A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Author: Lewis Packwood
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My first impressions of Child of Light weren’t that great. I’d realised that week that I just don’t particularly get on with 2D platformers any more, and after half an hour of jumping around I was ready to give up after “the same old platforms and puzzles reared their ugly heads”. But I’m glad I…
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Finally, more than two years after its launch, I’ve bought a PS4. Hurrah! After blitzing my way through my backlog and selling a ton of games, I had the cash to hand. I spotted a sweet deal – a 500GB PS4 with No Man’s Sky, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Force Awakens Blu-ray and…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we start with a look back at when running a games magazine basically meant dicking about. When bass fishing features go wrong: a cautionary tale (Eurogamer) I used to be an avid games magazine reader. But like most gamers, I now rely on the internet for most gaming news and…
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I wasn’t really sure what to expect from today’s Nintendo Direct, seeing as Nintendo have said they won’t be revealing the NX just yet, even though it’s supposedly imminent. So what would they be showing then? Surely the pipes for the 3DS and Wii U must be a little dry right now as development swaps…
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A while back, I was curious as to which games have sold the most overall, so I found myself browsing through a list of the best-selling titles of all time. It included the usual suspects – Super Mario, Call of Duty, etc. – but one name jumped out at me: J.B. Harold. I’d never heard…
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This week on Spiffing Reads we start off with that old bone of contention – mainstream press railing on about how games rot your brain. Why Mainstream Reporting on Video Games is Still Often So Negative (Kotaku UK) A brutal but enlightening look at why games still get bad coverage in the mainstream press. Short…
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A while back I wrote about my worries that the new version of Prey from Arkane Studios and Bethesda might be lacking the anarchic sense of humour that made the original so memorable. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have worried after all. As revealed in a new Gamescom trailer, the new game lets you turn into…
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This week on Spiffing Reads, we kick off with a look at how magic in video games is in need of a radical overhaul. Putting the magic back into magic in fantasy games (Eurogamer) It amazes me just how influential the ideas of Tolkien are in the modern age. We still have countless video-game dungeon…
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The traditional ‘summer games drought’ comes as something of a relief for those, like I, who are imbued with a phenomenal gaming backlog. It’s a chance to dust off some unplayed titles and finally give them some time in the gaming spotlight before the inevitable deluge of games arrives in time for Christmas. Then again,…
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I’ve played Flow and Flower before – two of Thatgamecompany’s earlier games, both imbued with an ethereal feel and gameplay unlike anything I’d seen. More a meditative experience than traditional titles, they teeter on the fine line between art project and bona fide video game. Both were compelling in their own ways, but I didn’t…
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A few minutes into Uncharted 2, and it’s already apparent that it’s leagues ahead of the previous game, both in storytelling and finesse. After a meeting in a beach bar with some old associates, Nathan Drake finds himself persuaded to join a museum heist in Istanbul – an opener that immediately draws attention to the…
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Welcome to Spiffing Reads, our weekly round up of the best games writing, which this week kicks off with an alternative take on Sonic. Sonic boom: Ellie Gibson on nostalgia, novelty, and that 9/10 (Eurogamer) The ever-brilliant Ellie Gibson penned this meandering article on her expectations for Sonic Mania, interspersed with parenting metaphors, and ex-boyfriends…
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This week on our weekly roundup of the best games writing, we start with a look at the crazy time that Nintendo’s been having lately… Nintendo’s roller-coaster week (GamesIndustry.biz) A look back at an important week for Nintendo, with their share price peaking and then diving in relation to Pokemon Go, and leaked reports revealing…
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Welcome to Spiffing Reads, our weekly round-up of the best games writing. This week, the big story is Eurogamer’s leak of details for the upcoming Nintendo NX. NX is different, and different is Nintendo’s best option (Eurogamer) Part of me wants Nintendo to release a super-powerful console, one that will have third-party publishers rushing back,…
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At E3 in June, Bethesda revealed footage of a long-awaited sequel to Prey. The teaser trailer arrived ten years after the release of the original, a game that itself was in development for nearly ten years. But the game previewed by Bethesda isn’t actually Prey 2 at all. In fact, in a follow-up video released…
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I’ve been playing Pokémon Go for more than a week now, and I’ve yet to earn any Pokécoins whatsoever. I’m level 10, I’ve filled up a good chunk of the Pokédex, and I’ve fought in my fair share of gym battles, but I’ve yet to receive any sort of Pokécash for my troubles. It’s getting…
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Welcome to Spiffing Reads, a new section on A Most Agreeable Pastime where every Friday we list gaming articles that have caught our eye this week. We’re always on the lookout for interesting gaming sites, so if you’ve found a brilliant blog, or you’ve read something amazing this week, please share it in the comments.…
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Metroid Prime: Federation Force has come in for a bit of a kicking from Nintendo fans, which seems to have taken the company somewhat by surprise. In hindsight, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as such a shock. By all accounts it looks like quite a fun game – a cooperative 3DS shooter with added cosmic…
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For pretty much the entirety of yesterday afternoon I was locked out of Pokémon Go thanks to server problems. Every time I tried to log in, I was hit with the ‘Unable to authenticate’ error message, and it didn’t resolve itself until the evening. It’s pretty frustrating, and the lack of updates from the developer…
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I was struck by just how many people I saw playing Pokémon Go on my cycle into work – I spotted at least ten people walking around, glued to their phones, occasionally pausing to do a telltale swipe towards an imaginary monster. Then again, this is nothing compared to the huge mobs filmed in New…
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I’m off to see the new Ghostbusters film tonight. I’m cautiously optimistic that it will be good after reading a four-star review in The Guardian, in which the reviewer was at pains to point out that the movie is a damn sight better than the bafflingly mediocre trailer. Seems this could be one instance where…
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This quote from a Eurogamer article published today really leapt out at me: “And you could even argue – justifiably, I think – that Pokémon Go is in the process of rehabilitating mobile gaming itself with a whole sector of gamers that had grown disenchanted with it, and who form a natural constituency for Nintendo’s…
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I finally got around to getting a PS3 in December 2013, and since then I’ve been gradually playing through some of the system’s exclusives. But with the recent release of Uncharted 4 on PS4, I thought it was high time for me to finally sample this series for myself. So I dutifully loaded up the…
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When I’m not writing video game articles, I’m probably doing scientific copy editing, and it was in just such a capacity that I found myself subbing news articles for New Scientist earlier this week. One of the articles was on Pokémon Go, because of course it was – that’s pretty much the only thing anyone…
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Happy Birthday us! On this very day five years ago, Sir Gaulian and I first embarked on our grand Victorian gaming adventures – and what a merry time it’s been. Many of the Victorian stylings have been dropped along the way, and the ambitious Choose Your Own Adventure game I started to create using nothing…
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After realising the other week that actually I don’t really like 2D platformers very much, no matter their illustrious provenance, I decided it would be a good time to have a bit of a clear out of the games cupboard… ahem, I mean The Mantelpiece. First for the eBay pile was New Super Mario Bros.…
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I had a fascinating chat with Phil Robinson of the Museum of Games and Gaming while I was at Play Expo Blackpool the other month, and it really got me thinking about where this urge to play video games actually comes from. Sure, games are fun, but why are they fun? Phil put together an…
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I spent most of yesterday in shock after discovering that the UK had voted to leave the European Union. In the weeks leading up to the election, it seemed clear that the Remain camp was in the lead, and despite a late surge in support for the Leave campaign, I went to bed on Thursday…
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I was playing through Yoshi’s Woolly World the other day, and about halfway through the second world I put the controller down and decided I’d probably never come back to it. There’s nothing wrong with the game per se – and I love the way everything has been lovingly reworked in wool – but I…
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Whereas Sir Gaulian has been revelling in the resurrection of some of his old favourite games at this year’s E3, I’ve been struggling to find much to get excited about, with the exception of the surprisingly different take on Zelda that Nintendo has been showcasing. However, one thing that everyone seems to be talking about…
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Majora’s Mask 3D is now officially my favourite Zelda game. I never got around to playing the N64 original, although I remember my sister raving about it at the time. I seem to recall that it came in for some criticism for reusing a lot of the assets and game engine from Ocarina of Time,…
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As I said a while back, I’ve been getting back into Batman recently. I’ve read a few more Batbooks since that last post, and they’ve reflected the general trend for Batman stories veering wildly between genius and utter rubbish, with the tales being told in the main ‘canon’ Batman storyline generally being overstuffed and hamstrung…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 