I think it’s the sound effects…
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So, seeing as we’re already in the second week of 2013, I thought it’s about bloody time I wrote something about my favourite games of 2012. Unlike in 2011, in 2012 I actually managed to play a few games in the same year that they were released, which somewhat goes against our steadfast determination to…
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We all talk about piracy now as it is this killer of consoles. For a while there it was the killer of the PC until steam came along. And then it was the killer of the PSP. Now people are all on about how it’s going to kill retail. Kill video games. Kill the world.…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 