A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME
Video Games, Victorian Style
Category: Opinions
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2014’s Shadow Warrior and Wolfenstein reboots left me feeling a teensy bit nostalgic. As someone who doesn’t have any particular affinity for the copious amounts of pixel-fuelled indie platformers that have had the blood flowing to people’s nether-regions, it was nice to finally have that warm and fuzzy feeling that thinking about the good ol’…
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I spent the evening of 31 December 1999 playing Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, by far my favourite of his adventures. While his potty-mouthed schtick and penchant for sexism was well and truly worn by 1998, its more action-oriented take on the style of game made popular by classic platformer, Tomb Raider, was nothing short…
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If i’m ever asked what my favourite game of all time is, the first game that pops into my head is Dead Rising. I don’t know why because it was an incredibly flawed experience that, although I had a hell of a good time with it, delivered moments of incredible frustration. But even with those…
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Santa (or Father Christmas as he was known to me as a kid) has come and gone and you’ve probably had way too much egg nog by now. ‘Tis the season, after all. But most importantly we’re mere hours away from the first ball being bowled annual boxing day Test Match at the Melbourne Cricket…
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What ho, chums! As we hurtle down the final furlong of the year, I for one will be grateful for the powerful respite offered by the festive season. The past few months have seen unending turmoil, mostly thanks to my relocation from London to “The McManor” in beautiful Edinburgh. This tumult has been combined with…
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I love Christmas time. Where I live it brings unbearably hot weather and the sound of leather on willow. For those of you not on this end of the world it brings snowmen and open fires. Opposite seasons aside, one thing we share in common though, assuming you’ve found your way to this blog intentionally, is…
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One of the things that is so interesting about the video games industry is how businesses curate their own identities. From the games they make and publish, all the way down to their slogans and advertising, games companies are out to convince someone in particular that they are something in particular. The argument around exclusives…
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I’m feeling old. I don’t know my Iggy Azalea from my Ariana Grande and have no idea what the kids of today think is cool. I mean I still think Faith No More and Mr Bungle are cool, but i’m becoming painfully aware that to the modern generations, they’re basically their versions of what the…
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For me Grand Theft Auto V‘s first-person mode is great. But it’s not immersive. I’ve historically liked the Grand Theft Auto games. Strangely though, while the internet hailed them as brilliant social commentaries and parodies on Western culture, that definition never quite gelled with me. The faux advertisements and radio shows were funny, perhaps topical…
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What-ho, chums! A lot has happened since our last tete á tete back in October. I’m currently ‘on tour’, as it were, in deepest darkest Cornwall, so I’m bereft of some the creature comforts I’m so used to in The Manor. However, I did have the presence of mind to bring my PS3 with me.…
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Forza Horizon 2 is a spectacularly beautiful game, and one that by design, caters to the car worshipers amongst us. With everything from its massive roster of perfectly detailed cars, its bucket list challenges that have you pushing some of the world’s most exotic cars to the limit, and its focus on enjoying the act…
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I have spent almost all of my career in public policy, and while I’m almost always surprised by some of the solutions governments put forward to policy issues, I’m never surprised by how much the work resembles playing a video game. As an economist who builds all sorts of models, and bases work on all…
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While I have infinite memories about growing up with Nintendo handhelds, I don’t have that many video game memories that involve its iconic Game and Watch series of products. Probably somewhat due to my age, I really missed the Game and Watch boat that most faithful Nintendo fans latch onto as their first real memory of their love affair with the…
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At last, the first of my articles for Kotaku UK has gone live: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/10/13/people-used-download-games-radio Quite a while ago, a Dutch work colleague of mine mentioned a radio show called Hobbyscoop that was broadcast in the Netherlands in the 1980s. The DJs would play the sound of data tapes (like simple games or programs), and people…
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There really is little point buying a game at launch when you think about it. For a start, you’ll be paying a premium for the privilege of owning a game on day one – up to £60 if you’re paying the RRP for a new Xbox One or PS4 game (although realistically it will probably…
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I would hate to be a professional game reviewer tasked with putting a score on a blockbuster like Destiny. The sense of trepidation you’d have trying to think critically while still giving the developers benefit of the doubt on their intent is a near impossible task that I don’t envy. That already difficult task is…
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Wipeout did a lot of things to progress the world of video games. Aside from being a bloody fantastic futuristic racer, it was a beautiful showcase for just what videogaming in three dimensions was all about – looking not only streets ahead of its contemporaries, but in some ways like it had come from the…
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Fighting games have come to represent some of the craziest examples of gaming canon around. In the 90’s the stalwarts of the arcade scene were injecting those crisp arcade screens with some of the most bizarre yet beautiful sprites to grace the relatively young industry. For every Dhalsim there was a Kintaro. It was a…
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What ho, chums! Egad, it’s been a fair old while since I last penned a post, nearly three weeks by my reckoning. Still, I have plenty of excuses to hand, one of which is that I spent most of last week cycling around the D-Day beaches of Normandy, which left little time for writing about…
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I am the no one that buys Call of Duty for the single player campaign. Call me part of the problem but I buy every Call of Duty game – and more recently Battlefield game – without exception. While people lament the lack of changes to the perk system and the recycling of old maps…
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I find it funny the lengths video game enthusiasts go to put people in arbitrary pigeonholes based on the games they play. Not only is defining one’s worth on what games they play ridiculous, but from where I sit no one type of video game is more or less legitimate than any other. As they…
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Regular Show is like Clerks for kids, and I am always surprised by how clever its writing is. Like a lot of Nickelodeon’s output in the mid-to-late nineties it appeals on two totally different levels, often simultaneously, to capture the hearts of the kids and the minds of (often) their parents. While it is a genuinely…
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What ho, chums! There has been a fair old gap since my last communique, but of course this is only to be expected as we approach the zenith of the summer season, and thoughts turn from computer screens to outdoor recreational activities (I speak of course for myself and not for my winter-locked, Antipodean co-author…
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Growing up I had no idea that video games were viewed as a ‘boy thing’. I was surrounded by girls that played video games – from my sister who would physically fight me or my brother for time on the the home Amiga 500, to girls at school who would trade the latest pirated games…
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For me 2004’s reboot of the Prince of Persia series, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, was the equivalent of a gameplay revolution. It moved with such fluidity, combining elements of disparate genres into one massively impressive package that – quite frankly – was miles ahead of its competition, and its time. I could…
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If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months (or simply don’t care) you wouldn’t know that this Formula One season has breathed new life into the greatest motorsport on Earth. In a similar fashion, Formula One games over the last few years have been given a fresh set of legs by the…
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What ho, chums. I’ve recently returned from the mayhem that is the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, and three days on I’m still not fully recovered from the madness, a stubborn cold being the legacy of my dalliance with chaos. Needless to say, video games have been my salve in times of snot-filled hopelessness,…
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Want a prototype Playstation 3? You know the one with the infamous ‘batarang controller’ announced by Sony at E3 2005? Well I know where to get one. At least according to the Australian Retailer Wow Sight and Sound’s website, you can get one there! The screen grab from the website is right on the front page advertising…
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As Lucius wrote a couple of days ago, E3 2014 gave everyone something to be excited about. Nintendo came out fighting and exploded the internet in the process, while Sony and Microsoft justified their record breaking sales figures for the new-ish Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles respectively by announcing plenty of amazing and groundbreaking software…
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So, E3 is over for another year, and I can finally stop checking gaming websites for E3 updates every five minutes. Undoubtedly the biggest controversy of the show was Ubisoft’s terrible gaffe about Assassin’s Creed: Unity, but in terms of sheer headline grabbing, there was nothing to compare to last year’s PR war between Microsoft…
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As you may have read already, Ubisoft creative director Alex Amancio caused a bit of controversy at the E3 gaming conference by saying that there are no female assassins in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Unity because it would have been too much work to put them in. His exact words were: “It’s double the animations,…
A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME 